Before you leap up in fury, let me start by saying I am not going to mention taxes, or entitlements, or anything like that. There is no need. Whenever a politician enters a two-horse race saying that 47% will not vote for him, you already know he is lying. You do not need to look at polls. You need listen to his rationalizations. All that matters is the statistic, which says the candidate has entered the campaign with the belief they will finish second. Perhaps 47% will only vote for candidates with chest hair, or maybe they vote against candidates with prominent nasal hair, or maybe they have very strong feelings about facial hair. The supposed motivations of the electorate are not at issue. When a candidate says 47% will not vote for him, the first response should be to ask: “then why bother running?” Though it may seem possible to overcome a 47% handicap, by securing the votes of the remaining 53%, the truth is that those maths are too simplistic. Either Romney has absolutely no idea how to win (a possibility, given the dire state of his US Presidential campaign), or he is lying about the scale of the challenge he faces.

This is what Romney said about 47% of Americans:

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it — that that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. … These are people who pay no income tax. … [M]y job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

And the video is here, if you want to check…

Romney is running a billion-dollar campaign. For the sake of a billion dollars, here are three simple reasons why Romney should know better.

Turnout

Obama won comfortably in 2008, but he did not get the votes of 47% of the people. He came nowhere near. A lot of people, including taxpayers and benefits recipients, do not vote. In 2008, out of an estimated 208 million eligible voters, Obama received votes from 69.5 million of them. Obama received 52.9% of the votes cast, but only received the support of 33.3% of the people. Even in a high-turnout landslide like 2008, the President won with the support of just one person in three.

If Romney is seriously forecasting that 47% of the people will turn out for Obama, then he told his donors to back a candidate in the most one-sided contest in US Presidential history. Even in the 19th Century, when turnout was sometimes over 80%, no candidate was backed by more than 42% of the population. Fortunately for Romney, the polls have never suggested that 47% of the people will back Obama.

Swing Voters

Let us be more generous to Romney, and grant that he meant ‘voters’ when he said ‘people’. This dramatically changes his assertion, and makes it more credible. But it also strips the assertion of meaning. If more people make the effort to go to the polls and cast their vote for Romney, then the percentage of Obama’s vote goes down. It is nonsensical to assert that a fixed percentage will vote for Obama ‘no matter what’. A person might vote for Obama ‘no matter what’, but a percentage is influenced by both the number of votes for Obama, and by the number of votes in total. So whilst Romney is trying to make a point about swing voters, his point is clumsily expressed. But even permitting Romney the most generous interpretation of his words, the statement is still untrue.

To claim that Obama cannot fail to receive less than 47% of the votes, is also to insist that Mitt Romney and the Republicans are deeply unpopular. Romney is saying he is unable to find voters who will support him, even whilst the Democrats have command of millions of Americans. The truth is that the independent portion of the vote is far too volatile to justify this nonsense. According to 2008 exit polls, Obama took 52% of independent votes, and McCain received 44%, giving an 8 point spread. In the 2006 elections for the House of Representatives, the Democrats did even better, winning the independents with an 18 point spread over Republicans, when measured across the whole country. But in 2010, the spread went the other way, with Republicans taking the independent vote by a massive 19 points. By saying Obama cannot do worse than 47%, Romney is also saying he cannot reach swing voters that voted for Republican candidates in 2010. In the 2010 House elections, the Democrats received just 44.8% of the nationwide vote. There is no good way to reconcile this fact with Romney’s claim that no less than 47% will vote Obama.

Senior Citizens

There is no need to go into fine detail to prove that what Romney says about taxpayers and voting intentions is false. The 47% who will supposedly vote for Obama includes very many in retirement. In general, polls say that Romney does much better with older voters than younger voters. He cannot afford to write-off a voter just because they live in modest retirement. The polls say many seniors were prepared to vote for Romney, irrespective of the fact that they pay no income tax. This is the data per Gallup:

Older Americans who have low incomes are those who have the highest chance of paying no income tax. But the Gallup data for the period Aug. 27 – Sept. 16 show that among those voters aged 65 and older who have $24,000 a year in income or less, Obama wins, with 49% of the vote, but 43% support Romney.

43% of poorer seniors were supporting Romney, before they realized what he thinks: that none of the folks who retire on a meagre pension have the slightest sense of personal responsibility. After finding out what Romney says to rich folks about poor seniors, some of them may be thinking twice about whether to vote Romney. Romney’s words reveal a haughty disdain for millions of Americans who paid their taxes during their working life, and who do not deserve to be squeezed for more tax during their twilight years.

Since his outlandish views became public knowledge, Romney has doubled-down on the language of entitlement and responsibility, as if he has nothing to apologize for. If Romney wants to learn about responsibility, he should look at the people who have laboured for decades, who retired to a small pension, and still believe in the importance of hard work. They will continue to believe in hard work and paying taxes, irrespective of the insults given behind their backs, by billion-dollar clowns who dance to whichever tune pleases their donors. Romney should cut the whining nonsense about why voters support Obama, take a look in the mirror, and ask himself the question he has clearly never been able to answer. For all his money and good looks, why do so few people like Romney? The answer has nothing to do with the taxes or entitlements of the American people. It has everything to do with Romney’s sense of entitlement, and his inability to justify it.

Please let me make a prediction about ‘predistribution’, a solution to Britain’s economic and social woes, as explained by Labour Leader Ed Miliband this week. As he put it:

We need to care about predistribution as well as redistribution.

We need to care about. That is what the man said. But however much we need to care about predistribution, I predict we will not be hearing the word, nor about any of the ideas associated with it, in the Labour Party manifesto for the next general election. Nor will we hear about it in any of their campaign materials, nor will it be mentioned in any campaign speeches. Why? Because once you get past the initial shock of hearing the new word, and start thinking about what it means, you realize that some of predistribution is new, but not good. Other parts of predistribution are good, but not new. Other parts are good, but are unpalatable to a left-leaning political party. And other parts are palatable to a left-leaning political party, but outside of the control of any government. Slice and dice predistribution into its constituent elements, and you can find no good new policy that Ed Miliband would actually want to implement in government.

We need new ideas if we are to tackle the problems the economy faces.

The need for a good idea does not guarantee we will have a good idea, any more than the need for energy security guarantees a breakthrough in wind turbine design or the discovery of oil beneath our feet. Predistribution, as far as it is a new idea, is not Miliband’s idea. It comes from the US Democrats. It is revealing that Miliband revealed his predilection for predistribution on the same day that the most popular wonk of all time, Bill Clinton, gave a barn-storming speech at the Democratic Party’s National Convention. It took 50 minutes for Bill Clinton to nominate Obama to be US President for a second time. He was often interrupted by thunderous applause and huge cheers. Clinton brilliantly explained all Obama’s achievements, and provided many a stat to back up his arguments. During those 50 minutes, he never once used the word ‘predistribution’. Clinton has a gift for taking essentially good centre-left ideas and selling them to the public. Miliband has a gift for taking vague ideas and making them utterly incomprehensible. If Miliband wants to copy the US Democrats, he should start with how wonks persuade undecided voters, not with how wonks impress their devotees. And if no Democrat politician is pushing predistribution to voters, then the Labour Leader needs to ask himself what he hopes to gain by using language that even Mitt Romney would avoid, for fear of seeming out of touch with ordinary people.

