While Murdoch Media Focusses on Labour 'Problems', Can We Talk About The Tories?

Every morning I wake up to read the Murdoch press, only to be told that the Labour party are at the brink of collapse. I don't know. They may well be - after all, party politics often happen beyond the public eye. However, I rarely read anything about the post-election internal dynamics of the Conservatives (beyond fairly superficial pieces on the various politicians jockeying for party leadership). This may be - I concede - because there is an assumption that the party has won quite decisively, and need not consider voters (or potential ones) at all for a bit.

If so, it doesn't quite chime with the growing tetchiness and fumbling in the behaviour of many in its rank and file, both in real life and on social media. I recognise that many - especially on the left - would simply write this off as 'Tory arrogance' but I believe it is more complex. The party's higher ranks may well be clueless, as demonstrated for example by the poor optics of laughing just as Jeremy Corbyn was speaking at the last PMQs of poverty in Britain.  The behaviour on social media of accounts of more junior Tory party members seems just as dissonant with a clear combination of irritation, arrogance (or perhaps more accurately, bravado) and an odd reluctance to answer questions.

While I have been watching multiple socmed accounts and party members flounder, here are some examples (that I have directly experienced):

1. The rather ineptly branded @LGBToryUK account went on a blocking spree on twitter during the party conference. While blocking is indeed a useful function for individuals, an institutional account that blocks en masse - and not for abuse but simple questions - is demonstrating both lack of social media savvy and incredible ineptitude.

I was blocked for a single tweet responding to an all-white, all male panel on queer issues at the party conference (my response was a rather mild 'oh dear'). Interestingly, I didn't notice for days until multiple LGBTIQ activists and freelance journalists began complaining of being blocked. On checking, I found I too had been blocked. And then, on raising a fuss, I was quietly unblocked. The administrators then claimed that I hadn't been blocked at all, despite screenshots, and have since refused to either apologise or explain how this magical block-unblock happened.  To be quite precise, they are pretending they need not engage at all with me.

2. A stranger version of this is unfolding at councillor level in my area. Last year, after I experienced a racist hate crime, the local Tory councillors were fastest to mobilise and reach out. A year later, this has changed (the MP is again Labour so perhaps the councillors have decided there is little to be done until an election is closer?).

When questioned on issues ranging from immigration and the refugee crisis to tax credits and Brexit, the councillors are locked into a pattern. They predictably share the party line on their accounts but when asked for their own stances, are unable and unwilling to answer. When pushed, all they can offer is: 'we have no input into the party policy.'

Now this may well be true, but - for example - when the Home Secretary declares that 'immigration harms social cohesion,' a voter living in one of the areas of highest immigrant densities in the country can only be concerned. Surely it is then up to the councillors to soothe (or exacerbate) fears, and explain that the area is not (or is) facing a clear and present danger of social strife.

3. The local party office appears just as incapable of answering questions about how government policy - now decided entirely by the party as it is no longer in coalition - is impacting daily lives of residents, taxpayers and voters in the area. All queries are answered with a standard, 'please contact us if it is about council services.'

There may well be a party edict asking the rank and file to not comment on any policy matters. Given that most of the mainstream media appears invested in keeping all questions of politics at their most superfluous, this may even be a smart and reasonable tactic. However, in an age of social media, this is as poor a response as the optics of MPs 'laughing at poverty' during the PMQs.

However, I believe the reasons go beyond party edicts or arrogance. There is - I believe - a growing disconnect in whatever is decided at cabinet level and how it is communicated to the rank and file. Although party members fall in line with stating similarly worded, mechanical explanations, they are also left incapable of defending the government's policy decisions in any substantial way. They are also left floundering because the government policies are often increasingly indefensible - not only on moral grounds - but on logical, even small case conservative, pro-business grounds.

There is also - I have learned in the decade of living in Britain - an oddly feudal attitude to politics (and this cuts across party lines). As Indian politics practices a less subtle, more in-your-face version of this, I am quite familiar with it. Elected officials - from MPs to councillors in Britain - hold an implicit attitude of bestowing largess on their constituents. So an active and effective MP (or other elected official) will often respond instantly and immediately to small, personal grievances raised by individual voters. At MP surgeries, issues of council services or policing or individual difficulties can be raised and resolved. And there is a not so covert expectation that the voter thus being helped will then be grateful and suitably reward the party/officer with future voting loyalty.

This is really a modern version of a feudal lord handing out tit-bits to keep peasantry from revolting!

The principle that a democracy requires its elected officers to be held responsible not as feudal lords bestowing favours, but for service to voters appears non-existent.

