mindhenge

An electorate learning to think

A ban on fox-hunting was one of those things that made New Labour seem alternative and enlightened when the party came to power in 1997. Like the much vaunted ethical foreign policy, it seemed to promise a step change in the political debate, challenging tradition and vested interest and putting moral considerations at the forefront of policy.

The government's enthusiasm for the ban, like its enthusiasm for an ethical foreign policy, did not last long. The prime minister began to see how much easier it was to cosy up to vested interest than to challenge it, and almost since the beginning he has been ducking and weaving on the fox-hunting issue, seeking political advantage at one moment with his own supporters and at another with the powerful countryside lobby. It is this vacillation, revealing a blatant political opportunism that was sustained right up to the dying moments of the parliamentary process, that destroyed the moral high ground that the anti-hunting movement had once enjoyed.  It turned a clear ethical principle into an exhibition of tawdry political horse trading.

The consequence is that the pro-hunting lobby have had remarkable success in turning progressive opinion, if not in their favour, then at least to the point of agnosticism on the issue. Tony Blair's lack of moral clarity has betrayed the cause, particularly when he claims moral clarity in support of a real war the justification for which is decidedly dodgy. Even without the prime minister's machinations the spectacle of a government and its parliamentary supporters seeking a ban on one particular method of slaughtering foxes while simultaneously engaging is a policy leading to the violent deaths of tens of thousands of people in Iraq was always going to be difficult to stomach.

The Iraq war has schooled people of all opinions in the difficult field of moral judgement. The questions of right and wrong that it raised were genuine and complicated, requiring people to think for themselves about the relative merits of the war, the chaos and the killing, on the one hand and the removal of the appalling regime  of Saddam Hussein on the other. Now people are applying these skills to the question of fox-hunting and finding it to be less clear cut than it first appeared. If the moral flounderings of New Labour have taught the electorate to think for itself then some good has come out of this sorry period. But it means trouble ahead for Mr Blair and his associates.

Not as obvious as it seems

It is curious how blanket news coverage accompanies fatal railway accidents but ignores far greater fatalities that occur on the roads. The accident on Saturday evening killed seven people; since then (this is Tuesday evening) an average of thirty people have been killed on the roads. Ten more will be killed tomorrow, and so on.

The remarkable safety of rail transport did not prevent the usual, knee-jerk reactions, including demands for all eight thousand level-crossings to be replaced with bridges or tunnels at a million pounds or so a throw. More moderate commentators requested only the elimination of level crossings on high speed lines. It was an "obviously sensible" view that appeared to be attracting general support.

This throws up a curious reflection. One important aspect of the accident was the small number of casualties relative to the scale of the impact. This was attributed (by an engineer contributing to a discussion on Radio 5) to the strength and solidity of the high speed trains themselves, which seems logical enough.

If that is so, however, then it follows that, if the driver of the car had stationed himself on a level crossing on a local line served by lightweight trains, the effect of the impact on the train and its passengers might well have been far worse. In other words, accidents on level crossings on local lines can have worse consequences that those on high speed lines because the trains that use then are inherently less robust. And if the accident is a freak of nature or human behaviour it is not less likely to happen in such a place. It happens where it happens.

Yet another case of the obvious being not quite what it seems.

A necessary outcome

From a European liberal point of view, the biggest disappointment of the Bush victory yesterday was having to pass up on the schadenfreude of watching the Republicans lose. That was quite a blow, but its effects were not long-lasting, for what is left is the reflection that it is better for the longer term cause of liberalism that the neo-conservatives should reap in their second term the whirlwind of their own policy failings during the first.

This is no mere post-rationalisation of a bad result. I pointed out some time ago (and I was not alone) that for Kerry to make it to the White House he would have to project himself as - at best - George W lite. Kerry was never the great liberal hope that some liked to imagine, but a Kerry presidency shackled by a Republican Congress and the sort of problems that the present administration would have bequeathed him was certain to be a profound disappointment to anybody interested in political reform.

Political movements need time if they are to destroy themselves effectively. It took eighteen years of Thatcherite and post-Thatcherite Conservative government to bring the British Tory party to its knees. In the U.S. the neo-cons have moved a lot quicker that Thatcher dared and consequently their trajectory may be even shorter. The war in Iraq is not helping them but the problem that will really bite is the failure of an economic recovery build on loose credit.

The problem with the twin U.S. deficits is not their size so much as the way in which the Bush administration has become dependent on them. The recovery is fuelled by consumer credit that sucks imports into the country and the budget deficit is inevitably increased by the extravagant costs of both a militarised foreign policy and politically motivated tax breaks. The good news for Kerry is that he doesn't have to try and solve this knotty problem. So Democrat hands will be clean when the brown stuff starts flying off the whirring blades.