But now I, like Miliband, am in danger of getting so hung up on a word that I fail to explain what it means. I would, if I knew what it meant. I am not sure it really means anything, but before you hear my opinion, you should hear the words of those who favour predistribution. This is how Miliband explained it:

Predistribution is about saying:
We cannot allow ourselves to be stuck with permanently being a low-wage economy.

It is neither just, nor does it enable us to pay our way in the world.

Our aim must be to transform our economy so it is a much higher skill, higher wage economy.

Think about somebody working in a call centre, a supermarket, or in an old peoples’ home.

Redistribution offers a top-up to their wages.

Predistribution seeks to offer them more:
Higher skills.
With higher wages.
An economy that works for working people.

Centre-left governments of the past tried to make work pay better by spending more on transfer payments.

Centre-left governments of the future will have to also make work pay better by making work itself pay.

That is how we are going to build growth based not just on credit, but on real demand.

And that is how we are going to help the squeezed middle of this country and, build a better economy when there is less money around.

Yes, he really does talk like that.

With a line between each half-sentence.

But jesting aside, what is stunning about the coverage of this new idea is that no journalist seems prepared to point out the similarities to what has been said before. Take this speech:

And so this post-crisis world throws up three fundamental questions which we will address today.

First “” how do we rebuild our economy so that Britain can be a country with high skills and modern manufacturing “” where work pays, family finances are secure and government partners business to invest in Britain’s strengths?

…Which is the party of the family, promising to protect child tax credits, the child trust fund, and sure start and to give all new dads a month with their babies and help to buy the family home?

Which is the party of making work pay, pledging a rising minimum wage, and the end of benefits-for-life?

Or how about…

Our whole economic prosperity depends upon which competing vision of the future will win in the next few years.

One choice for Britain -the choice we reject- is a low skilled, low pay economy competing in a race to the bottom with China, India and Asia.

But if our choice – a high wage, high skills economy “” is to succeed, then Britain, a small country, cannot afford to waste the talents of anyone.

Take this snippet:

This is the difference the Labour Government makes. And this is how we will move forward to create a genuine opportunity society, empowering every young person in Britain to make the most of themselves.

Or this excellent line…

The only way forward is a hard headed analysis of how to build a high wage, high skill, high investment and high employment economy.

Or what about these fine words…

Today I offer the British people a better way and a clear choice: a choice between Labour’s high skill, high tech, high wage economy…

And finally, what about this excerpt:

…we said that the condemnation of the Conservative stop-go-stop cycle was not merely their emphasis on stop. It was their failure all the time to build up our economic strength, to broaden our industrial base with more and modern equipment, to speed the training of skilled labour – so that we could break out of this cycle of crisis.

The top quote was Gordon Brown, at the 2010 launch of the Labour Party manifesto. The next quote was also from Brown, speaking to the National Policy Forum in 2007. The one below was by Tony Blair, from the famous ‘education, education, education’ speech he made in 2005. The quote below that was also from Blair, back in 1994. The next quote was from John Smith; it was his leader’s speech at the 1993 party conference. And the final quote? That was taken from the speech made by Harold Wilson, Labour Leader, at the 1965 party conference. Over nearly 50 years, Labour Party leaders have consistently said the same thing about delivering a high-skill economy. Ed Miliband makes the same old offer, calls it something different – predistribution – and has the cheek to assert:

we need new ideas if we are to tackle the problems the economy faces.

As far as Miliband actually bothered to explain the idea of predistribution, Miliband offered nothing new. The policy of investing in skills has been Labour Party policy for at least half a century. That is not a criticism of the policy itself, just a criticism of Miliband’s disingenuous presentation. The problem for Miliband is that so many voters feel Labour’s last government ended in enormous failure. Hence Miliband has to present himself as offering something new. His problem is that, so far, he has utterly failed to offer anything new.

It says a lot about Miliband’s weakness that he offers ‘new’ ideas that repeat old old slogans, then stops, not providing any further explanation. Miliband is the anti-Clinton. Whilst Bill Clinton avoids jargon and really speaks to voters, Miliband is scared to communicate with voters, preferring to hide behind the jargon. In order to find out what Miliband’s predistribution might be, we have to look elsewhere, to the commentators who support Miliband. Luckily, a whole legion of them rallied to Miliband, gleefully backing the predistribution pitch, even though Miliband never explained what he was talking about. George Eaton of the New Statesman is one of the most reliable propaganda robots in the ‘free’ press, and he was ready, willing and able to explain how predistribution is a political game-changer…

the state, rather than merely ameliorating inequalities through the tax and benefits system, should act to ensure that they do not arise in the first place.

That is an excellent explanation, though it has absolutely no connection to what Miliband actually said. This is a good sign. It means George Eaton can read minds, and tell us what Miliband is thinking, as well as repeating what he is saying. Eaton goes on to write:

…it should legislate for policies such as a living wage and introduce curbs on predatory energy and rail companies…

…The great strength of predistribution is that it does not cost the state a penny to pursue. Rather than relying on taxation to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor, Miliband will harness the instruments of legislation and regulation. Rail companies, for instance, would be barred from raising fares by more than 1% above inflation.

Unpack this and either we find ourselves in the territory of la-la-land or just rehashing old policies and pretending they are new. The ‘living wage’ is either the minimum wage (which already exists) or it is a higher minimum wage (same idea, but more expensive), or it is a plea for companies to voluntarily pay higher wages (which is daft, and not an actual policy). So there is nothing new there. And there is an ocean of difference between promising a living wage and a high skill economy. In one case you promise higher wages to people with low skills. In the other case, there is no need for government intervention because people command high wages. So which is predistribution? We are left fuzzily unsure.

As for curbs on ‘predatory’ pricing, that is not new. The 1973 Fair Trading Act is a pretty good example of how previous (Tory) governments have passed laws to stop businesses exploiting customers. Barring rail companies from high price rises exhibits a dash of populist innovation, but beyond a few limited examples like rail companies, the policy would be unworkable and unpopular. Put it this way: if you set a limit on revenues, you might as well set a limit on costs. And if you set a limit on costs, you limit investment in capital infrastructure (so no new trains and no new tracks, under Labour’s predistribution) and a limit on wages and job growth (so no predistributive benefits for rail workers, or for people wanting to get a job working for rail companies). There is a possible get-out clause if government limits revenues but then provides the money for investment or wages. But it is hard to see how this makes things better. Either the government subsidy is paid by taxes, or it is financed by borrowing. If paid by taxes, the predistribution is just a convoluted disguise for old-fashioned redistribution (from people who do not use trains to people who do). If paid by borrowing, then Labour has solved the redistribution problem by redistributing wealth from the future to the present. When borrowing, today’s spending is made possible by straddling future generations with unwelcome interest payments, paying off debts they never had the chance to vote against. And loading our population with unsustainable debt is the surest route to poverty, not the route to a high skills, high wage future.

But maybe I am being unfair to Miliband. George Eaton is a moron who would extol the benefits of a dog turd if somebody told him the turd was official Labour Party policy. As such, he is inclined to make arguments that even career politicians would find too ridiculous to state in public. Maybe I need to find a better advocate for predistribution, before I dismiss it. Paul Hackett, Eaton’s New Statesman colleague, was glowing in his praise for predistribution…

The fast track to jobs and growth is by boosting incomes through higher wages.

