Is Government Funding Killing the Arts?

This evening I attended the final of Woking's Annual Drama Festival. Over the last two weeks, amateur drama groups from as far afield as Bristol and Essex have competed to win one or more of 16 awards. The festival is apparently quite well known and highly regarded.

So I was surprised to find that on each of the three nights of the festival that I attended, the theatre (a modest 260 seater) wasn't even close to full. Even on the last night, tonight, when three of the best plays were recalled to be shown again, the theatre was only around half full.

Why?

The only reason I knew about the festival was that I am a member of a group who took part, but sadly weren't nominated for any of the awards. Otherwise I wouldn't have known about it. I have never heard of it before despite being a reasonably regular and local (30 years plus) theatre goer - surely indicating a major communication failure.

Following tonight's three performances, the adjudicator gave his assessment of the quality of performances he had seen throughout the two weeks of the festival.

'Was this year a vintage year for Woking Drama Festival?', he asked.

'Not Really', he said, 'Some of the groups didn't really bother to try very hard.'

It was a fairly damning indictment from someone who clearly knows his stuff.

He went on to implore the drama groups who attended the final night (not all bothered) to make use of the unusually high standard of facilities available at the theatre which has recently been gifted £300,000 by the local council for improvements.

And that £300k really got me thinking. The typical theatre goer is relatively wealthy. Why on earth should £300,000 pounds of local taxpayers money be lavished on a tiny, wealthy majority? And why is it?

An email I received earlier this week perhaps helps answer that question. It was imploring me, as someone who had bought a ticket for a previous festival night, to attend last Tuesday's festival night as the mayor was attending and given the £300k the council had spent they wanted to create the false impression that the festival was well attended and deceive the mayor into thinking that local taxpayers money had been wisely spent...

Isn't this madness?

What usually happens when you give people money for nothing? Are they incentivised to work hard and be creative?

Theatre is a unique and brilliant art form. But is government funding helping or ultimately hindering?

Does it help drive innovation and creativity when government hands out money to the arts?

Some would argue that without government money, the arts would die. But isn't it true that with government money the most creative people spend their time and energy competing for grants rather than working out how to attract audiences? - Isn't it therefore a downward spiral?

I suspect that the organisations at the top of the tree, who manage to garner national government funding and who should be telling the big story about the unique and compelling attractions of theatre are not doing as much of it as they would be, if they weren't being gifted taxpayers cash.

The UK's big-name football clubs are not subsidised yet they manage to inspire millions of people to play football at clubs around the country and further millions of others around the world. You will not find a city in the world without hundreds of Manchester United supporters..

So is government funding actually killing the arts by removing incentives and rewarding mediocrity which in turn creates a less compelling product for audiences?

If all direct and in-direct funding were suddenly withdrawn certainly some theatres would fail - the ones that produce a poorer quality product. But those that were left would succeed and perhaps out of the improved average quality, the result would be that more people would view theatre as something desirable to be involved with either as a member of an audience or as a participant.

And perhaps the major theatres and theatre production companies would do what major football clubs in this country have done and invest in creating sustainable mass audiences by effectively marketing the appeals of their product rather than making grant submissions. Not simply selling each production, but the very idea and appeal of going to the theatre.

And in turn perhaps thousands of people who attended and enjoyed this exciting well marketed medium of theatre would be tempted to join small drama and theatre groups and compete against each other in increasingly well attended, high quality festivals and competitions... thus driving standards and participation ever higher..

Does it seem like the perhaps counter-intuitive answer to the original question is yes?

Conservative Conference Review

For the last few years, I have posted a detailed review of the Conservative Conference, rating each of the speakers that I have watched. This year I have decided not to do this, partly because I haven't had the time to watch each speech as carefully as in previous years.

Sadly, from what I have seen so far, this year's Conference looks like a slightly grey version of previous years Conferences. The set, rather than being a vibrant blue, is a slightly shaby grey looking dark blue and many of the speakers seem to lack the energy they had in previous years - I guess running the country in coalition must be taking it's toll.

Boris's speech, as usual has been a highlight, but even his speech has lacked the extent of humour and engaging style of previous years.

Many of the speakers are now tending towards a 'lecturing' style, something which I guess is a feature of a ministerial team who now, with over three years in government, know their business extremely well. But it does have a slightly patronising air to it and fails to persuade in a way that a more appealing delivery would.

But I suppose at least they look serious and workmanlike.

Michael Gove's speech was solid as usual. And, as usual, he preceded his own words by inviting some guests to speak about Education.



Let's hope this approach was intentionally low-key and they are planning a big, fresh, colourful, engaging and inspiring conference in 2014 before the 2015 General Election.

A Review of ‘Power Trip’ by Damian McBride

I have been off Politics for quite a while lately but I really couldn’t resist getting hold of a copy of this new revelatory book by Gordon Brown’s ex-personal spin-doctor and chief skullduggerer Damian McBride. To my surprise I was able to buy a copy on iTunes on Monday evening – before it was supposedly released on Tuesday to coincide with Ed Miliband’s big speech. I guess that shows how keen I was and the book didn’t disappoint.

McBride was famously responsible for the nasty habit of briefing against politicians in his own party (Labour) and for fabricating various unpleasant stories and placing them in the media to discredit Gordon Brown’s opponents and others. Ultimately, McBride’s dirty tricks ended in his sacking in 2009 when a series of incriminating emails from him were exposed.

Damian’s book is a real page-turner. He doesn’t waste time telling us about his childhood but barrels straight into the story building a very clear picture of exactly what it was like working behind-the-scenes first at the Treasury and then at No 10 for Gordon Brown.

In the days leading up to the launch of the book, in various media appearances on Newsnight and other places, Damian’s response to the question that everyone was asking, about Gordon Brown’s knowledge of what he was up to at the time was that Brown had not known about his ‘dirty tricks’.

In his book, McBride explains exactly how his method for ‘Lying Without Actually Lying’ worked.

If you read this book and watched any of those interviews there maybe moments during which you recollect what he said that you feel like involuntarily shouting the word ‘snap!’

As Damian said in various interviews, whilst using the patent-pending McBride ‘Lying without Actually Lying’ Method, Gordy probably didn’t know the specifics of all of Damian’s ‘dirty tricks’.

However, with the use of this book, a modicum of common-sense and just seven brain cells you too would have to conclude that Gordon understood exactly the approach that McBride was adopting on his behalf.

