Davos Cameron

‘The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas’ …or something like that. It’s been running since 1971, and has an annual meeting at Davos in Switzerland - a meeting that David Cameron attended this year, his first attendance as prime minister.

In this capacity Cameron authoritatively mentioned the budget for growth that the government will be announcing in about eight weeks: ‘Those who argue that dealing with our deficit and promoting growth are somehow alternatives are wrong. You cannot put off the first in order to promote the second. Average government debt in the EU is almost eighty per cent of GDP.’ The nice thing about giving a speech is that you can put words into your hypothetical enemies’ mouths, and make those words much easier for yourself to knock down than in real life. What about those who aren’t actually arguing that tackling the deficit and promoting growth are alternatives, but suggest instead that they can solve each other – promoting growth to deal with the deficit?

The coalition’s method is to focus first on reducing the deficit, hopefully with the least amount of damage done to the potential for growth. Of course, while pitching for business interest at Davos it was growth that needed to be sold, rather than deficit reduction. Cameron’s sentences thus came out with the emphasis reversed. His government would prioritise growth through its choice of cuts - welfare is cut to pay for transport, and tax increases focus on what people spend, rather than hiking taxes on jobs. As for Europe, we should all cut back on regulations to small businesses: our entrepreneurs, our lifeblood.

Carefully deployed oxymorons-that-aren’t: budgets for growth, cutting back to invest in innovation – it’s not that Cameron’s saying every cloud has a silver lining, but rather he’s having every cloud labelled: ‘silver lining holder.’ It’s pruning a shrub so that it might grow more vigorously in the next season. Yes, a gardening metaphor for politics and the economy – Chauncey Gardiner and Being There. It’s the same thing: vacant man spouts political nous. Everything has its season, after the winter comes the spring. It’s tough but it will get better. Yes, thanks Dave.

Nick Clegg was in Switzerland too. While Cameron gave the Forum deep cuts, Clegg’s cuts were measured: ‘I understand that people, psychologically, when they hear about it, think it's already happened. The vast majority of cuts haven't been introduced yet... They will be imposed gradually over a four-and-a-half-year period.’ It was all about defending the cuts, and ensuring that we all know how confident the coalition is about sticking to them, and to their economic policy in general. On the Friday Chancellor George Osborne told the Forum that we must ignore the ‘siren voices’ urging against the cuts. This is the same phrase he used about a year ago at the Mais lecture at the Cass Business School, City University London. This at least proves that both Osborne and the sirens have been consistent up to now. Coupled with the cuts is an easing of the tax burden on businesses, or rather a promise to achieve the ‘lowest rates of business taxes in the western world.’ Inspiring stuff, though bare in mind Osborne’s audience at Davos.

The World Economic Forum affirms business, tells it that it does a good job, and that, in doing a more profitable, efficient job for itself, our respective populations will be better off materially and otherwise. Those speaking who are in politics are trying to sell their country’s attractiveness to international leaders in business and finance. Obviously the meeting was slightly more interesting this year because the pep talk and inspiring pro-business sound bites had to be reconciled with the ‘it’s a choppy road to recovery’ and ‘we can’t let bankers off the hook for this mess completely’ policy admissions of each country’s spokespersons. Cameron and Osborne confidently offered several explanations as to how the coalition’s cuts wouldn’t affect new investments or opportunities for business - those routes to successful and safer economies and societies.

This meant addressing the recent news-making finding that the economy contracted by 0.5% in the last three months of 2010. The bad weather was cited; it was the wrong type of Christmas shopper (pansies who stay indoors when it snows), and the recovery was always going to be choppy, as the prime mister said. If the downturn continues, however, the deficit reduction plan might be tweaked slightly, what former George Osborne advisor Ken Rogoff calls a ‘slower plan A.’ Channel 4 News’s Faisal Islam noted that. He interviewed Osborne at Davos on Friday, and pointed out that ‘Osborne is also a bit of an Austerity Pin-up for many Americans here who feel that the US government is not getting to grip with its ballooning deficit.’

In the great gamble on who’s in the right over tackling the economic situation those Americans may well be vindicated in their opinion of Osborne. For the moment, however, the British media use a different view of America to contrast with the coalition’s policies. The US government’s perceived reticence to cut, along with America’s superior growth figures for the close of 2010 prove too tempting to ignore. This from BBC journalist Olivia Lang’s live feed from the Forum on Friday (Lang had just wondered if Cameron’s confidence had rubbed off on US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner): ‘1100: But that's perhaps all he's picking up from Cameron. Making deep cuts in spending, Geithner says, "is not the responsible way" to bring down state deficits.’ Ooh, burn.