In some ways, this is also why the Conservative party rank-and-file appears bewildered. Accustomed to abuse by opponents and assuaging individuals with supposed help is all they know. The very idea that a voter may question them on matters of policy or ideology appears almost entirely foreign. It is for this reason that @LGBToryUK blocked any who asked even the simplest of questions. They have nothing to 'bestow' on the voters. They have little explanation for why their tag erases the T in LGBT, or indeed why policy discussions on LGBT issues are being handled entirely by a very narrow set of people.

This is also why a local councillor - Hampstead's Oliver Cooper - can tetchily declare that politely albeit repeatedly questioning him about 'social cohesion' and anti-immigrant rhetoric from senior members of his party is 'insulting and harassing' him. It is also why he believes simply saying 'I do not accept the premise of your question. Fin.' is an adequate response to a voter.

However, social media and the changing demographics in Britain is demanding a new kind of politics (unlike many, I don't see Corbyn as a substantive harbinger of this). This form of politics will require more than a few elected officials 'resolving voter difficulties' by calling up a bureaucrat or contacting an office. As a voter, I am not interested in receiving 'gracious help' on an individual basis. I want to see efforts made for structural changes so the difficulties faced by me are not passed on to the next voter, and the next generation. (As an aside and this is material for another post, the Conservative party would do well to examine the Republican implosion across the pond. The final crumpling of the 'Southern strategy' holds lessons for the Tories who want to solely pander to an ever-shrinking and ageing 'base.')

Of course any kind of politics is hard to effect. At the same time, it is necessary that politicians in all parties began to learn this. If any politician or party believes they only need to deal with the voter to bestow favours, or can summarily dismiss their concerns, they are profoundly mistaken.  If members of any party - but Conservatives in particular - feel that they don't have to go back to the electorate any time soon, simply because the next national level elections are far away, they are again mistaken. There are multiple other elections coming up before 2020 where the MPs may not bear the brunt of voters' discontent, but that may be borne by other elected officials.

Before ending, and perhaps this is the compassionate side of me, this also may be a reason for the current fumbling behaviour of so many in the Conservative party. Unable to defend the ridiculous rhetoric emerging from the upper ranks, they are just battening down the hatches, hoping that the questions - and voters - will go away.

And that's where they are wrong.

Deja Vu: "The Change We Need"

Last night, watching the US elections unfold, I was reminded inexorably of the very first South African elections on that country's long march to "liberation."

I lived in Johannesburg for the year preceding the historic 1994 elections that finally ended apartheid, signalled most importantly by universal franchise, and brought Mandela to office.

In the run-up to the election day, there was disbelief, suspicion, and fear. Amongst the Afrikaaners, there was complete conviction that the "blacks" would rise to loot and pillage once apartheid ended. My Afrikaaner boss explained in all seriousness that "it was a long African tradition that house servants would rise up across the land in a pre-planned attack to kill their white masters in their sleep."

On the other end of town, and that is where I spent an awful lot of my non-working hours, there were people hoping against hope that change would indeed come: Xulus, Xhosas, Bustars and so many others: a rainbow coalition of people hoping to finally be able to exercise their right to vote, to count as human beings. And they were afraid too, and with far greater reason. They had lived through the Soweto riots, the police beatings and secret killings, the "morality" laws and ridiculous race determined employment and education laws.

On election day, they told me again and again, they would go to the polling stations. But they were convinced that the SA army, police - at the time still overwhelmingly Afrikaaner - would be ready to gun them down at the poll booths. Yet there was a steely determination: that they would march to their deaths if it were needed in order to insist on their right to vote.

Newspapers were full of interminable copy about potential rioting and violence that would erupt on and after election day. And yet when election day came there was nothing more than an incredible stoicism as millions lined up to vote, most for the first time in their lives. And when the news finally broke of ANC victory, there was joy, tears, disbelief that change had indeed come to the land.

Last night, I felt a strange sense of deja vu: Yes there was more money on display at the elections and at the victory celebrations. People lining up to vote were far better dressed, far more affluent than the millions that I had observed years earlier. The fireworks, the lights, the clothes at the celebrations come at a price that I can not even begin to imagine.

But much was the same. First, the images of long lines along poll booths, reports of people waiting for hours to cast their ballot. The determination of voters who were going to make their voice heard over the din of history. And then that Obama victory speech. The myriad faces filled with joy, tears, disbelief.

Even some of the words in reports as disparate as Salon, Huffington Post and NYTimes are achingly similar. "Hope", "change", "never thought it would be in my lifetime," and of course, "an African-American in office."

It is indeed a momentous day for America, to have elected its first minority president. Let us not doubt that! Just as it was a historic day in South Africa when Nelson Mandela celebrated an ANC victory in the Joburg CBD.

