Those who know me will be surprised to hear I’ve been reading a Policy Exchange report recently. PE, for those who don’t keep up with the ever-growing roster of UK think-tanks, is the leading centrist (read: sane) entity amongst the conservative ‘tanks. Unlike its crazier cousins, such as Civitas and Politeia, Policy Exchange serves as more than a mouthpiece for bored minor ex-ministers and a peddler of slightly silly state-the-obvious reports.¹ Despite the concerns of the Fourth International, PE is essentially a serious enterprise. And, determined to be taken as seriously as lefties such as IPPR, PE has taken the radical step of commissioning and publishing actual academic research by actual academics.

This report, into the history of Britain’s urban policy, makes depressing, if fascinating reading. Five or six decades of urban policy, it argues, have essentially failed. Attempts to encourage, or even compel, businesses to open new factories in depressed areas simply prevented investment and may have cost the country jobs overall. Despite the interference of more than 30 different government agencies in the last 20 years, Liverpool remains plagued by poverty and crime. And while they may enhance quality of life, it’s by no means clear that cultural institutions - the current regeneration fad - bring meaningful long-term economic benefits.

Ultimately, the report argues, to try to artificially kickstart the economies of Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds and other depressed northern towns is to miss the point. The cities are poor for a serious economic reason. Not just the collapse of manufacturing, which could theoretically be replaced by other industries. Quite simply, they’re in the wrong place. Northern towns developed in most cases because of their access to the sea, through harbours, rivers and canals, which made them ideally placed for international trade when most goods were carried by sea. Now that goods are increasingly carried by road, and trade is more than ever with continental Europe, it’s the South that reaps the benefits. While the Northern cities languish, one of the fastest growing towns in the UK is Milton Keynes, the former laughing stock now invaluable for distribution owing to its central location and hub-like place in the road network.

The implication of this - and the failure of government policy to transform Northern cities in a lasting way - is a radical and scary one: that any attempt to rescue Northern towns as serious cities should be abandoned. Depopulation and migration to the South should be accepted as inevitable. Rather than spending billions trying to make these economies viable sources of employment for hundreds of thousands, we should let them shrink to a more sustainable size. Once, it made sense for cities like York and Durham to be the largest in the country; no-one tried desperately to sustain their importance as the industrial giants developed. Markets made these cities large, the report seems to suggest, and markets must be allowed to shrink them again.

The government rejects the report’s findings, of course. But assuming the report - prepared by an economic historian at LSE as well as Policy Exchange’s staff - are correct, the ramifications of this are faintly frightening. The South can barely squeeze in enough houses as it is, especially in the face of local opposition. And the tasks of managing such population decline would be hugely difficult, with badly underpopulated built-up areas having to be cleared and demolished to prevent them becoming hotbeds of crime. But the vision of a topsy-turvy UK, with the South an extended mega-conurbation of London and the North a largely reclaimed rural zone, is a fascinating one.

It may also be something to consider for other countries. Detroit has struggled to cling onto its population in the face of the collapse of its manufacturing industry; its current population of just over 900,000 is around half that of the city in 1940, when it was known as the “Arsenal of Democracy.” But perhaps it has to get much smaller before its population meets equilibrium with the jobs realistically available. And what about New Orleans? As the city rushed to rebuild in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, few stopped to ask if a city in the path of regular hurricanes might be better off abandoned.

As people become ever more mobile, it’s possible cities might grow and shrink in response to economic trends faster than ever before. This could mean a revolution in building, with cheap temporary buildings replacing grand civic projects. The implications of this for the quality of the built are environment are, obviously, pretty unpleasant. But it might be better than the alternative: the endless, desperate struggle to artificially inflate economies; the vast swathes of leftover and abandoned buildings, built to last generations but no longer needed.

Even if we were prepared to face the turmoil of essentially abandoning the idea of the Northern city, it’s hard to see the idea gaining political traction under Labour, with its dependence on Northern votes. And the Conservatives, too, couldn’t afford the fury massive influxes of Northern migrants would create in the South. But political opposition might not make any difference. Just as government intervention has failed to stem the economic decline of Northern cities, nor can it stem their depopulation. Manchester and Liverpool have both lost almost half their populations since 1930. Whatever the government thinks, it seems the fifty-year battle to rescue the economies of the North may have been lost.

2 comments | RSS Feed for comments on this post

Email post to friend | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Share on Facebook

While the critical acclaim for PT Anderson’s There Will Be Blood may focus on Daniel Day-Lewis’ studiedly epic performance as oiligarch Daniel Plainview, or Johnny Greenwood’s remarkable, discomfiting soundtrack, much of the film’s cultural resonance may lie in its timely reminder for modern audiences, particularly outside the US, of the harsh nature of frontier life in the early American South and West - and its echoes in modern American politics. At the beginning of the film - loosely based on Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil! - Plainview is a desperate, determined loner, literally scratching for silver at the bottom of a hand-dug mine in the Californian desert. With his discovery of oil, Plainview quickly develops a thriving business and a reputation as a giant of his field.

Not a word is spoken in the film until oil is discovered; immediately afterwards, we jump forward several years to hear Plainview, now a successful oil merchant, addressing a meeting of villagers as he makes his case why they should grant him the license to drill their recently-discovered bounty. Contrasting his own background as a genuine “oil man” to speculators seeking to work as middle-men, he extols the values of the small, closely-run business:

I do my own drilling and the men that work for me, work for me and they are men I know. I make it my business to be there and see to their work. I don’t lose my tools in the hole and spend months fishing for them; I don’t botch the cementing off and let water in the hole and ruin the whole lease. I’m a family man- I run a family business. This is my son and my partner, H.W. Plainview.

As I heard this speech I found it naggingly familiar, but couldn’t place it. Then I remembered: this style - this combination of simple language with small-town values - is the language of the modern American conservative movement, and the language of President George W. Bush. The emphasis on hard work over big ideas; the use of “family” as a catch-all codeword for wholesomeness and authenticity; the contrasting of narrow competence against untrustworthy intelligence, are all hallmarks of Bush’s often mangled, but highly effective speaking style. And, like modern conservatism, Plainview’s vision of honest business needs a bogey man to appear really attractive. It’s not enough for Plainview to claim to be honest; he must be more honest, more simple, more genuine, than the ill-defined other.

Out of all men that beg for a chance to drill your lots, maybe one in twenty will be oilmen; the rest will be speculators-men trying to get between you and the oilmen-to get some of the money that ought by rights come to you. Even if you find one that has money, and means to drill, he’ll maybe known nothing about drilling and he’ll have to hire out the job on contract, and then you’re depending on a contractor that’s trying to rush the job through so he can get another contract just as quick as he can. That is the way this works.

This almost-victim mentality is vital to the conservative movement of the last 30 years. Those opposed to it are always out-of-touch moneymen, suspicious characters from immoral cities, brains with no heart. It’s a world-view with a constant undercurrent of mistrust and fear. Most people who will say they want to help you good, ordinary people, Plainview is saying, are dishonest. Corrupt. Only a few good, simple men will listen to you. Only a few share your values. And I am one of them. It’s an echo of Ronald Reagan’s quip that “government is not the answer to the problem, it is the problem”; to Karl Rove’s carefully-constructed coalition of “values voters”. Bush’s down-home simplicity -his astonishing promise on 9/11 to “catch them folks that did this” - stands in marked contrast to the slick ways and fancy words of the untrustworthy Washington elite.

