Good Cop/Bad Cop

There is a system of interrogation known to police forces the world over. It is called “Mr Hard and Mr Soft”. It works like this. Mr Hard comes into your cell. He is loud, threatening and abusive. Maybe he slaps you around a bit, punches or kicks you. Finally, he leaves with a threat to ‘throw the book’ at you. Then in comes Mr Soft. He calms you, offers you a cigarette, sends out for a cup of tea or coffee. He listens to your complaint and sympathises, but stresses his own powerlessness to do anything about it. Eventually he suggests a conspiracy. If you tell him everything you know, perhaps he can prevent Mr Hard coming back.

In bourgeois democracies the political roles of Mr Hard and Mr Soft are played by the parties of the right and the parties of the left. The worse the right behaves, the more attractive the left appears. This illusion is as dangerous in politics as it is in the police cell.

- Bigger Cages, Longer Chains

 

The primary political brilliance of a coalition government such as ours is that it encapsulates the ‘good cop/bad cop’ routine into a single administration, allowing an ever tighter influence on the terms of political debate.

For a while after the coalition formed there was a honeymoon period where neither party could afford the impression of instability and disagreement. A few formalised differences of policy (such as the AV referendum) later, and Nick Clegg’s open objections to the Prime Minister’s European veto have liberated both parties from a default pretence at unanimity. Clegg and Cameron can now fully exploit the potential of their ‘good cop/bad cop’ relationship to engineer mainstream political discourse.

By openly disagreeing with the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats are able to occupy, define and moderate opposition to Conservative policies.

Some recent examples: You might agree with Cameron in his use of veto. Conversely, you might agree with Nick Clegg that it was unwise. Either way, you still support one of the Coalition leaders. Perhaps you think Cameron’s tax breaks for married couples are regressive? You will find Nick Clegg already there, saying basically what you think, though not quite in the terms and certainly not with the conviction that you would have liked to.

This is, as Bigger Cages, Longer Chains points out, the political function of all mainstream opposition in liberal democracies. The politicians, though they disagree, share the same basic values; primarily the assumption that all politics and political discourse must flow through them, as professional representatives of the public.

Sometimes the Liberal Democrats are not necessary even for this public relations function. Sometimes Cameron gets to be good cop, tempering the more right wing desires in his party. Sometimes another Conservative will appear as good cop, like Boris Johnson criticising his Prime Minister’s ‘Kosovo style’ cleansing in London or cuts to DLA (public spats which are coordinated in advance). Once or twice, the Green Party or UKIP has attempted to play good cop, restoring our faith in the system and providing recourse from the too harsh or too moderate Tories. Sometimes, even Ed Miliband is able to shout loud enough that he is the one who defines for us the terms on which we oppose the government.

An example from last year (about which the Tories and Lib Dems agreed): Labour claim to disagree with the Coalition’s policy of raising the cap on tuition fees to £9000pa, saying that the upper limit should only be £6000pa. The terms of this debate are therefore set, and a false consensus is created that university education must cost each student thousands of pounds a year. To look at the higher education funding debate as the three main parties conduct it, one would not even consider the idea that education could be free (which is why protests and direct action which defy this consensus are an important part of shifting the terms of mainstream debate).

When the Liberal Democrats make promises about Parliamentary reform or tackling tax avoidance to placate the left, make no mistake; this is their function. Not only does this government seek to speak for you against its own policies, but (if unchallenged) it will be able to dictate the terms of the debate. Public disagreements between left and right wing Parliamentarians are nothing but a ‘good cop/bad cop’ routine; they are the spectacular illusion of genuine political debate, and “this illusion is as dangerous in politics as it is in the police cell.”

Political Reform: A Proposal

Political parties should exist for a maximum of ten years, and then be completely disbanded. The career politicians would then form new parties, from scratch, with new names, policies, compositions, power structures, etc. This would stop parties exploiting their, or their opposition’s, past to curry favour. The nature of branding in politics would be seriously altered; the words ‘Conservative’ and ‘Labour’ would lose their potency and the focus would be on how to communicate and define new ideas. In essence, politics would be liberated from the tedium of tradition, from the tribalistic loyalty, from the narrow minded grudges.

It would break up the strange bedfellows who are only in the same party by historical coincidence. Why should those socialists on the left who want to support the trade unions have to share a party with New Labour? Why should socially progressive libertarians have to share a party with the bigotry and intolerance of old Tories? Why should any Lib Dem have to share a party with Nick Clegg? If people didn’t feel it necessary to opt for the main three (ultimately, the main two) parties to avoid wasting their vote, they might be able to vote more honestly. Allowing splits and factions to flourish into distinct parties gives voters a greater degree of choice in line with their outlook. For example, rather than just choosing the right wing party, you could have a choice of several different right wing parties and select the one you most identify with or have the most confidence in. It might no longer be an inescapable function of political campaigns that all the parties fight over a thin sliver of centrist middle ground.

Some of these parties, understanding their limited scope, would set up more like taskforces to respond to specific political conditions. For example, if we were experiencing a time of considerable economic turbulence and a man like Vince Cable really did feel that the best way to improve things was for him to put aside other differences and join forces with George Osborne for the good of the nation, that could happen. They could form the Deficit Reduction Party and see what the electorate felt about that.

There are two obvious objections: Firstly, that people who want to keep voting for the same party year on year would not be able to; and secondly that as parties disband and reform there would be core groups of people who stick together. Essentially, the two answer each other. There would be small cabals of politicians who, once their party had been disbanded, would remain together to form the next one, and people who were genuinely happy with their performance would vote for that new party. What the process of constant change would achieve, though, would be to shake off from the periferies of these clans all the people (politicians and supporters) who no longer shared their view, who weren’t happy, who could then go to form their own party and have it appear on a level footing with whatever new party their former colleagues had formed.

