According to legend, Winston Churchill once sent back a pudding he was served with the following critique: “it has no theme”. As I watched BBC Parliament last night, I couldn’t help but be reminded of this story. If the election is comparable to a pudding, it is admittedly a bland, soggy one that appears to be more syrup than sponge, and it is definitely lacking a clear motif. The BBC is apparently bored; yesterday, a reporter felt the need to illustrate the tedium by playing a clip of Nick Clegg, flanked by two of his PPCs, discussing local architecture and school holidays. This was apparently how the Liberal Democrat leader felt he should use a prime-time opportunity for greater publicity. Worse, and more important, the first week has been dominated by a series of arguments about relatively minor changes in taxation; the £12 billion in “efficiency savings” that the Conservatives are talking about are unlikely to be achieved, thus their proposed tax cuts have an inadequate provision behind them. However, in the grand scheme of the challenges facing the nation, these arguments are very small beer. The big ideas are apparently confined to only a few constituencies like Cambridge and Brighton Pavillion; for the vast majority, the present ideological recipe yields only a very thin gruel.

Contrary to what Francis Fukuyama’s diminishing band of followers might think, we are definitely not at “the end of history”, and thus dull politics are not something we should accept as being “normal”. For example, it is very clear that the balance between labour and management in this country is terribly broken and steps should be taken to start afresh.

I speak with some experience in this regard as I have worked in both private industry and in the academic sector; I also hold a position of responsibility within the local chapter of my trade union. Based upon what I have seen, I suggest there exists a pernicious management culture in the United Kingdom which demands absolute deference to whomever is “the boss”. Furthermore, the trade union movement, which prior to the Eighties was a counterbalance, has largely been emasculated. According to a recent report in the Economist, trade union membership which reached a high of 53% of the working population in 1979, has dropped to 27% now. Worse, the concentration of that membership is now largely in public sector jobs; this has led to problems for many unions who want to engage in industrial action. Whereas in the Sixties and Seventies there was a substantial segment of the population that might be in sympathy, nowadays, it is a pocket of inconvenience; only when the service in question tugs on the wider public’s heart-strings, such as the fire service, is this barrier overcome.

There is a new role for unions, however. The future may lie in replicating how labour and management work together in Germany: the structure there is that of a partnership, as both sides treat their company as a social, as well as economic organisation, and both sides are interested in the enterprise’s long-term viability. The continued success of Germany as an exporting nation and the relative strength of its economy is indicative of how well this approach has worked. However, my reading of management in Britain is that it is not ready to accept that it doesn’t know everything: the pervasive business culture, exemplified by the television programme Dragons’ Den and the salaries accrued by the head of banks, is still that of reliance on individual, all-knowing, all-seeing “heroes”. But business is not meant to be heroic, it it is meant to serve the public and be sane. When I was in private industry, I used to laugh at the projected annual targets that were cooked up by Finance Directors, as the “heroes” at the top demanded ever more growth built into the figures. Such things, in my opinion, were largely unknowable, and thus difficult to plan: I later found I was expressing a quasi-Keynesian thought about “irreducible uncertainty”. Never mind: egotism and force of will were supposed to overcome all difficulties and make ethereal hopes concrete.

We can say conclusively that this approach hasn’t worked, largely because knowledge in any organisation is diffuse, not concentrated. It is usually the people who work “on the ground” who tend to have a better idea about the “irreducible uncertainties” as well as current problems than the “heroic” leaders. Ignorance and a lack of understanding of human nature at the top are the leading causes of our present problems. Trade Unions can step up to the role of ensuring management doesn’t cut its own throat and in the process wreck the lives of their staff. Providing the political and legal structures to empower unions in this manner is not a big ticket item on the political agenda; it appears that Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are relatively satisfied with the post-Thatcher “settlement”. Indeed, I can only imagine that Gordon Brown was relieved that the proposed industrial action by the RMT was struck down by judicial fiat. Of course, a vocal minority within the union movement adds to its burdens by indulging in Trotskyite fantasies; I suggest the “permanent revolution” they should be more concerned with has to do with the changes that come every time a chief executive is replaced and staff numbers are reviewed. I also suggest that trade unions should be pointing out the real waste in government and business, which usually has more to do with processes than staff: changing systems such as procurement, usually takes longer to implement and thus is less popular with politicians and business leaders alike, but generally speaking most worthwhile and enduring changes take time to implement.

As has been demonstrated, the structure of British labour relations is just one theme among many that could be addressed and could generate genuine debate. The pudding could be rich in flavour rather than insipid; if the “big three” politicians wonder why they’re failing to engender enthusiasm, they might well want to consider this point. While leaders need not themselves be heroic in order to create inspiration, the ideas they espouse need to be bracing. Otherwise the electorate will find it difficult to swallow, or at worst, send the confection back to the symbolic kitchen.

I live in a quiet, semi-rural area in which change comes slowly; the recent demolition of an old telephone exchange and the remodelling of the Butter Market required a great deal of discussion and numerous planning applications before they were allowed to proceed. An understated affluence is also a feature of the area: the designer fashion-clad “yummy mummies” drive brand new Mercedes and BMWs, country pubs are slowly surrendering to haute cuisine, and on many a summer evening, gentlemen in cricket whites can be seen playing on well-tended village greens. Given this context, perhaps it’s not surprising that this constituency has been electing only Conservative Members of Parliament since 1924. At the last election, the sitting MP had a majority of over 10,000; this is among the safest of safe seats.