All in all, this simply confirms what many of us suspected about Brown’s approach to Politics and the book goes on to confirm other stories of Gordon Brown’s moodiness, bad tempers, repeated habit of blaming others for his own failings and general boorishness.

Yet despite recounting all this, Damian repeatedly says how much he admired Brown. In fact, in one interview with LBC’s Nick Ferrari he confessed to actually loving Gordy although I gather not in a fumbly, sexy way. I think it was more like Nelson and Hardy but with a different tragic ending.

And that very apparent contradiction leads me to a conclusion of what I think actually drove McBride to do the things he did. He didn’t do it because he, as he sometimes seems to suggest, actually really, at the root of things, admired Brown for his absolute greatness - he didn’t.

Instead he was initially in thrall to Brown’s position because of the desire to do a really good job for someone who he had only ever known as being very important.  He first met Gordon when he was Chancellor, wanted to do the best job possible and wasn’t limited by any of the sort of moral and ethical boundaries you might hope would exist. He then smothered his conscience by telling himself it was devotion to Gordon and his brilliance and thus the end justified the means – something he continually wrestled with until the end.

So for me the answer to the big, ‘neatly avoided without appearing to avoid’ (think I might patent that myself!) question of who was responsible for Damian’s approach and activities is simple – Gordon Brown and of course, as he admits, Damian himself.

Damian’s book is brilliantly written. I would strongly recommend it to anyone even slightly interested in Politics as a real insight into how things actually work.

There were two revelations that I found particularly intriguing:

When recounting the period of ‘The Election that Never Was’ when Gordy, despite riding high in the polls, failed to call an election in late 2007, Damian reveals that one of the headline policies for the planned General Election campaign was the scrapping of tuition fees.

As Ed Miliband and Ed Balls were Gordon’s closest political allies at the time, I wonder now if this will be one of their headline policy announcements in the run-up to the 2015 GE?

The other revelation was that Damian seems to suggest that out there, somewhere is some incriminating evidence that Ed Miliband was directly involved in some dirty tricks in the form of some emails.

Is someone keeping their powder dry until 2015?

Incidentally, there is a particular moment in his interview with Paxman on Newsnight on this Monday 23^rd (around 17.5 minutes in – available on iPlayer! here) when McBride is being asked by Paxman if he still ‘speaks’ to senior people in the Labour party.

Damian momentarily blanches until Paxman helpfully goes on to ask him when he last ‘saw’ Ed Balls - rather than pursuing the original question. Damian then describes his last physical meeting some time ago. He then asks him about Miliband and again McBride is able to answer that he hasn’t seem him for a long time.

My bet is that the answer to the original question, which Paxman mysteriously fumbled (perhaps he thinks McBride has something on him!), would have given a very different impression. But then I have read the book and have an insight into the McBride methods.

You should read it too.

So They Put Their Eds Together and This is What They Came Up With.

I have been reading Damian McBride's book over the last couple of days. It's far less sensational than you might expect but one revelation for me is how close Ed Miliband and Ed Balls have been for many years. They worked together in the treasury team under Gordon Brown and if McBride's words are to be believed (for once) work extremely effectively together.

So perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that this week the two Eds came up with something quite impressive. Despite the threat that the publication of Damian McBride's book and inevitable speculation about what Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband and Balls knew or didn't know about McBride's activities, they managed to pull off a Labour party conference which could represent quite a pivotal moment in the fortunes of the Labour party.

The policy announcements and general sense of where Labour are at and are aiming, has suddenly shifted. Instead of chasing the 'centre-ground' as Labour did in the past to win three back-to-back election victories, Labour have resorted to sounding far more like the Labour of old with their policy announcements and talk of 'socialism'!

In the past this would have been seen as a disastrous move for Labour. Tony Blair made enormous efforts to disassociate the Labour party with the failed socialist policies of the 1970s. But as the two Eds have realised, times have changed.

Whilst Cameron has been slavishly chasing the 'centre-ground', the aspirational want-to-get-on in life vote without much success, Labour have realised that the game has changed.

Today there is no great groundswell of aspirational people out there who simply want a government to unshackle them and let them succeed in a free enterprise economy. That was an 80s and 90s thing followed by a period in which people were adequately reassured by Blair that he wouldn't reverse things..

Instead today, there are lots of people who see unfairness - unpunished and overpaid Bankers, overpaid media and corporate executives, uncontrolled immigration and uncontrolled spiraling energy costs supporting yet more overpaid executives.

The two Eds and the Labour party have worked very hard over the last couple of years at fomenting this sense of injustice and placing the blame for it, and associating it with, the Cameron government despite the fact that much of it can be far more logically associated with them and the previous Labour government.

Ed Miliband's 'socialist' policy announcements in his speech yesterday no longer reek of the Stalinist, statist nightmare that they once would have. Now they appeal to people as long overdue changes.

Miliband knows that if he can keep his core vote and hold back the small drift to UKIP of the last year or so, then he can make it to No10 in 2015 with a decent working majority. Labour supporters were gleeful yesterday because they found themselves hearing the sort of things that they had longed to hear Tony Blair say but knew that he couldn't for fear of scaring off the 'centre-ground' voters that were his key to electoral success. Miliband succeeded in captivating his core vote.. his key to No10.

Cameron now needs to make a big leap forward. The game has changed, and now Ed Miliband has changed it even more.

Everyone is a Winner! Almost..

I am absolutely delighted with the election results today. Everyone I wanted to win, won but more importantly, almost everyone I wanted to lose, lost.

My previously mentioned Aunt (leader of Lib Dems on Kent County Council) won by a massive margin. She got 55% of the vote versus the split Conservative vote of 20% and UKIP 16% - she was unassailable.

Conversely, but equally happily, all of the Conservative County Councillors in Surrey Heath (my area) won. Even those who the Lib Dems attempted to unseat by not running a candidate in the hope of the votes going to Labour failed. Even the most marginal division, a controversial figure, who I  like enormously, managed to increase his majority! - Well done Pitt!

Fortress Surrey Heath was also unassailed!

Overall the Lib Dems lost out and Labour failed to gain any convincing amount of ground.

But the greatest success was the massive bloody nose that Cameron got. It was a victory for the anti-establishment.