The point, of course, is that Plainview’s vision is a lie. The speech, the first words we hear him utter, is a carefully prepared set-piece speech masquerading as stumbling, homespun wisdom. Far from knowing and valuing his workmen, he works them in 12-hour shifts with minimal supervision, leading to tragic, avoidable accidents. Even his status as a family man, vital to his appeal, is a lie: H.W. is really the son of one of Plainview’s workmen, killed in an accident at work. Plainview keeps him around at least in part to shore up his public face as a committed family man, rather than a driven loner, and by the end of the film their relationship has totally broken down.

As the film progresses, the lies accrue. Tipped off to the presence of oil in the town of Little Boston, Plainview goes to great lengths to hide it from the locals in the hope of buying their arid land at knock-down prices. When word gets out, he promises the earth to the villagers - irrigation, roads, funding for their church - with no intention of paying them their fair share. And his simple frontiersman persona disappears as he builds himself a gothic mansion with his new fortune.

If you’ve been paying any attention for the last eight years, you’ll be getting the similarities. Bush’s family-man values are designed to mask a youth of drug-taking, alcoholism and womanising. For all his trumpeting of simple frontier values, he’s a child of incredible privilege. The child of a president, he campaigned in 2000, astonishingly, as a Washington outsider. A man who grew up in immense wealth, who was helped to power by the nation’s richest people and has executed that power frequently for their benefit, built his electoral appeal by endlessly evoking the image of the dirt-poor, simple frontiersman.

It’s often pointed out that it’s hard for us, in the static, ancient states of Europe, to identify with the American cult of the frontier: its rugged individualism, its disdain for intellectuals, its hostility towards government. But There Will Be Blood serves as a valuable reminder that those standing up and eulogising the simple frontier life have usually been selling something in a bid to escape it. Bush’s simple-family-guy persona has its real roots not in the genuine rhythms and manners of life in the American South and West, but in the carefully constructed performance of the oil salesman. Like Plainview, Bush is an oil man through and through; and, like Plainview, he doesn’t let the truth get in the way of a sale.

No comments | RSS Feed for comments on this post

Email post to friend | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Share on Facebook

on the whole, as the first year of the new tuition-fee regime draws to a close, not much has gone wrong. Applications have continued to rise. Fears that universities with large numbers of places to fill would slash their prices have proved to be unfounded. And thousands more students now have financial help. Kirsty Jones, from the finance directorate of Sheffield Hallam University, says: “Overall we feel that this year has gone well.”

Much of this stems from the 6% increase in UCAS applications last year. The chief argument of critics - that the reforms, which introduced much higher fees in exchange for the reintroduction of maintenance grants for the poorest students - would put poor students off University by threatening them with massive debt.

I’ll admit I was surprised by the rise in applications. But of course, a rise in applications alone tells us little. Was the cohort of people of UCAS application age larger this year? And, crucially, how has the socioeconomic background of applicants shifted, if at all? It’s no secret that A-level grades are improving, that the ranks of people with the qualifications for University is increasing; an increase in applications overall doesn’t mean those from poorer backgrounds are any more likely to apply. And, of course, we’ll have to wait several years before we see the effects of the increased debt burden as this generation of students enters the workplace with over one year’s salary’s worth of debt.

But all this ignores the central objection to the Government’s new model: that, like the previous model with reduced fees, it simply doesn’t supply students with enough money. My year at University (1999-2002) was one of the first under the initial reforms, and there was an Alice in Wonderland quality to the mathematics under which our living budgets were decided. A student from the poorest background, whose parents were expected to make no contribution to their education costs, would pay no fees and be able to receive £3,600 a year towards their living costs. I recall sitting down at some point in my first year - probably around the same time my cashcard first got declined - and working out my situation. Halls rent, including some meals, was £2450 a year. That left £1150, or £32 for each of the 35 termtime weeks, spending money. This is at a time when friends at home who hadn’t stayed at University were earning £150 temping - and recieving a similar level of feeding from their parents as I was getting in halls. In the second year, things were even worse - because it was paid over the full 52 weeks, rent at £45 a week came to £2340 - almost as much as halls. Now, I had £36 a week - and I had to eat, too. To eat, travel, pay bills, buy books, clothes, phone home, and - naughty! - perhaps actually go out every now and then. A ticket home for the weekend could leave me unable to eat for the next week.

How did anyone in the Government ever think this was workable? Universities desperately tried to discourage us from getting part-time jobs, while banks and credit card companies swooped in to fill the gap - in addition to, in several friend’s cases, hardship loans. Is it really a coincidence that, a few years on, we’re seeing record number of redundancies from credit card debt? Of course, we were all supported by our parents, too - even those whose parents the Government had decreed not required to contribute to our living costs, often because they were paying our fees. And if you could get to the front of the mile-long queue at the temp agency, you might just manage to get a holiday job. Still, the gap between the money available and the real costs of living - to even a pale impersonation of the lifestlye of our working friends - seems so stupidly large, it’s astonishing this arrangement was ever implemented. And what’s so astonishing - what made me really angry - was that this penury stemmed from the tight upper limits on our loans. We weren’t saying the Government had to give us money. We accepted we were going to borrow. Why limit the interest-free borrowing to such ludicrously low levels, and effectively force us into the hands of commercial lenders?

So with the Government bleating proudly at the bursaries and grants built into its new system, I naturally wanted to look at the actual numbers. Fortunately, the NUS - who we demonised in my day for their cosying up to the Government over funding reform - have done the number-crunching for me.

Let’s accept the default figures, which seem reasonable in their estimate of student spending. As much as horrified ministers like to pretend otherwise, the truth is that students do wear clothes, and use mobile phones, and get trains to visit each other in their parent’s houses in the holidays. Accept the default numbers, click the little ‘OK’ at the bottom, and you get the result: a £725 surplus! Great! Off to Spain for the holidays!

Now look back at those income numbers. £3000 to cover fees, good. £3205 loan to cover living costs, OK. Family contribution or grant, £2700, fine*. Bursary, £300, yep - that’s the statutory minimum for Universities to provide to students recieving full maintenance grants. But what’s this? Part-time / vacation work, £2500.

Hmm. Let’s see. There are, at most Universities, 17 non-term weeks in the year: 4 at Christmas, 4 at Easter, and 11 in Summer. It’s hard to obtain temp work at Christmas, although those with longstanding arrangements with supermarkets or shops might have a better chance. And of course, it’s assumed you’ll be working heavily on revision and essays. Let’s say you manage to get two weeks’ full-time work (37.5 hours a week) at Christmas, and three weeks’ at Easter. And let’s be really optimistic, and assume you get to work 10 of your 11 summer weeks. No lazy summer afternoons in the park for you, youngster. And let’s - realistically - assume you do all of this at the minimum wage, currently £4.45 an hour for 18-21 yr-olds. 4.45 x 37.5 x 15 = £2503.

My God! It actually works. If everything goes to plan - your parents pay up, you get work, the loans, grant and bursary all come through on time, and you stick to reasonable spending limits, you can get by without accruing a huge overdraft or working part-time in term-time. And if your University is one of those that provides more than the minimum bursary, you could work less.

This doesn’t invalidate some of the wider criticisms of the system: the deterrent effect of heavy debts, which we still aren’t sure about; the risk of serious problems if one of the above factors, notable parental contribution, falls through. Still, I’ll stand up and admit it: I was wrong to argue that the latest reforms would make a bad situation worse. While the debt burden is worse now, the ludicrous penury of student life in the early noughties - and the bank and credit card debt that too often went along with it - should be heavily reduced. I’d still rather see education funded through progressive taxation, or failing that, a graduate tax. And I’m certainly still horrified to hear elite Universities lobbying for the removal or raising of the fee cap, and right-wingers for the end of interest-free loans. But I will admit that this time, it appears, the Government’s sums do add up.