The Liberal Democrats, Labour and UKIP are here, of course, but they soldier on to inevitable defeat every time: indeed, they appear not to care about my constituency all that much. I don’t recall seeing anyone donning rosettes or handing out leaflets at the last General Election; no doubt that scenario will be repeated this time. The only variation occurred during the European elections: some leaflets were stuffed through my letterbox (strangely, leaflets from the BNP outnumbered all others), but then again, as the Euro-elections implied a wider electoral region in which other parties might have a chance of winning seats, they had more reason to care.

In other words, my constituency, for all intents and purposes, is dead. There is no genuine contest; the polity is dysfunctional. Furthermore, there is no good reason for this lifelessness: I would be hard pressed to remember anything our MP has done for the area. Indeed, though I live in its major population centre, I recall only seeing him in the flesh once, specifically on Rememberance Day in 2004: he looked uncomfortable following a group of student cadets in a memorial parade. The opposition parties do not appear to have the will to alter this state of affairs: if Labour or the Liberal Democrats urged their supporters to vote tactically, then the Conservative advantage might be overcome. However their rivalry outweighs common sense: they won’t talk, it won’t happen, and things are likely to carry on this way unless our MP is suddenly caught selling arms to Libya in exchange for widows and orphans who then were forced to work in sweatshops assembling chemical weapons to be used by Iranian terrorists on a newborn kitten refuge.

I certainly do not feel isolated my predicament. The Electoral Reform Society estimates that 400 out of 650 seats are in a similar position. Dead constituencies are by no means exclusively Tory fiefdoms; the appellation is just as apropos for regions such as Rhondda which has been sending Labour MPs to Westminster since 1910. The Glasgow East by-election in 2008 was an extraordinary event as it was a dead constituency that suddenly became competitive: for those who may not recall how deceased it was, prior to this contest, Labour MPs were returned with majorities in excess of 10,000. However, Glasgow East’s revival is the exception; most of the time, many voters simply continue to cast ballots which are then rendered meaningless by the overwhelming mathematics of the precinct. Worse, dead constituencies have become places in which parties feel they can deposit politicians they deem important: a good example is Shaun Woodward, Labour MP for St. Helens South and currently Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. He is a wealthy defector from the Conservative party who has no links to the region he represents; popular gossip suggests he is the only Labour MP with a butler. Yet the Labour party establishment decided to reward his switch by providing him with continued employment, rather than allow him to face the wrath of his former constituents in Witney, Oxfordshire. Note what happened: the presence of a dead constituency provided a means by which a plum job could be distributed to a crony regardless of the feelings of the local party or population. This is hardly an expression of “popular will”, but without a mechanism to unlock constituencies of this type, it is a central feature of the status quo. Given this, it is not overstating matters to suggest that dead constituencies are the rotten boroughs of the 21st century. The surprise and delight that greets their fall in the course of an election should tell us something: for example, the loss of Enfield Southgate by Michael Portillo in 1997 has become the stuff of legend, viewed now as a catastrophic blow to the complacent Conservative establishment.

Gordon Brown has recently made noises which suggest that he has become more favourably disposed to electoral reform. More specifically, he has proposed that the present “first past the post” mechanism be replaced by a system that utilises the Alternative Vote; this is a familiar tune which has been sung more sweetly by his predecessors in office. Indeed, this reform was proposed at a less opportunistic moment by the Jenkins Commission in 1998. The Prime Minister’s sudden interest in the subject is likely a combination of blatant short-term calculus and a long-standing intellectual acknowledgement by most politicians that making one’s vote pointless is bad for democracy and undermines the long-term viability of our institutions. However, this is balanced against the raw urgency of the maintenance of power, and ambition is generally sufficient to ensure that the higher impulse is found wanting in attractiveness once the hustings are over. However, Enfield Southgate and more latterly, Glasgow East should have been warning shots across the establishment’s bow: if dissatisfaction is sufficient, dead constituencies too can change. Alienation may create conditions in which this phenomenon is more widespread; as far fetched as it may sound today, the present party system could fall. Comprehensive reform is the least disruptive and most rational way to revitalise the electoral process and to provide a means by which voter apathy can be addressed. While it is doubtful that the masters of the dead 400 want to understand this, circumstances thrust upon them by this General Election will hopefully make the need for change impossible to ignore.

And now that the election has begun, a message from Leader of the Green Party, Caroline Lucas:

This is the fifth general election I’ve experienced since my move to the United Kingdom; I recall the topsy-turvy contest of 1992, which led almost inexplicably to John Major’s triumph. I remember that glad morning in 1997 when New Labour took office; it was a bright, unseasonably warm May day and the event was covered in detail by a series of breathless reporters and hovering helicopters. Though I was sceptical about how much positive change would occur, I grudgingly felt a certain amount of hope when Tony Blair walked into Number 10. The elections of 2001 and 2005 were very dull in comparison: I went to bed early on Election Day in both instances with the certainty that Labour would remain in office. This time is different: as I look out of the corner of my eye, I can see on television that the green beside the Houses of Parliament is crowded with politicians, pundits and reporters in full flow. This may be a natural expression of long suppressed feelings of excitement and tension. In addition to the aforementioned emotions, there may also be a sense of relief. At long last, the matter will be decided: who is going to run the country? What direction will we go? What will be the disposition of this nation when it comes to war and peace?

