Going Negative

The Tories go negative:

A new nationwide Conservative poster campaign to be revealed within days will show the party adopting a more negative message... By contrast, the second wave of posters will concentrate on Mr Brown and seek to convince voters that he is personally responsible for the state of Britain’s public finances. The change in direction is being supported by two US advisers recently hired by the Tories, both veterans of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

This makes perfect sense, really - at least if the Tories want to win this election. There seems to be a taboo around the use of negative adverts, and certainly the use of the "New Labour, New Danger" poster probably cost the Tories in 1997. But this time, Labour have gone negative first. That's what this "controversy" around Ashcroft is all about. It is negative campaigning, and if the Tories don't respond in kind then they end up looking like they have no backbone, and are unable to act as an effective opposition should.

Furthermore, there is a massive open goal available to them - namely, Gordon Brown. Going negative on Gordon Brown can be done without even being too negative - to a large extent, making critical comments is simply stating facts. Pointing out Brown's failures is like shooting fish in a barrel, and since the Tories seem unable to put forward any policies, then attacking Brown really is their best bet.

Hell, you could almost argue that a negative election campaign against Brown is positive, if only because it could have such a positive outcome - namely, the removal of Gordon Brown from Downing Street.

Ashcroft, Unions, and a lack of anything real to say

Monkeys flinging shit at each other:

The Conservatives have stepped up attacks on Gordon Brown over his links with the political director of the union behind the BA strike.

They say Mr Brown should have given Charlie Whelan - his former spokesman - a "wide berth" yet claim he is "at the heart of Labour operations”.

And from Labour:

Labour called it "a desperate attempt" to distract voters from the controversy surrounding Tory donor Lord Ashcroft.

Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, this is meant to be news? For as long as I came remember, the Tories have been funded by business and Labour by the Unions. And yes, the Tories are trying to distract voters from the Ashcroft “controversy” – but Labour and their tame rags have manufactured that controversy in order to distract the voters from the absolute fucking disaster that this Labour government has been.

And it is depressing – it is so depressing - that both parties seem to think that the best way in which to win votes it to shriek about how the other party has taken money from someone who won’t give them money. Do we really think that Labour would turn down money from Ashcroft if he happened to be a Labour rather than a Tory supporter? Of course they fucking wouldn’t – just as the Tories would take money from the Unions if the Unions didn’t see them as the enemy.

All this does is highlight the lack of ideological commitment from the main parties vying to form our next government. They have nothing to say other than shout “corrupt” at each other, with the constant retort of “I know you are, you said you are, but what am I?”

The Guardian and the Soap Opera Version of Politics

Well, this will be a massively condensed version of a post that I have been working on for just under a week. The reason why I have radically cut the word count is because it becomes counter-intuitive to write an epic blog post criticising the amount of attention that Ashcroft has got from the likes of The Guardian - frankly, neither Ashcroft nor this whole sorry non-story should be left in the limelight for any longer than is absolutely possible.

What got me started on this pointless odyssey into the obviously compromised and far from neutral Guardian was this idea here – where they want their readers to write to Tory MPs and would-be Tory MPs with a list of (really rather dull) questions. Now, I’m all for contact with your MP, but not to simply do the legwork of a national newspaper. I mean, whatever happened to investigative journalism? I mean, imagine if Woodward and Bernstein had adopted The Guardian approach to political journalism: "President Nixon, were you involved in the Watergate cover-up?" "No." "Well, we believe you were, and we're going to prove it by... by... getting people to write letters!"

Besides, any self-respecting Tory MP/candidate will simply ignore any letter demanding answers from their bosses. Probably from a mix of fear, but also because they’ll have better things to do with their time. Like trying to win (re) election to the House of Commons.

But it isn’t just the idiotic questions that Guardian readers have to spam their Tories with. No, the whole of The Guardian (well, their online presence anyway - I'm not going to pay good money for the online version of this rag) seems to be awash with articles about Ashcroft – even down to an article comparing him with a duckhouse. Yes, that’s right – the Ashcroft saga (a rich man not wanting to pay massive amounts of tax) is on a par with the expenses scandal. And, of course, the comparison is with a Tory MP’s particular moment of greed – even though it is Labour MPs who have been charged in that relation to that scandal.

So what we have here is The Guardian acting as nothing more, yet nothing less, than attack dog of the ruling party. Sure, they have never been neutral, but with this current concerted attack on one Tory donor, they have started to resemble a Nu Labour version of Pravda. Or a version of LabourList with a massive readership and a national profile. Which would be less of a problem if this particular ersatz scandal actually mattered. But it doesn’t. It really doesn’t.