That really does sound good. So how would Hackett’s version of predistribution work?

…wealth distribution recalibrated away from the top 1% who have secured more than their fair share of productivity gains

Well, either that means higher taxes for the top 1%, which is good old-fashioned redistribution, or it means… well, I have no idea. Maybe it means Harry Potter casting a spell of predistribution.

Successive Conservative governments transformed the world of work through the erosion of employment protection rights, tight restrictions on trade unions, the abolition of wage floors (like the Fair Wages Resolution and wages councils), lower taxes for the better off, a deliberate effort to shift the balance of power at work in favour of employers and abandoning the commitment to full employment. All of which had a disastrous impact on those on low and middle incomes.

Okay, so is predistribution the same as ‘reverse Tory policy’? Fine. But that is not new. That would be an explicit program of returning policy, and Britain’s economy, to what it was like in the 1970’s. And it was rubbish in the 1970’s. So I can understand why the argument for predistribution is not made in the way I just made it. Even ‘predistribution’ is a relatively good name for a policy, if the alternative is to call it ‘back to the 70s’.

What we know is that policies that ensure a more equal distribution of rewards are most effective when they work in parallel with labour market institutions (notably, trade unions) that achieve a fairer distribution of incomes before the intervention of the tax and benefit system.

Did we know this? That is good. But it would be nice to both know this, and have it written in English, please. I think Hackett is saying that collective bargaining by trade unions means some people get paid more. Correct. But not new. And not necessarily good. Take a look at Spain. Their economy is in a huge mess, and it was not caused by government borrowing (contrary to what some ignorant American Republicans say). Spain has a wonderfully ‘predistributed’ economy because of all sorts of workers’ rights and the established influence of the unions. They also have sky-high unemployment, especially for young people. High skill, high wage? This form of predistribution is high wage for the lucky few, but locks out huge numbers of young people from the job market, meaning their skills are not developed and they receive no work experience.

The solutions are in, many ways, not new but need to be recast for today’s economy.

That is an interesting admission by Hackett. He is honestly pitching a version of predistribution that is identical to the kind of old-fashioned labour policies that now hobble Spain’s economy. And perhaps Hackett misunderstood that Miliband was highlighting the need for new ideas…

We need new ideas if we are to tackle the problems the economy faces.

Hackett goes on to say:

There has to be more transparency in executive pay with an explicit obligation to publish the details of all directors pay packages in the annual reports of listed companies. Listed companies should also record the ratio of high pay to low pay, the distribution of pay across different levels of earnings and the number of workers in receipt of the minimum wage.

At last, for the first time, somebody is offering a genuinely new policy as part of the pro-predistribution mantra. Predistribution means ‘knowing how much execs get paid so we can put pressure on them’. That would be like knowing how much MPs take in expenses, so we can vote out the greedy scum who take advantage of the system. Oops. But that is not how voters behave. They do not punish the greediest scum amongst MPs, and Labour is mighty glad of that fact, because they love their safe seats every bit as much as the Tories do. So predistribution might be a label attached to superficial changes to corporate reporting, in the hope that shareholder influence (or some much vaguer ‘public will’) is going to punish execs for being greedy. And this policy is supposed to work even though, in a democracy, voters cannot even be bothered to vote out greedy MPs. So this aspect of predistribution is new, but will deliver no substantial change to the economy, or living standards.

And worse still, the coalition government is already offering much the same ‘predistribution’ policy. They will give shareholders a vote on exec pay. Labour has complained this does not go far enough. Maybe so, but it goes a lot further than anything achieved by Labour when they were last in power. Either way, Labour is playing a weak hand on this topic. The more radical they are, the more they highlight how gutless they used to be. And however radical they are, the chances are that the impact on exec pay will be trivial.

Whilst the minimum wage has made a difference for millions, unscrupulous employers continue to short change their staff. Ensuring that the minimum wage is effectively enforced and is fixed at the highest possible level before any negative employment effects appear should also be part of the solution.

In other words, enforce the minimum wage law that Labour already passed. Again, this hardly sounds new or radical. As it happens the coalition government is better at enforcing the minimum wage than the previous Labour government was. The Low Pay Commission’s 2012 report says that:

good progress continues to be made with regard to improving the enforcement regime

Enforcing the existing minimum wage sounds a lot less novel than asking for a ‘living wage’, whatever that is. Worse still, the Low Pay Commission, who advises on the correct level for minimum wage, already says it is at ‘the highest possible level before any negative employment effects appear’. Or, to use English, that a rise in wages would mean fewer jobs. Or as they put it:

After a good deal of discussion we concluded that in the current difficult economic circumstances caution is essential.

So for all the talk about the new idea of predistribution, once again we are left with nothing new and no substantive change to where the economy, law and government policy already is. But then Hackett does finally offer a really major change as part of the predistribution mantra:

Any future Labour government should also seek to reintroduce labour clauses in public contracts. This will not only increase the pay of those working in the public sector (or “para-state”) but also set a benchmark for pay in the private sector. There may also be role for wages councils, which set wage floors, and place peer pressure on employers to act fairly. The development, in partnership with employers, of programmes focused on raising skill levels, boosting productivity and improving the overall quality of employment at the bottom of the labour market will also help those on lower income.

So, once again, we see two recurring themes for the ‘new’ idea of predistribution. First, it is a hollow rebranding of an old idea and a simple reversal of policy. In this case, the policy reversal is that governments should be willing to pay more in order to ensure its suppliers pay more to their workers. This is just more redistribution without being honest enough to call it redistribution. The employees get paid more, the employers charge more to government to pay the higher wages, and government raises more in taxes to pay the higher fees to the corporations. This is redistribution, and a kind of redistribution that is none too popular with the workers left to compete in the genuinely free market. Instead of getting ‘high skill high pay’ jobs, many find themselves in the ridiculous position of being paid less for cleaning the toilets of a privately-owned business then somebody else gets paid for cleaning the toilets of the town council. Which leads us to the second recurring theme: fairness has nothing to do with being fair. The Spanish have shown that a two-tier system that promotes higher pay for a few only punishes the rest of the society who fail to receive those benefits. No country in Europe has seen such a disastrous explosion in unemployment, after previously having such a strong government balance sheet. What is being offered as a predistribution ‘solution’ is part of the root cause for the economic difficulties of Spain, a country where one in four workers is unemployed. There is nothing fair about guaranteeing good pay for those in work, at the cost of denying a quarter of willing workers the chance to work. And high unemployment means high levels of expenditure on benefits, low tax receipts and a uncompetitive economy. This is the exact opposite of the ‘fast track for jobs and growth’ that Hackett promises.

So again I looked for someone to sensible explain the merits of predistribution. Mark Ferguson of LabourList sometimes deserves to be read, not least because he tends to avoid some of the worst silliness of political pundits. As he put it:

Of course predistribution isn’t new

which does contrast with Miliband’s

We need new ideas if we are to tackle the problems the economy faces.

Unfortunately, he had nothing to say about what predistribution is, other than the airy-fairy idea that it means everybody gets great pay even though nobody else has to spend more in order to make that possible. Honestly, such is the depth of his analysis; see for yourself.

Daniel Sage of LabourList is more straightforward in pointing out the black hole that lies at the heart of this ‘new’ idea:

If Ed Miliband is to make predistribution a real policy goal, he’ll need to flesh out how he would fundamentally restructure the British labour market. And this will be the real challenge.