If Dave had invested his election broadcast in a vision of himself on bended knee, begging the county to vote FOR UKIP it would have been less effective than the strategy he did decide on which was to rubbish UKIP and by association, UKIP voters.

This was a monumental error. It turned a potential embarrassment into a rout. I just cannot quite believe that the man running this country was capable of such a moronic misjudgement. I hate to think that my local MP and friend of both Dave and I would have endorsed such a stupid approach.

I wince as I read the line I read above about Dave. I, like so many Conservative members have invested huge expectation, albeit with misgivings, in him. But unfortunately, no - tragically, he just hasn't delivered. He snatched defeat from the jaws of success in 2010 - how could anyone lose that election? And since then, other than for brief moments, has failed to prove himself capable of leadership.

I, like many others, have been prepared to make allowances since 2010 for the impact and realities of coalition. But really the way this election was handled, proves beyond doubt that Dave simply, sadly, is not up to the job.

It's time to finally accept it. I was wrong. Dave, despite my hopes and expectations, just is not the man.

I should have known back in May 2010 when he was reluctant to move out of his west London home to No. 10. What kind of committed PM shirks at that!

Instead I just invested my hopes and expectations in a Conservative leader who I hoped would fulfil those expectations that were embedded way back in the late 1970s..

Margaret Thatcher's recent death and the resulting analysis of her life and achievements jolted me, and thousands of others, who considered ourselves Conservatives into examining this pre-supposition more forensically than we have for many years.

I had to conclude that I am Thatcherite more than Conservative.

And therefore I have to conclude that Cameron must now go if I am ultimately to remain a Conservative.

Thatcher - The Fantasist's Root of All Evil.

I have just been watching Channel 4 news. Some gangly faced cretinous child girl from some economics think-tank has been flashing flirty toothy grins at a bemused John Snow whilst explaining how Margaret Thatcher was responsible for the current financial crisis in response to this report by C4 News.

Apparently when Mrs T initiated the 'Big Bang' in the 1980s - she caused the current collapse. Apparently it is nothing to do with the failed euro project, or the sub-prime lending in the US and elsewhere or the lack of oversight or failed FSA structure implemented by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

What utter bollocks.

If that kind of logic prevailed then we wouldn't blame the lunatic driver who killed the small child as a result of their dangerous driving, we would imprison the road builder, or perhaps the guy who ordered the Tarmac..

What utter stupidity. 

This inane idiot was counterbalanced by Conservative MP Andrea Leadsom who calmly and rationally attempted to illustrate the wrong headedness of this hypothesis.

But frankly I object not just to Channel 4 for running such a fatuous and ridiculous piece. Obviously I blame the moronic think tank girl for her pathetic smirking grins but I also blame Leadsom for dignifying a ridiculous charade by attempting to seriously answer the charge. 

There are rare occasions on which it is only appropriate to pour derision and scorn on someone, and this was one of those occasions. 

And while we are at it, Mrs T was not responsible for the decline of manufacturing, or the closure of coal mines. The unions and a succession of failed governments of both persuasions did that (more mines were closed in the 60s and 70s than in the 80s). It was they who made these industries hideously inefficient and incapable of operating without huge government subsidy. Mrs T simply did the inevitable dirty work that her predecessors were too weak to do. She simply stopped the crippling subsidies, beat back the unions and incentivised growth and liberal markets.

Come on Conservatives. Wake up. Start defending the Conservative record. Lady T is dead and hasn't been able to defend it for many years. It's your job to explain exactly how the Conservative thinking and approach pulled Britain back from the abyss and how it can do it again.

And stop allowing others to distort cause and effect. The positive effects of what the previous Conservative government did were abundantly clear to the rest of the world. It's only the fantasists and the morally corrupt and self-deluding political opposition who can convince the UK electorate otherwise if you stay quiet or fail to argue your case.. nuff sed.

A Pivotal Political Moment

I am a political watcher. I have been watching Politics intently for 32 years - from the days when Margaret Thatcher was campaigning to become Prime Minister back in 1979. 

Many would perhaps rightly think that this is a fantastic waste of the time invested. But it does occasionally pay a dividend that I value. Every so often I get a political insight from something I am watching and analysing that gives me a huge steer on the nature of future events. These occasional breathtaking insights are sometimes foresights that have the brilliant clarity and certainty of hindsight - quite an assertion!

One example of this was back in 2003 when I was nerdily watching the entire Conservative conference on TV while pretending to very slowly re-decorate my kitchen. Two young MPs from the 2001 intake made their first prominent appearance together conducting a Q and A session. It caught my attention completely. By the end of the session I knew I had just seen the next Conservative Prime Minister - the only question was which of the two would it be?

At the time no-one in the outside world had heard of either David Cameron (my best guess for next Conservative PM due to his age) or George Osborne (my preferred option due to his brilliant presentational skills - sadly now shrouded by the perceived necessity to look 'serious' in his position as Chancellor.)

Last night I was again nerdily watching the tributes to Mrs T in the House of Commons on BBC Parliament channel. Amongst the mushy stuff, it was a fascinating exposure of the arguments for, and against, the policies of her and her governments. The tributes had been going on since just after lunchtime when the PM had delivered his brief accolade and by 6.30pm ish there were only a handful of MPs on the Labour benches and probably 40 or 50 Conservative, most of whom were there waiting to speak themselves.

And then one of those Eureka moments happened. Gisela Stuart (Labour) stood up and delivered her poignant tribute. It started off quite slowly with talk about the equality of women in Parliament. It wasn't remarkable in any way. 

But then Gisela started talking about Economics and the economist Hayek and 'the market' being 'social'. Essentially she was putting her finger on the key underlying political problem in our country and in so doing, shone a light into the dark pointing a way forward.

Gisela started talking about 'polarisation' in our political debate and agenda and specifically about the polarisation between, on one hand, 'socialism' and on the other 'capitalism'. Gisela's idea was that this is a false choice and that the presence of this false choice is what is holding us up - as she put it 'on both sides of the house' but as I would express it, in this country.

Ok. So what I am driving at here?

Well. For years and years we have been stuck with the argument between 'Socialism' and 'Capitalism'. Although the word 'Socialism' was rejected by the Labour party in the 1990s when Tony Blair thought he would be more electable by doing so, socialist principles are those that are embedded still firmly in the Labour party. Conversely 'Capitalist Free Markets' are deeply embedded in Conservative thinking yet much of the electorate believe that 'profit' is a dirty word. 