No comments | RSS Feed for comments on this post

Email post to friend | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Share on Facebook

I got a posh new phone last week. It plays music, it does email, and it takes pictures, just like iPhone. But because it can play software made by other companies, it can do lots more besides, like play recorded TV or tell me where the traffic jams are. It can even tell me all 99 names of Allah!

Apple’s iPhone won’t do any of this, because it only runs the software Apple provides for it. Unlike other phones, it’ll only work on one network. And it looks like it’s going to be extremely expensive. And yet, it’ll fly off the shelves. After all, look at the iPod. It can’t play songs downloaded from some of the most popular music stores, only from Apple’s, and it costs far more than many rivals. But still, a whopping 70% of the mp3 players sold worldwide are iPods. Why? Because it’s so easy to use, your granny would love one.

Business is supposed to be all about choice. More ranges. More options. And the Government has got in on the act, saying that letting us choose our hospital will help fix the NHS.

But choice just makes things complicated. Apple’s products are easy to use precisely because they don’t give you a choice of software, or music store. It all works together because it’s all made by one company. Just ask Apple’s arch-rival Microsoft – after spending years making software that works with the biggest range of mp3 players possible, now they’ve given up and made a device of their own.

The more choice you have, the more confusing life becomes. Remember when, to call directory enquiries, you just picked up the phone and dialled? Now, you have to choose from hundreds of competing services, each with different charges and gimmicks. Now, fewer people use directory enquiries than ever before.

So, before the government thrusts any more “choice” down our throats, they should take a lesson from Apple. Make it simple, make it a pleasure to use, and we don’t give a damn about choice. If it works for phones, why not for the NHS?

No comments | RSS Feed for comments on this post

Email post to friend | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Share on Facebook

“Patrick roars to nomination,” screamed the Boston Globe. And roar he did, securing 50% of the votes cast in the three-way contest for Democratic Party candidate for Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is not some masonic colonial-reenactment society. It is simply the state. More than probably any other state in the union, Massachusetts clings to the trappings and pomp of European society, even as it celebrates its own revolutionary heritage). Of course, for the army of supporters who spent Tuesday, September 19 waving signs, knocking on doors, and making endless, endless phone calls, it felt less like a roar and more of a slow, difficult whimper. But now that the hard work was done - at least for now - there was time to relax and celebrate.

When I arrived at the party, my first priority was to find out whether we’d actually won. “It’s looking good,” replied the guest who I grabbed at random to quiz. “We’re well ahead. Reilly’s already conceded.” Well, that’s a relief, is not a shock - we went into the day with a 21% lead in the polls, so it would have been worrying to be unsure at this point. Reassured, I could focus on actually getting in. The Boston Fairmont, Copley Square is a forbidding beast - all chandeliers and colonial splendor - and I’ve got into the foyer OK, but judging by the passes hanging around people’s neck, I’m going to have to announce myself to get into the party proper.

I see a familiar face. Not the kind of familiar where you know the name, but familiar nonetheless. I ask her and she explains: I need to go downstairs and get a pass. And what do I need for a pass? Some sort of evidence? My name on a list? “Your name on a list.” Hmm. Given that my campaign manager and his assistant have vanished, I’m not particularly hopeful I’m going to be down. I have visions of creeping home, my hard work unthanked. I trudge downstairs.

There’s a queue, a big one. I join, and the lady next to me strikes up conversation. “I don’t like this,” she exclaims portentously. “This is going to take some time. It’s half past nine. Patrick might make his speech soon.” This will prove to be wildly, pointlessly overoptimistic. After a few minutes of silence, we lapse into stilted chatter (one of the advantages of being British in America is that it always gives people a good question to ask to start a conversation with you). It turns out my colleague is Polish: despite being in America over a decade, she still speaks with an accent, and carries and the tentative air that often surrounds expatriates when amongst their adopted population. So we have a shared sense of alienness. The queue moves quickly, and it’s not long before we’re at the front. “All members of the finance team, please join the left hand queue,” a suited voice says. “Everyone else, join the right hand queue.” One guess which was moving faster. It’s hard not to feel the carefully-constructed democratic camaraderie of the campaign - with volunteers, staffers, and voters all part of some spontaneous wave of enthusiasm - could fall apart if this isn’t handled right.

The actual room where they’re handing out the passes is a genuine frenzy of activity. It dawns on me just how many people will actually show up at this party - how many have been involved in the campaign, the volunteers, fundraisers, donors, organisers, every sod who ever gave an hour. As we approach the desk I’m getting nervous. Then I see Sam, the campaign volunteer co-ordinator, my boss for the Patrick parts of my campaign work. Surely she won’t let me be turned away? Mercifully, no. But I’m clearly not on the list either, as she bounds over and thrusts a pass in my hand, with a vaguely here-now-piss-off air about her. I thank her, but I can’t go, as I need to wait for my Polish colleague. As I wait around by the queue, I see a huge, squat, stern-faced staffer from HQ I recognise. He’s been drafted in to bouncer duty. Fortunately he doesn’t mind me waiting. Sam appears, looking even more stressed. “You OK?” I ask. “Calm? Well done!” She seems placated. Americans don’t always give themselves a break. But then, who does?

My colleague comes out distressed. “My name isn’t down,” she explains. “It’s my fault, I only decided to come at the last minute. I’ll have to wait.” I contemplate waiting with her for, ooh, five seconds, but her fear of missing the speech has infected me. I tell her to come find me upstairs. I don’t see her again.

Pass around neck, but still feeling vaguely like an interloper, I make my way to a grand room with white silk drapes and a ridiculous shell-shaped podium. I’ve seen pictures of Patrick addressing fundraisers from that podium, but this seems too small for tonight’s speech. I grab a drink - they are, mercifully, free (later that week, the papers will note that drinks at Chris Gabrieli’s party weren’t). I find the lady I noticed when I arrived, but she’s looking around for a friend, so I mooch. I see no other volunteers - this appears to be largely a party of staffers and donors, like many others. I notice other people apparently alone, and vaguely wonder if, in a spirit of grassroots solidarity, I should approach somebody. But I don’t. Fortunately, I then see someone who was at my HQ that day, a nice fortysomething man with a gentle, moustached face and sparkling eyes. He’d once run for office himself, in his native New Hampshire. He told me Gabrieli was about to start his concession speech, and we jostle for position at the nearest TV.

See the speech

It’s a remarkably jovial speech, with Gabrieli seeming genuinely chirpy despite sinking over $10 million to achieve a close second place - close, that is, to third-placed Tom Reilly. The opening salvo sets the scene. “I did not take out the trash tonight,” he declares. It’s a reference to an ill-advised claim he recently made that, as an “ordinary guy,” he does carry out such basic household chores, only to find the Boston Herald splashing pictures of his staff doing it for him. It’s an attempt at self-deprecation that falls a little flat. The volunteer I’m with pulls a face.

Gabrieli’s made it a theme of his campaign that the contest was about ideas and not parties, but now seems to have willingly taken on the role of dedicated party man, praising Patrick and slamming the Republican candidate, Lt. Governor Kerry Healey. It’s a long speech, and a little disordered, but its upbeat tone is nice. This is a primary, after all, and we’re all on the same side now.

Before Gabrieli even finishes, there’s announcement asking people to make their way to the ballroom where Patrick will make his address. Balconies have been made available to accommodate everyone, apparently. We make our way round, as Gabrieli continues what my friend labels “the longest concession speech in history.” The room clears quickly, and there’s a steady flow of people round - through a spare room filled with people on mobile phones, and past a bar - to the balconies. Only then do we realise - there are a lot of people here. Below us, a sea of suits, signs and bodies lines the ballroom floor. Ahead, the assembled staff of the campaign are on stage. And on the balconies, there’s a crush for the decent views. I jostle for a while, but it’s clear there’s going to be a crowd a few people deep at the front of the balcony.

