Conservative Conference and the Rise of Britain’s
Darwinian Knight
THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES
One of the most
memorable and thought provoking documentaries of my teens was Adam Curtis’ ‘The
Power of Nightmares’. It starts with the following lines:
“in the past politicians promised to create a
better world. They had different ways of achieving this but their power and
authority came form the optimistic visions they offered their people. Those
dreams failed and people have lost faith in ideologies. Today politicians are
simply seen as bank managers of public life. But now they have discovered a new
role that restores their power and authority. Instead of delivering dreams,
politicians now promise to protect us from nightmares”.
That analysis was made
eight years ago with regard to the rise of America’s Neo-Con blood lust. For
Bush – and Blair – the narrative of unseen, internationally-present, malign
forces, too complex for the Average Joe to fully understand, allowed them to get
away with murder – politically speaking, if not also legally. Meanwhile, sadly for
us, they forgot to play at being bank-managers.
Now, Cameron, in his
speech to conference 2012, is also evoking the presence of unseen,
internationally present, malign forces, too complex for the Average Miliband to
understand. The opening lines sound like the intro to a Schwazenegger movie;
“We Knew then that it
was not just the ordinary duties of office that we were assuming. We were entering
into government at a grave moment in the modern history of Britain. At a time
when people felt uncertainty, even fear... Two and a half years later of course
I can’t tell you that all is well”.
In a speech with so much to like why was I left feeling so angry?
US AGAINST THE WORLD?
The most chilling
line of all was this: ‘The Truth is this: We are in a Global Race today. And
that means an hour of reckoning for countries like ours’”. The ‘Truth’?! Is
this the definition of ‘Truth’ that Cameron will swear by in a court of law?
That he will promise to tell and nothing but? Because if so, it is a dark, and
divisive and Darwinian one. If Britain is to stay ‘rising’, who exactly is to
fall? - Greece? Syria? Congo? The environment? The future? If Britain is the
good guy who wins, who’s the bad guy that loses?
Everyone loves a race.
And Cameron was right to celebrate the Olympics as an example of the ambition,
dedication and hard work we need to do well in a global economy. But he
overlooked the fact that, at the Olympics, each participating player, once
there, races on a level playing field. The race is a fair one and the real joy
of the Olympics is not just seeing Britain come together, but seeing the world
act as one.
An international
solution to the international economic crisis, however, or even a European one,
doesn’t seem to be what Cameron wants. His tactic is to trump the division
between the haves and have-nots in this country by highlighting the one between
us and less fortunately places in the world. This division is apparently a
Darwinian fight to the death, or ‘decline’ as he would more elegantly put it.
But whatever the phrase used, it’s pure gang culture government. Even if you
don’t like the fact that ‘we’ (the Tory leadership) obviously have more money
and more clout than ‘you’ (the average voter), get with us, or get bashed by
the other gangs. Ugh.
When will we have a
politics of co-operation? Of interdependence? It was great to hear the speech
celebrate British industry for starting the world’s first green investment
bank, and being ‘number one’ in the world for tidal and offshore wind. However, here it is again, this politics
of winners and losers. As if we have topped the medal table at school. Of all
subjects, clean energy production isn’t a ‘number one’ type issue. What’s good
for Britain here is good for all – we havn’t arrived first in the race, we’re
simply – and proudly – leading the way.
I’m not anti success
or aspiration as Cameron would probably like to paint me. And I’m not naïve enough
to think that the world economy operates without a certain Darwinian,
competitive, flair. But more contemporary scientists than Darwin have also shown
that the species that succeed most in the evolutionary narrative are also the
ones that embrace the skills of co-operation. In fact the foundation of every
ecosystem on which our lives are based is built on the premise of
interdependence. Sadly independence (from the state and other countries) seems
to be as far as Cameron’s understanding of evolutionary science goes.
TRUE GEEKS DON’T WEAR
SUITS
Finally, as an admirer of geeks, I genuinely appreciate Cameron’s mandates for schools: ‘where
discipline is strict, expectations are high and no excuses are accepted for
failure’. I can see what he’s doing – and as someone who only relatively
recently graduated from the comprehensive school system I definitely think we
need schools in which expectations are as high as possible – and that everyone
is pushed to achieve as hard as possible. But I also think the last things
schools – both kids and teachers – need is rules for rules sake, strictness and
suits and uniforms for the sake of strictness and suits and a potentially very
narrow definition of ‘success’.
Yes, we want Britain
to continue to ‘rise’ as the entrepreneurial, innovative, creative, even
quirky, country that Danny Boyle celebrated. But my question to Cameron is
this: did Steve Jobs wear a suit?
