Friday, February 10
Where the money is
UK
About half the year, I live in Rutland. This means that my MP is Alan Duncan, a liberal Tory and Cameron's leadership campaign manager. He's been put in the Shadow Cabinet as their man for Industry. I was rather expecting him to get a more high-profile job, actually, though I mused on the need to buy off all the faction leaders with big places. But, reflecting on it, I would not be at all surprised if Mr "I have a majority of 10,000 - I don't need your vote" Duncan would be very happy sitting in the Department for Trade and Industry in 2009. Here's why. The DTI is there partly to regulate industry. The DTI can make conditions favourable or unfavourable for business, and that can do a lot for the profits of said businesses. Mr Duncan, who used to work for some pretty big oil names, knows this (and Duncan wasn't landed with a safe constituency like Melton and Rutland for nothing). His policies are definitely corporation-friendly. If he gets into the DTI, certain large businesses (and certain smaller ones, too) will benefit massively. It is therefore in the interests of these corporations to spend a small fraction of these potential gains to support the Tories in general and Duncan in particular. It isn't bribery per se - it's just supporting candidates you think will be useful to you. Mr Duncan certainly won't be complaining - if he's lucky, he'll be able to hand large amounts of taxpayer's money to people he knows will cut him a percentage in donations.
The flaw is not merely that ministers can indirectly cream off a percentage of taxpayers money through donations, but that anyone who might run the DTI in the interests of the poor or the environment or just about anyone but the wealthiest doesn't get that sort of funding. Simply put, it creates a market for political power, where the price tag is way out of the league of normal people - a market exclusively for big business and millionaires. Whoever gets the biggest sponsors gets the best media and the most votes. How did New Labour win with such a landslide in 1997? Not just because of a charismatic leader or a crippled old Tory government, but also by a fundamental rejection of socialism and an embracing of corporate interests in exchange for a favourable media (compare Murdoch's Sun on Kinnock in 1992 and Blair in 1997). Before then, Labour was seen as anti-business. With Tony Blair, all that changed, and the rich flocked to back a winner - after all, it's no good if you have the support of a loser. And with a rigid party structure and elections keeping the big boys in control by institutionalised rounding error, more commonly known as FPTP, there is no accountability, no opposition to stand up for the rights of the non-CEO.
So why back a shadow minister? For a start, even if Cameron beats Brown come 2009, Duncan mightn't head the DTI. He might become a transport minister, or, well, pretty much anything. But what he will be doing, if he keeps his job for any length of time, is shaping Tory policy. He'll be meeting with business leaders (wine and good dinners, perhaps?), and he'll be effectively asking them what their specific needs are. By making pledges and defining the Conservative platform for the next election (particularly when Cameron is having a period of major redefinition of policy), Duncan may be having an effect on the policies of the DTI in 2010, and those policies may be going for a lot of money - or the promise of a safe job when Duncan retires from frontbench life.
Incidentally, does this or this look fake to anyone else?
UK
About half the year, I live in Rutland. This means that my MP is Alan Duncan, a liberal Tory and Cameron's leadership campaign manager. He's been put in the Shadow Cabinet as their man for Industry. I was rather expecting him to get a more high-profile job, actually, though I mused on the need to buy off all the faction leaders with big places. But, reflecting on it, I would not be at all surprised if Mr "I have a majority of 10,000 - I don't need your vote" Duncan would be very happy sitting in the Department for Trade and Industry in 2009. Here's why. The DTI is there partly to regulate industry. The DTI can make conditions favourable or unfavourable for business, and that can do a lot for the profits of said businesses. Mr Duncan, who used to work for some pretty big oil names, knows this (and Duncan wasn't landed with a safe constituency like Melton and Rutland for nothing). His policies are definitely corporation-friendly. If he gets into the DTI, certain large businesses (and certain smaller ones, too) will benefit massively. It is therefore in the interests of these corporations to spend a small fraction of these potential gains to support the Tories in general and Duncan in particular. It isn't bribery per se - it's just supporting candidates you think will be useful to you. Mr Duncan certainly won't be complaining - if he's lucky, he'll be able to hand large amounts of taxpayer's money to people he knows will cut him a percentage in donations.
The flaw is not merely that ministers can indirectly cream off a percentage of taxpayers money through donations, but that anyone who might run the DTI in the interests of the poor or the environment or just about anyone but the wealthiest doesn't get that sort of funding. Simply put, it creates a market for political power, where the price tag is way out of the league of normal people - a market exclusively for big business and millionaires. Whoever gets the biggest sponsors gets the best media and the most votes. How did New Labour win with such a landslide in 1997? Not just because of a charismatic leader or a crippled old Tory government, but also by a fundamental rejection of socialism and an embracing of corporate interests in exchange for a favourable media (compare Murdoch's Sun on Kinnock in 1992 and Blair in 1997). Before then, Labour was seen as anti-business. With Tony Blair, all that changed, and the rich flocked to back a winner - after all, it's no good if you have the support of a loser. And with a rigid party structure and elections keeping the big boys in control by institutionalised rounding error, more commonly known as FPTP, there is no accountability, no opposition to stand up for the rights of the non-CEO.
So why back a shadow minister? For a start, even if Cameron beats Brown come 2009, Duncan mightn't head the DTI. He might become a transport minister, or, well, pretty much anything. But what he will be doing, if he keeps his job for any length of time, is shaping Tory policy. He'll be meeting with business leaders (wine and good dinners, perhaps?), and he'll be effectively asking them what their specific needs are. By making pledges and defining the Conservative platform for the next election (particularly when Cameron is having a period of major redefinition of policy), Duncan may be having an effect on the policies of the DTI in 2010, and those policies may be going for a lot of money - or the promise of a safe job when Duncan retires from frontbench life.
Incidentally, does this or this look fake to anyone else?
# posted by Phugebrins @ 13:26 