These things, as they have been defined, are polar opposites.

But this simply is not true. 

And so, the electorate are stuck. We want a socially responsible government but we also want an economically competent government, yet no political party seems to represent both these things. In the centre of the electorate's mind we either have a harsh uncaring but economically competent government (Conservative) or a socially responsible but financially irresponsible one (Labour).

The key to solving this dichotomy is to unravel the theories, go back to first principles and find the overlapping, common ground - to resolve the false conflict. This is what Gisela is driving at. A new, to use another dirty word, 'Consensus' that stops our political parties endlessly re-fighting the same underlying arguments with every policy announcement.

It's not about simply re-branding political parties - Labour as New Blue Labour or the Conservative Party as Hug a Hoodie, Compassionate Conservatism. That is too vacuous, too obviously a superficial exercise. It is about digging much, much deeper.

The seeds of Gisela's argument are what I believe will spawn a new and highly effective political philosophy - One that will then go on to gather support from the broad electorate. 

Perhaps this is a fitting tribute to Mrs T. The idea that an examination of her legacy has and will help spawn the school of thought which will dicate the pattern of political life in the not too distant future.

People say that Margaret Thatcher overturned the post-war consensus and was divisive. I would say she challenged the post-war consensus and was divisive because her philosophy failed to achieve a new consensus. The arguments still rage today.

What Gisela was starting to articulate was a need and a basis for a new consensus. I shall keep listening.

The question in my mind again is now only which of the political players (parties rather than individuals) will be the one to lead this forward.

Margaret Thatcher - The Legacy.

I vividly remember early one afternoon in 1990 jumping onto a tube train to be confronted, to my horror, with a newspaper headline announcing that Margaret Thatcher had stepped down.

I was stunned. I knew she was a headstrong and often difficult and divisive figure but surely everyone knew that she more than anyone had put Britain back on it's feet.

I was only 11 years old when Mrs T came to power but it was obvious to me that she was what the country needed. I remember the power cuts and the strikes and the overwhelming sense that country was slowly sliding towards oblivion and that she was the figure who those who understood what needed to be done, united around.

The day she went induced a feeling like a bereavement - which today's news brings flooding back.

In 1990 I felt as though the country had taken a foolish wrong turn. Today, with the benefit of hindsight, I know for sure we did.

Despite the fact that she had, inevitably after 10 years as PM, lost touch, become egotistical and started to believe her own propaganda, Margaret Thatcher had much more to give. A shock would perhaps have done it. Got her back on the rails and renewed her energy and focus. There was no need for an unseating, particularly foolish when there was no strong alternative leader in waiting..

But it wasn't to be and perhaps that's partly why we seem to be re-playing the same arguments and scenarios today as we were back in the 1980s. Stuck in a strange political groundhog day, today we hear todays' politicians reciting very similar arguments to those of that time. Labour are blamed for their disastrous stewardship of the economy and the Conservatives are blamed for reigning back spending and restructuring the state.

Margaret Thatcher's legacy is extraordinarily impressive - the most significant politician by far of my lifetime.

I just wish she had been given the time and support to finish the job she started and been able to embed a truly sustainable economic and social model in Britain that combined sound, sustainable finances with social responsibility.

Instead we find ourselves looking for a leader of her stature - and can't seem to see one.

A Post, Post-Eastleigh Post

Let me explain that rather confusing headline.

The Eastleigh by-election was a major Political event, which caused a great outpouring of thought, ideas and reaction after it’s conclusion. Hundreds of articles and blog posts (see here on Politicus.org.uk) have picked over the bones of it. 

Probably the most often repeated idea was that ‘it is only a by-election’ and therefore it is completely different, thus discounting the value of any conclusions that can be drawn from it. I don’t agree. There is much that the Conservative party in particular can learn from it.

Having read so many different views on the subject (via Politicus), the major points that I have drawn from the wide range of views for each of the different Political parties are as follows:

UKIP – UKIP played a blinder here. They managed to mop up a huge protest vote taking votes from all three other major political parties. Some dismiss UKIP's march forward as simply a protest vote that will evaporate at a General Election. But, success breeds success and this result will undoubtedly encourage other people to vote for UKIP in the future because they are less likely to see their vote as being wasted. UKIP have further enhanced the perception that they are a serious mainstream party with an increasingly strong vote-winning machine.

Labour - With a minor 'celebrity' candidate and after nearly three years of Coalition Government, Labour should have done better. The result was really a reflection of the fact that they are not seen as a differentiated alternative. There was little or no evidence of a protest vote against the Coalition going to Labour.

Liberal Democrat - The Liberal Democrats did extremely well to win this in light of the fact that the seat was vacated by the previous Lib Dem incumbent being convicted of perverting the course of justice, and the furore surrounding the Lord Rennard allegations. They managed to neutralise these issues and concentrated on harnessing their local dominance.

The key to their win was not the short term by-election campaign but many years of effort that they have put into this area, converting it from a strong Conservative constituency (In 1992 the Conservatives held the seat with 39,000 votes to 21,000 Lib Dem) to a Lib Dem stronghold with every single local Councillor being a Liberal Democrat.

Conservatives - This by-election was not an absolute disaster for the Conservatives when compared to the other parties. The Conservative vote was reduced by almost the same proportion as the Lib Dems but it illustrated and widely exposed three huge problems.

1) The strategy of attacking Liberal Democrat 'marginals' as a major priority at the next election is going to be very, very difficult to achieve. Grant Shapps needs to think carefully about this. He won his seat against Labour - The Lib Dems are very different opponents  They build a constituency grass-roots ground-up street by street, ward by ward providing them with a huge Get The Vote Out machine at election time.

2) The vote on the 'right' is split. Nigel Farage's 'The Conservatives Split our vote' quip resonated because it is so true. It was interesting to hear that a presumably rehabilitated Andrew Mitchell was seen walking in St James's Park (the traditional venue for clandestine meetings) with Nigel Farage after Eastleigh. Some kind of deal is essential if a vote split is to be avoided at a GE.

3) The Conservative vote winning infrastructure is in tatters. Many years ago, the Conservative party developed a powerful machine for doing exactly what the Liberal Democrats still do very successfully today. One of the elderly residents in the constituency in which I live explained it to me very simply - "when I was young, the Conservatives always held the best parties". In other words, they worked out what young people wanted (to meet the opposite sex) and then provided them with an opportunity for fun and social activity whilst involving them in the party.