While these questions are very important, it’s unfortunate that a more fundamental one is being lost in the mix, specifically: how shall we live? There has rarely been a better time to address this. Make no mistake, things are improving, but we are still wandering amidst the ruins of a failed economy: the shards of broken champagne bottles left behind by financiers continue to make the journey out of recession perilous, as does the clotted wads of deficit spending used to plug holes in the nation’s accounts: no doubt a flood threatens. This mixture of disaster, exhaustion and tenuous recovery has created a political moment which is only comparable to the election held near the end of World War II. However, in the course of 1945′s campaign, the question of “how shall we live” gave rise to a number of compelling answers: by that time, William Beveridge had crafted his proposals for the welfare state and the Labour Party promised nationalisation and “fair shares for all”. In comparison, the election of 2010 seems much more esoteric in focus: the changes promised by Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats seem a mere gnawing at the edges. The speculators and bankers who led us down the road to ruin, at best, may pay more tax and be subject to a few more rules, but otherwise the present state of affairs will go on undisturbed. Perhaps things will improve on their own; few things, apart from the environment, seem to get worse without respite. After a time, it is likely that the “reset button” will at least be partially pressed: unemployment will go down, economic growth will resume, and whichever government is in power will claim this to be a great success at least until the next crisis descends.

To be fair, there are small political parties which more directly challenge the status quo: for example, I recently encountered a representative of the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition. However, that group and its allies are an anachronism. They insist on digging up the decayed corpses of Leon Trotsky and class warfare in an era of internet and iPads. UKIP is the British National Party on a higher salary. The British National Party thinks this political moment is more like 1933 than 1945. Admittedly, I am biased, but from my perspective it is only the Green Party which is asking the right questions, let alone providing substantively different answers which do not refer to ideologies which are out of date or out of time.

Returning to the stolid establishment, today, David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg have all deployed rhetoric which speaks of getting rid of emphemera and arriving at the heart of the matter. These are mere words: for example, the Prime Minister’s admonition to “get to it” was followed up by him boarding a fast train at St. Pancras so he could he to go pester voters at a supermarket in Kent. Note the gap: the Prime Minister, the supposed servant of the people, who is keen to stress his middle class roots, took the most elite means of transport available to him (short of flying on a helicopter) to persuade less well-off citizens that he is the best man to defend their interests. Of course, most election campaigns contain similar paradoxical distances between elites and voters: it is difficult to imagine David Cameron taking out a home improvement loan to get the windows in his Notting Hill residence replaced, or Nick Clegg going down to the local corner shop to buy a pint of milk. Yet these men want the privilege to determine policy that has a direct effect on the interest rate on that home improvement loan, or whether the pint of milk comes from a cow that has been pumped full of hormones. It is no wonder that they don’t want to ask the question, “how shall we live” in manner that would fundamentally re-constitute the present state of affairs, as they directly profit from it.

What makes elections so exciting is that we can talk about this now and the complaining is not idle: there are a little over four weeks in which arguments can influence by which name one makes one’s mark. At this point, the voters are sovereign, the government is reduced in stature to that of a supplicant. Here is the moment of maximum freedom: yes, politicians and political ads are annoying. However this hyperactive courting is symptomatic of the precious nature of this time. I hope that this election is the one in which this true sense of liberty is used most wisely. We may not answer the question “How shall we live”; but it is in places like Brighton Pavilion, Lewisham Deptford and Norwich South that it may begin to be asked with louder voices, not just during the campaign, but in the period to come.

The End of the Party

Andrew Rawnsley. Viking 2010, Hardcover, 816 pages, £20.00

I bought this tome shortly after its publication; however, I didn’t get around to reading it until I had to contend with less than optimal circumstances. On March 17, my paternal grandmother died; a day later, I was on my way to America for the funeral. There was little time to think: I just threw my clothes and supplies into my bag. As I am taller than a circus midget, I knew there was almost no prospect of my getting any sleep on the flight. Furthermore, the headphones the airline uses are precisely the type which are the right size to pop out of my ears without warning. Without rest or entertainment, I needed a fairly meaty volume in order to pass the time. As I was taking an evening flight, it also had to be interesting enough to keep me from succumbing to boredom in the darkness. I cast a glance at my nighttable, which at the best of times is overloaded with books: “The End of the Party” immediately fit the bill.

This is not my first encounter with Mr. Rawnsley’s coverage of New Labour; I read with relish his first book about the subject, “The Servants of the People”. At the time, his precision in describing the personalities driving New Labour seemed uncanny; in “The End of the Party” it is positively eerie. As a result, in some ways, it reads like a novel: Rawnsley is able to describe the inner thoughts of his dramatis personae and yet, this doesn’t jar.

