Politicians: No Taste, No Style, So Derivative!

 Club Icon

The above icon is of Harlequins F.C. club. It's adapted from The Harlequin character or "comic servant" a.k.a "zanny".The design of this icon is very good: There's a flamboyance in the colour pattern, the gait is light-of-foot and theatrical with expansive gesture of the arms. For a modern rugby club it's an attractive symbol or badge: The brand is distinct, it's colourful and upbeat and hence I think very marketable. Interestingly a French Rugby Union Club in Paris, Stade Français also opted for an "exuberant" style as you can see at their club site:-

Stade Francais: Style & Sport

I've been to watch matches at both clubs and such experiences tend to be shaped by the attention to all the little details; of which the style of the club's various paraphernalia produce a very impact sense of "group identity" that carries through to the actual matches themselves and build-up on a "match-day". The atmosphere can be very electrifying if the match is well-played and well-contested; becoming very loud and energetic: Tribal to be blunt! Especially at tight moments in the game: Either euphoric collective highs or "baying for blood!" boo-ing and bulging eyeballs! To pick one of many quotes on fashion from Oscar Wilde:-

“Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear."

Of note some of the politicians who tend to find favourable publicity based off their image which stands out from the "run-of-the-mill" grey-suit politician look:-

In-Fashion: (clockwise) Jeremy Corbyn, Daniel Hannan, Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson

• Corbyn: The Grizzled, experienced, veteran from the high-seas of life: A humble fisherman of men?
• Hannan: The grand, sweeping, visionary orator of high ideals and noble purpose pointing how "things of this world" thwart our progress.
• Farage: The cheeky-chappie, man about town, holding forth and having a rollicking "last orders", putting the world to rights in the pub!
• Johnson: Breezy and smart-scruffy, somewhat comically and buffoonishly meandering forwards almost in a muddle but equally a witty scoundrel with a cheery, lopsided grin. Bustles about busily like a friendly golden retriever.

 There's nothing surprising about this. In politics to use a model, they're simply adapting their presentation to fit their "target market of voters" or "niche":-

Refraction THEN reflection across the political spectrum

The problems start however when the "reflection" (political arithmetic, party politics) exists without any real bearing on the "refraction" (policy implementation process). To use the model for simplicity, the various differentiated colours are considered the actual politics, and the input from the "white light" is diminished in the the relationship. This we've got a name for:-

Westminster Political-Media Bubble

If we now come onto the question of EU Membership and re-apply the above model prism, for simplification, above: Let's say:-

• RED = Pro-EU Membership = Status Quo
• VIOLET = Anti-EU Membership

We can give a colour to The Middle-Way Fallacy Argument (argumentum ad temperantiam) or "Wilsonian Fudge". And in our EU Arguments this creates a powerful dynamic for winning the argument:-

• GREEN = Middle-Way aka Min-Max "Declarative" Method of "renegotiation/reform/referendum:-

 The latest, hottest, "everybody's talking about it" political fashion: The New Middle-Way Style.

 To bring up crystal clear examples of this:-

New/Latest Fashion Advice: "Both sides of the EU referendum campaign have tough questions to answer"

This is repeated and replicated across the entire News-Media. I'm almost embarrassed to copy and paste from Do David Cameron's EU negotiations really matter at all? such "pearls of conventional wisdom", "demonstrations of so much sensible and considered moderation", and to prove it, "the best in business" of research on the subject:-

"There is ample evidence that Britain could flourish outside the EU: if you have the inclination, read the 1,000-page tome produced by the Business for Britain organisation, previously supported by Lord Rose, which details how the UK would, in fact, “gain influence and prosper” after leaving.

The document is entitled “Change, or Go”, thereby leaving open the option of staying in were Mr Cameron able to pull off a miraculous deal. In reality, though, it is a prospectus for a thriving, stand-alone Britain." 

Matthew Elliott's image: Sensible, diplomatic, reasonable, friendly, safe: All major fashion stores will be selling his latest Referendum Range in 2017.