This was the key to getting people involved early. The Conservative Agent career structure was designed around this. Agents were employed to organise events and gather new members. Members brought friends along to events, they met local and national politicians, kept coming back and joined, then invited their friends etc etc.

But this machine was never adapted to changing social expectations. The employed agents simply kept on ploughing the same furrow, doing the same things in the same way and get ever decreasing returns. The Diary of a Conservative Agent blog is a huge fund of information that illustrates exactly how outdated and ineffective the structure has become.

Conclusions - For the Conservatives

Unless the Conservatives can do some kind of deal with UKIP, the Conservatives are going to have to come up with relatively radical national policies to win the next GE. Radical because they need clear differentiation from the other parties, and because they need to differentiate what they have done in Government with the limitations of a Lib Dem partner and what they could do as a Conservative party in Government alone. They do not have the feet on the street to Get the Vote Out so they will have to rely on high profile national messages.

For the longer term, the Conservatives are going to have completely redefine the way in which Conservative Associations operate and completely redefine the model. It's way too late for evolution. Revolution is the only option. Small incremental changes that should have been made in the 1980s and 1990s were never made, so now the problem is huge and the structure needs a total change.

Unfortunately the Agent/Association model had one huge flaw. It didn't include a mechanism for it's own evolution and self-development. Much as I admire the dogmatic, self-less years of effort that these stalwarts have put-in, they are simply not part of a successful future.

Grant Shapps has his work cut out and the future of the Conservative Party, if it is to have one, depends on what he does next.

2020 Vision or Blind Stupidity?

So what was the ultimate outcome of the Gay Marriage debate and vote last week?

For me it was summed up by the woman on Questiontime (ff to 41:35) who asked 'How can the Conservative Party claim to want a fairer, more equal society' after this? She was referring to the fact that more Conservative MPs voted against Gay Marriage than for it. 

The impact of this, the secondary boundary dispute in two weeks, surely has been not another exercise in decontaminating the Conservative brand, but if anything, re-contaminating it.

Some Conservatives might take exception to this, but I speak purely from the point of view of the demonstrable majority of the whole electorate who are in favour - see polling here and more up to date elsewhere. For them, the Conservatives have proved themselves to be exactly what many always suspected, the party of those who don't fight for fairness but for privilege for a minority. 

So why did the Conservative leadership allow this to happen?

Well. The first question to ask is:

Did the Conservative Leadership know that the kind of outcry from the older generation of Conservative members that did occur, would happen? 

If they didn't, then it was a tragic failure of intelligence. Polling and market research techniques, focus groups etc would have delivered a very clear picture on the depth of feeling on the issue. As my local Conservative Association President put it 'You are attacking people's core beliefs here'. 

If they did then surely it was an intentional and successful attempt to drive a dividing and differentiating line between the current Conservative leadership, and arguably their broad generation and younger, and the older generation.

If so why? And then, did it work?

Local Conservatives Seek Homophobia Mantle for Conservative Party

Despite the fact that the Conservative lead coalition government is currently aiming to equalize Marriage by enabling Gay and Lesbian couples to marry, two senior Conservatives in Surrey Heath, the parliamentary constituency in which I live, are opposing the move.

Geoffrey Vero, the President of the Surrey Heath Conservative Association, and Lavinia Sealy, Conservative Councillor and Chairman of Surrey County Council have taken their battle to the national media in an attempt to garner support for their prejudiced views.

In December Vero used his honorary position as President to gain an interview with Jeremy Paxman and others on BBC Newsnight in which he attempted to give the impression that there is widespread support for his position against equal marriage.

And then, just a few days ago, Lavinia Sealy gave an interview to local citizen journalist Paul Deach in which she again claimed widespread support for her unpleasant views.

Today she appeared in her chains of office in The Daily Mail alongside an accompanying article. In reality it seems that much of this ‘opposition’ has been incited by these two themselves using their positions to further their own personal views.

This was clearly evidenced by Vero’s actions on the 17th January when he asked the local Conservative agent to send an email to the entire local membership and database of supporters urging them that ‘if they share a similar view to mine’ they should sign a petition and write to Michael Gove MP, our local Member of Parliament.

When I received the message, I immediately noticed that the agent, a highly seasoned campaigner and bullet dodger, had chosen not to endorse it’s one-sided exhortation and had merely described it briefly as ‘self explanatory’.

My response was to email Michael Gove to say that I was glad that he was supporting gay marriage, that frankly I expected nothing less and that I thought prejudice should not be tolerated. I copied Geoffrey Vero in.

Geoffrey quickly responded saying he was ‘interested in’ my use of words i.e. prejudice and then bizarrely tried to accuse me of calling him a ‘proverbial bigot’ – an accusation I didn’t feel appropriate and evidently never made. 

In response, I wrote him a reasonably lengthy email laying out the self-evident fact that treating gay and lesbian couples differently is a form of prejudice and invited him to respond with any principled arguments against gay-marriage as in fact he hadn’t done any more than protest that the process seemed a little ‘rushed’ in the Newsnight interview.

Sadly he chose not to respond with any arguments, but merely pleaded that we should ‘agree to disagree’.

Actually, I can’t agree to disagree. Geoffrey is wrong and he needs to be openly challenged rather than allowing him to attempt to garner support by appealing to other’s ill-considered prejudices.

Lavinia Sealy has been more forthcoming. In her recorded interview she said that this issue was ‘not a question of religion it’s a question of our natural beings’. She went on to conjure up some rather graphic images by contrasting that in her opinion Men and Women ‘fit together’..

Lavinia also said that she thinks the issue requires a lot more thought. And on that alone I agree.

Many of the older generations who form a large proportion of Conservative membership grew up in an age when Homophobia was not just widespread but was the default view. Countless people went through the agonies of self-denial trying to live false heterosexual lives for fear of repression. Others were treated as outcasts or perverts for simply following their natural (there’s that word again Lavinia) inclinations – for simply being themselves.

It is utterly wrong to discriminate and it’s completely wrong for Geoffrey and Lavinia to use their positions to seek to bolster support for their views – the headline of this post illustrates the inevitable interpretation.

