Liberal Vision

No escape from “world government”

Back from snowy East Anglia, I’ve been busy this afternoon catching up on what’s been going on across the web. I was especially struck by an article by TomPapworth on the prospects of a “World Government”.  Posed with the question “[If] democracy creates stability and raises living standards… why not introduce it on a worldwide scale?” , Tom answers in short order where the pitfalls in this particular form of utopia lie.

Tom: Great article.

Everyone else: Read it for yourself HERE.

Freshman Obama

Barack Obama’s first year in office has not been a resounding success. In ‘The World Today‘, Chatham House’s superb monthly, Nicholas Bouchet rounds up Obama’s “First Year Blues”.

Let’s start at the opinion polls. Obama ranks midway between his two democratic predecessors. At similar stages of their presidencies Carter was at 56% and Clinton was at 49%. Obama comes in at 52%.

“More importantly… is the fall in his approval rating between January and November among independent voters from 62% to 50% and among Republicans from 41% to 18%.”

This bodes very unwell for the upcoming Congressional elections. The Obama administration is suffering a bad case of anti-incumbent malaise. His Nobel Peace prize has been divisive rather than an asset. Bouchet notes that the issues which have marked Obama’s first year have been “the economic stimulus, health care reform, cap-and-trade, the bank bailouts and the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.”

Who could forget the health care debacle? Anti-Obamacare campaigners were painted as individuals who “wanted poor people to die” – a grotesquely unfair and inaccurate criticism. Opposing Obama’s reforms did not entail supporting no reforms at all. In fact there was a widespread consensus that American health care was in a bad way. The debate should have been about how to reform health care and that debate was lost amidst partisan bickering. In the end it didn’t matter whether Obama was proposing a good health care bill or a bad one – they had to get it through, failing to do so would have meant an emasculated administration.

So is it a good bill?! No, not really… Obamacare still means that 32 million Americans (of the original, and misleading, figure of 47 million) will stay uncovered.

And what of the biggest crisis his Administration faces? Bouchet notes “Obama’s ratings were lowest on his handling of the economy and the deficit.” Indeed, the stimulus was ill-thought-out, money was injected into the economy with little thought to how it would actually be spent. It was reckless and it hasn’t helped enormously. “Another potential consequence of Obama becoming a victim of his first-year image” is the hurt Democrats may suffer in the state-level elections where 36 governorships will be at stake. Bouchets rates the chances of Obama losing control of the Senate as unlikely but the ‘supermajority’ the Democrats currently enjoy is at risk.

What does the future hold? Well, Clinton survived a poor first term, Carter didn’t. Although Obama is down but not out, Bouchet likens conditions more to Carter’s 1970s than Clinton’s 1990s. A two term presidency is still Obama’s to lose. Whether or not Obama can reinvigorate his election sparkle in the countdown to the midterms will be telling.

Tuition Fee Festivity

Liberal Vision have received an anonymous tribute to Nick Clegg! In the name of the seasons festivities it is hereforth published on behalf of the author (who also sends their apologies to Monty Python…).

Bravely bold Sir Cleggy rode forth from Cowley Street

He was not afraid to defy, O brave Sir Cleggy
He was not at all afraid to be say no in nasty ways
Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Cleggy

He was not in the least bit scared to reverse party policy
Or to have his activists wail and his MPs rebel
To have his team resign and his popularity sink
And his expenses exposed by the Telegraph, brave Sir Cleggy

His leadership fail and his seat go red
And his column axed and his interviews stopped
And his children defect and his wife marry Chris Huhne
And his willy...
   Well that's enough music for now, lads...

Brave Sir Cleggy ran away - No!
Bravely ran away, away - I didn't!
When the FPC said no instead
He bravely turned his tail and fled - No!
Yes, brave Sir Cleggy turned about
And gallantly he chickened out
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat
Bravest of the brave, Sir Cleggy

How French Women Aren’t “Real”

I have just returned from happily linking “s-turns” on the slops of the French Alps. Whilst I was there I had the opportunity to speak to a couple of French girls my own age, who were, to my surprise, as politics mad as I am. After discussing everyone from Obama to Sarkozy and letting them know my disdain for the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, it was time for lunch.

