Undermining Ed Miliband's authority

"I will not be able to support DRIP at third reading without a 6 month sunset" - Tom Watson threatens Ed Miliband with rebellion:  https://medium.com/@tom_watson/1707846770ee

Yet another prominent figure in the Labour Party undermining Ed Miliband's authority.

What is wrong with these people?

Have they convinced themselves they cannot win in 2015?

Not just the Arts Council

Item this morning on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 about Arts Council metropolitan bias. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9769000/9769751.stm

The Arts Council is a classic establishment institution.  Quintessentially New Establishment, it has over nearly seventy years become almost Old Establishment (its luminaries decked with so many gongs and titles they appear positively ruritanian when gathered together).  It's power is enormous, but because this is soft power (cultural, influential, almost indefinable) most politicians do not take it seriously and so it slips away from democratic control.

For most of its history this did not matter.  The Arts Council was run by elitists, and although they may not subsidise experimental rock, they would not subsidise a Lloyd-Webber musical either.  Like almost all establishment organisations appointments tended to be by "buggins turn" which was undemocratic, but also uncontroversial.

Things changed with the rise of New Labour.

Not just the Arts Council, but almost all establishment institutions were filled with socialist placemen and place women (the Law Society is an excellent case-study that demonstrates how this was done - someone needs to record what happened there while it is still fresh in the minds of Council members).

"Socialism?  Don't make me laugh" says Owen Jones about the New Labour period.  This illustrates how subtle and insidious the Blairite cultural revolution has been - even New Labour's supporters (and Owen Jones was a supporter let us not forget) did not recognise it.  And broadly the socialist apparatchiks are still in place, long after the demise of Blair.

What is to be done?

In more ways than one Gordon Brown has been the antidote to Tony Blair.

The Brownite recession and subsequent austerity has driven cuts in public spending that are having a disproportionate impact on arts organisations, not least the Arts Council.  It is not clear whether the government is targeting these cuts ideologically, but I sincerely hope they are.  Therefore I quietly cheered when I heard socialist impresario Danny Boyle on the PM programme on Radio 4 bemoaning "the cuts" - if I had my way I would cut public funding to everyone and everything even remotely connected to Danny Boyle so that he found himself in the midst of his own personal pandemonium.

Paul Ryan is the only candidate on offer, anywhere

In today's Guardian Martin Kettle writes about Paul Ryan in a major article.

Read the article:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/15/paul-ryan-mitt-romney?INTCMP=SRCH

Also see:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/16/paul-ryan-ayn-rand-admirer

Some lines from the Martin Kettle piece:

One out of four presidents has died in office.

...the focused, intelligent and powerful Ryan...

...reduction of income tax to two rates - 10% and 25%.

But I disagree with Martin Kettle that the American election will not have any influence elsewhere in the western world.

I have tried to visualise the electorate (both Britannia and Europa although it is probably the same for America) as a single person and attempt to surmise what that person might say.

The image that returns repeatedly to my mind is Catherine Zeta-Jones as Eustacia Vye on the summit of Egdon Heath crying out: 

“O deliver my heart from this fearful gloom and loneliness; send me a great love from somewhere, else I shall die, truly I shall die.”

The people want a strong and confident leader, and Paul Ryan is the only candidate on offer, anywhere. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyjKOSw_xe0

Ellie Goulding - Your Song

Out of all the music videos that I have watched during 2010, the most impressive for me has been Ben Coughlan and Max Knight's video of Ellie Goulding's Your Song.

The song itself deserve's praise. Ellie Goulding came from nowhere in 2010 and covered a legendary song by one of the United Kingdom's most famous artists. With only a piano accompaniment and her unique voice she took the song to No 2 (or No 1 depending on what measure you look at).

The video is deceptively simple. Ostensibly it shows Ellie Goulding returning by train to her home in Herefordshire. We see her wearing warm clothes, playing with kittens, walking in the Hereford countryside.