If Rawnsley is right, the people of Britain should be very worried; behind the carefully crafted facade of hyperbole and spin, New Labour is a menagerie of disturbed personalities. We are first presented with Tony Blair, who excels at public presentation, but is shown to have a problem standing up to anyone with a stronger will than his own. For example, President Bush is portrayed as being more stubborn than his British counterpart; Blair’s personal attributes and his desire to cling to America meant that he was willing to go along with whatever the Americans wanted, even if he knew that the consequences could be disastrous. Indeed he was so focused on maintaining the alliance that he somehow was able to compartmentalise the data he received: for example, information regarding Iraq’s military capabilities was finessed and massaged until possibilities became certainties. There is no doubt this agenda of purposeful embellishment was driven by the Prime Minister and his acolytes; it is beyond refutation that Britain went to war in Iraq merely because it was what President Bush wanted to do.

Blair’s quirks were just as problematic in the domestic sphere: if Rawnsley is correct, Britain has essentially had two Prime Ministers for the bulk of New Labour’s time in office. Gordon Brown has maintained tight control over domestic policy, which has had the consequence of stifling public service reform. Brown’s personality is described in excruciating detail: he is portrayed as jealous and obsessed, easily offended, and extremely territorial. Indeed, his temperament was so problematic that the MP for Birkenhead, Frank Field, described Brown as “Mrs. Rochester” and begged Blair not to let him “out of the attic”. Rawnsley, however, is resolutely fair: he leaves the reader with the unmistakable impression that Brown has the will to be Prime Minister and appears to work well when he is facing one big issue at a time (such as the credit crunch). Yet, his managerial skills are poor: his most glaring problem is his total inability to delegate. He ends up micromanaging issues, and in the process tends to miss the bigger picture. Furthermore, Brown’s dearth of communication skills only serve to highlight rather than mask his flaws. In many ways, it’s a pity that the best qualities of Blair and Brown could not combine into one person, as that individual would be a formidable leader.

New Labour to this day remains a coalition of competing and hostile factions based upon their admiration for either Blair or Brown. The return of Peter Mandelson to government has soothed some of these tempers, but nevertheless, there is a pathology at the heart of government: the Cabinet appears to be largely comprised of scheming, unhappy and driven people like Brown’s long-time comrade in arms Ed Balls, who are constantly grasping for control, not just of government, not just the public, but also the nation’s narrative. Behaviour that would not be tolerated in a more typical context, e.g., Brown screaming at Blair that the latter had ruined his life, becomes expected at these rarified elevations. Power in this case is a projection of personal sickness, and it has the unfortunate consequence of affecting the lives of millions. In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, it is getting some of Britain’s best and brightest killed.

“The End of the Party” is useful in exposing this truth; Rawnsley does not state it explicitly himself. It would be entirely unnecessary for him to do so. However, one wonders given the recent tightening in opinion polls if his choice of title is indicative of a wish as well as the likely outcome of the next general election. While there are individual Labour party members who are genuinely motivated by a spirit of public service and whose sincerity is beyond doubt, their efforts support an apparatus which seems to have run its course. Decline and fall is the overall sensation one gets as the book draws to a close, though the end of the Labour administration is yet to be written. It is difficult to conclude anything other than that this Government’s termination is justified.

I found that I was on the ground by the time I got to the last pages; I read quickly, however my rapid progress was mostly due to the fact the book was so absorbing that time’s passage had escaped my perception. Intriguing, entertaining, appalling and yet compulsive – “The End of the Party” fulfilled its function as a travel companion; it should also be on the nighttable of every potential voter who wants to understand what they’re voting for or against.

Last week, I attended an evening seminar at the Management school of my university. The lecturer was, in a former life, a senior manager in a pharmaceutical firm. What he had to say about the state of the industry was not particularly comforting: apparently, the industry’s present business model is thoroughly broken, and indeed, many companies are one bad drug away from complete collapse. In particular, he highlighted the plight of Merck, whose ill-conceived and over-marketed drug Vioxx nearly wrecked the firm.

How did they get into such a mess? The lecturer suggested that the current paradigm is based upon corporations generating a “hit drug” regularly: a good example of this is Viagra. Viagra is safe and has a popular usage to treat a common disorder. The billions made by the sale of such drugs justify a huge investment into a largely closed and secretive research and development process. The problem with pharmaceuticals is that one can spend billions and have it all come to nought at the final hurdle, i.e., human trials and approvals: in most other endeavours, the potential for failure can be identified at an earlier stage and lessons learned.

The lecturer suggested that the companies should adopt a new model: rather than spending vast quantities of cash on research and development professionals and labs, they should tap into the wider marketplace of ideas. The term he used was “open innovation”. This model has hitherto been successfully used by the information technology industry in the development of software; the operating system Linux, for example, is still largely a collaborative project, incorporating the efforts of programmers all over the world. Project management is a challenge with such a disparate workforce, however, it’s not an insurmountable obstacle. Linux is the operating system of choice for web servers and has become increasingly popular among home users.