I would urge anyone who is thinking of supporting them to think very deeply about this issue. To ask themselves honestly, if they are in any way inclined to do so, if they are responding to a deeply principled case for denying equality of opportunity or if they are instead being guided by a long ago embedded prejudice of their own or others.

Was the Boundary Changes Vote A Death Crack?

When I was a little kid I used to play Conkers with other children at school. I gather it's a sport that is no longer encouraged - probably for 'elf n safetey' reasons. It's clearly a miracle that so many of us survived the perils of conkering unscathed.

It became highly competitive and near scientific. My friends and I spent hours throwing things up into huge trees trying to knock down conkers in the belief that the conkers on the trees were much harder (and therefore much more likely to win in competition) than those found on the ground.

We elaborately soaked them in vinegar, baked them in the oven and carefully drilled holes in the centre to avoid creating cracks in the conker's hard centre. Some became so hardened that they never broke.

Competitions were serious events. Crowds would gather and we would swing our conkers on thick peices of string at others attempting to break the competitor's prized conker off the string and win the match.

But often, sometimes quite some time before the competition ended, an event would occur which would, more often than not, predict the outcome.

The shout would go up. 'It's a Death Crack!'

One of the conkers was showing a split. Not just a small crack but a deep fissure which observers knew from experience signalled, if not the imminent, then the almost certain result.

And that's a bit how I feel about the vote over boundary changes that the Conservatives lost yesterday.

For the first time since the Coalition government was formed, the Liberal Democrats voted with the Labour party to defeat the Conservatives and broke the coalition agreement. 334 MPs voted against proposed changes to parliamentary boundaries and 292 voted in favour.

Despite their hapless protestations that they were doing otherwise, the Lib Dems both put party advantage over democratic principle and fairness, and broke the coalition deal, by voting against the main Governing party who they are bound to support.

But did this abandonment of the word and spirit of the agreement that created, maintains and defines the purpose of the current government shatter it?

No.

There was surprisingly little fuss. One might have suspected a procession of disgruntled and outraged Conservatives being seen in front of TV Cameras but there were almost none.

Quentin Letts of The Daily Mail has written a piece here describing this entitled 'In 23 Years as a Parliamentary Reporter, I have Never Felt Such Disgust for our Political Class'

He is clearly outraged, as are some other commentators, yet the Conservatives haven't made much of it.

Why?

Perhaps it's simply because, like a little boy playing conkers whose meticulously prepared conker has sustained a potentially fatal blow earlier than hoped or expected, they don't shout. Instead they quietly concentrate with an effort of will and hope that their prized possession will be able to sustain more of the inevitable blows that it will suffer, without being blown prematurely to smithereens.

To pompously paraphrase Churchill - This is not the end of the beginning but it is perhaps the beginning of the end.. for the Coalition.

Labour Call for Inquiry into Allegations that Someone was Rude about Member of Parliament

Whilst everyone was busily watching and listening to David Cameron talking about Europe yesterday, Labour MP Mr Stephen Twigg, shadow education spokesman, was busy demanding an inquiry into allegations that someone in the Education department said some nasty, hurtful things about a Conservative Member of Parliament.

N.B. This detailed report follows a Telegraph article which highlighted this event.

Mr Twigg was unexpectedly catapulted into Westminster politics way back in 1997 when on the night of the Labour GE landslide he became the lucky and visibly stunned recipient of a seat in the House of Commons when Michael Portillo lost his Enfield Southgate seat in the South of England. Twigg lost the seat in 2005 and was shortly afterward arrested for drunkenness and charged with being drunk and incapable in a public place (I am not making this up!) a conviction which he bizzarely welcomed, congratulating the police on 'acting sensibly' when they arrested him.

Without a flicker of irony Twigg then went on to join an organisation called, 'Progress'.

In 2010 Twigg then escaped his past and moved north to Labour heartlands where he again miraculously managed to claw his way back into Parliament as MP for Liverpool West Derby and has since been given the hopeless task of opposing Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education.

The incident that provoked another bizarre reaction from the eractic Mr Twigg yesterday was as follows:

Another MP, Mr Tim Loughton (Conservative) sadly lost his job in the education department in the recent reshuffle. Poor Mr Loughton was a bit peeved and unwisely made some unkind comments about some of his previous colleagues one of whom retorted that Tim was a bit lazy, a charge which this blog understands, is not widely supported.

Mr Twigg immediately leapt to poor Lazy Loughton's (sorry Mr Loughton's) defence demanding not simply an apology but by publicly calling for a full official government inquiry into allegations of nasty rudeness against poor Timmy.

Mr Edward Miliband (Labour Leader) finally caught up with Mr Twigg late yesterday afternoon when he was called to assist and found him slumped in the corner of a Westminster Public House toilet with his arms draped around a ceramic urinal sluring his own inimitable version of the Teddy Bear's Picnic song 'If you go down to the woods today..'

It is said that Mr Miliband spent some considerable time with Mr Twigg speaking in a calm voice and reminding him that everyone is rude to Members of Parliament, most of them doing it on an unpaid basis. He gently explained to Mr Twigg, as Twigg stared vacantly into space with a slow stream of dribble descending onto his shirt, that he is specifically paid by the taxpayer to be rude about other Members of Parliament, particularly those from the Conservative Party and really shouldn't be calling for expensive inquiries into the matter of others helping to do what he is paid for, and should be doing himself.

Unfortunately, as the shocking reality of his error suddenly dawned on him, Twigg staggered violently to his feet and with arms flailing sent a hapless Mr Miliband stumbling to the slippery wet surface of the floor, causing the Labour Leader to sustain minor unspecified injuries.

Following the incident, Mr Miliband was quick to defend Mr Twigg saying that his injuries were 'not the fault' of Mr Twigg but were instead an unfortunate consequence of the slippery floor tiles in the room in which they were conducting 'detailed political discussions'.

It is understood that the Labour Party has now called for an inquiry into substandard tiling arrangements in public house toilets and has demanded that the Prime Minister lobby for changes to EU Directive No 54333 Subsection 712B on appropriate European toilet floor coverings in his forthcoming EU re-negotiations.

N.B. The last five paragraphs above are fiction for your amusement. The rest is astonishingly, entirely true.

The European Contradiction

So Dave has finally made his European speech. This morning he looked straight down the lense of the camera and said, 'It is time for the British people to have their say. It is time to settle this European question in British politics.'