I join the flow of people trying their luck downstairs. It’s a scrum. At the bottom of the stairs, a curtained-off area is filled with journalists - TV cameras at the front, lighting and technical staff behind. Laptops blink news sites, and monitors carry multiple news channels. There’s an air of messy anticipation, like at a concert when the support band come off - there’s nothing to do but wait, but you know it’ll probably be longer than you think. Through the curtains, the main ballroom floor is packed. Going in there seems to offer even less chance of a decent view than staying on the balcony. So I join a small group huddled on the bottom of the stairs, peeking through the gap in the curtain.

And we wait. It’s around 10.10pm when we start to wait. At one point the rumour goes round that we’re waiting for the eleven o’clock news - I think there’s no way we’ll wait that long. The crowd gets too big to see through the crack, and in a moment of common sense of the sort you’d never expect to see at an event this large, a section of curtain is removed so we can see better. I vaguely ponder whether that would happen in England. Nevertheless, as people come and go, I’m jostled about, and my view of podium is periodically obscured by the hips of a TV cameraman leaning against his equipment on the platform ahead. Down in the bustle of the ballroom floor, I see the state Senator I’m officially in Boston to help, and I wave. He waves, and for a second I start to move down through the crowd. Then I realise he was waving at someone else. Strange how, wherever you are in the world, when that happens you always feel the whole room is watching you.

At one point, the HQ staffer I know playing bouncer comes by. “You can’t stand here,” he announces. “Either go upstairs or downstairs. You can’t stay here.” This was probably inevitable, but did they really have to wait this long to do it? Now we’re all settled and upstairs is even busier. I head tentatively upstairs, and try to push for space where there’s a view. Barging in doesn’t seem particularly in the spirit of grassroots solidarity, but I didn’t get up at 7am to watch the speech on a bloody screen (it was bad enough doing that for the debate). So I jostle, to very little effect. I decide to wait it out and go and look at the bar, hoping it’s free in here too. Good lord no. $4.75 for a coke. Sheesh.

People are getting impatient. The poor campaign management have been standing on stage for 45 minutes. To quell their boredom and ours, they decide to show their appreciation for our efforts by chanting “thank you” for a while and pointing at us, arms swinging back and forth over their shoulders in time with the chant. It’s a nice gesture, which we don’t really seem to register - as the chant loses energy, when polite applause would be the ideal way to bring it to a dignified close, none comes, and it sort of shudders to a halt. Then a few minutes later, there’s a hubbub. Is Deval coming? No, it’s a large black man in a white suit, come to sing The Star Spangled Banner in a horrible, overwrought style. As he sings, I watch the people - a few with hand on hearts, most singing, a surprising number not singing. I realise this is the first time I’ve ever heard Americans singing their anthem in real life, and there are about two thousand of them. For some reason I’m totally unmoved.

I notice that people are disregarding the instructions and still standing on the bottom of the stairs. I join the rebels. Standing in front of me are two good-looking thirtysomething men. One’s black, with a serious look; the other’s white, with an Abercrombie chin and a playful glint in his eyes. They’re talking, and appear to be friends. Then, very gently, the black one caresses the other’s arse, and his hand settles around his waist. For some reason, I find this, not heartwarming, but vaguely irritating. Later, he nibbles his partner’s ear.

11pm comes and goes. People are getting twitchy - the last tubes go at 12.30. The only thing left we could possibly be waiting for is Tim Murray, Lt. Governor-candidate-elect, to arrive to join Deval.

Finally, at around 11.15, there’s movement on stage. Is that Deval? No, it’s - what the? - it’s Chris Gabrieli. What’s hedoing here? Does he have a bomb? Why is no-one else surprised? Suddenly I realise - this is another reminder of the essential wierdness of internal party politics - all the trappings of a full election, but it’s a Democratic internal affair. Gabrieli is here invited. People are even cheering. God, is he going to make another speech? Thankfully, no. In the least boring remark I’ve ever heard him make, he utters five sweet words, music to the ears of a sore-footed, impatient crowd: “Ladies and Gentlemen, Deval Patrick.”*

See Deval Patrick’s speech | Read a transcript

Patrick has a tightrope to walk. The room is filled with supporters who’ve given time, money and sweat to make tonight happen. Some have been working, for nothing, on this in all their spare time for over a year. They’ve earned praise and gratitude, and they expect it. But this is a televised speech, and as well as marking the end of one campaign, it marks the start of another, far more important one. So he’s got to reach out. “From the very beginning,” he begins, in his slow, sing-song style, “I’ve asked you to see this not as my campaign, but as yours.” The crowd goes, unsurprisingly, wild. But it quickly becomes clear that “we” aren’t just the two thousand or so volunteers in the room, or even the twenty thousand or so who gave time or money at some point. “Tonight’s victory belongs to the countless numbers of you that voted for the first time, or the first time in a very long while,” he continues. “To the folks from all across the Commonwealth, from all kinds of political perspectives… who decided to take a chance not on me, but on your own aspirations.”

What? All of them? Everyone who voted for you? This victory “belongs” to 50% of those who voted? Even the ones who could barely be bothered to vote in the first place? The ones who saw the way the polls were going, and just decided to back the leading horse?

Now, I know, it’s about reaching out. And hey, I’ve only been in the country, let alone the campaign, for three weeks. But I can’t help but feel - slighted. “This victory belongs to the tens and hundreds of thousands of Democrats and Republicans and independents who believe that we can do so much better and hope for so much more in Massachusetts.” Come on! Even the Republicans? They couldn’t even vote today!

Deep down, it’s OK, and the crowd’s enthusiasm isn’t dimmed. But it’s hard not to feel that - he could have offered something. Some little bone, a reference, a nod, to those of us actually in the room, those of us who really felt like part of the team. Never mind the fact that, as I’d feared earlier in the day, the margin of victory we’d have won without making a single phone call. We made calls, dammit. We, the time-starved youth of 21st Century America (temporarily, in my case), gave up our time. Don’t we get anything? “I thank every union, every social worker, every business leader, every policy expert, every academic, youth worker, police chief, elected official, homemaker, teacher, small business owner, venture capitalist…” c’mon, say student, or young person, or something! But of course, there’s still an election to win. And the language of grassroots is a tricky one. Grassroots sounds great when it conjours up images of nurses, teachers, small businessmen - concerned, hardworking, regular people. It doesn’t sound great when it conjours up images of angry poor people. Or black kids. Or Harvard students. Underneath the euphoria, the sense of being part of a bigger whole, there’s calculation and care and media strategy. I guess there has to be.

It’s not the most inspirational Patrick has been (and at his best, he’s remarkable). But tonight really marks the end of inspiration, and the beginning of pragmatism, of cunning, and of guile. The next day, when I hear Republican nominee Lt. Governor Kerry Healy’s attacks on Patrick, I understand better what he’s up against, and why he can’t afford to talk directly to us in the hall. And hey. He invited us to the party.