There is an obvious snag with applying the same model to pharmaceuticals, which was not lost on the audience: to generate a piece of code, one only needs a computer and a spare room, sometimes even the latter is optional. In order to do ground-breaking drug research, one needs a lab, access to expensive chemicals and equipment, and it’s highly unlikely that one can “self-train” to be a world beating biochemist. While it’s possible some small venture capitalists may want to take a flutter on creating these facilities, the onus will likely fall on universities in order to provide the innovations which will continue the flow of life-saving, life-enhancing drugs. Furthermore, pharmaceutical firms’ role would be reduced to validation of the research and distributing the results.

As I sat there, I found the situation thoroughly ironic. Here we were, discussing the failure of a private industry and the need for it to be rescued by the public sector; yet again, as with the banks, the free market had failed. Capitalists find they need, for lack of a better term, some kind of socialism, as purely private enterprise is no longer affordable. Banks wanted the ultimate form of insurance for all sorts of misbehaviour, now pharmaceutical companies were more or less being advised to go cap in hand to the state in order to help them survive. Meanwhile, corporation tax is kept low in many nations because of the fear that these more or less parasitical entities will flee abroad. Basically, private firms of all kind want government backing, and indeed, need it, but at the same time, they furiously kick up a fuss when they receive the bill.

The paradox should not be lost on the general public: it merely needs to be explained in more detail. However, none of the three largest parties in Britain nor the two largest political parties in America are basically asking the following question about our present situation: “how is this working out for you?” The truth is, it isn’t. I can’t say I’m entirely surprised; my experience in private industry suggests that the greatest challenge was to get companies to back “blue skies” research, i.e., to do something risky and different, even though it was something risky and different that allowed them to exist in the first place. As the financial crisis has become entrenched, so too has this thinking. This is a recipe for stagnation, and again, only the government has the means to intervene in order to break the deadlock. However, politicians either don’t have the wisdom or the courage to explain these facts.

I can talk about a number of ideas I’ve seen at my university which have magnificent potential; I’ve seen plans for wave power generators which could provide clean electricity at reasonable cost. I’ve seen a proposal for the creation of a trans-Atlantic train, complete with tunnels which float beneath the waves. I’ve seen research grant applications which require the design and manufacture new imaging equipment which can take three dimensional snapshots of archaeological sites. All three of these ideas advance the frontiers of human knowledge, and could achieve great progress in the fields of sustainable energy, transport and technology. To my knowledge, however, no private company will contribute a farthing to any of these projects, though to be resolutely fair, some will give help in kind. Worse, the British government and both the opposition parties are committed to cuts in Higher Education, while at the same time, all three parties demand that universities contribute more to the development of the economy. The equations do not balance; something has to give. Considering society’s increasing dependence upon universities to provide progress, I would suggest it is not down to higher education to ensure that the sums work.

We all owe a debt to the government, whether we like it or not; our roads are paved, albeit, not always well. Our streets are policed, albeit, not always perfectly. Our children are schooled, though they are sometimes educated so badly that ignorance is reinforced. However arguments with the quality of the service provided does not invalidate the requirement. Higher education is not perfect; sometimes the ivory towers do shelter intellectuals who are so abstracted from reality that their contribution to society is as valuable and concrete as fairy dust. But at the same time, the overall role of universities is as important now as that of monasteries during the Dark Ages: in an era of societal and economic stagnation, both shine out as beacons of progress. The institutions of Higher Education remain the sole credible remedy for the innovation deficit that is taking hold in Britain and America; I am not alone in seeing this and saying this. However, it appears the politicians do not; if they don’t wake up in time, we will all be the poorer, and very soon.

The latest broadcast from Caroline Lucas, made on the streets of Brighton, and which appeared on Channel 4 is refreshingly authentic:

Personally, I don’t believe Gordon Brown is a bully. Genuine bullying is systematic and contains a certain logic: sore points are identified, salt is poured into wounds, and the resulting humiliation provides the assailant with a warm glow. If the recent accounts from Andrew Rawnsley are true, this is not how Gordon Brown has behaved: a lost disk containing the personal data of millions of taxpayers apparently provoked him to the extent that he grabbed an assistant and proclaimed a plot had been hatched against him, which is illogical and absurd. Rawnsley also described how Brown repeatedly stabbed the back of the car seat in front of him with a black marker pen when he was frustrated. These incidents speak of a personality that is in turmoil, not possessed of the cool relish that one associates with a real torturer.

That said, we should still be irritated with Brown and the Labour Party; this wild thrashing about suggests that Brown cannot cope with the pressures of the job, and the realisation of his own inadequacy is tormenting him. He could have put ambition aside, stepped down gracefully, and be thought of much more positively than he is now. Labour’s leadership is even more culpable: knowing Brown “up close and personal” as they do, they did not see fit to have a genuine leadership contest in 2007, nor, once his flaws became apparent, did they gently ease Brown towards the exit and replace him with say, Alistair Darling. Rather, both Brown and Labour are continuing to inflict this psychodrama on the nation; from my vantage point, the decision makers I encounter are loathe to make long term plans this side of an election, partially because the full effect of this implosion is not entirely visible. This has knock on effects on industry and employment. We are, in essence, all being held hostage.