It was a strange thing to say really because it contradicted a large part of what he had said earlier in his speech. Earlier he had told us that now was precisely NOT the right time to have a referendum, justifying this by saying 'How can we sensibly answer the question ‘in or out’ without being able to answer the most basic question: ‘what is it exactly that we are choosing to be in or out of?’

So whilst Dave stood there in his purple tie (nicked from Nigel Farage's wardrobe in the dead of night I gather) in a somewhat confusing way he was actually telling us that now is not the right time because he believes he has another achievable vision for Europe which simply requires some 're-negotiation'. 

Dave's vision for Europe is for a European Union that is a 'flexible, adaptable, open EU'. One where there is no 'one-size fits all' but an EU within which different countries can choose to where to collaborate and where not to. 

And therein lies the contradiction. Unfortunately this is exactly the opposite position of many other European politicians. The video below shows previous Belgian Prime Minister and current MEP and leader of one of the Liberal/Centerist groups in the European Parliament, Guy Verhofstadt mocking the very idea of an 'a la carte' EU.

So is Dave living in cloud-cuckoo-land thinking he can not only re-negotiate but re-cast the EU as some kind of 'European Association' rather than a European Union?

Well yes. Except that I don't for a moment believe that he does 100% think he can.

Instead I suspect he believes that ultimately he can only get the best deal for Britain diplomatically (with the other EU states), by proving that he has exhausted all possible efforts to come up with a solution for staying in the EU in a way that is acceptable to the British electorate..

The Explosive Growth of UK National Newspapers

Perhaps you read that headline and think I am being sarcastic?

I am not. I want to explode a myth.

Despite all the sob stories we keep hearing about the decline of UK national newspapers, actually the reverse is true.

Rather than the power and influence of newspapers being in decline, National newspapers are acheiving hugely increased power and influence.

Have a look at this table:

Newspaper Site	Daily	Monthly	Change *	Paper Daily
Mail Online	6,671,641	106,095,618	46.20%	1,945,496
guardian.co.uk	3,909,514	71,766,288	19.35%	215,988
Telegraph	2,887,948	56,919,647	26.00%	578,744
The Sun	1,544,721	25,926,115	3.84%	2,582,301
The Independent	825,861	17,900,904	35.06%	105.160
Mirror Group Digital	764,277	16,319,000	7.54%	1,102,810

*Daily Change Year on Year.

The 'Daily' figures shown in the second column show the daily 'unique' visitors to each National Newspaper's website. Please note the 'Paper Daily' figures are from Jan 2012 so will probably have declined a little since then. I should also point out that these figures will most likely not be 100% accurate as there are quite severe technical limitations in the way in which data is collected.

The Daily Mail is still selling nearly 2 million paper based newspapers per day - a decline of only 22% in 10 years yet this is counterbalanced by a massive increase in visitors to Mail Online - nearly 7 million visitors per day and a growth of over 46% compared to the daily figure a year ago!

The Sun, whose online presence is not nearly as successful as The Mail, is still counterbalancing a decline of approx 26% in paper based readers in 10 years with a nearly 1.5 million online viewers per day.

Across the board, paper based newspaper sales are, unsurprisingly declining. 10 Years ago in 2002, roughly 9.8 million daily newspapers were sold. By January 2012 it was down to 6.5 million.

But, can anyone really look at these figures and conclude that the influence of National Newspapers is in decline?

The simple reality is that the Internet has fundamentally increased the power and influence of newspapers even if some of them are having a tough time transitioning their financial model from high cost paper based advertising and a cover price to free Internet sites with lower cost advertising.

Why has this happened?

When the Internet first came along in the late 1990s, most Newspapers were initially very slow on the uptake. The Telegraph experimented with a 'Paywall' (charging for online content) very early on, failed to get it to work and then started delivering news on a free website. Most newspaper people (some of whom I worked with at the time) saw the Internet as a threat, rather than an opportunity.

I vividly remember sitting at Apple World in Stockley Park (Uxbridge) watching a seriously impressive presentation by someone from the Guardian who explained that they were going with a free model, were clearly taking it very seriously and were investing effort and vision in the long term.

Looking at the table above, you can see they succeeded. The Guardian now has almost 20 times more daily visitors than daily sales of the paper newspaper! No one else even comes close. The Sun and the Mirror actually have less online visitors than paper sales.

Two interesting bits of news surfaced today. The Guardian are selling their share in AutoTrader for around 600million and Rupert Murdoch has announced that he is closing down 'The Daily' an Ipad based newspaper that has failed.

I am not surprised by either news item. The Guardian have done a brilliant 'online' job and News International have failed dismally. The Guardian are reported to be losing around £40 million a year on their overall operations but, I suspect are still investing for the future.

Conversely, just when sales of tablets are exploding, News International appear to be performing a minor retreat.

So how are newspapers managing this huge growth in readership?

Simple - 'Brand Awareness'.

Suppose you want news. Which brands are going to pop into your head?

You might think of the BBC, but the Beeb is a broadcaster and programme maker so the chances are you will think more immediately of one of the National Newspapers..

And that is what's driving this growth. Sure there is now a broader and more diverse source of news -blogs, news websites such as Huffington Post etc but generally people go to the websites of the news sources they always have used..

And rather than having to buy a newspaper in the morning and then watch the 9 or 10 o'clock news at night, people can now get news when they want it, on their phone or laptop or desktop computer or now, on their tablet.

YouGov recently estimated that there are around 6 million tablets being used in the UK with that expected to grow to 10 million by autumn 2013.

The phone was always a limited medium for reading news (or anything really), but the tablet is ideal..

So expect newspaper's growth to continue exploding for some time. But don't expect newspapers to tell you about it.

Why?

Because they want you and people like Lord Justice Brian Leveson to think that newspapers are in decline so that instead of realising their incredible and increasing power to influence politicians and the electorate, we will think that their lack of responsibility, mis-reporting, distortions, misrepresentations and general skullduggery are a problem that is inevitably going away - so why bother demanding high standards of conduct?

Think about it.

The Limits of Leveson

I bet there are few people who have read the complete Leveson report into the 'culture, practice and ethics of the press.' I can't claim to be one of them, but last night I did wade thought the 48 page 'executive summary' to try and find out exactly what Leveson concluded after his marathon investigation.

Despite the fact that even this 'summary' is excessively wordy (i hate to think what the full report is like), and is not engagingly written, I am glad I did. If I had relied on press reports or the pronouncements of many politicians, I would have had a very distorted view of what it was all about.

