The winter fuel payment debacle highlighted a number of negative aspects of Keir Starmer’s government, but one of them was particularly revealing.
Imagine a high level political conversation about the idea before it solidified into a debacle. On the left, we time the conversation in seconds.
0 seconds – How about restricting the winter fuel payment in some way?
5 seconds – Oh come on - you must be joking.
10 seconds – I must be - bad idea, let’s move on.
An entirely imaginary conversation of course, because we know it didn’t happen like that, but here’s the oddity – for most of us the conversation would have taken place along similar lines. Idea is raised, examined and rejected all within a very short time.
It’s a fairly basic skill – quickly evading bad ideas as they pop up, particularly really bad ideas. Far from perfect evasion as we know, because we are given many, many opportunities for adopting bad ideas, but it’s a necessary ability.
Starmer, Reeves and company don’t seem to be very good at evading bad ideas. It has taken months to accept that the winter fuel payment idea was one of those really bad ideas which should have vanished in about 10 seconds.
Almost as if our most senior politicians are where they are because they are receptive to bad ideas which others wish to try out. As if their ability to strut their stuff on the political stage is in part a reflection of their remarkably limited ability to spot how things work in real life.
0 seconds – How about restricting the winter fuel payment in some way?
5 seconds – Oh come on - you must be joking.
10 seconds – I must be - bad idea, let’s move on.
An entirely imaginary conversation of course, because we know it didn’t happen like that, but here’s the oddity – for most of us the conversation would have taken place along similar lines. Idea is raised, examined and rejected all within a very short time.
It’s a fairly basic skill – quickly evading bad ideas as they pop up, particularly really bad ideas. Far from perfect evasion as we know, because we are given many, many opportunities for adopting bad ideas, but it’s a necessary ability.
Starmer, Reeves and company don’t seem to be very good at evading bad ideas. It has taken months to accept that the winter fuel payment idea was one of those really bad ideas which should have vanished in about 10 seconds.
Almost as if our most senior politicians are where they are because they are receptive to bad ideas which others wish to try out. As if their ability to strut their stuff on the political stage is in part a reflection of their remarkably limited ability to spot how things work in real life.
Keir Starmer is probably a poor lawyer, Rachel Reeves a poor finance bod, but there is a way for their confident lack of ability to be temporarily useful for those who manage the political stage.
10 comments:
These days, you hardly ever hear about the old (usually conservative) view of politics that it is an art, a matter of painfully acquired intuition. The best politicians are those with a good innate understanding of human nature, long experience, and a nose for trouble.
such people undoubtedly still exist, but it's possible that they don't rise to national prominence because things are just too complicated. In addition to those qualities, you would also need technical knowledge about bond markets, legal systems, science, IT, and the like. There is also the point that zealous reforming governments will lack such talents, because they will favour fanatics who can screen out common sense.
Perhaps the best that can be expected is that we can have a government of experts in different fields, but led by someone who has that innate sagacity and circumspection. Rayner, Lammy, Cooper, Reeves, Mili, and co. don't have any expertise in anything whatsoever, and Starmer is utterly devoid of common sense.
I wouldn't be surprised if they actually thought it was a good idea, because they think that all pensioners are rich Tories
@Bucko
0 seconds – How about restricting the winter fuel payment in some way?
5 seconds – Does it advance class war?
10 seconds – Yes. Nobody who is important will object..
Sam - yes, one of our problems is a familiar one, people who have that innate sagacity and circumspection are not attracted to politics. We end up with the barely disguised snake pit we see all the time as voters keep voting for the brand and not the person. The snake pit isn't going to do anything about that and will undermine it wherever they see it.
Bucko - I bet there was some of that. They probably think voters who aren't rich probably vote Tory too.
Not a great deal different to how they recruit for clandestine agencies, common purpose, assassins and so on.
DJ - some would be that poisonous too.
James - good point, not recruited for voters.
Bucko’s probably right - and it can all be laid at the feet of pressure group ‘The Intergenerational Foundation’.
Back when the Conservatives were considering exactly the same policy - and dismissing it in much the way you describe - Torsten Bell’s Resolution Foundation, gave John McDonnell the figures claiming that the cut would lead to 3,850 extra deaths the following winter, a claim Labour brandished enthusiastically as more evidence of ‘evil Tories’.
That being so, it seems odd that Labour has made exactly the same cut while being oddly silent about the 3850 potential deaths. Bell can’t have got it wrong - he’s been promoted to far higher things within the government - so what changed?
IMHO, it was a new report from the Intergenerational Foundation claiming that 80% of pensioners on low incomes own their own homes - many thanks to right to buy (and probably vote Tory as a result); as far as Reeves et al are concerned, the ones on pension credit get the payment and if anyone else can’t pay the bills they can sell their homes - which helps counter the housing shortage - or freeze, which helps the environment, and if the result is fatal, they’ve only got themselves to blame (and there’s a net saving to the pensions budget and the NHS, and the loss of Tory voters, not to mention a nice little inheritance tax windfall to the Treasury).
Far from recognising it as a bad decision, I have a horrible feeling this government’s response was “What’s not to like?”
@DiscoveredJoys - Yep 👍
I wonder if Macheath's Jessica went into politics?
Macheath - although at least some of the internal justification was probably rooted in class war attitudes, to me it feels like a political bomb planted from outside. The gains were too minor and the political damage too great for it to have been analysed via capable political reasoning. The damage was easily foreseen and that alone makes it a bad decision, apart from the moral aspect.
Of course, the first bad decision was the original decision to introduce it, presumably as a result of very different internal justifications.
Tammly - sounds like a racing certainty.
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