Of course, the Labour Party would have us believe that Brown’s flaws are part of a complex character which is passionate and determined. They would rather that we think of him having “personal excesses”, the downside associated with a man of many talents. The BBC is also somewhat confused, in their recent “Have Your Say” discussion, they suggested that “bullying” and “strong leadership” are countries which share a common border; in truth they are not on the same continent. It may be this perception which is most poisonous, as it will continue to pollute business and public life long after Brown’s hands have been pried off his desk at Number 10.

Strong leadership is not a matter of hectoring or bullying; this would imply that hectoring or bullying was effective, and the more of it, the better. Extreme examples of this abound: in Barbara Ehrenreich’s recent book, “Smile or Die” (known also as “Brightsided” in the United States), she describes an incident which occured at a company in Utah. A sales manager, in order to motivate his team, decided to waterboard a member of his staff. As the hapless individual gasped for air, the manager apparently said to the rest of the staff, “You see how desperately he wants air? You should have the same level of desire to make sales.” The fate of this manager is presently unknown to me, but it is an extreme which provides evidence of the norm: there is a belief that it is only compulsion, pressure, and threats which make human beings perform at their best. There is a dark, almost Hobbesian view of humanity which underlines this perception.

To be absolutely fair, there is grain of truth in this point of view. When labour was unpleasant, manual and required risking one’s life, say either working in a nineteenth century coal mine or a cotton mill in Lanacashire, one had to be on the verge of starvation in order to willingly endure the brutal conditions. A man was nothing more than a more articulate mule: required due to his dexterity, not because of his imagination. Yell at him, threaten him, beat him, and he may produce more cloth or fuel for you if the alternative is his own demise.

Productive relations have thankfully moved on. Enlightenment about how modern companies should run abounds. W. Edwards Deming articulated the idea of listening to one’s staff to improve the quality of one’s organisation and production; this idea was central to Japan’s post-war recovery. More recently, the academics Renee Maubourgne and W. Chan Kim have described how “Fair Process”, i.e., listening to one’s staff, yields better results. As the X-Files consistently state, “The Truth is Out There”: modern leadership should work towards making each enterprise a collective endeavour, which emphasises trust, valuing employee contributions, and creating a community which seeks its own betterment. Yet, we still confuse an overbearing individual’s behaviour with “strong leadership”, when in essence, it is the embodiment of a manager and / or a team which is profoundly brittle. Nations which appear to understand this concept, such as Germany, tend to be more successful than ones which don’t. Individuals who understand the limits of their competence and knowledge tend to delegate, and thus create an atmosphere which benefits from collective wisdom.

Brown is apparently incapable of learning the lesson. Again, if Rawnsley’s account is to be believed, he tries to be a micromanager, though the vast Prime Ministerial workload does mean his efforts are unlikely to be successful. It may very well be that part of the problem is that Brown has limitless faith in his capabilities, but is confronted by the limitations of himself and cannot sustain the dissonance. Worse, he has shown signs that he wants to continue to wallow in this swamp of meaningless sorrow, even if he loses the next election; according to the Sunday Times, he has stated that he will carry on if the Conservative majority is 20 seats or less. Sad: if this were the story of a private individual, this would be a tragic tale, one perhaps deserving of sympathy. But he’s the head of government and a major political party, and an exemplar of the quality of the nation’s leadership: no, he’s not a bully, but he is definitely a menace.

Shortly before Christmas, I had dinner at a Thai restaurant located near Canary Wharf. The cocktails at this establishment are more well regarded than the food, and the service is more infamous than famous, facts which the proprietor may have been trying to ameliorate by leaving a brightly packaged Christmas cracker on each placemat. I opened mine and found a hat made of paper which was thinner than a 1000 Franc note, a joke which was dreadful even by Christmas cracker standards and a small green blob of plastic which was no larger than the tip of my thumb. It took me a moment to discern that the blob was a goat. I sat the pathetic animal facsimile beyond the edge of my plate and looked at it.

Since I had plenty of time to kill before my order arrived, I mentally audited the contents of the cracker. The goat required the extraction of oil and the refinement of petrochemicals, which probably involved a shipment from the Middle East to China. Trees had to be grown to provide the paper content. Still more chemicals were mixed for the dyes and inks. The wrapper had something of a metallic hue, so perhaps some ores (such as bauxite) were extracted from the ground and refined. Materials criss-crossed the globe until the cracker was assembled, again, likely somewhere in the Far East, and then shipped to Britain. It was all done to create the bargain end of the bargain end of Christmas crackers. And for what purpose: it hadn’t even raised a smile, rather, it was only something to deride.

Adam Smith gloried in analysing these types of interactions; in his “The Wealth of Nations”, he performed a similar analysis regarding the production of a pin. A pin, unlike a Christmas cracker, is actually useful, as any tailor will tell you or anyone who needs to press the reset button on a Microsoft wireless mouse. In this instance, rather than satisfying some requirement, these interconnections serve no good purpose. I shudder to think of the carbon footprint involved.

This leads me to austerity. Admittedly, it has become a contentious word. It raises ire among both the right and left who want to quibble over its implications, in particular, as to the restraint or lack thereof of state spending. However, as a society, we should be embracing austerity as a cultural feature in order to strike down the endemic waste that permeates Western Civilisation and which makes us utterly immoral.