Which is another way of saying that the real challenge is not to bandy about a new word like ‘predistribution’, but to tell us what you think it means.

I then turned to Demos, the think tank, where Duncan O’Leary gave his definition of predistribution. At long last I had found someone willing to discuss new policy initiatives, I thought.

The million dollar question, of course, is what this means in practice and Miliband will inevitably come under pressure to announce policy immediately. He should ignore the chorus. Miliband is showing leadership in starting the debate and should be comfortable with letting it play out before he announces detailed proposals.

Indeed. Leadership means uttering a word, not saying what it means, then letting the debate ‘play out’ before you explain what you thought you were talking about in the first place. No need to actually tell voters what you think at this stage, because that might cost votes, because maybe what you think is a load of rubbish that voters will see through… But then O’Leary did make some suggestions for how to fill in the blanks.

London Citizens has a living wage campaign, for example, which is a civil society response. Norway has much more transparency on what people are paid (via information on people’s tax contributions), which is a ‘nudge’-type answer. Germany has ‘co-determination’, giving employees more power to bargain in their own workplaces. France has profit-sharing, which is a more direct form of intervention.

We can rule out civil society as a Miliband policy proposal, not that his most brain-dead supporters will grasp the extraordinarily obvious reason why he has to rule out civil society as a solution. Relying on civil society to solve problems is exactly the same as relying upon the (gulp) big society to solve problems. If he hopes to win the next election, Miliband needs to castigate the coalition government for being a do-nothing bunch of laissez faire toffs. Suggesting that the people can sort out their own mess would sound rather like an endorsement for Dave Cameron’s policy of letting people sort out their own mess.

The next level up is to enforce transparency, but nothing else. Transparency is fine, but it will not win votes. The coalition government is not averse to adopting nudge-nudge policies when they look like a vote-winner, so it is highly unlikely the Tories will throw away the next election because they were outflanked by tame pro-transparency policies from Labour.

German co-determination sounds like a much more plausible Labour policy. Unfortunately for Labour, the way it works in Germany is that highly-educated, highly-skilled people work in highly successful industries and make restrained demands in order to support the all-around goal of supporting the German export success story. That is why German voters despise bailouts for Greeks and other European nations. Their self-restraint is a contrast to the profligacy of others. Given the many years of successful Labour government, it should not be hard to locate the many Brits who, like the Germans, are highly-educated, highly-skilled workers whose self-restraint has contributed to successful export businesses… or maybe not. So co-determination is a no-go area for Miliband because it only illustrates that Labour spent 13 years promising, but not delivering, the kind of high skill high wage economy that Germany has. And when I say they spent 13 years promising and not delivering the same economy as Germany’s, I really mean that they spent 50 years promising it and they still have no idea about how to deliver it.

That leaves just profit sharing, which is a viable idea, and perhaps the best, most radical, and most likely to succeed. Unfortunately, profit-sharing is as likely to be backed by neo-Thatcherites as by lefties. By which I mean that profit-sharing is more likely to be backed by neo-Thatcherites than lefties. Go back to Paul Hackett’s piece, and consider what he said about collective bargaining. Are trade unions constantly complaining that their workers do not get enough profit-related pay? Is the problem that the risks of corporate losses are not adequately shared with employees? I sympathize with lefties when they complain about exec pay. Too many execs got paid for the upsides of the risks they took, too few were made to pay for the downsides. But a fair approach to profit sharing would mean workers also experience the ups and downs of business, as communicated via their pay packet. If the coalition government reinvigorated schemes that encourage employees to buy shares in their employers, predistribution would rapidly become synonymous with Thatcher’s dream of a ‘shareholder democracy’. So even on the occasions where predistribution is new and radical, it may not suit Labour, because it better suits the political right.

Oddly enough, for all the leftist talk about predistribution, it took a right-leaning pundit to point out the greatest single cause of predistributive inequality: housing. Whilst the lefties avoided saying much of substance, Neil O’Brien of the Policy Exchange gave an incredibly wonkish analysis of predistribution in The Telegraph, of all places. O’Brien points out that the difference between the housing haves and have-nots is at least as big an issue as the gap between the highest and lowest paid. Yet what did Miliband have to say about housing in his speech?

If [the government] really wanted to make a difference to housing they would tax bankers’ bonuses and as we recommended, build tens of thousands of new homes.

On housing, like on so many issues, Miliband relies on the gift that keeps giving: taxing evil bankers to pay for pretty much everything imaginable. Odd to think that some of those high skill people who came out of the education education education system may have been motivated to pass exams just so they could get filthy rich by working for a bank. Presumably that is the kind of high skill, high pay job that Labour now wants to discourage. It makes me wonder if Brown and Blair deliberately excluded banking pay from the stats they cited about graduate pay as justification for a massive increase in university enrollment. Clearly their plan of doubling students did not convert into doubling the number of bankers. In fact, it did not convert into anything, because Miliband now says:

And as we face a crisis of youth unemployment, [the government] should be offering young people a Real Jobs Guarantee.

So it turns out that education education education was insufficient after all. Government policy should be to pay to educate a lot of high skill people, then pay to create jobs for them to do. What a beautifully circular piece of thinking, until you remember that it is the workers who go straight into work that will be forced to subsidize education and subsidize the high paid jobs artificially created to keep those high skilled people happy. Miliband never addresses the risk that Labour plans actually hurt the working poor, because whilst he mentions ‘real demand’, all his policies point to altering supply, and have nothing to do with the demand for the high skill high pay workers that he promises to create.

However you look at it, bashing bankers is not a credible long-term policy for housing, even though Ed says he recognizes

that this agenda is about long-term change in the economy and it will take time.

Which I assume means he will not do what Labour did when last in power, and he will not waste three terms, watching idly as the building industry slows to a crawl and produces fewer and fewer new houses each year. And he will not sit idly by whilst watching middle class voters get richer and richer from the consequent rise in the value of their homes. The housing crisis will take a long period of sustained improvement if it is going to be fixed, so Miliband had better have some more ideas for how to fix it. I, for one, would like to hear them. In order to meaningfully predistribute, Miliband would need to reverse the disgusting rift in housing inequality that occurred, say, between the years 1997 and 2010 (the inequality occurred before, and it is still getting worse, but the rules of political pantomime insist that Labour undoes the harm they previously caused, before promising to reverse anyone else’s policies). Again, a flashy new word is just cover for a serial disdain for the voter. Why talk about real problems that have plagued Britain for decades – problems like the housing shortage? It is easier to pretend that a minor course correction (exec pay transparency, caps on rail fares, taxes on bankers) would be sufficient to deliver utopia. And why is Miliband afraid to address those real problems? I think there is a simple explanation. Radical new policies designed to succeed would only serve to highlight the scale of Labour’s past failures.

The truth is that Labour talks a good game about forming a coalition of interests between the poor and the middling, but its long-established electoral strategy demands a quite different approach. Labour adopts policies that screw the poor in order to enrich the middling. A few headline, redistributive policies are used to fool the poor into thinking that Labour is on their side, and as a consequence Labour holds on to its low-turnout safe seats whilst hoping to be competitive in the middle-class marginals it needs for an overall majority.