But call me a cynic. Or may be I am just getting old (what a thought!). But I have clear memories of the shining moment of hope and how it was shattered in South Africa. How "change" was blocked and subverted by corporate interests - and yes, many of those are American corporate interests. How despite that historic vote and an African in office, nothing changed in the daily lives of the people who had participated in the electoral process with such optimism. How despite the best intentions, Mandela could do little to bring any real change to those men and women who had looked to him to lead them to a new reality.

And I look back to past Democratic administrations: under the Democrats, America still went to war to serve corporate interests regardless of morality and justice. And it was a Democrat Secretary of State that told the US Congress that "half a million dead children" was an "acceptable price" for serving US interests. Finally, it was a Democrat administration that put "extraordinary rendition" in place.

Yes, the 2008 US elections are historic. Yes, yesterday was a breathtaking demonstration of human will harnessed to political purpose.

But will it mean change? I sincerely hope so! Unfortunately the cynic insists on speaking its mind. And I am reminded of that 1994 day of hope, when millions had hoped for the "change we need" and have since been disappointed.

Election Angst: "Blood in the Streets"

Okay first of all, full disclosure: I have never been a huge fan of Erica Jong. When I had to read her for a university class back in the 1980s, I managed to horrify and anger the lecturer and my American classmates by pointing out that her "iconic" book was one superficial, self-obsessed diatribe about middle-class angst("wouldn't it be fabulous we had real suffering but we don't, so lets use up half the amazon whinging about all the things we didn't quite suffer from"). For me, and I have had little reason to change my mind, it was also a brazen display of an incredible sense of entitlement.

Needless to say, it was not a nice class and I was sent to coventry by every self-defined feminist on campus. The episode did however teach me the value of choosing where and when one opens one's big mouth. A lesson that I obviously ignore on a regular basis! In the subsequent years however, I have felt vindicated as the self-indulgent, victimology has erupted into our most popular genre.

At least, I have thought, we can look back at Jong as a pioneer of some sort. Until this morning when Jong took on a new role: of a doomsday prophet! Or perhaps in her own mind, of a new Cassandra.

In an interview to the Italian Corriere della Serra, she predicts the second civil war and rivers of blood in America, should Obama lose: "Ne riparleremo mercoledì prossimo quando, se Obama perde, scoppierà la seconda guerra civile americana. Ci sarà il sangue per strada, mi creda, e non è un caso che il presidente Bush abbia richiamato dall' Iraq un contingente di soldati che sotto il comando di Dick Cheney saranno impiegati nelle strade contro cittadini americani qualsiasi."

Now I have no doubts that the past two American elections have been less than exemplary exercises in voting (see last post!) , but "rivers of blood"? A second "civil war"?

What worries me about Jong's statement is that it builds on an implicit racial narrative that has haunted America since the nation's inception. The fact that it emerges not just from nasty Republican campaign ads, but also from a member of the "liberal elite" makes the narrative that much more frightening.

I wish the Corriere journalist had asked Jong some follow-up questions: Would these "rivers of blood" flow if Hillary Clinton were the Democratic candidate? Or are these "rivers of blood" and civil wars reserved for the country's first black presidential candidate? Who would begin the violence that would result in bloodshed? Would Bush's loyal soldiers shoot down immaculately coiffed, designer clothed "liberals" for rioting in the streets?

Already from across America, there have been news reports about towns and cities gearing up for "riots" should Obama lose, based not on any factual consideration but a general "fear" that his "supporters" will revert to violence. Not a day goes by without some mayor, police chief, random city official, declaring that they are "prepared for any eventuality" in case Obama loses. Regardless of whether he loses fairly at the ballot or the election is again "stolen," the unspoken fear is that angry "voters" - a codeword for African Americans - shall take their anger to the streets.

It is the newest spin on an age-old narrative and one that is to be expected from bastions of racial conservatism. But when a self-identified "post-racial" liberal begins to use the same images and words, one begins to wonder just how long before race stops being a weapon of fear.

The fact that this fear-mongering appears to be emanating from a self-defined liberal denizen of the country makes it all the more worrying. And sickening!

BMW’s elephant stomps through the Gangetic plains

Full disclosure: I am not a fan of Behen Mayawati (BMW) or a voter for the BSP. Yet over the years, I have developed a grudging respect for this pugnacious grass-roots leader.

