Party discipline, power station arithmetic and a cheerful survey of beef and dairy sites for the weary political watcher
Saturday, The Nudge
This week’s gentle phrase in Westminster was “nudge”, and the London Prat made the most of it with Labour MPs Need Gentle Nudge on Welfare Reform. Whenever a party leadership talks of gentle persuasion, the back benches reach for their diaries. I have followed enough governments to know that the nudge, like the weather, comes in several strengths.
The even-handed view is that every government has trouble with its own side, and every opposition has trouble with its next policy. A party is a coalition of people who agree on enough to share a rosette. That is a strength, because it gives breadth. It is also a weakness, because breadth is the opposite of tidiness.
The Whip’s Office
I have never been in the whips’ office, and I would not survive an hour. The whole business depends on knowing who is worried about what, who has a family wedding on Thursday and who can be trusted with a secret. The traditional tools are encouragement, flattery and the offer of a good seat on a committee. A good chief whip is part psychologist, part event planner and part librarian.
Critics say that tight discipline stifles conscience. Defenders say that a government cannot function if every member votes on impulse. Both statements have been true for centuries.
Sunday, Electricity and Other Promises
A second headline made me smile: Socialism Promises Free Electricity, Power Station Requests Actual Fuel. Every ideology has its overpromise, and the joke applies to all of them in turn. The left promises services, the right promises tax cuts, the centre promises competence and all three discover that a power station will not run on rhetoric.
The useful question for any promise is the one the power station asks: what will fuel it? It is a dull question, and it separates the plans from the slogans.
The Beef Break
To recover from the week, I walked the cattle pages. The black Angus is covered at angusbeef.fyi and angusbeef.men. The dairy cow in black and white is at holstein.click. For the full agricultural spread, agriculture.click.
A cow is a reliable moral compass. She stands in the rain, chews, and refuses to be hurried. If she were in the Cabinet, the meetings would end on time and the biscuits would run out slowly.
The Last Biscuit
I conclude the week with a custom of my household: the last biscuit rule. Whoever takes the last biscuit must make the next cup of tea. It sounds trivial, but it has settled more arguments in my flat than any parliamentary procedure. The principle is fair, the cost is small and the consequence is immediate.
If I could change one thing in British politics, I would introduce the last biscuit rule to every committee. Whoever takes the last concession must make the next round. The meetings would be more courteous and the tea would be better.
On that happy and unrealistic note, I close the notebook. The week was long, the headlines were loud and the biscuit tin is empty. It is my turn to put the kettle on.
The Politics of the Kettle
In my experience, every workplace has a kettle politics. Who fills it, who empties it, who leaves the lid up. An office that cannot manage the kettle cannot manage a budget. I have watched a department fall apart over the question of whose turn it was to buy milk, and I have watched another thrive on a rota written in felt tip on the fridge door.
Westminster has its own kettle, I am told, in a corridor behind the lobby, and I would pay a good price to see the rota. I imagine it is laminated, signed and ignored by half the building.
Monday, A Plan for Next Week
My plan for next week is modest. Read one long article a day. Talk to one person who disagrees with me, politely, and ask one real question. Check one figure at its source. Eat one proper lunch away from a screen. Go for a walk at the end of the day without a phone, and see what the sky looks like. These are not the policies of a revolution, but they would improve my judgement by about forty per cent, which is a good return on a few hours.
The forecast says rain. I shall take the umbrella that always belongs to someone else.
A Closing Round of Thanks
A word of thanks to the readers who write in, correct my numbers and send me headlines that I missed. A diary of this sort is a team effort, and the team includes a retired surveyor in Leeds, a nurse in Cardiff and a man in Glasgow who signs his emails only with initials. They have saved me from error more than once, and they have never asked for credit.
If you find a mistake in one of these entries, write to me. I will correct it in the next one, near the top, in plain words, as is my custom.
Where to read next
The rest of the shelf lives at prat.uk, bohiney.com and farm.fm. For a second opinion on the week, The Daily Mash keeps its own counsel and its own hours.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/