Whether or not Cameron, Clegg and Osborne did us proud at Davos remains to be seen. Actually, does anyone really care? Does it matter if our prime minister, deputy prime minister and Chancellor succeed or fail in apologising convincingly enough to the banks (for coming down so hard on them, in regulation and rhetoric, for their part in the economic downturn)? Did they really convince as to how humble and sorry we are for biting the hands that feed and drop us a few crumbs in the process? Did the message get across - that this tough economic climate and jobs market will be that much easier to bear if we know that banks and business are interested in coming to our country in droves, or more likely in unimaginative flat-pack office developments?

I’m sure business is capable of deciding for itself, without any governmental sales pitch, which countries to use or ditch in its operations.

Away from the banks, business and Bono crowd, the World Social Forum’s alternative, alter-globalisation discussions and answers will be heard in February, at Dakar.

Republican Sense

Russia has agreed to return to the war in Afghanistan at the request of the Western states which helped the mujahedin to drive its forces out of the country 21 years ago.

That tongue twister that the Independent came up with will be a future aside for historians to put in books about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s and the 2001 plus war in Afghanistan. Alongside the statistics and contexts of the two conflicts, they will note how the opposing forces and allies all later swapped about, with opposing forces of the first conflict becoming allies and previous allies coming to oppose each other. The players have changed though, and even if we allow the USSR and contemporary Russia to stand as similar entities, and America’s involvement in the 1980s to compare with the US forces in Afghanistan now, there are a lot of problems with declaring these to be old enemies turned allies.

Since 2009 Russia has provided US forces with a route into Afghanistan (airspace wise), supplied aircraft to Poland and could well provide NATO with helicopters, training and a route for arms. If Russia is going to aid NATO then the Obama administration is not necessarily happy with all of this as an ally. America is said to be concerned that Europe is dealing with Russia on its own, discussing foreign policy and security matters away from America and NATO. The New York Times has a senior US official saying: “Since when, I wonder, is European security no longer an issue of American concern, but something for Europe and Russia to resolve? After being at the center of European security for 70 years, it’s strange to hear that it’s no longer a matter of U.S. concern.”

Since when? According to the New York Times it’s since President Obama has been perceived as being disinterested in Europe [1]. All of this, and the airspace dependency on Russia, adds to the narrative of failure Barack Obama is currently presented in. After he appeared on the Daily Show on Wednesday night to discuss things in a comedy news way, everybody jumped on the ‘yes we can…but’ laughter. Certainly the British media are touchingly concerned, or revelling, in the liberal disappointment of his presidency suddenly revealed by those four words.

There is some idea that the people who raved about Obama were duped. Unfortunately for Obama the media raved about him (eventually), and when the media feels duped they feel stupid, resent it, and then bury their embarrassing previous take on a story with aggressive coverage of another angle. So, folks, Barack Obama’s America is now a limp liberal disaster. The recession and downturn turned out to be impervious to his inspiring new politics, healthcare reform was timid and brought no public option, his dislike of the war on drugs has had a few inconsistencies, and while America might be able to elect a black president, it still opens its newspapers to see teenagers and an 11-year-old committing suicide in the face of bullying and homophobic abuse.

On top of this state of affairs, or perceived state of affairs, America has its mid term elections on Tuesday. President Obama’s approval rating is around 43%, about the same as Bill Clinton’s when the Republicans took control of the House and the Senate in the mid terms of 1994. While this can’t tell pundits much about Obama’s chances in 2012, it does mean that the Republicans are commonly expected to become the majority in the House and to equal the Democrats in the Senate [2]. Supposedly this is because voters are either responding to Obama’s failure to bring change, or because he has brought too much change - in economics ($750 billion in stimulating the economy) or healthcare for example. Obama has done, and failed to do, many worrying things, and Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson offers a good list of both (Though Dickson actually offsets this list with the more general, and positive, ‘sweep’ of the presidency). The supposed ‘liberal lion’:

has surged 50,000 troops into Afghanistan — not to take the battle to Al Qaeda, but to prop up the corrupt and incompetent regime of Hamid Karzai. The prison at Guantánamo? Still open for business nearly a year after it was to have been shuttered. Uglier still: Obama has asserted the authority to assassinate American terror suspects abroad and has tried to block court challenges of that authority by invoking "state secrets."