The Christmas cracker is a relatively harmless example; however I encounter a more serious illustration of waste nearly every day. I usually arrive back home around 4:30 PM, as I work flexible hours: at that time, I often see parents picking up their children from a local school. A sizeable proportion of the vehicles used are Land Rovers and other SUV’s. Judging by the absence of mud stuck to their tyres or the sides of the vehicle bodies, it is unlikely that these are being used to drive their children over rough terrain to rustic cottages. Rather, the sparkling chrome trim on the vehicles and the designer outfits of the drivers suggest that it is a status symbol. These clog the parking spaces and small, winding streets of my town.

At this point, it’s best to cast aside personal irritation, step back, and do another audit. There are not only the fuel consumption considerations, but the amount of metal, rubber, leather and plastic used in the creation of each vehicle, and the plethora of components that wing their way around Europe, America and Asia before arriving at the assembly plant. These behemoths are generally relatively new: it is rare to see an old-style Defender with dents in it. Therefore there is also the disposal of the predecessor to be taken into account, whether it is sold on as used, melted or turned into scrap. All told, the loads being created, destroyed, and transported hither and yon are not calibrated to a particular utility, rather, it is a luxury.

“Luxury” can be found in something as mundane as office work. For all the ballyhooed talk about the imminent arrival of the paperless office, I am still bombarded with brochures and bulletins on a regular basis. Marketing materials are expected to come in nice folders which use glossy paper. Our establishment is judged less upon what it can do and the excellence of its previous research than on how it presents itself. Think again about the trees felled, transported, processed, the inks made and used, the number of times that test copies needed be thrown out, the transport costs for all involved.

My grandfather was acutely sensitive to such waste. One day, he was stuck in traffic with my mother; apparently he told her, “You know, some of these people, they could have stayed at home.” Quite. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, our technology should liberate us from the need to be in the office all the time. Taking that principle further, we should rely more on electronic forms of presentation, rather than consuming more paper. We should use modest means to transport ourselves and our families, using only what is absolutely necessary. We can skip the Christmas cracker: just bring the food out before I am ready to collect my pension cheque. All told, we need austerity, the kind which cuts into the consumption that arises out of irrational compulsions, or more accurately, the kind that counteracts consumption provoked by vanity, stupidity and greed. Unfortunately, however, our modern consumer society and economy is largely based on vanity, stupidity and greed. One need only look at a cosmetics advertisement to see the point illustrated further: “Because you’re worth it”, women are expected to believe that a particular skin cream is going to turn them into a facsimile of a Hollywood starlet, no matter how much logic may dictatate this outcome is unlikely. Fashions, designed to be throwaway by their very seasonality, are just as wasteful. I recall taking my girlfriend shopping for shoes along the King’s Road in London on a Spring afternoon; we had ransacked a dozen shops and she had tried on and discarded a large number of pairs which looked acceptable. I asked her why she was being quite so discerning as it was unlikely that anyone was going to be staring at her feet; using myself as a test case, I said I certainly wasn’t going to be casting a gaze in that direction for very long. She told me I was missing the point, and that women dress for other women. No homoerotic implications were intended, rather, her statement was competitive in nature. I couldn’t help but think about the societal construct that had not only driven her to this length, but had also created a vast infrastructure to support it, all of which implied damage, and creating ever more damage, not just to the planet, but to the self-image of individuals. This is never going to make us healthy or happy.

A bracing, purging austerity should cut deep. It probably should slash even deeper than the regime which existed in Britain during the Second World War. While we rightly look back on our forebears as knowing how to shun excess, there was waste even during that period. For example, young ladies used to use gravy and eyebrow pencil in order to give themselves the appearance of wearing silk stockings. We need a dramatic break, which stands astride history proclaiming loudly, enough!

Of course, the avatars of our modern state would be horrified by such a change; their task is to spur economic recovery as soon as possible. The British Value Added Tax cut in 2009 was not intended to restrain the appetite, but to sharpen it. However, we are at a unique point of self-awareness as a society: we realise matters have simply gone too far, in banking, in debt, in faith in the market. We may merely need to extend this consciousness just a bit further to find a better way to live.

Travellers to Britain are advised that they may run into a type of person colloquially known as an “eccentric”. These individuals can be identified by their penchant for wearing purple and green striped blazers during Wimbledon fortnight, a bowler hat in the middle of July, or more commonly, by their insistence on sitting in train stations during all kinds of weather and marking down carriage numbers in a large, red leather bound notebook.

Do not engage in conversation with them, unless you are interested in discussing each individual shot Steffi Graf took in the 1996 Wimbledon final or relish long soliloquies about the culinary perfection of beans on toast. If by accident you do end up locked in verbal repartee with such a person, deploy the following emergency phrase: “I am seeing a therapist”, whereupon the “eccentric” will break off, believing you to be more mad than they are.

I’m kidding, of course. However the jest contains a kernel of truth about British society: few are willing to “come out of the analyst’s office” and admit they are seeing a therapist. Therein lies an interesting paradox: it is quite all right to act “barmy” or claim to be “bonkers”, it’s quite another to seek professional help. Personally, I have been seeing one for the past six months, but as one of my best friends recently reminded me, as I’m an American this is not a surprise. Indeed, as I’m originally a New Yorker, I was probably given a referral the moment I was born.