Like the Republicans in the US, Labour seduces the poor voter by playing on their ignorance. The Republicans tell the American poor that they will be hurt by higher taxes. Labour tells Britain’s poor that they are hurt by inadequate redistribution. The Republicans fail to point out that America’s poor are net recipients of policies that aim to tax and redistribute. Labour fails to point out that Britain’s poor are being subsidized to stay in rented accommodation, but denied the right to own their home, because building more affordable homes would hit the middle class.

If there is any point to discussing predistribution as the basis of informed policy-making, it should start with illuminating how inequality of costs has just as great an influence as inequality of income. Those costs include housing, where Labour has nothing to offer. Costs also include income taxes levied on the working poor, which the coalition government has taken great strides to alleviate. Polls indicate that the coalition government has utterly failed to persuade voters that raising the income tax personal allowance is a great benefit to them. This is ironic, because reducing the income tax paid by the working poor is the most directly predistributive correction imaginable. I fail to see why a low-paid worker should thank the government for endorsing a civil society campaign to increase their wages, whilst also thanking the government for taking a chunk of those wages and redistributing them elsewhere. The two Eds have looked on dismissively whilst watching the coalition’s failure to parlay their tax cut into increased popularity. They even have the cheek to pretend that the stimulus of a VAT cut – which ultimately must be paid for by taxes levied elsewhere – is preferable to the fair predistribution of reducing income tax for the lowest paid.

Predistribution is being presented by the left as a sly complement to redistribution. When the detail is examined, most of it is just disguised redistribution, and the rest is far from sly. Real predistribution would take away inequalities that mean the working poor pay absurd amounts of income tax, and pay a disgustingly heavy price just to have a roof over their heads. Those are two topics that Labour does not want to talk about. To talk about them is to invite a massive u-turn on past Labour policy, or else to look ridiculous. And that is why I predict that predistribution has no future as political gossip or sloganeering.

Predistribution is today’s cafe talking point. Come the end of the day, it will be washed out and emptied, just like the coffee cups. And who will be collecting those cups, and washing them out? The same kind of low skill, low pay workers who also work in call centres, or supermarkets, or in old peoples’ homes. There lies the real tragedy of Miliband’s politics. He has a sneering contempt for the idea that Brits might take pride in doing those jobs. They may not be high skill jobs, but there is no reason for anyone to be ashamed of an honest day’s work. And if not done by Brits, then who should do them? Are Brits meant to think of themselves as superior to other nationalities? But there is something perfectly natural about Labour’s sneering at the low-paid and immigrants who mostly vote for Labour. Labour politicos want to ‘help’ them, because they feel that anyone doing a straightforward job must obviously need ‘help’. They cannot believe that anybody normal, honest and decent might take any pride in doing those jobs. Nursing the old, providing customer service, operating a checkout till – Labour thinks there is something wrong with people who do these jobs. There is something wrong, but it is not with doing these jobs, nor with the wages they get paid. The injustice in Britain stems from the inordinate amounts these people have to pay for everything – their council tax, their TV licence fee, and most importantly for their accommodation, because no politician has the guts to reform exploitative systems that arbitrarily enrich some at the cost of many others.

To understand why Labour despises the low paid, just look at the attitudes that Labour’s elite exhibit through their own behaviour. If Labour wants to start down the road to predistribution, then their MPs can stop making such extravagant expense claims, they can stop profiting from the housing crisis that impoverishes the housing have-nots, and they can voluntarily pay more for the services they receive. They can ostracize Jacqui Smith, an incompetent Home Secretary who admitted she was under-qualified for the job, who fleeced the expenses system to the point where taxpayers footed the bill for her husband’s porno, and who still considered herself a fit person to apply for the job of vice-chairman of the BBC Trust. They can kick out Hazel Blears MP, who retains her ultra safe seat despite being a gormless moron who first abused the loopholes in the taxing of UK houses, then showed her contempt for ordinary people by brandishing a tax cheque as if this absolved her of all sin. They can ask why union leaders like Bob Crow are so comfortable with pocketing huge wages whilst continuing to benefit from subsidized council housing. And nobody is stopping Labour’s top dogs from demonstrating wage restraint. Before Labour politicos talk about pay ratios between top execs and their employees, they might want to look at how much they get paid, compared to the average voter. For example, Ed Miliband could chat to Tony Blair about his extravagant earnings and implausible tax returns, he could chastise Ken Livingstone for his extraordinarily dishonest attitude to tax avoidance on his substantial earnings, and he could remonstrate with his brother David over the morality of making half a million pounds each year, ostensibly for doing bugger all except profiting from his insider knowledge of government. The more Labour chatters about predistribution as an alternative to redistribution, the more prediculous they will seem. And when it comes to the personal touch, treating predistribution as a philosophy for life, and not just a political slogan, I struggle to see Labour leading by example.

The problem with being partisan is that it forces you to be wrong some of the time. There is no need to be political to understand the truth of this. People make mistakes. Organizations make mistakes. Sports teams make mistakes. The uncritical supporter must sometimes blind themselves to moments when criticism is warranted. The partisan resorts to blaming anyone – the referee, the cheats on the other team, the weather, the foreigners, the media – rather than admit a screw up by the side that he or she identifies with. Clint Eastwood must know this. You do not develop such an assured touch as a film actor or director without being tough and clear-headed about what works and what fails. No actor will nail every take of every scene. The director has to know when to coach the actor, when to give more instruction, and most importantly when to demand another take, and another, and another, until the results are right.

Clint must also know that the strongest individuals never completely identify themselves with anyone but themselves. He plays complicated characters. He is a complicated character. Dirty Harry broke the rules to enforce the law, but he also stood up against vigilante cops. The stranger in High Plains Drifter is a cold-blooded rapist and murderer, who trains a town to defend itself whilst renaming it ‘Hell’. When the town is overrun by mining company gunslingers, he returns to free them. Walt Kowalski in Gran Torino is a racist veteran of the Korean War, who discovers he has more in common with the ‘gooks’ next door than he does with his own family. Having threatened violence to defend his property, he later gives his life to end the persecution of his neighbours by gangsters from their own race. And in Unforgiven, William Munny is an aging former killer, who returns to slay a fascistic sheriff on behalf of a prostitute. These characters populate worlds that seem to include an ‘us’ and a ‘them’, but Eastwood rips diagonals through the straight lines on either side.

