The British general election, producing, as it did, a record majority for Boris Johnson’s Conservative party, will be regarded by many as providing a blueprint for achieving similar success for right-wing parties in other countries – not least in New Zealand.

Simon Bridges has already proclaimed that the victory was due to Boris Johnson’s “clarity and firmness” and has promised to follow a similar path to election victory here next year. That path may not, however, be as clear as it may seem.

It is certainly true that Johnson’s constantly repeated slogan “Get Brexit done!” offered a simple and clear commitment that resonated well with British voters. The opposition Labour party, by contrast, had shilly-shallied over Brexit, and had offered the doubtful prospect of a second referendum as their preferred means, they hoped, of breaking the deadlock.

The voters, especially those Labour supporters who had voted for Brexit in the 2016 referendum, were not impressed and responded by voting Conservative, many of them for the first time. In an election campaign dominated by Brexit, Labour predictably lost seats to the Conservatives – especially in the North and the Midlands, while the anti-Brexit Liberals failed to make their much-anticipated gains from the Conservatives. The way was clear for a massive Tory victory.

The true lesson to be drawn from the British general election is not, in other words, that Labour voters were persuaded of the advantages to them of electing a Tory government. It was, rather, that they were fed up with the three and half years of a parliament that had failed (or refused) to give effect to the decision they had reached in the 2016 referendum. The lesson is not so much about how to win an election as about how to lose one.

What Boris Johnson managed, but Labour failed to do, was to keep faith with the British people. He understood that the Brexit decision was not, as so many who opposed it insisted, a terrible mistake by those who didn’t understand what they were doing, but was, rather, a considered judgment as to the impact EU membership had had on their lives.

The real puzzle is why Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, failed to grasp this. It was, after all, his Labour voters in the North and Midlands, whose jobs, wages, housing, education and health services had suffered most and who had blamed EU membership for what they felt was a loss of control over their own affairs.

When Labour MPs joined the majority in parliament apparently determined to frustrate the Brexit that lifelong Labour voters had voted for, those voters then voted for the one politician who would, they believed, do what they wanted.

The election result was therefore hardly a surprise. It was a totally foreseeable rebuff by voters to all those politicians who thought they “knew best”, and who presumed to substitute their opinions for those of the voters who had elected them.

Those politicians took a dangerous gamble with the voters’ faith in representative democracy when they ignored the wishes and opinions of those who had sent them to parliament.

Boris Johnson’s victory did not, in other words, materialise out of thin air. It was a justified reward for nothing more complicated than simply trusting (and representing) the people – something that should come naturally to all democrats.

If lessons are to be drawn here in New Zealand, they are to be learned by Labour rather than by right-wing politicians. It is, after all, the left that claims to represent – as Jeremy Corbyn himself put it – the “many, not the few”. That claim can at times seem somewhat hollow, as Corbyn demonstrated.

The British election could have turned out very differently, if Corbyn had taken one simple step. If he had committed, at the beginning of the campaign, to delivering Brexit, the whole issue would have been negated as a point of difference between the two major parties, and Labour voters would have been able to decide their vote on a range of other, and more familiar and traditional issues, which would in most cases have meant that they stayed loyal to Labour. Parting company with the voters, especially your own, is never a good idea.

Bryan Gould
18 December 2019

We have become accustomed to seeing – on our television screens every day and in the public prints as well – the political battle played out as though that is exactly what it is – a battle. In that battle, the leading figures shape up to each other as though they are deadly enemies, ever ready to respond to their opponents with a hostile riposte or a condemnatory put-down – and hardly ever letting pass an opportunity to score a quick jab or sneaky uppercut.

The leading exponent of this style of politics is, of course, Donald Trump. His daily tweets are an object lesson in showing hostility towards and denigrating those with whom he disagrees or who dare to disagree with him.

It is a style that, he calculates, plays well with his supporters – those he calls his “base”. He seems not to bother courting those holding different views who are, it seems, beyond the pale and irredeemably a lost cause. Time alone will tell whether his calculation is correct.

In this country, however, it is less clear that such an approach commends itself to the voters. On the contrary, we seem to warm towards political leaders who seem actually to like their fellow-citizens – think Jacinda Ardern or John Key.

In making that judgment, we are surely right. It must surely be a cardinal requirement of anyone claiming the privilege of leading our people that the claimant should actually like those whose interests are at stake and whom he or she purports to represent.

Liking people is the first and essential step towards understanding them; and that in turn leads to being able to put yourself in their shoes and ultimately to showing them kindness and compassion as they face life’s challenges. And that is as true for those with whom we disagree as it is for those with whom we agree.

This may seem to some to be drawing quite a long bow. We wouldn’t bother, you might say, with the messy and difficult business of politics if we didn’t have to find a peaceful means of resolving the difficult problems created by the need to allocate scarce resources and to ensure that everyone gets a fair share in what is, in the end, undeniably a social and cooperative enterprise.

Because politics is for those reasons inherently about resolving conflict between competing interests, it is inevitable, it might be said, that politicians find themselves at odds with each other (and with each other’s supporters) and therefore use sharp weapons when they fight such battles. We should not be surprised, it is argued, if politics then becomes a business in which the aggressive and one-eyed, those who can’t see another’s point of view, are led to think that they excel and that their aggression is what is needed.

