First is the obvious dysfunctionality of Braverman re: the rest of the Tories. As far as their press are concerned, there's still plenty to be scared about where Labour are concerned. Keir Starmer has gone out of his way to court the press, and they have been mostly nice in return. But there are things that scare them, such as the day one commitment to trade union rights, an apparently serious pledge to decarbonise the economy, and the fact they won't be able to lean on Labour ministers in the same way they can the Tories. If keeping Labour out is the aim, Braverman is a persistent pain. It's not just the incompetence, it's the politics. The power of anti-immigration politics is much weaker than it was during the Brexit referendum. Braverman can help consolidate what's left of the Tory base, but it's a barrier to wider support as the electorate becomes more increasingly socially liberal.
What's at stake is more serious than simply winning an election. Liz Truss recklessly destroyed the teetering reputation the Tories had on economic matters. This comes after Boris Johnson's behaviour threatened a crisis of legitimacy, which occasioned the turning of much of the Tory press. Braverman's security breaches threaten to make Sunak's the third government on the trot to stoke a major crisis of state. The problem is if the security apparatus and the police can't trust the Home Secretary with confidential matters, that's a major problem for a reliable elite prop for the Conservative Party. This creates problems from an operational point of view, and makes it much harder for the Tories to rebuild the alliance it needs at the state functionary level if it's to recover from the damage caused by Sunak's predecessors. It's doubtful many in the press have thought this through, but do they need to when their instincts and vibes nudge them in this direction?
And there's the power of the press itself. We've seen this recently expressed in the hack attack on the Tory party's very limited internal democracy. The papers are a waning force in the land, but are determined to keep hold of their chief-making and agenda-setting influence for as long as they can. Power without responsibility, as the famous media studies book put it. By kicking up a fuss about Braverman and delivering pain unto Sunak's government, they're attempting to reassert themselves. Johnson flattered the press when he wanted something, but otherwise ignored them. Truss refused to accede to their wisdom as well, and so Sunak's Braverman problem is the means by which he learns that he has to pay them heed. Or they will make his life difficult.
Given the pressure on Sunak, surely Braverman won't last much longer. Having dominated the agenda of the government's first few days, she has got to be on course for the shortest serving Home Secretary ever, regaining the record set by Grant Shapps's six day stint before he took it from her two short weeks ago. Something to put on the politics CV, I suppose. But for Sunak, there's a simple choice. He can cling on to her as she gets shredded by more scandal until she goes, or he caves to the press - but opens himself up for future pressure. It's not an enviable position to be in, but Sunak's poor judgement is responsible for landing his government in this mess.
Image Credit
Suella Braverman has been reappointed only in order to sack her again, as the break with the Right once and for all. The answer to its every economic policy proposal is already "Liz Truss", and the answer to its every other policy proposal will very soon be "Suella Braverman".
ReplyDeleteAfter Brexit, the Right has no issue that has mass appeal; indeed, even most Conservative voters find its core economic agenda as abhorrent as the City and the money markets do. Most Conservative voters also seriously regard voting any other way at a General Election, if ever, as a treasonable act, and in England as simply un-English. It's over.
Or, at any rate, it is on that side of the House. Labour opportunistically pretended to oppose the abolition of the 45p rate of income tax, the only mini-Budget measure than had not been in Truss's prospectus to her party's membership, but it supported everything else that even Jeremy Hunt, of all people, has felt the need to reverse.
Had the mini-Budget ever been put to a Commons Division, then Labour's whipped abstention would have saved Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng from Hunt, Rishi Sunak, and all the rest of them. Labour is going into the next General Election as the only party that still thought that Trussonomics was broadly, and often very specifically, a good idea.
Keir Starmer versus Truss could have resulted in a Labour overall majority, but Starmer versus Sunak will result in a hung Parliament. To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power.
Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.
I agree that the public is becoming more socially liberal - generally more tolerant. The triggers that the RW press have always used like immigrant bashing have less traction now. And surely people can see the difference in attitude towards white Ukrainians and brown asylum -seekers from further afield.
ReplyDeleteAnd just one point about the Braverman affair. It doesn't seem to be reported much that she lied in her resignation letter by saying that she has committed a "technical breach" by mistake. That lie is another breach of standards and reason she can't be trusted.
"What these newspaper owners are after is power, and power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages"
ReplyDeleteQuote from Stanley Baldwin in the Thirties. Apparently he got the line from his relative Rudyard Kipling.
We could do with a politician prepared to confront the media as robustly as Baldwin did in his day. Is Starmer up to it?
«"What these newspaper owners are after is power, and power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages"
ReplyDeleteQuote from Stanley Baldwin in the Thirties. Apparently he got the line from his relative Rudyard Kipling»
Good one. Rupert Murdoch's father was already "active" 80 years ago:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wDwcUJ7D7LUC&pg=PT135
«Wednesday, 10 December 1941
Arrived at WO to be informed that both the Prince of Wales and the Repulse had been sunk by the Japs! This on top of the tragedy of Honolulu puts us in a very serious position for the prosecution of the war. [...] Spent afternoon in office with series of visits. Starting with Sir Keith Murdoch who controls Australian group of newspapers. General Alan Brooke»
As to the son:
Anthony Hilton, Evening Standard
«I once asked Rupert Murdoch why he was so opposed to the European Union. 'That’s easy,' he replied. 'When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.”»
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/chilcot-inquiry-report-iraq-war-rupert-murdoch-connection-a7125786.html>
«Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail, summed it up in his evidence to the Leveson inquiry – “I’m not sure that the Blair government – or Tony Blair - would have been able to take the British people to war if it hadn’t been for the implacable support provided by the Murdoch papers. There’s no doubt that came from Mr Murdoch himself.”»
«We could do with a politician prepared to confront the media as robustly as Baldwin did in his day. Is Starmer up to it?»
ReplyDeletehttp://leveson.robertsharp.co.uk/I/chapter3/
«Mr Straw said: “...once Mr Blair had come into office in 1994, we all shared the same view, that if humanly possible, without completely compromising ourselves, we should do our best to get the papers on side. It was better than the alternative. This was because I’d been through 18 years of opposition.”
Ms Harman, questioned at the Inquiry, offered this perspective:
Q. “May I sort of turn that around and say, well, those manifesto commitments which we saw in 1992 were singularly absent in 1997, and there was a reason for their being absent, which was not to estrange or inflame or otherwise discourage the Murdoch press. Is there force in that observation?”
A. “Well, I think it goes back to what Tony Blair said in what became known as his 2007 “feral beast” speech, is that we, after all those years in opposition and believing that we wanted to get into government to do things on the health service and on unemployment and on whole range of things, that it felt necessary to do more assuaging, neutralising, courting, that was the decision that was taken, and that did feel like it was necessary.”»