In the end, though, the most fascinating thing about the speech isn’t what it tells us about Patrick, but what it tells us about Gabrieli. Patrick doesn’t gush when he pays the obligatory tributes to Gabrieli and Reilly (whose reasons for not being here are probably legitimate, but whose absence nevertheless enforces a sense of sore-loserness that stems from his defensiveness in the first debate). “Each fought a competitive campaign,” Patrick notes, not backing down from earlier (frankly ill-advised) complaints about negative campaigning. “But even when things got a little heated, I never doubted the sincere commitment to service that each of them brought to this campaign and have brought to their lives.” If that sounds like damning with faint praise, that’s because it was. But what’s remarkable is Gabrieli’s response - a down-to-the-waist bow, complete with Elizabethan hand flourish.** It’s a nervous, pally, frat-boy move, its good-naturedness matched only by its inapropriateness. And suddenly, it hits me, what’s been bugging me, what’s been so wrong about Gabrieli from the start. He’s far too eager to please. In his endless repeating of his “record of results;” in his the too-jovial concession speech, and now - it’s all been about being liked. With his I’ve-got-the-most-numbers policy plans, he’s the little boy who always wins the science fair. And in running for Governor, he’s like the geeky boy who’s adopted by the football team so he can do their homework for them. He’s worked out how to use his brain to gain friends. And just because he’s lost, that’s not going to stop him - he’s going to come out of this liked. And of course, as this becomes obvious, it becomes harder and harder to like him.

Then, it’s over. Patrick made an exhortation to party tonight, but the outward flow from the ballroom as soon as the speech finishes says people are feeling their early starts. Poor Tim Murray comes on to make his speech, but Deval hogs the platform, shaking hands. Awkwardly, Murray does the same. I sense an awkward moment coming on, so I make my way.

I’m jolted as I walk out into Copley Square. All this talk about grassroots, about low-paying jobs, about starving schools; and then I walk out into skyscrapers, marble hotels, libraries and symphony halls. I look at some of my fellow leavers, and I notice blakc dresses and shawls and pearls. And I think, has it all been bullshit? For all this talk of grassroots, of “our” campaign, hasn’t it - hasn’t tonight - just been about rich, insulated, guilt-ridden liberals pouring money on a nice, well-spoken negro, another act of charity to put alongside the Rotary Club dues?

But on my way into the tube, I overhear the conversation of two wealthy-loking guests. A slim, well-groomed fiftysomething gentleman in a tan suit asks his colleague, who’s clearly read my mind, said, “you’ve been to a lot of these things, was this different?” She - small, designer-clad, silver-haired and jewelled - replied, “oh, yes. It was a much more diverse crowd. All the volunteers were there, that’s very rare.”

So there you are. I guess this is different.

It’s throwing it down when I get off the tube - rain like we never have in England. I go into Seven-Eleven to try to wait out the rain. “How did Patrick do today?” the guy behind the counter asks. “Um, Ok,” I say, nervously. I’d forgotten the badge on my jumper. “He got, um, 50% of the vote, the others conceded.” “Oh yeah? He won? Good.” I’m pleased, but uncomfortable. I keep expecting a raving republican to pounce out at me and ask challenging questions about education policy. I head towards the door. “Hey,” the guy asks. “Where’s Patrick’s headquarters?” “It’s in Charlestown,” I mumble. He seems interested. I offer stilting, scarcely accurate directions. “You should, um, pop in,” I mumble. “Or you could give them a call, you want the number?” To my amazement, he says yes. I tell him it. He seems pleased, and determined to call.

It’s midnight, they guy’s at work for several hours yet, and when he wakes up tomorrow afternoon for his day off, he’s going to call headquarters and volunteer his time. He’s not looking for a thank you, or free glass of wine, or an acknowledgement. He’s just looking for a chance to help. As Deval would put it, to serve.

I trudge home, through the rain. I get drenched. My party pass, still around my neck, comes apart in the rain and splashes on the road, leaving me with nothing but a flimsy piece of string. The primary’s over, and so is my real part in the Deval Patrick campaign. But, as I hold my Seven-Eleven carrier bag over my head to try to block the downpour, I still feel a little bit inspired.

My late uncle Sonny was a sometime-resident of that little apartment on the South Side of Chicago. He struggled through most of his life with an addiction to heroin. He used to shoot up in the living room when he thought no one was looking. I know now that he was looking for a way to soothe his pain, a way not to face his own personal demons and challenges. A way out.

Well, cynicism is an opiate, too, a comfort drug. And it’s everywhere. It helps us brace ourselves against the pain of disappointment, to endure the letdown we have come to expect. Some politicians and some of the media, frankly, are dealers, peddling cynicism by tearing down anything positive and hopeful.

Well, cynicism, it turns out, is addictive. It leads us to expect less and demand less of our leaders and of ourselves. It restricts our capacity to imagine, let alone to care about, problems we have created for ourselves.

It’s time to put our cynicism down. Put it down. Stand with me and take that leap of faith… Take a chance on hope.

-Deval Patrick

www.myspace.com/devalpatrick
www.devalpatrick.com
www.devalpatrick.tv

* Looking at the video, it’s quite clear it isn’t Gabrieli who said these words. Yet that’s certainly how I remember it. Were they said twice? Did they really summon Gabrieli on stage just to sit there?

** You can’t see it on the video, unfortunately.

UPDATE: Looking back through some notes I made, I’ve just remembered something. At one point during the long, long wait for Deval, someone standing near me pointed out Senator John Kerry working the crowd. Buffanted and, I thought, wearing foundation, he looked like an aging dandy - but my colleague was impressed. “He looks good,” he observed. “So he should,” another added. “He’s got a whole lot to look forward to.” “You think?” replied the first. “Oh, sure. He was robbed in ‘04. He’s got another try left in him.”

A mere week or so later, of course, Kerry reminded us all just why he could never, ever run again.

One comment | RSS Feed for comments on this post

Email post to friend | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Share on Facebook

6.00am. I’m awake. Having kept holiday hours for several weeks - sleeping 1-10am or thereabouts - this is something of a shock to the system.

6.05am. Right. What to do? The “Primary Day Victory Plan” sheet I picked up at headquarters says we need “visibility from 6.30am.” “Visibility” means “people outside polling stations with signs,” I know that. But I don’t know if that’s what I’m doing. I don’t know what I’m doing. I called the Campaign Manager (CM) yesterday, but he didn’t respond to my message. I’m hoping to spend the day with the State Senatorial Candidate (SSC) I’m officially over here helping. Maybe I should ring the CM. But he might not be up yet. Hmm, polls don’t open till seven. If they can’t even be bothered to tell me where I should be, I can’t be bothered to chase them at six am. Back to bed.

7.00am. OK. Now I should probably do something. Phone CM. He answers! He’s sorry he didn’t phone me back (good). Today is going to be all about making phone calls (bad - that means no running around with SSC). If I’m feeling eager, I can go to HQ and get a sign and wave it somewhere. I jump in the shower and trudge to HQ.

8.15am. Am positioned outside polling station. 150ft outside, to be precise. The police have kindly spray-painted a placemark where I’m allowed to stand. Am feeling decidedly rotten. Efforts to go to bed early last night predictably failed. Cable TV is evil.

9.00am. My eyes are closing, my stomach is unsettled. It’s far too early to drink diet coke. Even for me. I should probably learn to like coffee.

9.10am. A lady has asked me why she should support SSC. I resist the temptation to say, “because he’s the only one on the ballot,” and mumble about him being progressive and combining the best tendencies of both the fight-for-my-people school of local politician, and the see-the-big-picture type. I’m not convinced it makes sense. I am convinced she’s trying to work out why a British person is campaigning for a Boston local election. Right now, so am I.

9.15am. Another friendly person inquiring why I like the candidate. Now, the first rule of grassroots political campaigning is, don’t actually try to convince anyone of anything. Expensive TV spots, interviews, and carefully-crafted media strategies convince people. Face-to-face or on the phone, you avoid at all costs actually discussing issues with the public. The risks are too high - what if you panic and accidentally imply that the candidate has a predilection for adolescent girls, or wants to raise taxes, or some other electoral death knell? You just recite the standard bumf (usually about character, leadership, or hardworking families). If they’re on board, get them out to vote. If they’re not, get them off the phone and, if possible, direct them to the website. So being asked, “why should I support this guy,” is a near-panic-inducing situation.