Eastwood, the man, also defies simple analysis about whose side he is on. He endorsed Nixon but later criticized Nixon’s morality and the morality of the Vietnam War. He also disapproved of the wars in Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq, which makes him rather less keen on military adventures than most mainstream Republicans. At times he has described himself as moderate and libertarian, whilst refusing to call himself a conservative. He is socially liberal, being in favour of gay marriage and pro-choice on abortion, and he has backed Democrat candidates in some elections. As a mayor, Eastwood professed himself to be an independent. And Eastwood’s private life has been complicated too. He has had seven children by five wives. Many stories of Eastwood’s affairs and break-ups reveal he is far from the perfect gentleman, and he will never be an icon for family values. That said, Eastwood is a fairly reliable supporter of free market economics, and this made him an excellent choice to speak at this year’s Republican National Convention. Or he would have been an excellent choice, if he stuck to the script. In fact, it would have been a good idea to have written a script in the first place. Rehearsal would also have helped. Clint Eastwood is a great movie hero. His performance at the RNC, which was described as ‘ad libbed’, showed him to be mediocre at improvisational comedy. That was a waste of his natural talents. During the halftime at the Superbowl, Clint showed how effective he can be, when somebody gives him decent lines to read…

That ad received a lot of criticism from Republicans. They thought it endorsed the bail-out of the US auto manufacturing industry that was approved by the Democrats. I think they were wrong. It was a skillfully crafted ad, designed primarily to encourage Americans to buy cars from American-owned manufacturers. Ironically, some of the people who were wrong to criticize Eastwood’s Superbowl ad, were also wrong to praise Eastwood’s performance at the RNC, where he warmed up the audience during a primetime slot before Mitt Romney’s closing speech. Putting the partisan aside, Eastwood’s RNC performance was a stinker. If Clint had been employed to direct the event, I have no doubt that his rambling, shambling, stumbling and fumbling monologue to an empty chair would never have escaped the cutting room floor. It had a few good lines. The fans latched on to them. In particular, there was a great line about Joe Biden: “the intellect of the Democratic party … a grin with a body behind it.” But here is a verbatim excerpt, most of which will have been instantly wiped from the minds of Republican partisans, whilst living on in the minds of Democrats.

“…now we’re moving onward. And I know in the, err err, and I know you were against the war in Iraq, and that’s okay, but you thought the war in Afghanistan was a, was a, okay. I mean you thought that was something worth doing. We didn’t check with the Russians to see how they did there for the ten years, but it a, we did it, and a, it was um, it it you know, it’s a, it’s something to, to be thought about, and I think that err, that when we get to err, err, maybe err, I think that you mentioned something about having a target date for bringing everybody home, and you’ve given that tar-err that target err date and err, and I think err Mr. Romney asked the only sensible question. He says why are you giving the date out know, why don’t you just bring them home tomorrow morning. And err, I thought, I thought ‘yeah’, there’s a, I’m not going to shut up, it’s my turn. So anyway, we got, we’re gonna have err, we gonna have to have a little chat about that. And then err, I-I-I just wondered, these, all these promises, and then I, I wondered about err, err you know when a, the a, what? What do you want me to tell Romney? I can’t tell him to do that. He can’t do that to himself.”

And if you do not believe me, then I suggest you watch it again:

For me, this was a wasted opportunity. If you want someone to do a Bob Newhart routine, then book Bob Newhart. If I was running the Democratic Party, I would now go out and book Bob Newhart for their convention, putting invisible Romney in the chair, and asking him detailed questions about his policies, his tax returns, where he would make spending cuts, his plans to increase employment, and so forth. Two can play at that game, and this may not be a game that suits either candidate. And if you want to make fun of Obama, you have to rubbish what he is, not what he is not. Obama is an effective and persuasive communicator. Obama would not use profanity, as Clint implied for a cheap laugh. And Obama would not interrupt Clint, telling him to shut up. There is no reason for Obama to interject, if Clint’s best pitch for the Republican candidate is: “err, and I, umm err, and a, and I-I-I err err those wars, those wars in err err Afghanistan err and a, the war in Iraq err, we a, we err shouldn’t err be in those wars.” Why would Obama want to interrupt that?! The few moments of coherence that emerge from the shambolic drivel only reveal that Clint’s views on foreign policy are closer to Obama’s than to Romney’s.

If I had the chance to utilize Clint Eastwood’s gifts, I would have utilized his strengths. I would have given him a script, and made him rehearse it. He would either do the job, or not be allowed on stage. In my script, he would play the role of the hero, an individual who can raise himself from the fray, and a man who leads the way for others to follow. I would have had him return to the theme of America’s turnaround, in more than one sense of the word. And I would have had him focus on the economy and how this is halftime in America…

Thank you, thank you very much. I think some of you know who I am already. I’m no politician. I’m that annoying guy who came on TV during the Superbowl, and talked about halftime in America. Now you’re thinking I’m just some movie industry guy, and how they always seem to be fans of Obama. Let me tell you, there’s a whole range of quiet spoken decent folks – moderates, conservatives, independents – in the film industry just like every other American industry, just like all over America. It’s just that most of the time we’re more reticent about preaching our opinions. But maybe now’s not the time to stay quiet. With the current state of America’s economy, now is a time to speak up and take action, whilst we still can do something to reverse course.

I still think of myself as an ordinary man. I should do, I’m 82 years old and still working hard. That’s the way so many of us like to be – we want to work. We work for ourselves, for our families, and we like to help our neighbors and our communities to prosper. I admire that. Sometimes a quiet generosity of spirit speaks so much louder than getting up in front of an audience and making a speech with many fine words. For me, actions always speak louder than words. In recent years, we’ve heard a lot of fine words from politicians. But we’d all like to see a lot more positive action. So please forgive the fact that I asked to come here tonight in order to deliver this speech of mine.

I’ll be honest with you. I liked Obama. I didn’t vote for him, but I liked a lot of what he said. In America, we believe in giving people their chance. But we, Americans, own this country. We built it. Politicians are our employees. And when they can’t get the job done, we fire them; that’s why we love democracy so much. And we believe that’s a good thing in general – to give the job to the best man. Right now, it’s clear who the best man is. It’s halftime in America, and we need Mitt Romney to step up from the bench.

I just wanted to tell you that it’s not just people in the room tonight who feel that we need to turn America around. You don’t have to be affiliated to any political party to be desperate to see our country make a comeback. We’ve come back before, and we believe we can do it again. We’ve got the talent, we’ve got the spirit, but many of us are low on confidence. You see, many feel that it really is halftime in America, and we’re down. Our economy took a terrible beating, we know that’s true. We’ve been fighting back, struggling to get back into the game, but it hasn’t been easy, and it’s taking too long. We’re running low on hope, and it’s time to make a change for the better. We’ve got 23 million people out of work. That’s a lot of hands, hearts and minds that should be building America’s future. Currently, they’re stuck on the bench, waiting for their chance to get back into the game. But the way we’ve been playing the game just hasn’t been working. We feel like we’re falling behind. We’ve stopped taking the game to our opponents, and that’s because we’ve adopted a system that doesn’t get the best out of our people. Instead of releasing our talent, we’re shackling it. And we’re not just shackling today’s America.

Who built America? Americans used to rely on their own grit and determination to get the job done. We’re a nation of freedom-loving individuals, each playing their own part for team USA. But increasingly, we’re taking the burden and placing it on people who have no say in the matter. That doesn’t seem fair, and that’s not the right way to pursue our freedom. I’m talking about burdening our children, and grandchildren, and their children and grandchildren. It’s right that we should support our children and want them to have a better life – trust me, I know a little about that. We don’t want the situation reversed; we don’t want our kids to be paying for the lives we lived. They’ll be the ones expected to pay the interest on the massive debts that the American government is racking up in our name. Well, not in my name. And not in the name of millions of other Americans who believe in working hard, paying their dues, and carrying their own weight in this life. It’s the children and the unborn who don’t get a vote, who don’t get a say – they’ll be the ones to most feel the consequences of the decisions we’re making now. I don’t worry about debt for myself – I’ve done alright in life, and I’m already past my personal halftime. But I do think about the debt we’re leaving behind for others. It’ll take away their freedom as surely as if we’d locked them in a jail that we built for them. That’s what the American government is building now – four solid walls that surround us with debt, and every day the walls get higher. That’s the vision of America that our children are being born into.