Which means that the naked bias of The Guardian - and any other rag savaging to Tories for having a rich donor – are doing two things. Firstly, neither Labour nor the Tories are being challenged on their actual policies. It feels, for all the world, like The Guardian wants to turn this election into a referendum on Michael Ashcroft. If the Tories lose, then guess what? People weren’t ok with Ashcroft’s donations. If the Tories win, then we will know people don’t care. Is that really any way in which to choose the next government of the United Kingdom? The Guardian seems to think so.

Which leads us nicely on to the second, linked point – that The Guardian are doing the donkey work of those who would turn modern British politics into a bad soap opera, devoid of political content. The Ashcroft saga – which has been dragging on since the last century, for Christ’s sake – is irrelevant when you consider the challenges facing this country and the seeming inability of all parties to raise themselves to that challenge. The real problems, and the glaring issues facing us, are hidden behind a bunch of Labour supporters tutting at a rich man who wants to limit the amount of tax he pays. Which is simultaneously dangerous and pathetic.

Ashcroft and The Guardian

I'm currently working on quite a long post about The Guardian's response to the Michael Ashcroft saga. However, owing to the fact that I am currently only able to use a shit PC with a shit version of IE on it - and the fact that The Guardian's position has changed as this non story drags on develops, the post will have to wait until later today/tomorrow.

To summarise, though, my position is this - I'm pretty sure that while Ashcroft has the dubious ethical status enjoyed by many wealthy "donors" to political parties, he's probably one of the best of a bad bunch. And I'd also say that The Guardian - which has its own intersting position with regard to the payment of tax - is simply using this story to prop up a failed government that has nothing to say other than pointing at the Tories and their benefactor and chanting the mantra "they are rich, they are evil. They are rich, they are evil."

Which is utterly pathetic.

Paying Tax As "Giving"

There is nothing quite as jarring as Peter Mandelson – a man who has a proven track record of resigning in disgrace – criticising another wealthy man for the heinous crime of trying not to pay huge sums in tax.

But there is no shortage of people attacking Mandelson and the members of all parties who appear happy to wade through a massive mire of hypocrisy in order to have a pop at a Tory benefactor. And I’ll leave them all to it. Instead, I wanted to look at an example of how this has been portrayed in the media – in this case, by The Guardian. Take a look at this paragraph, and see if you can work out what I find most troubling:

Ashcroft and the Tories have refused to answer questions about when Ashcroft fulfilled the less onerous task of declaring himself a long-term resident, which allowed him to continue to be a non-dom paying tax only on his UK earnings and avoiding giving tens of millions of pounds to the tax office on his substantial international estate.

Have you spotted the most troubling phrase? It is the idea that Ashcroft is avoiding “giving” his money to the tax office. Now, who actually “gives” their tax money to the Inland Revenue? Who “gives” their taxes up? Anyone? Anyone? Oh, no, at best – at fucking best – we pay taxes. Taxes actually tend to disappear without the majority of people in this country actually actively giving up the money. It goes before your pay hits your account. You pay tax whenever you buy a commodity that includes VAT. You pay tax all the time – however, people don’t tend to give tax money to the tax office.

Does this sort of distinction matter? I mean, it’s The Guardian we’re talking about here. They are never going to describe taxation as state sponsored theft. But the very fact that the use of the concept of giving taxes is so subtle is what makes it so troubling and pernicious. It is arguably far more damaging than any statist fuck banging on about tax avoidance like it is a financial equivalent of the fucking Holocaust. Because it is so subtle, and so easy to miss. Yet the more it is repeated, the more it feeds into the dominant discourse in this country that giving money to the state is a good thing. In fact, the use of the word give is very interesting – after all, we give to charity, so we can extend that to the state. Yes, giving to the state is like giving to charity. That’s the agenda that this sort of subtle framing wishes to perpetuate. Except the government charity is just as likely to spend it on war or banking bailouts than on something those who perpetuate this myth actually think deserves funding.

So the next time someone tells you that you give money to the tax office, please feel free to tell them to fuck off, and grow a brain cell while they do so.

And what is so wrong with this?

A rich man wants to pay less tax in a country that increasingly (and grossly) penalises people for the *crime* of being rich. How is that controversial? Who the hell wants to give up the money they earn to enable a profligate and deeply inefficient government to spunk money up against the wall?

Frankly, I'd be more shocked if Ashcroft wasn't desperate to save his money from the Chancellor. If only because that would make him really quite moronic. And therefore make me wonder how he earned his billions in the first place.