New parties entering the arena would be placed on a level playing field. Even parties made up of familiar faces would be unknown and untested to some degree. The idea of a ‘life-long Labour voter’ or a ‘life-long Conservative voter’ is ludicrous and can only exist in a world where parties to do not progress and voters’ views are not adequately represented. If we did away with the old giants, removing the default voting option, then in order to have a clue who to vote for, people would actually have to read manifestos and engage with policies.

Traditionalism, loyalty and branding produce nothing but stagnation in politics. Constant change keeps us on our toes. Constant change brings us progress.

All Women Shortlists

All Woman Shortlisting for a party’s selection of MP candidate is an often contentious point. The justification for it is that despite women making up roughly half the population of the country, they have never come anywhere near this proportion of seats in the House of Commons. A dearth of women is a problem for many reasons, chief among them that ‘women’s issues’ are given less attention than they deserve, that there is a lack of positive female role models demonstrating a woman’s capacity to exercise power and that, symbolically and literally, our political system is revealed to be dominated by, and managed in the interests of, men (and white men, at that). As important as it is to see the hugely discrepant male to female ratio rectified, AWS seem to be an imperfect, and potentially damaging, tool.

The most obvious reason to oppose them, and one which is sufficient for many to make up their minds on its strength alone, is that refusing to allow someone to run in an election on the grounds of gender or any similar characteristic is inherently at odds with the basic values of our democratic system. In fact, Labour’s use of all women shortlists was ruled illegal in 1996 under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, and remained so until the Labour government introduced the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002 to allow themselves to continue the practice.

There is also an argument that the women elected through these lists are not respected because they haven’t had to go though the same rigours as other MPs. The Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson made her opposition to all women shortlists unambiguous with a t-shirt bearing the legend “I am not a token woman”.

To some extent, though, it is for each party to decide how they select their candidates, and as the women selected through this process still have to go on to legitimately win an election, it could be argued that this does not constitute a serious democratic shortcoming. Aside from this, AWS are fundamentally at odds with another key ideology of our democracy; the idea of representation. The suggestion is that for women to be adequately represented in the House of Commons, the proportion of female MPs must be (or at least must approach) the proportion of women in society; approximately 50%. The first response to this is to recognise that women are not the only under represented minority group*. Other groups, who are also likely to be adversely affected by ignorantly made policy, might also be justified in demanding electoral manipulation to ensure representation. Why not all black or Asian shortlists? Why not all disabled shortlists? Why all openly gay shortlists? I’m not being facetious. Why not engineer things so that there are a few more working class MPs, or better still, benefits claimants? A number of MPs end up in prison, but why not engineer things so that some ex-convicts are elected; would their experiences not be useful in informed law making? Yesterday in Parliament Labour MP Paul Flynn suggested shortlists to get more people over 80 into the Commons. There is not one (acknowledged) transgender MP. Isn’t it time something was done about that? Shouldn’t a few more of our MPs be unemployed? (Ok, now I am being facetious)

Though it would be nice to see a more diverse Parliament, all women shortlists are built on the notion that in order for women’s interests to be protected, women must be represented by women. This is problematic for a representative democracy; ultimately, if you consent to be represented by someone else in a political system you must accept that they will not share all of your characteristics, up to and including gender. (Practically, if you are lucky enough to find a candidate whose political views are compatible with yours, other concerns become secondary). Furthermore, this debate focuses on the composition of the Commons as a whole, and somewhat neglects the role an MP has in representing their own constituency. Is my sister, whose MP is female, better represented, benefiting from a greater democratic empowerment, than my mother, whose MP is male? Am I served less well by my female MP than I would have been by a male one? It is worth remembering that the women of Mid Bedforshire are represented by Nadine Dorries, who, with her views on abortion, abstinence only sex education for girls and ‘just saying no’ to sexual abuse can be viewed as one of the most pressing threats to the dignity and sexual equality of women in the current Parliament. She doesn’t even support all women shortlists, so anti-feminist is she.

All of this is to say that, within the context of our democratic system, any attempt by the major political parties to influence that type of person who is elected is fundamentally undemocratic; all women shortlists are built on a rejection of the most basic concept of representation; and that women in power are no guarantee that women’s issues are being properly championed. The very idea of all women shortlists is fundamentally at odds with the internal logic of our political system.

It’s also worth looking at this in a wider context, though. All female shortlists are intended to address the recognised problem that our political system is dominated by men and maintains masculine, patriarchal privileges. With this in mind, it is seriously doubtful that this system can be a mechanism for protecting (or even understanding) women’s best interests. Put bluntly; if you do not believe that our democratic system is institutionally prejudiced in favour of men then there is no need for all female shortlists. If you do believe that our democratic system is institutionally prejudiced in favour of men then there is no reason to trust it as an agent of female empowerment. A policy handed down from above, by men, within a patriarchal system will not empower women; it is a gesture of condescension. Women cannot be given equal democratic power, as the very act of giving is an assertion of superiority. Fundamentally, our representative parliamentary democracy is a hierarchy of power and privilege which has consistently disenfranchised women. Genuine gender equality cannot be achieved with in it.

*It is worth pointing out that at half the population, women are not in any meaningful sense a numerical minority, but are referred to as one because they suffer the same effects of marginalisation, victimisation and ‘othering’ as is common for actual minorities.