Much is already being said about Bahujan Samaj Party’s resounding victory in the Uttar Pradesh legislative polls. Numbers are being examined, caste configurations revisted yet again, Congress is once again pronouncing its defeat as a victory for Rahul Gandhi (won’t they EVER learn?), and the RSS mouthpiece Organiser has already started explaining how BSP’s “soft Hindutva” has trounced BJP’s “half-hearted” Hindutva flip-flop. Of course, the Western papers are too busy explaining how it is a “lower caste” victory and painting it in usual colours of imaginary caste wars. All these have their place, but I wonder why a couple of simple ideas have been left out of the equation.

In the past thirty years, India has relentlessly moved towards aspirational values, privileging these over inherited power and status. While calling us a meritocracy would be going a bit too far, a look at the country’s elite tosses up more “self-made” leaders in most fields – APJ Kalam, Narayanamurthi, Sabeer Bhatia, Shahrukh Khan, and of course the political leadership of people like Mayawati. Beyond their individual achievements, these are all people who made ambition acceptable again for Indians. These men and women are living proofs that old princely privileges maintained by collaboration, or newly gained by toeing Macauley-ists lines are no longer acceptable to the bulk of Indians. And most of India - born in the past forty years - took their lesson to heart. Blame it on the generational shift if you will.

Through out the UP electoral campaign, Rahul Gandhi sounded much like the kids from the recent film Tara Rum Pum: “My daddy is the bestest father, bestest husband, and the fastest racer in the world.” Not a word on his own achievements. There aren't many of those, other than of course enjoying the wealth and status, and showing off the entitlement that is part of his inheritance.

BJP’s “Congress-ification” seems to have been completed in the past years as it reneged on its idea of "party with a difference" and follows the long-standing Congress tradition of sidelining leaders with a mass voter bass (think Uma Bharati amongst others) to keep the fossilized old men in tottering top party office (can we just get MM Joshi and Advani to go away: think Gollum: “Go aways and nevers come back!!!!). Not only are these old men out of touch with the people’s pulse, their constant flip-flopping on core party issues such as UCC and Article 370 is now a tiresome roadshow of power-hungry politicking. Meanwhile, younger leaders with mass appeal are marginalized in favour of insipid foisted-from-the-top names (why has Rajnath Singh president other than because he poses no threat to anyone but the BJP?).

Contrast this to the BSP’s list of candidates who were drawn from the masses. No “raja sahibs” and princelings, or Oxbridge types here. Just plain old-fashioned grassroots activists with a hankering to claim a piece of the national power pie! Is it a surprise that they speak for the bulk of the country that is young, ambitious, and desperate for success?

Is it any surprise that they chose Mayawati? With her humble beginnings, an incredible tenacity and drive as shown by nearly three decades of striving for political power, she stands for more than just Dalit ambition. During her campaign, she spoke of her prime ministerial ambitions. It should be no surprise. She lives in a land and in times, where not only such aspirations are acceptable if not downright desireable. Besides, with each passing day of changes, there is a good chance of achieving ambition, no matter how grand they may appear. As such, and whether she likes it or not, Mayawati embodies the post-emergency, post-Congress India where ambition, ability, and graft can upset older equations of family and entitlements.

There is another point to be noted even as most commentrators talk of caste politics in the heart-land. BSP’s warlike slogan “Tilak, tarazu aur talwar, inpe maro joote char” that had alienated the Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaishya voters in the 1990’s has been replaced by the far more inclusive (and “Hindu” as the Organiser pointed out)“Haathi nahin Ganesh hai, Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh hai” for the recent elections. The BSP choice of candidates also shows a comprehensive inclusion of castes and religions, ensuring that no section of the populace would be left out of the final power-pie in Lucknow. Mayawati’s speeches – as well as her crack team of advisers – reflects the same inclusive logic. And it is this inclusionary politics that have paid off! And how! After 14 years of hung assembly, UP has thrown up a clear majority in favour of a single party.

If the voters in Bihar had rejected fragmented politics of caste and creed with the last RJD defeat, UP has followed suit. And that bodes well for years to come.

Intellectuals would talk of the “impossibility of the outsider” in India, or point to the historical paucity of social “revolutions” in favour of “reformations” in the land. But the simple fact is that India makes little long-term space for radical ideologies, preferring to absorb all ideas into a “middle way.” So isn’t it ironic that a “self-made” leader like Mayawati has comprehended that basic voter logic better than the “grand old men” of the BJP and Congress’s political “aristocracy”?

One last point: UP results have been announced in the same week as the French presidential ones, and the results could not be more different. Compare the woman-leader from the humblest beginnings who has fought her way into the corridors of power, Mayawati, to the entitled heir of the Austro-Hungarian nobility with ties to the American corridors of power, Sarkozy. I know that we Indians like to crib about our systems, but after watching the political closed-shop that operates in Western Europe, I would take the internal mobility of India!