It’s not too late to make a comeback, but if we wait too long, it might be. Right now, it’s halftime in America, and with a better gameplan, we can get out there and win, like we’ve done before. We’ve got to get every hard-working, talented and able American into the game. That starts by shoving government out of their way. And that means electing a man who knows that government best solves problems by making room for the invention, the creativity, the courage and the labor of our people, whatever job they’re in, whatever kind of business they’re running. That’s how I’d like to see us pull together, and that’s how to get team USA back on top of its game. You know it, I know it, and the vast majority of Americans know it. Now I’m sure you’ve heard enough of my halftime talk. Now we’ve got to get out there and win. Go ahead – make my day, Governor Romney.

Face facts, all you supporters of America’s Republican Party. Your chosen Presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, is a bit of a weirdo. Not bad, not mad, but not the finished product either. He says corporations are people, likes Nascar but only because he is friends with Nascar team owners, claims to be severely conservative (whatever that means), told the SEC he was CEO of a business for three years after he stopped being CEO, and he strapped the family dog to the roof of his car. Simpletons might distrust Romney because of his Mormon faith, but most reasonable people would be worried about his judgement because of what he says and does. Charles Krauthammer, a right-wing pundit and no fan of Obama, is routinely bemused by Romney. As Krauthammer points out, Romney clearly wants to be President of the USA, but he makes no effort to be likeable. Romney has not closed his Swiss bank account, nor withdrawn his horse from the extraordinarily elitist Olympic sport of dressage (a.k.a. the one where you teach expensive horses how to dance). I mean, it is nice to have a Swiss bank account, and it would be nice to win an Olympic medal for dressage, but not so nice that you want to put off ordinary American blue collar voters and jeopardize your chances of being ‘leader of the free world’. I jest, of course. Nobody really believes that the President of the USA is the leader of the free world. The rest of the free world does not vote for the US President, so why would they follow his lead? So, all things considered, there is only one reason for Brits to get upset when Mitt Romney comes to town and starts insinuating that the London 2012 Olympics would have been much better if only Mitt Romney had been in charge. And that reason is: the average Brit’s complete lack of deference to insufferable, rude, ignorant and pompous people.

If Mitt Romney was a cartoon character, he would pop up in the middle of one of those arguments where Elmer Fudd cannot work out whether to shoot Bugs or Daffy…

Bugs Bunny: (grabs the end of Elmer Fudd’s shotgun and points it at Daffy) Duck season!

Daffy Duck: (grabs Fudd’s gun and points it at Bugs) Wabbit Season!

Bugs Bunny: Duck season!

Daffy Duck: Wabbit Season!

Bugs Bunny: Duck season!

Mitt Romney: (grabs the gun and points it at himself) Mitt season!

(Elmer shoots Mitt)

Mitt Romney’s Olympic visit to London did serve a very useful purpose. For quite a while, Brits have wondered if there really is a ‘special relationship’ between the UK and the USA, or if Americans just think the Brits are chumps. The reason for the doubt is pretty straightforward. American politicians heap praise on the UK whenever it agrees to spend billions on sending British troops to fight in wars that America is very keen to fight. The rest of the time, they are dismissive and sneering towards Britain’s interests. President Obama has been especially off-hand with the Brits. On their first meeting, there was an exchange of gifts between the then British Primeminister, Gordon Brown, and Obama. Brown gave Obama a pen holder made from the wood of a Victorian anti-slave ship, HMS Gannet. The Oval Office contains a desk made from the Gannet’s sister ship. In exchange, Obama thoughtfully presented Brown with… a multi-pack of DVDs. Republicans observed Obama’s high-handed behaviour, and they have been jumping all over Obama for removing a bust of Churchill from the Oval Office. Thanks to Obama’s arrogance, everything has been set up for Romney to visit Britain and score some cheap points, by simply emphasizing the importance of the relationship between the two countries, and how he was far more ‘Anglo-Saxon‘ than Obama. All Romney had to do was show up, smile, say nothing, and low British self-esteem would have filled in the blanks, imagining there might still be a special relationship if there was a change in the White House. Unfortunately, Romney spoke. Out loud. And every time he did, he confirmed the same thing: there is no special relationship between the US and UK. It does not matter who sits in the Oval Office. The US President cares about US voters, and Brits do not vote in American elections. That means American Presidents only take an interest in British lives if they can be conveniently expended to reduce the cost of wars that are otherwise borne by the American voter. American Presidents, or even wannabes, do not take an interest in:

• Remembering the names of the British political leaders they are meeting with;
• Familiarizing themselves with British customs; or
• Being complimentary to your host’s Olympic preparations.

Personally, I blame the influence of Mel Gibson. He was the last of the Hollywood mob to routinely cast English character actors as the baddies in all his films, seemingly unconcerned that he might profit more by getting Brits to watch those same films. There is a strain of American culture that views Brits in the same way that some Brits view Germans. Both feel they can insult their chosen victims without exhibiting any self-restraint. In truth, such belligerence can only persist because those that suffer it are far more polite than those that indulge in it. Germans still remain surprisingly polite, though even they are tiring of WW2 guilt. Brits are rather less polite than they once were, not that they would expect an American to know either way. So whilst some Americans think Brits are just waiting for some American exceptionalist leadership to point Britain in the right direction, those same Americans are unable to verify the truth of that belief whilst sat in a crappy little trailer in Nebraska. Wherever that is. And nobody likes Mel Gibson any more, now that he has disgraced himself as a sad little drunk bully. Which just goes to show what happens when you adopt Mel Gibson’s worldview.

The end of British politeness was best summed up by the response to Mitt Romney’s insults:

• British PM David Cameron pointed out it was much easier to run an Olympics ‘in the middle of nowhere’ (a.k.a. Romney’s 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City)
• London Mayor Boris Johnson lampooned Romney, asking a 60,000-strong crowd if they thought London was ready, or if Romney had been right about a ‘disconcerting’ lack of preparation (the crowd unanimously agreed that London was ready)
• The right-leaning Telegraph Newspaper said: “Mitt Romney is perhaps the only politician who could start a trip that was supposed to be a charm offensive by being utterly devoid of charm and mildly offensive“
• And there were lots of other bad headlines for Romney in all the other papers, even the ones owned by Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch (Murdoch’s Sun went with ‘Mitt the Twit’). There were so many bad headlines for Romney it would be tedious for anyone but a partisan nutjob to buy all the papers, take photos of them, and put them on a blog. So, as proof of all the bad headlines, look here for the relevant blog from Obama’s UK supporters.
• The hashtags ‘#romneyshambles‘ and ‘#americanborat‘ were instant (and hilarious) hits on Twitter.

And it went on, and on. And the stream of outrage summed up how the British felt about being besmirched by someone best cast as Spock’s dad in the next Star Trek movie (“I have been accused of many things in my life, never an excess of emotion“). But though the Brits went on, and Romney wisely backtracked, that was not the end. Wiser American right-wingers stated that Romney had been tactless and then wisely decided to move the conversation on to more productive ground. But they did admit that Romney had been stupid. As Krauthammer put it in the Washington Post:

…Romney should say nothing of substance, just offer effusive expressions of affection for his hosts “” and avoid needless contretemps, like his inexplicably dumb and gratuitous critique of Britain’s handling of the Olympic Games. The whole point is to show appreciation for close allies, something the current president has conspicuously failed to do.