Now, since French women famously “don’t get fat‘ I couldn’t help mentioning that my political party had decided to pass a motion aiming at making advertisers show to what degree they had airbrushed their adverts…

Pourquoi?

Well, don’t adverts make you feel ‘inferior’ or put too much pressure on you to be thin? After looking at me like I was a space cadet for good few moment they simply shrugged, “non”. Admittedly they confessed to reading “Vogue” more often than the french equivalent of “Now” or “Heat”. To them Lagerfeld is a modern day ‘Picasso’, it is art. The adverts are simply not considered in the same nature or afforded the same status that Jo Swinson has incorrectly granted them.

As one of our few female MPs, Swinson should be in my big book of contemporary feminist heroes. Yet I completely abhor the “Real Women” campaign and its correlating motion and I continue to object to it on practical, libertarian and feminist grounds. On a practical level the rest of the political community gave a collective sigh of “ah bless”, it made us look twee and amateur. Speaking to Lynne Featherstone after the motion had been passed she described the motion as being about “honesty” and that’s a great thing. However, the Real Women campaign isn’t about honesty in advertising, it’s about honesty in advertising regarding womens bodies only. If it was truly about honesty in advertising then it should have a motion to itself including all advertising (including the degrading treatment of men by some advertisers) and not including any womens issues.

The fact of the matter is that the “Real Women” motion was a shill. It included issues as diverse as domestic violence and equal pay; issues that could (and should) have been afforded meaty motions in their own right. Yet theses more pressing issues were given the half-baked treatment in order to cynically use them as ‘window dressing’ for Swinson’s pseudo-censorship. This alone is testament to the tenuousness of the airbrushing segment; it could never have stood alone.

So where next?! We’re stuck with a poor motion that skims the meaty issues and makes a meaningless gesture at advertisers. You should not need to be told that fashion adverts are not true to life any more that you need to be told a Picasso isn’t figuratively accurate. The “Real Women” campaign is patronisingly maternalistic if nothing else. What women need is to get back to feminist basics. Women need to stop objectifying the women in fashion adverts. We turn them into rods and then proceed to flagellate ourselves with them.

The “Real Women” campaign has  been an orgy of weeping an wailing: completely emotional and irrational. It provides a salve for our self-inflicted wounds but has also granted us a greater capacity to inflict them and never let them truly heal. How women can truly help themselves is by truly ending this masochistic cycle. We need to see fashion as art. Art is useless; if an object has any function other than to aesthetically please it is no longer art. Therefore there is no reason for us to worry about not looking like a Chanel ad. Obviously that’s easier said than done but it is certainly preferable than turning yourself into a perpetual victim.

Placing limits on the human expression of consenting adults is a violation of their intrinsic human rights. It is also completely unnecessary. If you can’t break the cycle of masochistic madness then be an adult and withdraw your consent. Stop buying the products that are advertised in a way you find objectionable an the magazines that advertise them.

Swinson obviously cares about women a great deal. In this case, however, good intentions have not made good policy and done women a disservice in the process. This orgy of self-depreciation has to stop. To end on the words of my French friend: “Of course aesthetics are important but if I’m not fit I’m not free to do the things I want to do.” It’s time to stop being “Real” and start being down to earth!

DISCLAIMER: THE INDIVIDUAL PICTURED SNOWBOARDING IN THE ABOVE ARTICLE IS NOT ACTUALLY ME…

Prescott, Hypocrisy and the TPA

Oh John, you are comedy value! You conduct a class war as if your behaviour in office was any different from, well… any “tory toff”.  Well, you behave like an individual who hasn’t completely let down the ordinary working man you so desperately claim to be the defender of. So now you’ve called out the TPA on their apparent hypocrisy regarding their taxpayer funding.

Having an organisation that behaves as a watchdog ensuring money isn’t blatantly squandered is actually not such a bad idea. Take for instance situations like this one. Where taxpayer’s money, bench-marked as “aid” to Africa and somehow ended up with the Trade Unions. Your party gave taxpayers money to the people who help them get elected. A blatantly deceitful and corrupt act. If the Tax Payers Alliance didn’t exist, it would have to be invented. I don’t like everything the TPA says but the reason they exist, John, is you. Merry Christmas.