Another of these "fashion experts" is extolling similar virtues here: If this is perfidy, it works for Britain For Janen Ganesh, the "reflection" is what counts most and hence yet another journalist like Tim Montgomerie who falls into "The Cleverness Trap".

"The Remainers should not overstate their case: a vote to stay is a vote for decades of loveless, defensive diplomacy on Europe’s sidelines. If that is the burden that comes with participation in the world’s largest single market, voters will grudgingly live with it.

There is no clean answer to the conundrum of Britain and Europe. Because the referendum pits true-believing Europeans, who think the question is something as airy as “What kind of country should Britain be?”, against fervent sceptics, who see 1973 as a historic wrong to be avenged, nobody makes the case for fudge.

But fudge works. Fudge is the British way. Fudge is how Britain ended up with the best but not the worst of the European project. And fudge is what will emerge at the end of Mr Cameron’s great democratic exercise, whenever it comes and whatever the official result. The referendum is not a fork in the road. It is a roundabout with no exits." 

Effectively all these people are championing the "fashion designer" called Matthew Elliott's and his taste and style in EU/British Clothes: Neither:-

Status Quo Frames: EU Membership vs Anti-EU Membership = Both unpopular fashion labels.

But, because of the conceptual error as above concerning the "reflection" being all about winning "Swing-Voters" and not encouraging the people to participate in understanding the "refraction" there is the above false dichotomy as we covered in Big Ben: The Four-Faced Liar ; this is actually what all these people are choosing should determine the Referendum result: Not actually understanding the full context around Leave or Remain as we alluded to in How about a nice game of chess?: Not actually solving the problem intelligently to promote progress by understanding it. The results speak for themselves if we perceive them in a recognizable form:-

The above are examples of Gynandromorphism: "A gynandromorph can have bilateral asymmetry, one side female and one side male, or they can be mosaic, a case in which the two sexes aren't defined as clearly." We come back to our "political spectrum colours reflection" model. And this conceptually really is what The Fallacy Of The Middle Way Argument looks like, intellectually, if we discover what the actual nature of the argument really is aka in our model "The White Light" of factually based evidence: The Great Deception and FLEXCIT: The Definitive EU Exit Plan For Britain. All composed with extraordinary depth and breadth of research, of quantity and quality of references to produce a version of a political formal proof.

A free-market of competing ideas does not exist within "The Bubble"; only the latest fashions and political fads

What we come back to is that Politicians are driven by fashions such as in the poles, or the nebulous "public mood". They exert control over the governance of the UK but the price of that is fear of loss of control to forces they cannot predict: "Chaotic or emergent" shocks or shifts in public opinion: They thus pander to the Arguments From Popularity (Argumentum ad populum) and in doing so are the political equivalent of Fashion Victims:-

"Fashion victims are victims because they are vulnerable to faddishness and materialism, two of the widely recognized excesses of fashion, and consequently are at the mercy of society's prejudices or of the commercial interest of the fashion industry, or of both."

We looked at how poorly our politics is cast in The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.  but this is also true in the sense the people often behave as a captive audience to the politicians, when their opinions en masse are actually what drives the politicians decisions! I've got to say I'm becoming so tired of our News-Media, particularly the ones that fall into the "Cleverness Trap" above: Cleaving to their received wisdom of plausibility as per: Argumentum Ad Infinitum.

Coming back to the beginning where we talked about the strange garb of the Harlequin, a character who came to prominence in the Commedia dell'arte before travelling to and arriving in Britain and thence to the rugby club above. The inspiration for such a character originated in travelling story-tellers such as we might still be familiar with of like-kind troubadours. Some of these people not only entertained through stories, wit and music but also passed on useful information and news from their travels to closed-communities (people would ordinarily not travel further than a few miles from their village).

"Maester Aemon", a character from George R.R. Martin's A Game Of Thrones, bears the "many-linked chains of different metals" of his office

Thus started a tradition for such individuals to take a piece of cloth from each community visited and exchanges of news, information and stories and sow it into their travelling coat as a mark of how far and wide they had travelled and hence how valuable they might be to the communities they were welcomed into.