But not everyone could move on. If anything, some American right-wing onlookers took note of the wound inflicted by Romney, and then decided to spit in it:

• Jennifer Rubin, the utterly tedious hack and Romneyphile, had nothing to say about Romney’s behaviour in London. Literally nothing. As if Romney had made no gaffe, and received no rebuke from PM David Cameron, or anyone else. However, Cameron had separately admitted it was a shame that a video shown at a football game had displayed the South Korean flag alongside photos of the North Korean women’s football team, and Rubin was ready to pounce. “British Prime Minister David Cameron’s apology for the flag mix-up to the Great Leader’s gulag should give the American press a clue about this guy’s view of the world,” she wrote. Well, the clue is not that David Cameron is a secret fan of North Korean socialism, which is Rubin’s obvious but absurdly infantile insinuation. More likely, David Cameron’s view is that it is not polite to mix up the flags of countries at the Olympic Games, and it is polite to apologize for errors instead of childishly pretending they did not happen. And that in the case of flag-related screw-ups, even North Korea can receive an apology, without that being interpreted as tacit support for the leadership of Kim-Jong-Whatever.
• Bobby Jindal, Romney surrogate and possible VP pick, said: “We’re not worried about overseas headlines. We’re worried about voters back here at home in America“. Nice one. Thanks for the confirmation that the leaders of the Republican Party do not give a damn about what Brits think. But if the goal is to get the attention of American voters who live in the United Stated of America, why did the campaign fly to Britain and then starting insulting the Brits? Perhaps, as a campaign insider, Jindal is conscious of some secret strategy to pick up votes from American voters who enjoy seeing Brits insulted.
• The standard tack on Breitbart.com was to pretend nothing happened and, if anything did happen, it was a lie made up by America’s leftist media. It was unclear if all British newspapers, and the BBC, and most people who live in Britain are, by extension, also part of the leftist American media conspiracy. In a story with the unpromising headline of: ‘Media Distorts Romney’s Olympics History to Invent “Gaffe”‘, Ron Futrell went on to write ‘the media has created this battle, clear and simple’. Right. So when Brits slag off Obama that is legitimate outrage, but when they slag off Romney, then this is a lie invented the left. It must be invented because, aside from Romney’s gratuitous insults, the Brits have no conceivable reason to slag off Romney. Any suggestion that the Brits were ready to thrust Romney’s face in his dressage horse’s shit can only be explained as a Trotskyite conspiracy designed to undermine Comrade Stalin – ahem, I mean Governor Romney. Also neither Trotsky nor the UK ever existed, and they were also fabricated by the mainstream media, along with Obama’s birth certificate and evidence that Sarah Palin is a moron. Any photos indicating the existence of Trotsky or Britain were photoshopped, obviously. So Breitbart.com is entitled to airbrush them, before anyone falls of all those lies, lies, lies.
• Unfortunately, not everyone on Breitbart.com got the memo, and so Breitbart regular and rabid dog Dan Riehl decided that the problem must be with the Brits being over-sensitive, because it could not possibly be caused by Romney’s lack of diplomatic skills. So he blogged about how it was all the UK’s fault for being so rubbish. In summary, Riehl argued that Britain is a ‘second-rate semi-degenerate nation’, lead by a ‘limp wrist-ed’ (sic) (I have no idea why anyone would put a hyphen in ‘wristed’, but he did) David Cameron, and that Brits are mostly ‘feckless wankers’. One wonders if Riehl will apologize when he glances over Breitbart.com and discovers that the party line is that nobody in Britain complained about anything, and that the bad headlines were solely the product of left-wing media bias. Probably not. Only lovers of North Korea feel the need to apologize for anything. And everyone knows the reputation of Americans as arrogant hateful self-absorbed gits is only based on an unrepresentative sample of fantasist bloggers. Who generally spend their time blogging about how bloggers will soon overthrow the lying, prejudiced, mainstream media. Riehl’s blog is called ‘Riehl World View’ which is kinda funny, as it implies he acknowledges the existence of a world outside of the walnut he thinks with.
• Meanwhile, Jim Geraghty denied nothing. According to Geraghty, Romney really did say the things that insulted the Brits. According to Geraghty, there was no leftist media conspiracy, after all. The problem was “London calling”¦ and sounding incoherent in their high dudgeon”. Apparently Geraghty seems to think that people cannot be insulted if you tell them the truth. Or at least, your opinion on what is true. Interesting point. If I ever meet Jim Geragty, I shall tell him he is a ‘f*cking wanker’ and that ‘I would like to punch his f*cking lights out because, in my opinion, he deserves it’. Also I might mention punching Dan Riehl too, except that is exactly the kind of thing that clowns like Riehl want. I am confident, if I launch a blitzkrieg of offense approximately one millimetre from Geraghty’s face, he will respond with a warm smile and a hearty handshake. After all, my aim is to convey statements that are entirely accurate, and as they represent my own Riehl-like worldview, nobody can dispute that they truly represent my opinion.
• A Romney campaign official said London Mayor Boris Johnson had “lived up to his reputation as an eccentric, odd fellow. It was unbecoming to attack Governor Romney in that way.” Clearly this campaign official has confused the meaning of ‘irony’ with that of ‘steely’. If it is unbecoming to criticize, then stop criticizing. This campaign no-name attacked the London Mayor for defending himself after his Olympic preparations were attacked. It is true that Boris Johnson is both eccentric and odd, a truth acknowledged by most Brits. However, the Romney campaign might also want to consider some other words often used to describe Johnson: ‘popular’ and ‘winner’. People even describe Johnson as ‘conservative’. Perhaps the Romney campaign might want to consider how rarely any of these words are used to describe their candidate.

So, in conclusion, well done to the American right. They cleared up any confusion about the ‘special relationship’ between the US and UK. There is none, and will be none. We already knew Obama and the American left were not bothered about having a special relationship with the UK. Romney could have capitalized by doing what Krauthammer suggested – turning up and saying nothing. But not only Romney failed to perform that very simple task. It seems lots of the American right want to bury, beyond doubt, the myth of a special relationship between the UK and US. Brits should keep that in mind, next time the US is looking for a military adventure to be partially subsidized by second-rate nations. As Romney himself wrote in his book:

“England is just a small island. Its roads and houses are small. With few exceptions, it doesn’t make things that people in the rest of the world want to buy. And if it hadn’t been separated from the continent by water, it almost certainly would have been lost to Hitler’s ambitions.”

The name of Romney’s book is ‘No Apology’. So there will be no apology to the Welsh or Scots, who also happen to live on the island called Great Britain (England is not, in fact, an island). The policy of not apologizing is more realistic if you avoid unnecessary insult in the first place. Romney might want to ask himself why he makes it so easy to revile him, because I suspect there is a fairly decent human being underneath that exterior of inhuman elitism. But getting back to the point, it is gratifying to see there is bipartisanship agreement in the USA over one thing – that the UK does not matter. Whether Obama or Romney prevails, the UK will not have a friend in the White House. After all, who needs foreign allies? Only the weak. Not American politicians. They only need American voters. But whilst they wait for the next election, they might want to listen to the kinds of cheers that can be whipped up by a genuinely popular politician…