Fortunately, there are strategies. First, try to work out as quickly as possible the interlocutor’s own sympathies, the better to tailor your answer. This can be tricky, so outlining an uncontroversial aspect of the candidate’s positions is sometimes necessary to provide an opening. “He’s pretty much a progressive,” I stumble. “He supports gay marriage and opposed the war in Iraq.” In Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of the most liberal places on earth, this is not controversial stuff. The questioner seems interested. “He wants to encourage research industries in order to improve the economy” - glimmer of disinterest - “but he believes the gains must be used to improve the local environment and tackle poverty.” Definite interest. This guy’s looking like an ultra-liberal. But what if he’s bluffing? I panic and hedge, outlining the candidate’s law-and-order credentials. “He’s done some great work on combating the recent explosion of gang violence.” Help! I’m losing him! What am I doing? He doesn’t give a shit about gang violence, he probably thinks it’s a legitimate response to the US’ violent repression of coloured people at home and abroad or something. Quick, turn it round. “He believes in tough, visible policing” - gaah! - “but he’s also working with youth organisations aiming to provide community and cultural opportunities to young people, to give them something better to do than hang around on the streets.” That’s it! He’s hooked! “Of course,” my interviewer concurs. “If they’ve got nothing to do, they’ll just fall into crime, won’t they?” Phew. He seems satisfied. The test is passed. He introduces himself. He’s homeless. The voice of incipient fascism whispers in my ear. “Idiot! You’ve wasted all this time talking to a homeless person! Can he even vote? What if someone from the press is watching? Do you want your candidate seen as the friend of hardworking families, or of homeless people?!” I banish the voice, and it flies off to resume influencing the Democratic National Committee. Of course it’s OK to talk to talk to a homeless person. This is a liberal town, and besides, it’s not like there’s a queue of people also trying to talk to me. He introduces himself. He’s called Roger. He sells Spare Change, a kind of (low-budget Boston Big Issue). He gives me an old issue free. It occurs to me that my twentysomething-low-income stinginess has now hit the low that I am taking gifts from homeless people. Later, I read it. It contains an interview with Roger. He used to be a computer programmer. I shudder, and feel guilty for my near-failure-of-liberal-courage earlier.

9.30am. Campaign Assistant (CA) comes and picks me up and takes me back to HQ. This isn’t the main Deval Patrick HQ’s, but the SSC’s, a large ex-DHL warehouse full of empty offices and signs. It’s taken me two weeks to get used to the strangely empty feeling of having a large depot office staffed by three people, including me. Now, I find it full of strangers, who turn out to be overspill from the main HQ and Somerville campaign team. The office I’d just started thinking of as mine has someone else in it. I feel vaguely threatened. And tired. I find a spare phone, with no PC - no respite - and review my call sheets.

From here on in it’s phone calls, phone calls, phone calls. Today marks the culmination of a long, boring, hard, and apparently absolutely essential process of phone banking. You start with lists of registered Democrats and Independents (even tho today is a Democratic Primary, Independent voters are eligible. I’m aware that entire sentence will seem like gibberish to English readers, but it’s too complex to explain here). In the first couple of weeks, calls are focused on gauging support. You ask, are you planning to vote for Deval Patrick? And sort people into 1 (committed), 2 (leaning), 3 (undecided), 4 (leaning away), and 5 (definitely voting for someone else). Further rounds of calls are aimed at tracking 2s that have becomes 1s and 3s that have become 2s. Then, on election day (or Primary day, in this case), it’s all about getting the 1s and 2s to the polls. This means calling them again and again until they either tell us they’ve voted, or tell us if we bother them on more time they’ll vote for anyone but us. This process is called Get Out The Vote - or GOTV, which sounds like a horrible new government-sponsored cable channel for teens. It would have life-skills programmes, on things like opening a bank account, probably called “sorted.”

10.30am. So far, no-one’s been particularly rude to me. Unfortunately, that’s mostly because no-one’s been in. For all the careful detail of the 1-5 classification system, by far the most populated categories are always “NA” (no answer), “WN” (wrong number) and “LM” (left message). Of those who are there, barely any have voted. This is common sense, really. The only people who vote at 9am are going to be people on their way to work, and they’re not at home to tell us they’ve voted. I have a nagging annoyance at the knowledge that, when we do the second round of calls in the afternoon, they’re still going to be at work. However, the CA assures me that this afternoon is “all about the old people.” They make voting into a day’s distraction - getting dressed up, going and doing it, having a coffee after. We’ll catch them after lunch, apparently.

11.00am. Am feeling very, very tired and horrible. Discover large box of donuts by entrance, clearly intended for volunteer consumption and apparently neglected. I take one.

11.15am. I take another.

11.30am. The CA asks, “will you eat pizza?” She clearly doesn’t know me very well. I reply in the affirmative, and request no meat. “Oh, it’s fine, we’ll just get cheese,” she explains.

12.15pm. Have finished first round of calls. Discuss with CA how to approach potentially-pointless second round. It’s agreed we’ll do calls, but not leave messages where they’ve already been left to avoid seeming like mad Jon-Favreau-in-Swingers-style voicemail-stalkers. Where is pizza?

12.35pm. Pizza arrives, along with vast trays of sweets - made, it turns out, by mother of pizza store owner. The family are friends of the SSC. This is what I call community organising. I wait a few minutes so as to keep up the appearance of being eager politico and not just tired, hungry volunteer.

1.00pm. Had two slices. Feel bit sick.

1.30pm. Have finished first set of second round calls. CA says I can help out with Somerville’s calls. Am given sheet and told to call everyone and leave messages. The second person I call says, “please stop pestering us, you’ve rung already.” I apologise profusely.

1.35pm. CA and I ask Somerville organiser, a tense blond thirtysomething lady with a bob named Sherri, if this list has been called once already. “Oh yeah!” She replies. So we shouldn’t leave messages? “Oh yeah! We just call ‘em and call ‘em, and if they haven’t voted by five, we go round there!” She’s like every caricature of unthinking American enthusiasm rolled into one. I think something pretentious about how this attitude is how Viet Nam happened. I feel this pestering is counterproductive and, given that we’re essentially talking about two voicemails and a door-knocking before people even get home from work, a complete waste of time, and silently resolve to rebelliously not leave messages.

1.40pm. CA leaves to go to another office for a couple of hours. She says she’ll call to give me more to do.

1.45pm. A Somerville volunteer, asks where Sherri is. Has she left? It appears so. The volunteer has to go, but leaves me some sheets to finish if I can, and give to Sherri.

2.00pm. Brett, a staffer from the main HQ, turns up. I see Brett with a familiar mixture of envy, admiration, and distaste. Tall, skinny and cocky, he has an air of both preppy, idealistic Harvard seriousness, and jockish arrogance. Everytime I’ve seen him in the office he’s been wearing a shirt and tie, which is by no means required. But the shirts are always blue and usually patterned, and the tie always half-undone. He wears glasses, and his hair messy. His chinos are always hanging of his arse, but unlike the average baggied rapper-aping white teenager, he actually has an arse for them to hang off. Overall, he’s pretty attractive, which makes his air of team-captain-with-brains entitlement all the more galling. He’s here for call numbers, but of course he can’t just announce that, as that would make him sound like some flunky. So he asks for Sherri. I’ve forgotten who Sherri is, and when I go searching for her I find someone called Terri.* An afternoon of confusion begins. Terri is nicer than Sherri, and clearly has no intention of talking to Brett. So I explain that the CA knows the Cambridge numbers, and give him her cellphone number. I also explain that we’re not finished with the second round of somerville calls, but that there’s a pile of most of them that are done on the table in front of him. “If you want to add them up,” I tell him smugly, “you’re very welcome.” Hah! Who’s the daddy now?