What is suggested is that people should appreciate from their politicians just how much they really know and hence how valuable they really are beyond their appearances and how much those fashionable images that they cultivate really reflects? This idea is contained within George R.R Martin's fantasy novel series, A Game Of Thrones: The Maesters of the Citidels number of metal strips indicating the level of knowledge they actually know. It's a fashion (chains or patches) that possibly we could do with for our own politicians today.

The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.

A scene from The Big Lebowski (swearing)

"All the world's a stage,"

"And all the men and women merely players;"
"They have their exits and their entrances,"
"And one man in his time plays many parts,"

The quote above is from William Shakespeare's As You Like It, spoken by 'Jacques' in Act II Scene VII. The speech compares "the world to a stage and life to a play." The above video clip is from The Coen Brother's comedy The Big Lebowski and the title quote from Oscar Wilde who suggests the poor quality of the play (life) is not the script (As You Like It) or the stage (world) but often lies with the cast (people/players).

The film scene above is in my opinion very high comedy value despite the colourful language: Please watch it and enjoy. And if I'm honest it's the benchmark of the the vast majority of the "eurosceptic" and "Pro-EU" arguments and their (lack of) quality, their personality-driven behaviour, which drives miscommunication (arguing at cross-purposes) and general incoherence of meaning and purpose. In Pattern Recognition we looked at the "short-circuiting" effect "prestige" has on the progression of arguments after having looked at this very effect first brought up highlighting the emerging "Tory Strategy" (as part of a larger general pattern in politics itself) concerning the Referendum in The Goldfinch and the Gilded Cage and then exemplied or indeed personified in David Cameron in Big Ben: The Four-Faced Liar. Recently other "playes" in this political cast were considered and how their roles were shaped by the preceding along with the Media's input (see previously "I've Been Expecting You...") such as the role that UKIP has assumed in this political comedy over the EU, in OMG !!!! Parakeet invasion once again you could say personified in Nigel Farage.

  

Heath: EEC membership for "The Greater Good"

We know that the origins of the EU when Edward Heath signed the UK via The European Communities Act (1972) was by acting with full knowledge whatever his ideology or intentions, to paraphrase Winston Churchill's famous quote:-

"It is a lie wrapped in a falsehood inside a Great Deception"

Christopher Booker sets the record straight concerning Boris Johnson's account of Winston Churchill in "The Churchill Factor": Where Boris gets Winston Churchill wrong :-

Why does Johnson try to pretend, against all the evidence, that Churchill might have wanted Britain to join in with Monnet’s supranational project? Why, in quoting Churchill’s Albert Hall speech in 1947, does he omit the crucial passage in which Churchill made clear that, while supporting Europe’s political integration, he saw no direct part in it for Britain, with its “Empire and Commonwealth”? This was a position he had eloquently stated as far back as 1930, when there was first serious talk about creating a “United States of Europe”. Johnson even betrays his ignorance by suggesting that Churchill was first to coin this already familiar phrase. 

Accordingly, Dr. RAE North picks this up further: Booker: Boris tells it wrong

Johnson, for instance, quotes from the Parliamentary debate of 27 June 1950, on the Schuman Plan, but he omits any the key part of it which demonstrates, without the slightest hint of ambiguity, that Churchill was opposed to the plan. 

It is simply darkening counsel to pretend … that by participating in the discussion, under the safeguards and reservations I have read, we could have been committed against our will to anything of this nature. I would add, to make my answer quite clear to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, that if he asked me, "Would you agree to a supranational authority which has the power to tell Great Britain not to cut any more coal or make any more steel, but to grow tomatoes instead?" I should say, without hesitation, the answer is "no". But why not be there to give the answer?

And from The Churchill Society:

"We have our own dream and our own task."
"We are with Europe, but not of it."
"We are linked but not combined."
"We are interested and associated but not absorbed."

 Here's an example of a man who played his part in the play to great general acclaim, and yet there are people who would due to this pervert his "performance" as something they would prefer it to be - not what it actually was.

 But the actual question is how many "players" are "well-cast" in this EU play?

