Thursday 29 March 2012

Are we entering a 'post-spin' environment or is Mr. Cameron simply out-of-touch?

Since 1997, Britons have been living in a post truth environment. We have become accustomed to politicians no longer speaking frankly or honestly, instead, day in, day out, we see realities manipulated, utterances carefully constructed, and the desired political narratives created.

It is important to first note that all governments have told lies and massaged the truth, 
John Major's 1992 administration contained liars such as Neil Hamilton and Jonathan Aitkin, not to mention the worst of them all, the compulsive liar, Jeffrey Archer, who lied about practically anything and everything. Before that, Margaret Thatcher lied about the sinking of the Belgrano during the Falklands War as well as during the bungled Westland affair of 1986. And the lies of Ted Heath, the most useless of all modern prime ministers, seriously mislead Britain ahead of joining the EEC in 1973. 

However, under Mr. Blair, New Labour elevated spin, media management and 'being economical with the truth' to almost an art-form. Being able to untangle Labour's thick web of spin became a basic necessity if one wished to get anywhere near the truth of a story. 

Writing in The Times in 1987, Mr. Blair, showcasing his party's obsession with press bias, gave rise to the bizarre sort of moral logic that he and his party might have used to justify the unprecedented amount of lies they would go on to tell the public. "The truth becomes almost impossible to communicate because total frankness, relayed in the shorthand of the mass media becomes simply a weapon in the hands of opponents." 

Many, including myself, thought Mr. Blair's murky approach to 'the truth' would leave Downing St. along with him in 2007. Yet, the Brown years were spoiled by the type of damaging gimmicks, smears and spin that the public had grown suspicious, vigilant and guarded against after a decade of Mr. Blair. 

As George W. Bush said (or attempted to say once) 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me' 

















Ironically, it has been left to the self-confessed 'Heir to Blair', Mr. Cameron, to do away with Mr. Blair's murky approach to the truth. Albeit, by default. 

Since taking office, the coalition governments attempts at selling policy to the public have been most un-Blair like, and, at times, almost embarrassing. Given their reputation as PR-savvy operators, team Cameron's use of spin and sympathetic contacts in the press have been surprisingly lacking.

Policies such as the housing benefit cap, the NHS reforms, the cut in the top rate of income tax, as well the previous u-turns on the scrapping of free school milk, the privatisation of the UK's forests, the free books for kids scheme, and the cuts to child benefit are all questionable policies that have not been aided by their rather patchy presentation. 

Similarly, the government's bungling over the potential strikes by fuel drivers today has exposed a lack of forethought about the consequences of their statements. First, drivers were told to fill up their cars, next they were told to fill up and keep spare petrol in 'jerrycans' (which have rocketed in sales) and finally, after causing absolute chaos on petrol forecourts, the government said only drivers with less than a half full tank needed to fill up, 














Is this an indicator that the government simply doesn't care about 'spinning' policy or carefully  constructing their statements? Or is Mr. Cameron simply losing his grasp of what is likely to cause a political storm?
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As if it wasn't insult enough to the families of two dead British servicemen that their loved ones were sent to their deaths earlier this week for a futile and utterly pointless cause in Afghanistan, it now emerges that the British government couldn't even bring themselves to wait until the tributes to the brave men were paid before they announced their intention to set-up a British military training academy in Qarga, west of Kabul, next year - a camp where more British men and women will suffer the same fate as the two soldiers this week and be shot in the back by the very people they are training. 

Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond counters by saying attacks of these sorts are 'few and far between' - an insulting response, given that these attacks should not be happening at all. Data shows that 1 in 7 attacks on NATO forces are now carried out by these despicable traitors.

If this academy is to go ahead, and doubtless it will, at the cost of more lives and despite military redundancies for our own soldiers, then better background checks must be performed to ensure the Afghan soldiers that our troops share dorms and weapons with are not the enemy within.