There is much to admire in a skillful therapist’s technique: the careful, patient listening, the insertion of critical insights, the gentle guidance towards self-revelation. No flat-out cure is necessarily on offer, but certainly understanding and an enhanced ability to cope with life’s problems do arise out of the process. I have thought on the long walks home after sessions about how lovely it would be if whole nations could take a moment to lie on the proverbial couch and talk out their hopes, their fears and their haunting nightmares.

If both Britain and America could do so, I imagine that much would be said about a loss of faith in themselves. Politics see-saw between two political parties, neither of which is competent nor organised. Business is full of thieves, the media is full of scandal-makers and scandal-mongers, our food is genetically modified, our air is impure, some of our scientists may have tipped over into becoming propagandists, Lady Gaga wins music awards and even our documentary makers proclaim with pride that they smothered former lovers with pillows. We’re utterly screwed up. As the tagline on American news programmes would say, “film at eleven”.

At such a point, perhaps the therapist would suggest that the patients reflect on what is going well. For all the faults that have just been described, there are good things happening at the moment: the economy has stopped declining. Doctor Who is coming back this year. Shani Davis won a gold medal at the Vancouver Olympics. Organic food and farmers markets are popular. Big Brother, at long last, is coming to an end. Seeds of hope are germinating and may soon come into bloom.

Then it may fall to the therapist to suggest that the patients do something in order to give greater reasons for optimism; in my experience, that something is usually practical and focuses in on one problem rather than trying to address all of them at once. In this case, an adequate place to start may be the first issue in the litany: the see-saw nature of political discourse and governance.

America, and to a lesser extent, Britain suffer from having a binary choice in who governs them. In America, the selection is either the kind-of-sort-of left-of-centre Democrats or the kind-of-sort-of right-of-centre Republicans. I add these qualifiers because while the Republicans have a strong and militant far right, as exemplified by people such as Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, they also remain home to much more moderate politicians such as Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine. The Democrats’ personality is even more distorted; at one point in its history it was simultaneously home to Maxine Waters and Zell Miller, whose ideological positions are on opposite sides of the universe. Such a coalition is only possible in a duopoly, because the parties are not there to represent a viewpoint in particular, rather, they are broad coalitions in the pursuit of power. Each party may gravitate towards a particular ideological pole, however they are really working towards getting a sufficient amount of centrist support in order to win. As we’re witnessing in the United States, once a majority is achieved, the party often may have problems using it decisively, particularly if it wants to continue on into the future. The result is inertia.

How does one reshape politics so that it becomes more about ideas rather than the pursuit of pure power? Though I’m no “political therapist”, I have a suggestion. One of the most beautiful diagrams I have seen is of the composition of the European Parliament. Its multicoloured dots, each representing a Member of the Parliament, look like a scattering of Skittles candy, a sweet from my youth that was memorable for its strong flavours and its slogan, “taste the rainbow”. What the diagram shows is how a different system of voting, namely, proportional representation, can shift politics to a more strongly ideological footing.

For those who are not familiar with Europe’s political spectrum, the blue and orange dots represent various type of conservative; light blue dots are the more moderate kind, the orange are the more militant ones who advocate the dismantling of the European Union. The gold “Skittles” represent the various liberal parties. The green, naturally, are the Greens and ecologically minded parties. The shades of red are reserved for the left and far left. No one party holds a majority: thus legislation must be achieved through finding consensus between multiple factions. However, the strength of this system means that ideas are let rip in the corridors of power, not smothered in backroom deals and hidden behind party manifestos. It is not a perfect model: in the case of Israel, proportional representation has been taken too far, and small, extreme parties hold undue influence; however that is a flaw of method rather than principle.

At this point, both American and British readers may decry the idea on the basis that it is either “un-American” or “not cricket”. However, the mathematical formula which is used in many European elections (including Britain’s allocation of European Parliament seats) should assuage such fears. The “D’Hondt Method” was originally devised by none other than Thomas Jefferson; in his case, he used it to allocate Congressional seats on the basis of population. Proportional representation thus has a direct linkage to one of the finest and most enlightened minds in the English-speaking world and is decidedly not some “scary foreign import”.

Were it adopted, a renewal in both British and American politics might ensue: people would be free to vote for what they believe, rather than choose between two evils. The duopoly could be broken: Greens and Libertarians could sit in Congress alongside Moderates, Liberals and Conservatives. Each issue could then be approached from a different angle, unbound from the discipline of party whips. Perhaps genuine idealists would feel more free to step forth and persuade. Inertia could be smashed. Given these potential benefits, at the very least, “tasting the rainbow” should be tried. It is preferable than remaining a prisoner of the couch, able only to ruminate rather than resolve. As someone who does go to therapy, I know that at some point that it will end, and I will have to cope on my own: there is no shame in needing help during the broad, deep night times of one’s life. However, daylight and cheer return with both the passage of time and a willingness to do something. Perhaps if we focus less on complaining and rejoice more in doing, even that which is different, wild and “eccentric” as compared to past history, we will restore ourselves to a better state of health.