Nick Clegg: When "image" is more attractive than "substance"

I can't help but think the very primitive role of "Captain EURO" was played by Nick Clegg in our actual national discussion of our membership to the Supranational European Union. Dr. RAE North That debate: a victory against a weak opponent mentions his weak performance where it was mostly agreed he lost to Farage in terms of the "argument" and indeed this seems to have been backed up in part by the poor General Election under Nick Clegg as well as EU Elections the Liberal Democrat Party suffered. His quality of contribution is further discussed in EU politics: he really is that ignorant.

There is very little value in Nick Clegg's contribution, for several reasons: The argument is no longer dominated by the "orthodoxy of Pro-EU" membership and a side-show to British Politics since "New Labour". As above Cameron's new orthdoxy of "EUrosceptic Reform" has now become "the latest fashion". His arguments built on lies and deception could only assert the negative of the opposite of EU Membership not the positive of EU membership via FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt). This behaviour in our arguments was what started my own scepticism as per How do you become a "eurosceptic"? 

When masquerading arguments replaces the real thing

There it was pointed out, that without honesty, transparency and trust in our arguments we are effectively unable to argue coherently on either side of the argument. Again Christopher Booker writes, Our political scene is weirder than I can ever remember . Even on the "Pro-Brexit" side of the debate, the clear professionals on this topic such as Daniel Hannan sounds very convincing but when their actual arguments are looked at in closer detail, Dr. RAE North writes: EU exit: stretching the debate

"Danny Champion of the Anglosphere"

Wearily, that is where Mr Hannan is stuck, in a decade-long groove that has not advanced an iota - even down to his arrogance in claiming to represent "most British Eurosceptics".

Of all the issues, though, the one that has progressed least is the question of regulation. Mr Hannan believes that having to deal with less regulation (the nine percent that he asserts) is better than the situation we encounter within the EU. But what he and others don't seem to realise is that there can be no difference in the amount of regulation we apply, in or out of the EU - in the short term, at least. 

Invariably the above arguments end up becoming each proponents' own personal fiefdom: The arguments become identified with the personality of the proponent or "player" too much. So it is a honestly welcome contribution to the arguments when one of the cast knows what their role is and plays it honestly in this "play": Enter Right Of Stage: Andrew Duff :-

 Andrew Duff: One Last Hurrah For Chivalry!!

Andrew Duff, former Liberal Democrat MEP and "Pro-Federalist" for the EU, who also contributed to "Fundamental Law of the European Union, published jointly by the Spinelli Group and the Bertelsmann Stiftung" and has written in the capacity as per: On Governing Europe and written before on The case for an Associate Membership of the European Union (2013) and then more recently Coping with the British: here’s how (September 2015) and again Cameron’s bid for irreversible guarantee means constitutional chaos (October 2015). A summary of which is provided my Mr. Brexit (so there's no need to review the content here and our purpose concerning the quality of arguments besides (see blogroll: Vote To Leave The EU) Andrew Duff... the best ally Brexiteers have in the fight against Cameron 

Looking at the title you could be forgiven if you are a "eurosceptic" for reacting in a petty manner and crowing triumphantly that here at last the "EU has dropped the ball" and now we can tell the world and win. I don't see it this way. As a "Brexiteer" (or even "Flexiteer"!) I read the title in this way:-

"Here is a player who knows their lines, knows their role, is experienced on stage and hence plays their part with some talent and dignity."

There are big problems in the world (the stage) in Europe and the UK, with our Money Supply, with debt/deficit, with democracy, our system of governance, with the EUROZONE and with the democratic deficit of the EU itself. Brexit is our focus, but it bears remembering that the entire cast all contribute one way or another in the quality of our arguments on all sides of the debate. Failing to accept this is effectively failing to learn from the mistakes of the good intentions of the people who decided to create the EU in the first place and circumvent effective arguments in the open, honestly put forwards for people to freely choose from.

In the case of Andrew Duff, I disagree with his vision of Europe, but when it comes to: "The world is a stage", at least he's doing his bit to ensure it's well cast.

Thank you.