Beware the Populist Politician

Much has been made in the past few days of Obama's comments about BP in the aftermath of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. While it is wrong to paint BP as a complete innocent in the story, there can be little doubt that Obama's comments have had implications that were easy to predict - it has damaged BP as a company, it has put strain on the special relationship with the UK and it has left the US wide open to charges of hypocrisy when you consider incidents like the Bhopal disaster. Plus, y'know, this BP bashing doesn't actually help to resolve the issue - it is in everyone's, including BP's, best interest that this disaster is dealt with as quickly as possible. Now, I'm pretty sure Obama is intelligent enough to have anticipated at least some of these consequences, which does rather beg the question of why he went ahead and made his comments anyway. The answer is obvious - a little bit of short-term populism; a chance to identify an enemy of the American people (in this case BP) and then a chance to look tough by bullying that enemy.

You can see another example of the same phenomena here in the UK with Ed Ball's sudden conversion to the need to restrict immigration or, to put it another way, Ball's recent conversion to immigrant bashing. Now I don't think that Balls - who for all the world comes across as an economic policy wonk (as well as nasty little wanker, but that's not the main point here for once) - really has a problem with immigration. However, he saw his boss taking a (deserved) kicking for ducking a debate with a voter about immigration, and has decided that he doesn't want the same thing to happen to him. Plus, he's in the contest to be Labour leader and needs something to differentiate himself from the other candidates other than most people who know of him seem to think that he is a bit of a prick. Therefore, jump on the bash the immigrant bandwagon, and maybe even score some nice headlines from The Sun and The Daily Hate Mail while you're at it.

Of course, this approach from Balls misses the point in a number of ways. Part of the reason why Labour lost the last election was because of immigration. However, there were a number of other factors that were also crucial in creating that staggering defeat. Like the fact that they shafted the economy, the education system, civil liberties and the armed forces over a 13 year period. Balls is also missing the point that the reason why so many people in the UK feel uncomfortable about immigration is because Nu Labour studiously refused to engage with anyone on any sort of a debate over immigration - meaning that it has almost become a bit of a political taboo. What Nu Labour should have done is have made the case for immigration - to have pointed out during their years in power that the economy is dependent on immigrant labour and on immigrant spending. Instead, by saying nothing, they allowed the BNP to grow and for immigration to become something sightly sinister in the eyes of some voters. Of course, Balls could try to make this case now rather than bashing immigration. But he isn't, because that's a debate that needs to be had over a long period of time, whereas he may be able to benefit from immigrant bashing right here, right now.

Both Obama and Balls (surely this is one of the first times that the two have been directly compared and found to be similar) are playing tactical, rather than strategic, political games. They are chasing headlines, and trying to make themselves look tough in the eyes of the media. The problem with this is that politicians chasing headlines are never politicians at their best. In fact, they tend to be at their self-serving and cowardly worst when they're doing things like this. And there is a real danger to politicians in that they might get caught up in responding to events rather than trying to think strategically about what they want to achieve overall. There is a fundamental difference between a politician with a determination to implement a vision and a politician determined to chase headlines/respond to events. It is the difference between a Thatcher and a Major, and an Attlee and a Blair.

So beware of politicians flirting with populism. Beware of those politicians chasing headlines. Beware of politicians trying to look tough for the media. Because this is where we tend to see politicians at their most untrustworthy, self-serving and shallow.

Could Brown have a better relationship with the US if McCain was President?

The fraught Brown/Obama relationship - which resembles the sort of awkward flirtation that occurs when someone just isn't interested in the person desperately trying to win them over - makes me wonder whether whether the "Right" "Honourable" Gordon Brown would actually have been better off with McCain winning last year's presidential election rather than Obama.

Sure, McCain and Brown are ideologically worlds apart. Yet the Brown-Obama relationship is testament to the fact that having similar ideas doesn't mean you will get on. Besides, McCain has carved out a niche for himself as a maverick who is happy to overcome ideological differences if the political situation demands it. Furthermore, both men are grizzled political survivors. They might have far more in common than between Obama and Brown. If all else failed, they could always talk about their mutual interest in courage; McCain could regale stories that Brown could use in his next book on that subject.

Yet this idea falls apart when faced with political reality. After all, in a classic example of someone hedging their bets, Cameron managed to position himself to appear to be supporting both McCain and Obama. In fact, he categorically threw his weight behind McCain in January of last year. This has to be contrasted with the effective radio silence from Brown towards McCain that is typical of Brown when he hasn't worked out whether someone can directly help him or not. Then there is the issue of the al Megrahi release: an act that has badly damaged US-UK relations. I doubt McCain would have been forgiving on this issue either; in fact, I'd almost imagine he would have been more angry than Obama. Perhaps a President McCain would be just as unhelpful to the desperate 'Make Brown a World Statesman' campaign as President Obama actually is.

Which just goes to show that the problem is the US President; it is Gordon Brown. He is an unpopular, unlikeable leader with an unhealthy streak of political cowardice running through him. He carries with him a heavy stench of failure. No first term President would want to too closely associated with a British Prime Minister who is perhaps the very definition of a loser.

Brown and the Consequences of al-Megrahi's Release

As the scandal around the al-Megrahi release rumbles on, it is worth looking at just how this particular scandal affects the Prime Minister. Make no mistake about it, this situation has all the hallmarks of being a classic Brown manoeuvre. It is a clear own goal, created by Brown's own refusal to make a difficult choice himself and his further refusal to be in anyway open about what has happened except under supreme duress. Whichever way this went, it would have been a controversial decision. You could not please everyone, regardless of whether it was decided that al-Megrahi should die in a Scottish prison or as a hero in Libya. Nonetheless, the way this decision was taken, communicated and then pathetically justified truly shows it to be the act of a cowardly government run by a cowardly Prime Minister and works to make no-one happy with it.

Perhaps most worrying for people in the UK is the response of the US to this decision. Without a shadow of a doubt, it will have done damage to the fabled "special relationship" that Britain has with the United States of America. As one US editorial states:

As for the "special relationship" between the U.S. and Britain, the storied alliance built on the resolve of World War II and carried on through Thatcher and Blair, through Iraq and Afghanistan: It is, in a word, gone.

Now, the extent to which the special relationship has been killed off over this prisoner release is open to question. If it can survive the Suez crisis, then it will survive this. Perhaps the more interesting part of the linked article is this section:

(Rebuilding the special relationship) ...will fall to someone else, someone who values human life more than commercial expediency, someone who is stalwart rather than a sneak, someone true to his pronouncements.

The special relationship between the UK and the US will survive. But Brown's relationship with the US appears to be over. The article makes it very clear that a lot of people in the US now despise Brown, and see him as a compromiser and appeaser of those connected with terrorism. When Blair crashed from popularity in this country, he could always retreat to posturing with the President in the US. Something tells me that Brown is going to be even less welcome in the Oval Office than ever now.

Contrary to what some are saying, this isn't the death knell of Brown's administration. It might sound like it, but truth be told Brown has had enough death knells in his time as Prime Minister to fill a bell-ringer's CD of Greatest Hits. He'll plod on, even if a junior minister in the English or Scottish governments does have to fall over this scandal. The Labour party doesn't have the stomach to force Brown from power, and there is no other mechanism to get him out of office until the General Public gets to vote at the next General Election. As unedifying an example of British government and justice as the release of al-Megrahi has been, it is simply just another jarring and embarrassing indicator of how low British politics has become. All this has shown us is how badly we need a new government, and it brings into sharp relief just how long it is until we get that government - even though the wait can now be counted in months.