Mad Politicians Disease
Followers of the parliamentary debate on BSE in cattle may well have wondered whether our legislators had themselves been eating too much diseased meat. Is there a danger of us all becoming infected with Mad Politicians Disease? Was it quite sane for the government to respond to the fears about infected cattle and the short-lived ban on imports by some European countries on such traditional lines? Is it certifiable to insist always that everything made in Britain, including agricultural produce, is the best—the purest, most beneficial, safest? Do rational people really believe that it is impossible for a Briton ever to do anything underhand, like knowingly selling stuff which is dangerous to human beings (there was some other explanation for the sudden doubling of BSE notifications when the government steeply increased the compensation)?
Agriculture Minister John Selwyn Gummer (the name was not thought up by Private Eye) was obviously suffering from something when he told the House of Commons that we have right and justice in the law on our side and in these circumstances other countries must obey EC law". Gummer had forgotten that the British government has had little hesitation in disobeying the law when it has suited its interests—for example it is about to be prosecuted by the EC over the sewage which garnishes many British beaches. Thatcher was clearly not completely well when she declared that "British beef is safe" and denounced the import bans for being inspired by commercial reasons and not by a concern for consumers' health. The Prime Minster had managed to blot out the fact that the whole thing began for "commercial reasons"—feeding herbivorous cattle on the remains of scrapie-infested sheep as a cheaper way of fattening them on their way to market.
A Christian humbug
Gummer's record as a defender of the profitability of British agriculture has at times been coloured with personal heroism. He it was who proclaimed, as the radioactive cloud from Chernobyl left its deadly dust on the sheep-rearing high lands of Wales and North West England, that there was no cause for alarm. To prove his confidence, he would that Sunday "enthusiastically' eat Welsh lamb for lunch. It is not known whether his enthusiasm holds out: four years later the animals are still so radioactive that their movements are restricted. Now he has other ways of showing his heroism, proving his disregard for personal danger by sinking his teeth, before the cameras, into a beefburger and then forcing his small daughter to bite the thing as well. We can only hope this innocent child will not fall prey to the ailment which so dramatically distorts the judgement and standards of people who get power over capitalism and who, confronted with the fact that everything is produced for "commercial reasons", will justify all sorts of risks being taken with our safety and our lives.
To put it bluntly, Gummer is what he looks and sounds—a Christian humbug. Along with his irritating claims to an immaculate moral rectitude he specialises in teeth-grating publicity stunts (perhaps influenced by his brother, who is chairman of a large public relations company). Yet he has shown that whatever principles he claims to have are flexible, for he switched effortlessly from being a passionate supporter of Edward Heath to a similarly intense devotee of Margaret Thatcher. One possibly embarrassing leftover from those far off days he could not so easily discard is his marriage to Heath's secretary, the morality and motivation of which is ponderable. Gummer's big chance came when Cecil Parkinson's behaviour towards the pregnant Sara Keays was not all that should be expected from a British gentleman; almost overnight Gummer found himself chairman of the Conservative Party. But his time at Tory headquarters was not notable for his unqualified success and popularity and his heady promotion was followed by a humbling exile to second-in-command at the Ministry of Agriculture. This allowed him to employ his boundless talent for hypocrisy in the defence of British farming, on the principle that capitalism's dominant morality is production for profit and not for human use and benefit. We can only hope Thatcher never puts him in charge of nuclear energy.
False tipsters
Apart from Gummer. one of the government's most pressing problems is the embarrassing exposure of its inability to control the British economy. For some reason there seems to be an unquestioning prejudice among workers that the Tories are always better at this than are the Labour Party. At one time this was expressed, to canvassers on the doorstep, in the phrase that the Labour Party "haven't got the money"—whatever that meant. A likelier basis now is that while Labour is the party of envy, hostile to profits and suspicious of business, the Tories are wise in the ways of the boardroom and the city and can therefore balance the Budget, hold prices stable, promote the competitiveness of British exports and so on. There was never any real evidence to support this view and the present situation, when things are quite plainly out of control, emphasises the fact. Like Nigel Lawson (whose "blip" in interest rates and rising prices has been swelling up now for something like two years) before him, the Chancellor of the Exchequer John Major can only promise that the official indices of success—lower interest rates, stable prices and so on—will begin to register in the near future.
However one thing which must be made clear is that the statistics which influence the calculations. promises and forecasts of ministers like Lawson and Major have a basis which is. to say the least, suspect. Labour's last Chancellor. Denis Healey, writes in his memoirs, The Time of My Life, some barbed criticism of the information supplied to him by the "experts' in the Treasury. For his first budget the official estimate of the crucial Public Sector Borrowing Requirement was too low by £4000 million. Two years later the estimate was £2000 million too high. In November 1976, when Healey was applying for help from the International Monetary Fund, the Treasury's estimate for PSBR turned out to be twice as high as it should have been: if it had been accurate, says Healey, he would not have needed to go to the IMF in the first place—a peevish memory, since a Chancellor who has to negotiate a loan from the IMF is not considered to be a successful manager of the finances of British capitalism.
Healey's reaction is to regard all economic prophets with a healthy scepticism: "None of the independent forecasting bodies had a better record" and, later, “Like long-term weather forecasts they are better than nothing". But is that good enough? All sorts of decisions are taken, and justified by governments on the basis of these kinds of forecasts—all sorts of verbal assaults are launched on the supposedly greedy and irresponsible workers, all sorts of cuts imposed in our living standards. At the time the forecasts are made we are encouraged to regard them with something like the reverence the awful John Gummer gives to Margaret Thatcher and the Bible. When it counts, none of the experts says anything like this: "Look, this is what we think the economic situation is and what it will be like in the future. It means you're going to have to tighten your belts again. But of course we've been wrong so many times in the past that what we're saying now isn't worth much. If we get it right we're in luck, you know, we can say we're in control of things. In any case, whether the figures say we're 'right' or 'wrong' makes no difference to anyone who has to work for a living".
Out of control
The fact that politicians and "experts" can't make capitalism do what they want means that the system can't be controlled or made to operate to the benefit of the majority. It would be in our interest to replace it with a society which we can democratically control. Meanwhile, being out of control is a feature of a lot of mental disorders—which brings us back to John Selwyn Gummer and the rest of our legislators and their present assurances that diseased food is good for us and that capitalism is good for us—even if it kills us in the process.
Ivan
No comments:
Post a Comment