It is a distillation of innocence, purity and idealism - a representation of the soul of middle-England (as it sees itself).

No wonder John Lewis snapped it up for its Christmas ad campaign.

You can see the video here: http://www.promonews.tv/2010/11/18/ellie-goulding%E2%80%99s-your-song-by-ben-coughlanmax-knight/

The John Lewis ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpV-xagkTDU

http://elliegoulding.com/

Young Victoria

Above: Emily Blunt stars in the film which was co-produced by Martin Scorsese.

I have just seen The Young Victoria which opened in London on 6th March. The film stars Emily Blunt who, like Anna Neagle, combines gravity and beauty. Co-producer was Martin Scorsese (the production had an Age of Innocence lavishness).

I went to see the film because the visual impact had been highly-praised by the critics. I didn't expect much from the storyline, and half-expected to sit through gushing over-romantic set-piece scenarios and unrealistic dialogue. But actually it was a very intelligent artwork with several layers of meaning - historical narrative (accurate for once!); philosophical tract; allegory for our present time.

And I found myself wondering, from an anthropological perspective, why a work of such quality should appear at this moment in our culture. These things don't happen by accident - a culture will periodically throw up works of art that indicate change is on its way. Although a costume drama, The Young Victoria was more about the future than the past.

The Victorian era defines our society more than most people like to acknowledge. Implicitly we are either proto-Victorians or anti-Victorians, but whichever stance we consciously (or unconsciously) take, we relate ourselves to the Victorian period in terms of attitudes to work, attitudes to science, attitudes to religion, attitudes to family life, party political allegiance, political economy etc etc. Every so often "Victorian values" reassert themselves (and I would echo Jeremy Paxman in his series The Victorians when he analysed their values as "a hunger for the spiritual and romantic").

There have been so many signs that this reassertion is about to happen that I cannot be mistaken. If only I was more commerically adroit I could make some money from this prediction. Instead I offer the insight to you, whoever you are, as a gift.



Above: the Institute of Contemporary Art in The Mall.

The Young Victoria was reviewed on Newsnight Review last Friday. Ekow Eshun, artistic director of the ICA, slated the film. It was yet another example of how the ICA fails to engage with or interpret contemporary society and the art it produces.

I used to go to the ICA regularly, thinking it was "cutting edge" and innovative, and if I sometimes failed to understand what they were getting at I thought the fault was mine. Then I realised they had no idea about contemporary society, but I kept dropping in because it was funny to see how often they got things wrong. Now, as someone who depends upon the creative professions for a living, I am appalled at all the missed opportunities and wasted money.

More about the film: http://www.theyoungvictoria.co.uk/#/en/home/

More about the ICA: http://www.ica.org.uk/Homepage+1.twl

Ready to hear about austerity

Above: at last someone is talking sense.

The Prime Minister has told us all off for wasting food. It is a message that has captured the popular imagination (the newspapers are full of it, and in the G2 section of the Guardian today Laura Barton has written a guide to using up left-overs and not shopping in supermarkets). In the office this afternoon Judy was re-using tea-bags when making tea.

On one level Gordon Brown’s advice is clearly absurd. No-one in this country goes without food. Whatever the shortcomings of the welfare state it is not possible to starve in the United Kingdom (unless by choice, and even then an army of social workers, NHS nutritionists and assorted state “nannies” would probably nag you to death first).

On a deeper level I think people are ready to hear about austerity.

Speaking generally, during the boom years everyone has eaten too much, drunk too much, wasted too much. Bought far too many things we do not really need. Gone on too many excessive “trophy” holidays.

Above all borrowed too much (far, far too much).

Many individuals are now ready to cut down on waste (food, packaging, car journeys), take simple sensible exercise to get themselves fit, make a strenuous effort to clear their debts etc.

The trouble is that as a “lifestyle choice” this abstemious behaviour would open them up to ridicule or (even worse) imply that they were losers in the game of life.