On the economic front, Obama has surrounded himself with the same free marketeers who led Bill Clinton's calamitous deregulation of big banks, restoring Wall Street to obscene profits even as one American in seven has been engulfed by a rising tide of poverty.

These things are genuinely troubling of course, but then I seem to remember the guy before doing a few worrying things. We’ve yet to get the full spectrum of Barack Obama’s presidency (or George Bush Jr’s for that matter – give it a few more years, and books). While there are other things from the last two years to be considered when viewing President Obama’s record, people from both the right and left are focusing on the items from the FAIL list, ostensibly agreeing with each other. This is only a cosmetic agreement – more of that shortly – but one that is very damaging for Obama and the Democrats, and perhaps unfairly so. It’s led, in places, to a vocabulary of disenchantment, of repairs being needed, as well as a necessary return to sanity. CNN’s William Bennett points out, for example, that ‘hardened liberalism has been unleashed in power and in office from the White House to the U.S. Senate to the House of Representatives’ And now? ‘The common sense antibodies of the American people are kicking back in.’ Common sense, Republican sense - just to offer a healthy check to the liberals of course. The hippy’s popular, more reliable older brother comes to clean up the mess. Either that or the brothers will fight like siblings.

As for the critique offered from the political left, Dickinson’s article quotes Jane Hamsher, the film producer and writer who established the progressive blog Firedoglake. In September she tweeted: ‘Fortunately, liberals and conservatives hate the health care bill for the same reason […]: it sucks.’ What Twitter word counts don’t allow for is the important caveat that liberals and conservatives have polar opposite reasons for thinking the bill sucks. For liberals the bill sucks because it didn’t go far enough, and showed the Obama administration to be timid. For conservatives it went far too far – no suggestion of timidity there. If the two sides were to listen to each others’ criticisms of Obama they might start to appreciate the bravery (that’s for the liberals to see) and conciliatory skill (that’s for the conservatives to see) of the legislation his presidency has produced so far – not to drop to their knees in awe, but to see it in context.

Mind you, if the left and right (both supporters and parties) listened to each other more anyway then politics would be more interesting/inspiring. Viewing everything a party or government does through vague and exaggerated notions of socialist liberals or ‘fuck you, neighbour’ conservatives doesn’t offer us very much. It may be better to pay attention to either side, and then understand what a party is specifically trying to achieve in its individual policies and legislation. Then voters, citizens and politicians could criticise their opponent party (or indeed their ‘own’ party) by attacking the flaws in the party’s method, or its erroneous choice of political goals. The most resonant, lasting attacks are those that call a party or politicians up on such in context failings – failings by their own (or at least hitherto) standards.

Such criticisms would be better than attacking parties with those easy accusations - attacks that deny that parties and political figures often have to make difficult, pragmatic and - forgive me - ‘off message’ choices. Coming back to the UK for a final moment, Labour’s Harriet Harman calling Lib Dem Danny Alexander a ginger rodent certainly isn’t helping, for instance.

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[1] John Vinocur, ‘Will the U.S. Lose Europe to Russia?,’ New York Times, 25 October 2010 <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/world/europe/26iht-politicus.html?scp=1&sq=afghanistan%20russia&st=cse>

[2] Rupert Cornwell ‘Yes we can, Obama said. But can he?’ The Independent, 29 October 2010 <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/yes-we-can-obama-said-but-can-he-2119585.html>

You Swinge if You Want to

Shadow chancellor George Osborne gave a speech at the British Museum today. The Conservatives have heeded the calls to clarify their economic policies after they toned down their public spending cuts a couple of days ago. David Cameron told the BBC that no ‘swingeing cuts’ [the interviewer’s words] would be made in 2010/11, while Osborne had promised early cuts. Really this was just a bad choice of phrase in an interview, with others deciding to soup it up to the level of a Conservative crisis. That doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun with it though. Certainly something Osborne said the other day is worth picking up on.

Appearing on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, shadow chancellor George Osborne said "early action" was needed on the deficit to avoid a "Greek-style budget crisis".

He insisted that it would be a "mistake" to wait until next year to begin tackling the "albatross of debt", as the government was planning to do [1].h
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George and the Albatross of Debt

George was a confident, hardworking little boy. He edited and contributed to the school magazine Nigella, named after the Ancient Egyptian domestic goddess. Despite this talent for writing and his outward contentment, he was always looking up to David Cameraman, or Dave the big C for short.