Over the last few days, journalists and politicians have lined up to criticise the idea of ending 'freedom of the press'. Apparently, that is what Leveson proposes. The culture secretary went as far as to suggest that it could lead to the end of free speech!

Others have alleged that Leveson's recommendations are tantamount to a Stalinist approach and conjure up the image of State censorship and control of the media.

This is absolute total nonsense. Leveson doesn't suggest anything of the sort.

Essentially what Leveson suggests is the setting up of an industry body to define ethical standards and to provide an arbitration service to enable individuals to seek redress if they can't afford expensive court cases. Leveson concludes that this would require some simple legislation to give this body the powers to impose fines and impose actions, such as prominent printed apologies in publications.

Perhaps surprisingly, as Madeleine McCann's father Gerry has complained, Leveson has proposed that this body would be voluntary. Rather than being compelled to join, individual newspapers and news publications would be able to choose if they wish to join and therefore be bound by the standards of the body. Leveson suggests that they would be incentivised to join by lower legal costs in the instances of any legal action.

Leveson has also suggested that this body would be setup by the industry itself - not by government.

In my view, rather than being the thin of a wedge that will lead to state control of the media, the Leveson report is a disappointingly wishy-washy response to some extremely serious problems.

In fact, my view is that Leveson has almost entirely missed the point:

In the early part of the summary, Leveson quotes Thomas Jefferson (the principal author of the American Declaration of Independance) as saying "where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe." Leveson then states that this principle 'operates as one of the cornerstones of our democracy'...

Well. Ok. The press is 'free' in that there is no legal restriction on who can print their thoughts, ideas and representations for distribution to others. But there is a huge commercial limitation on who can reach a large audience. 'The Press' is not free. it is owned by large media companies, who can and have abused their power, and who regularly distort and misrepresent information.

Jefferson, I think in the late 1700's, was referring to 'The Press' in a far more literal sense to the way in which we use the phrase today. We use the phrase to describe one significant part of the media whereas Jefferson was referring to the physical printing press (The Press) and was essentially arguing against state control of the ability to print and distribute news and information. He argued logically for a 'free press'.

If one were able to travel back in time and explain to Jefferson that we now, 250 years later, have the ability to put man (or woman) on the moon, can travel to the other side of the world in less than 24 hours and communicate with almost anyone anywhere on the surface of the planet instantly with voice, text and visually and we were to ask him if he though his pronouncement would be as profound and relevant in our future as it was in his past, I imagine the answer would have been quite brief.

I imagine that unless he was the most flamboyant egotist, he would have drawn himself up, grasped a lapel in each hand, peered at me and said something like, 'Well, unexpectedly shabbily dressed, young man from the future, I very much doubt it..'

Yet Leveson believes that this is a 'cornerstone of our democracy'?

Leveson further illustrates a further lack of grasp when he wanders into the realm of social media. When talking about the declining power of newspapers (whilst missing the point that newspaper's declining paper based distribution has been replaced by online readers) he says 'Control over information which might have been possible in an earlier age can be defeated instantly on Twitter..'

What?

So if a newspaper were to suggest that someone had killed their own missing child, as Madeleine McCann's parents have alleged, the implication is that they could rebut such an allegation with the miracle power of Twitter!

Leveson doesn't seem to have quite thought through this and realised that as the average Twitter user only has around 200 followers, Twitter may often only provide the same enhancement to communication as printing 200 leaflets and handing them out to friends and neighbours might have in the past.

I am sure Brian Leveson has an excellent understanding of the law and could help considerably with the drafting of the legislation that David Cameron claims is going to be really tricky but unfortunately his lack of comprehension of the mechanics of the media and the impact of technology largely disables his ability to grasp the main issues to be addressed.

Leveson seems to be predisposed to the idea that the inevitable wave of technology will turn the tide, that it will automatically democratise mass communication and therefore prevent some of the abuses of power that have been possible in the past.

I supposed I feel some sympathy for this naivety. It is not an unusual response. It’s a fairly typical dazzled response from someone who is seduced by the promise of technology but who (unlike me) hasn’t ever worked with or understood technology in the media or elsewhere, and who therefore assumes that the revolution is far more revolutionary and game-changing than in reality it is.

But it really would have made a lot more sense if Leveson had invested a lot more time in understanding the media and the relevant technology before embarking on his inquiry.

I suspect this lack of comprehension and blind optimism about the technological promise of the future has led Leveson to fail to really explore the issues regarding plurality – in other words the desirability of news and information being available from many independent sources.

I would argue that this really is one of the ‘cornerstones of a democracy’.

In the same way that communication, or the means of communication, should not be controlled by the state, nor should it be largely controlled by a very small number of media companies who don’t even have the harness of democratic legitimacy.

Nowhere in his summary does Leveson explore the impact, for example, of the fact that approximately 50% of UK national newspaper circulation is from just 2 newspapers (the Sun and the Mail) or that one Media owner (News International) owns not just the leading newspaper title but also one of the major broadsheets and a huge tv and media empire.

No-one argues that the BBC should be unregulated or should be anything other than impartial yet when other media empires acquire this extent of dominance, people scream that they should be allowed to be ‘free’ from regulation and be allowed to guard their partiality.

In summary of the Leveson summary I find it… to say the least..disappointing.

Millions of pounds, thousands of words and the tears of many witnesses have been spent on this task and Leveson has sadly failed to point a way forward. Instead he limply makes suggestions and fails to identify, much less attempt to resolve, the root cause of the problem.

Perhaps it was asking too much to expect an old semi-retired judge on the speaker circuit to come up with anything more than a simple formula for a working complaints procedure but I think many expected much, much more. Not least that band of witnesses who were, and I imagine still are, Hacked-Off.

To console myself I shall now go and watch the Bond Movie ‘Tommorrow Never Dies’ a cunningly concealed allegory that explores the chaos and destruction that dominant media moguls with a political agendas can cause.

I was told some years ago that the scene in which the lights go out at the launch of the mogul’s international news channel was based quite literally on a similar occurance at the launch of Sky News.

Perhaps Brian should have watched it before he started his enquiry..

But my last words on this are to quote another movie - ‘The Life of Brian’.

‘No he is not the son of God. He is a very naughty boy’.

Have a nice holiday Brian.