2.10pm. James has noted some numbers and sodded off. Enjoying the feeling of being in charge, I even took a number on which I could phone in the new totals when we’re finished on the second round. Am enjoying self. Then phone rings. A cellphone. Not mine. I look- ha! - it’s Brett’s. Mr. Staffer has left his mobile. Heh. I answer, naughtily, and explain to the caller that he’s not available right now. She asks when he’ll be back? I reply, “when he realises he’s left his phone here and comes and gets it.” I’ll admit to smirking.

2.20pm. Terri leaves, explaining that she has some things she needs to do. She leaves more sheets for Sherri, and says “is that guy from HQ stil here? I don’t know who the hell he is.” I explain that it’s OK, I’ve seen him up there, he’s legit. And feel vindicated. I’m clearly not the only one with reservations.

2.30pm. I call HQ and tell Sam, the volunteer co-ordinator, that James has left his phone here. She sounds very stressed, and has no idea who Brett is, despite the fact I’ve seen them talk to each other. In retrospect, this gives me some pleasure, but at the time, I’m annoyed.

3.00pm. Brett turns up and has the decency to look sheepish. I hand him phone in pally I-won’t-tell-anyone way. Maybe he’s alright after all.

4.10pm. I’m tired and irritable. Fortunately, with the help of another volunteer, we’ve got the Somerville second round finished. I feel very responsible and efficient. I can’t wait for Sherri to get back.

4.30pm. Still waiting for Sherri to get back.

4.55pm. CA gets back. “We’ve finished the Somerville calls!” I explain triumphantly. “I’m not getting involved with Somerville,” she explains, sounding harassed. ” It’s best for the teams to just do their own stuff.” Grrr. Is anyone actually going to look at these sheets, that took us all afternoon to finish?

5.45pm. A stressed-looking lady comes in carrying folders. “Is Sherri here?” she asks. I reply no. “Tell her these are precinct two,” she instructs. I ask if she’d like to look at these completed call sheets. She seems to think I’m talking Swahili. “No, no, not sheets! These are actual voters!” She declares, pointing at the pile of folders. Is she mad? As she goes, I realise this is the results of the first round of on-foot visits. They’ve started them already! What about these second-round call sheets? Isn’t anyone going to look at them at all?!

6.15pm. A lady called Jane comes in brandishing more folders. I decide action has to be taken. I confront her with the second-round sheets. “These were done this afternoon,” I explain. “But Sherri hasn’t been here and no-one’s looked at them.” “Are these 1-5?” she asks. Now, I’ve learned the lingo - she means ward 1, precinct 5. I check. They are, indeed. “They’re out on it now,” she explains. Gaah! They’ve gone out door-knocking with first-round calls! Three volunteers spent two hours this afternoon, hours I personally would really rather have spent contemplating the menu at Dunkin’ Donuts, wasted because that bloody Sherri didn’t think to pick up a few call sheets. I’m quietly fuming, evidently just enough for Jane to notice. “Don’t worry,” she soothes. “When they come in we’ll reconcile them. This’ll still be useful information.” Poppycock, of course; how useful is it, at the end of the day, to know that someone did or didn’t vote? We track voting so we can visit the non-voters. Once that’s done, the information’s useless. I’m struck with a huge, crushing sense of the pointlessness of the whole operation. Grassroots, diverse campaign community, all this crap - when one blunder on TV, one bad makeup job for God’s sake, can win or lose an election. Four million people in Massachusetts, over a million eligible to vote today - are we really going to win because we phoned thousands of people to nag them into voting? I resolve to finish my duties and piss off, thoroughly fed up.

6.45pm. CA’s enthusiasm tempers my annoyance, and I get through the remaining sheets fine. There’s just over an hour till the polls close. I have no idea how things are actually going out there, and neither does anyone else. I ask CA if it’s OK to go home for a shower, and come back at eight to finish up and head to the party. She says sure.

7.15pm. Mmmm. Shower.

8.30pm. Back at HQ. There’s no-one here. It starts to rain. I resolve to wait. No CA. That’s OK, it’s not her fault, I’m late. I trudge in the rain to the tube. Might as well just go to the party. It had better be good. And yet, through all my tired, irritable, under-appreciated narkiness, another thought is hovering: I really hope we win.

* OK, I’m making these names up to protect the innocent, but the real ones were just as similar, and just as mom-and-apple-pie.

No comments | RSS Feed for comments on this post

Email post to friend | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Share on Facebook

Dear Jeff Jacoby,

I’m going to have to take a little umbrage at your article, “The tall and short of it,” in today’s Globe.

You ask of Deval Patrick, “is there anything there?” Were you watching the same debate as I was? Maybe it’s because from my seat in the JFK Jr Forum I could only see the candidates on TV, but I heard Patrick make a range of numerated, precise policy statements.

On the Marie St. Fleur issue, he avoided getting embroiled in the heated debate, made the point that matters to voters - that Reilly appears to have lied - and then moved on - a pragmatic and sensible response, not that of a firebrand or dreamer.

He didn’t just blather about fraud cuts - he pointed to a quantified plan for $735 million of savings. You can disagree with his numbers, but you can’t say he hasn’t crunched them.

Gabrieli’s position is to work towards a cut in the future; Patrick’s is to aspire for one in the slightly longer-term future. This is hardly the chasm you make out. Yes, the 5% rate was approved by the voters. But Patrick has been clear about his position and, if elected, will have been so on the basis of it - just as democratic, just as much a moral mandate. He’s done this not because he wants to spend and spend, but because he believes relieving pressure on property taxes should be the state’s priority, and thousands of us believe he’s right.

You flag up Hiller’s question, “is there anyone you’ve just said no to?” - and Patrick’s answer, which you don’t feel the need to discuss, was clear. He’s taken a pragmatic, measured approach to the needs and demands of his core constituencies to balance their needs with those of the state’s taxpayers.

On the Big Dig, he didn’t just gripe, he made a clear policy proposal - for an independent review.

And Patrick did more than just ask not to be labelled. He made it clear he fully expected to be - “everything but a child of God,” if you recall. But he demonstrated that for all the brickbats thrown at him, his program combines traditional liberal and conservative thinking - more rehabilitation, and more police, to use one example.

Look at the stem cell section of the debate. Reilly’s position - all power to UMass - predictably silly. Gabrieli’s - let the whole market compete for the funding - very market-oriented, and it has some merits. And Patrick’s - a long-sighted position between the two extremes: fund stem cell research, sure, but see this in the big picture: out underfunding of public higher ed, right across the board.

Again and again, while Gabrieli and Reilly bickered, Patrick came through with a thought-out, moderate, practical proposal - and, unlike Gabrieli, he can place those proposals in the context of a wider vision - for funding public higher ed better, in this case.

You’re not so keen on Patrick’s long-grass timetable for the income tax cut. But who was the only candidate promoting a timetable for healthcare reform? Reilly: sometime. Gabrieli: sometime. Patrick: six months to a year.

Granted, Patrick made mistakes. It was a mistake for him to seem to be defending Ameriquest, and going after Fleet. But to say there’s no substance behind the vision isn’t true. The “vision stuff” is the velvet glove in which the - if not iron then at least hard- fist of detail lies.