One day George was walking back to the station following his after-school pedestrian practice when he saw an enormous bird perched on a garden wall. This bird did something rather strange upon seeing George; it spoke to him.

‘George. I am the Albatross of Debt, and I bring you…’
‘Wait!’ Said George excitedly, ‘did you just say the Albatross of Debt? Don’t you mean death?’
The albatross let its wings drop to the floor, slapping the pavement with claps of despair. ‘Look child, if I had meant death I would have said death. But I did not. I’m the physical realization of a metaphor for the nation’s economy.’
‘You just look like an albatross. Where’s the debt?’
‘And just what does debt look like exactly?’
George shrugged, he neither knew nor cared; Blue Peter was on in 20 minutes.
‘You can’t see debt because it’s precisely the thing you don’t have, it’s what you owe.’
‘Couldn’t you be like a newspaper cartoon and have a sash with ‘debt’ written on it or something?’
‘Ah, the sash.’ The Albatross thought for a moment. ‘Well, it blew off me when I was flying in. Landed on a guide dog, so now there’s a guide dog of debt walking around too.’
‘Ok. Nice to meet you.’

With the seabird calling after him George hurried off down a back alley, the likes of which he had never seen before (living—as he did—in a house, a very big house in the country). At least the albatross, with its wingspan of 3-3.5 metres, couldn’t follow him too closely now. ‘Oh I wish David Cameraman were here’ George thought to himself. He started; up ahead in the shadows he could see someone in a hoody and tracky b’s (as the stable boy called them). George slowed. He couldn’t go back, and the person was coming towards him now, hands in pockets—well, George hoped they were pockets; they looked closer in than pockets usually are.

‘Aite.’ The voice was familiar to George.
'Dave Cameraman!'
'Give us a hug, blud.'
‘Dave we can’t go on like this…there’s a talking albatross following me.’
David thought to himself for a moment, ‘ah that’s well easy, just cut off its deficit.’
‘Come here and try it you little twat.’ The albatross twittered from above.
‘That’s a deeply offensive word in some parts!’ George rightly pointed out.
‘Is it?’ David looked thoughtful. ‘Don’t you talk to me like that then. I’ll have you know all that rugby put hairs on my chest.’

It turned out that David’s upturned hood was remarkably good at catching a full load of albatross droppings, and so he ran off home to get changed. Suddenly disenchanted with his idol, George decided to sort things out for himself. He looked up at the seabird.

‘Albatross! From the ashes of the debt boom we will build a saving society. I defeat you with a new economic model for growth, with eight benchmarks:

• To cut the deficit more quickly to safeguard Britain's credit rating.
• To create a more balanced economy.
• To get Britain working.
• To make sure that Britain is open for business.
• To ensure that the whole country shares in rising prosperity.
• To reform public services to deliver better value for money.
• To create a safer banking system that serves the needs of the economy.

We see higher emissions than 1997 - and Britain has just 5% of the global market for green goods and services. So our eighth benchmark is to turn both of these things around. [Britain has just 5% of the global market for green goods and services - and we see higher emissions than 1997?]

These are the Benchmarks for Britain. Judge us by these benchmarks. Hold us to account. We will be accountable [2].

The albatross stared down at George, ‘From the ashes of the debt boom we will build a saving society?’ It appeared to be thinking this over for a moment or so before continuing. ‘Are you trying to say that a phoenix is going to rise from the ashes of an albatross?’

‘Oh shut up’ said George. ‘I’m going home to proof read that.’

Ah nightmares, this thing could run on and on if we let it. Free enterprise is looking noble again it seems—less taxation and stuffy regulation of people that would make us richer if only we let them. We should encourage an innovation nation, support rather than strangle our businesses and welcome foreign investors instead of driving them elsewhere to cheaper lands. Bettering that we could all go into business ourselves. If we all aspire the country will get richer as a result of all our individual successes. Mind you, if absolutely everybody aspired to that Alan Sugary dream there wouldn’t be anybody to serve us at the till when we tried to spend our new wealth. Hooray for employees I say, and I hope George Osborne thinks like that too.

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[1] ‘No swingeing cuts in first year, says David Cameron’, BBC, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8490024.stm> 31^st January 2010

[2] George Osborne, ‘A New Economic Model’, Conservatives, <http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2010/02/George_Osborne_A_New_Economic_Model.aspx> 2^nd February 2010