By packaging austerity as a patriotic duty (perhaps with a goal of clearing the national debt within five years) political leaders can make the inevitable economic down-turn a desirable social experience (desirable because the inevitable will be seen as “fair”; and also desirable because the enforced social interaction will improve society).

I havn’t done a survey on the subject, but my guess is that even quite extreme measures would be accepted, possibly even welcomed (with grumbling) - petrol rationing, energy rationing, limited conscription to achieve social objectives.



Above: cast-iron version of a favourite Victorian “value”.

But as an economist friend told me: “We don’t have a production problem. The West could feed the whole world with very little effort. We only have distribution problems - social, geographical and political.”

If romanticism returns...

Another Wednesday and another lunchtime in the Conference Room watching Prime Minister’s Questions. “I don’t know why you bother” said Rachel, slurping her “lunch” of a vegetable smoothie (she claims solid food during the day makes her stomach bulge). I bother because I want to analyse style and image in modern politics, cross-referenced with wider cultural trends, and present to Terry (our MD) a novel strategic “idea” that will establish my reputation as a rising star in the agency (“some hope” I can hear several people saying).

Anyway, an outline of my jumbled thoughts:



When Gordon Brown leaves PMQs and is driven the short distance from Westminster back to Downing Street does he notice the statue of George Canning, on the corner of Whitehall? Canning was our shortest-serving Prime Minister, in office for only a few months. Canning’s statue should be a reminder to all Prime Ministers that they only have so much time to make their mark before, in one way or another, power is taken away from their hands.

Gordon Brown is a sincere, and so far as I can tell, good man (he supposedly shouts at colleagues, but perhaps they need shouting at). He is a serious thinker and writer. Above all, he is not Tony Blair (this asset cannot be over-estimated).

And yet, despite holding so many advantages, Gordon Brown is floundering. Nothing he does seems to capture the public imagination. Certainly nothing he does captures the public mood.

Which makes one ask: what is the public mood and how is it changing?



For the past two weeks The Jam Generation on Radio 4 has looked at the “new generation” of politicians - Nick Clegg, David Cameron and David Miliband. The programmes were interesting, but in linking the “80s generation” to The Jam (with their strand of sub-Clash agit-prop) I thought they were missing the point. The 1980s were, above all, the decade of suburban romance - not just “New Romantic” in the music sense (although that provided musical expression) but romantic in the serious (one could almost say German) sense of cultural romanticism.

In a romantic culture “feelings” become more important than “thoughts”.

Culturally are we in for another decade of romanticism (can we even see a presage of this in the contest of the “feeling” Obama against the “thinking” Hilary Clinton)?

Like Bhodi and Special Agent Utah standing on a wind-swept beach in the film Point Break (which was distributed in 1991, but is quintessentially an 80s film) one can sense the rising swell of “romance” that is going to rush towards the shore and drench everyone (possibly even wash people away). For if romanticism returns, everything (fashion, music, politics, architecture, advertising, “the way we live now” etc) will change. The rationality of today’s cultural leaders will have to give way to the emotion of new contenders (or alternatively the old leaders will have to learn more emotive ways of styling and expressing themselves).

And how should the PR trade in general, and the agency in particular, respond to this new cultural trend… (this is where I will have to work up some ideas).



Kim Blacha, who is an 80s enthusiast, lent me this book. I find it fascinating - in dozens of seemingly trivial anecdotes wider truths are revealed. Orwell wrote about the suburbs “sleeping the deep deep sleep of England” and how it is important to understand when suburban “culture” is going to assert itself.



Michael Bracewell’s The Conclave is the best novel about the 1980s I have read (I didn’t really understand the 80s until I read The Conclave, just as I never really understood the middle ages until I read Robert Fossier). The Conclave defines a certain kind of English life in the 1980s just as Bright Lights Big City defines the American 80s experience (and reflects the decade in the same way that The Great Gatsby delineated the 1920s). It is also wonderfully written (from a stylistic point of view) and deserves to be better known.

More on romanticism: http://www.philosopher.org.uk/rom.htm