Gabrieli offers a bunch of scattershot schemes, and a lot of numbers, but I don’t see a coherent vision for government. And contrary to popular fear amongst the national DNC, that’s what voters respond to.

Remember how Gore lost in 2000 - by seeming like a grey policy wonk. There’s the real electoral risk.

Sincerely,

Rav Casley Gera

***UPDATE!***

Very prompt and polite response:

Thanks very much for your response. It sounds as though Deval Patrick has a strong supporter in you, and I recognize that there are qualities in him many voters are attracted to. I don’t happen to be one of those voters, though, and last night’s debate only confirmed that feeling for me.

Fortunately, there’s room for all of us in the marketplace of ideas — and we all get a vote on Election Day.

All the best,

Jeff Jacoby

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that, as a UK citizen, I actually don’t.

No comments | RSS Feed for comments on this post

Email post to friend | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Share on Facebook

It’s certainly true that, under the current taxation model and class makeup of HE students, government subsidy to Universities overwhelmingly benefits the middle class. But this is the result of the grotesque over-representation of middle-class students (including, of course, myself and almost all of my friends, colleagues and associates). Like all universal benefits, higher education funding gains its political support from its benefits to the middle class, but its moral value from its benefits to the poor. The solution is progressive taxation, to reorient the tax burden towards the best-off, and further measures to increase working-class participation in Universities. But Jackson’s policy prescriptions promise the opposite.

Jackson asserts that the answer to middle-class domination of HE is not to lower the financial barriers to participation, but “to raise the intellectual aspirations of secondary schools.” That schools in poor areas offer poor results is well known. But what is equally well known is: not only are you far less likely to obtain top A-level grades in a comprehensive school in a predominantly working-class area than in a comp in a middle-class area; but even if you do obtain such grades, you are still substiantially less likely to attend a University, and if you do, you will attend a less prestigious one than someone from a better-off background. Jacksons’ blithe assertion that the need for financial support “is being met by grants from government and by bursary schemes run by the universities” is deeply complacent.

Jackson pays lip service to the idea of a transformation of access, and even calls for a “paradigm shift” in remodelling the sector towards mass participation. But the key plank of his proposal for making this possible - raising or removing the incoming GBP3,000 fee ceiling - spells disaster for participation. And not content with removing the cap, he also wishes to impose interest on student loans through privatising the service, a system which has been shown again and again in the US to lead to graduate penury and often bankruptcy - not to mention exacerbating the nation’s already huge debt problem. Jackon’s other sop to the poor - that their “future… lies in part-time study as a mature student” has a nasty ring of “let them eat cake.”

Indeed, a quick read between the lines of the article makes it clear that Jackson sees the idea of a massive reorienting of HE attendance towards the less well-off unachievable and undesirable. As I’ve said, his criticism of government funding for HE as regressive depends on students being overwhelmingly middle class - the more poor people attend university, the more progressive government funding becomes.

Jackson’s own predictions undermine his argument. He argues that, over the next decade, demographic shifts will see the number of British students begin to fall, increasing competition between universities. And he makes a cursory mention that reforms to schools might help students from disadvantaged backgrounds fill the gap. But his “paradigm shift” - with its supposed massive expansion of vocational training through part-time courses and American-style community colleges - does not appear to get a look in here.

Ultimately Jackson’s scheme, just like the Government’s reforms to HE funding so far, attempt to reconcile two competing aspirations. On the one hand, the talk is always of a massive expansion of HE - not just to 50% but beyond, as better comprehensive education brings greater numbers of working-class students into the scope of the system. Greater flexibility, with more part-time courses, vocationally-focused options, and distance learning options are all to be welcomed. But the magic wand Jackson hopes to wave to achieve this - the same one as always, deregulation and the invisible hand of the market - simply cannot be compatible with an increase in access. Privatisation can achieve quality, if competition is present, and it can often achieve cost efficiencies. But if the privatisation process takes financial responsibility away from the state and onto individuals, an accompanying reduction in working-class access is inevitable.

No comments | RSS Feed for comments on this post

Email post to friend | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Share on Facebook

The mantras go round and round. The Government is in the pocket of industry. Methane is the answer. Biomass is the answer. In a beautiful illustration of the complete confusion of the general public, one of the most-reccomended reader comments on the BBC website called for us to get our energy for free from Tesla coils. Of course, the post that politely explained why this is pie-in-the-sky impossible got far fewer recommendations.

And yet, this isn’t like other issues. There is no fundamental ideological divide here. Nobody taking part in this debate seriously questions the existence of man-made climate change, and the need for serious reductions in carbon emissions; indeed, the conversation about this provides another example of just how strong in the public imagination the consensus on that issue has become, in Europe if not in America. And nobody seriously disputes the idea that energy is needed, or that it must come from a mix of sources. There are some political issues over how energy independent we need to be, but otherwise the issues are essentially factual. How much can we reduce our electricity needs? How much can renewables produce? How much can gas and new clean coal technologies produce?

Add up the potential of all the technologies, subtract that from our needs, and there you go. If there’s a gap, we need nuclear.

So why the furore?

Well, to figure out, I took a look at the Energy Review, which concludes that we need nuclear, and Friends of the Earth’s report “A Bright Future,” which concludes that we don’t.

Friends of the Earth’s most pessimistic model, what it calls its “slow coal” model, makes conservative assumptions about the progress of Government efforts to reduce emissions. It also makes pessimistic assumptions about progress in switching from coal to gas. The differences between FOE’s estimates and the Government’s are striking.

The table below shows the Government’s estimates for our energy mix in 2020, if no major shifts in policies take place; Friends of the Earth’s most pessimistic model in line with no new nuclear stations; and the eventual nuclear-free mix in 2020.

Energy type —- Govt estimate 2020 —- FOE plan 2020 —– FOE Plan 2030
Coal —————-102 ———————151 ———————124
Oil ——————0 ————————0 ————————0
Gas —————–202 ———————135 ———————117
Nuclear ————22 ———————–27 ———————–0
Renewable ——–62 ———————–80 ———————-137
Imports ————12————————20 ———————-22
Total —————400 ———————-407 ——————–400

The single most striking figure is not a difference but a similarity – the totals figues.

The FOE is not imagining a society of mud huts here; this most pessimistic estimate recognizes the Government’s usage estimate, 400 terawatt/hrs. It also allows for a 48% reduction in emissions by 2020. It should be stressed that the gas and coal figures in FOE’s plans involve an array of new techniques to clean up these fuels, techniques which have their own costs and disadvantages.

The next obvious large figure is the reliance on gas in the Government prediction. Indeed, it’s this that the Government seeks to avoid: as the Energy Review points out, over 50% reliance on gas “would reduce the diversity of the UK’s generation mix, with more than half of the UK’s electricity supply dependent on a single fuel type. This increased dependency on gas for electricity generation would also be happening at the very time the UK becomes increasingly reliant on imports for its gas supplies.” In other words, we’d be hostage to Russia, or more likely Norway, our biggest supplier.

The next big figure is no shock - FOE’s eventual goals for renewable are way beyond the Government’s. The Government does express hope for 20% generation by renewables by 2020, which would match FOE’s 2020 goal. But the continuation of renewable growth to provide a third of needs by 2030 might strike the Government as decidedly optimistic.

Ultimately, then, the question is – what is the potential of renewables? I’ll be investigating that in the next instalment.

*I’ve fiddled the figures a little for simplicity. Most particularly, I’ve split a
curious single FOE figure for CCGT, an advanced gas technique, and imported solar power, equally.

For the source figures, see

http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/evidence/bright_future_data.pdf

http://www.dti.gov.uk/files/file32007.pdf

No comments | RSS Feed for comments on this post

Email post to friend | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Share on Facebook