It is then all too easy to conclude that strength in political leadership requires a sharp tongue and unremitting nastiness.

But we need not accept that view of politics. Yes, the disagreements may be sharp and the stakes high – but we are entitled to expect the contenders to show not only that they are human but are good at being human. Humanity – being good at being human – means seeing the other person’s point of view and accepting that differences of opinion may be significant but are not necessarily destructive of society’s broad consensus on what it means to behave in a civilised way.

We could do, in other words, with more kindness in politics. Our leaders have the chance to set an example for us all to follow and a lesson for us all to learn – that we don’t have to agree with our fellow-citizens on every issue as a pre-condition to treating them well, and showing them understanding and, above all, respect.

If that example is set by our leaders, we might then find that there is more kindness, more compassion, more tolerance in our society as a whole, so that we all gain the benefit of living in a better and more cohesive and more harmonious country. And what an example that would set for the rest of the world – including, perhaps, even Donald Trump.

Bryan Gould
8 December 2019

Last week’s opinion poll, showing Labour down and National making ground, should have rung alarm bells and put the government on notice.

They should learn the lesson that, if they want to be re-elected, they cannot just rely on the Prime Minister’s popularity – Jacinda Ardern may remain head and shoulders above other contenders as the preferred Prime Minister, (and it is hard to see the other contenders making up much ground), but the government she heads has to do better.

Too often, her ministers give the impression that they think that talking about something is as good as actually doing it. They need to understand that the time to make a public statement about a policy objective is when it has been achieved, not when it is identified in prospect.

And they cannot afford careless mistakes – mistakes often of a technical nature and committed by their underlings; ministers are responsible for and must answer for everything their departments do.

The Prime Minister must speak severely to her ministers, and point out that it is part of their job description to ensure that they demand and receive proper standards of performance from their departments.

No one can doubt that the government’s heart is in the right place. They have correctly identified those areas of policy, and those parts of society, that are most in need of attention and help. Those in need, and those deprived of the opportunities that most of us expect and enjoy, have good reason to be thankful. But government ministers have sometimes been slow to work out what needs to be done, let alone to ensure that it gets done.

And, it is in the nature of things, and of politics in particular, that even when the right things are done, even those who benefit are likely to complain that it is not enough or is too late – and it is then those complaints, not the improvements, that make the news.

Part of the problem ministers face is that they are in a hurry. Our unusually short three-year parliamentary term means that a reforming government, with a substantial agenda ahead of it of things needing to be done, has only just had time to draw breath before it begins to feel that it is running out of time.

That is particularly true of a government that has set itself a significant programme of reform, and that has inherited a wide-ranging set of adverse consequences from the deliberate under-funding of public services by its predecessor.

Our schools and other educational institutions, our hospitals and health services, our roads and rail and other forms of infrastructure, are all grappling with the outcomes of that under-funding – and they look to the current government to put things right.

The government must realise, if they haven’t done so already, that the public is a hard taskmaster. In the end, they judge on performance, not on ambitions, and they are impatient with excuses.

There are, however, encouraging signs. A government that has up till now given priority to establishing a record of, and reputation for, fiscal propriety has at last decided that it is time to loosen the purse strings and to invest – quite properly and sensibly – in those areas that desperately need it.

The good news is that this will not only benefit the direct recipients of that largesse but will also stimulate the economy as a whole and make us all better off. It will be a real change for the better if the new money coming into the economy is produced by the government and is invested in productive purposes, rather than – as has been the case for too long – created by the banks and applied to house purchase and non-productive asset inflation.

The new spending by government will stimulate more economic activity, producing more jobs, higher wages and more profitable businesses – good news all round!

Bryan Gould
5 December 2019

I gather from some recent television advertising that something called “Black Friday” is the occasion for one-day sales in a number of stores.

I am unfamiliar with any date that we call Black Friday – still less, why it should be regarded as an opportunity to offer cut-price purchases to the public – but I suspect that it is a date that features in the American calendar and is exploited by American retailers, and is then enthusiastically borrowed by their New Zealand counterparts.

My curiosity about Black Friday prompted a train of thought in which I tallied up the various ways in which we are gradually (or not so gradually) being absorbed, as a kind of satellite or colony, into the American sphere of influence, both economically, of course, and – increasingly – culturally as well.

I register, for example, the annual excitement that now attends something called Halloween. When I grew up in New Zealand, Halloween was almost entirely unknown as something to be celebrated or acknowledged in any way. Today, however, the whole paraphernalia of dressing up in frightening costumes and make-up, and knocking on doors with the question “trick or treat”, is commonplace.

New Zealand might as well have been transplanted to the American Mid-West at Halloween time; yet it has no roots in New Zealand culture.

We are of course familiar with the extent to which our current popular culture – film, television shows, popular music – is derived directly from American sources. But these days, it is not just our entertainment that is, to all intents and purposes, American; we seem to be witnessing the beginnings of a similar takeover of our sporting activities.

We now see a great deal of basketball on our screens – a sport that only a tiny proportion of our population is physically equipped to play at the highest level – and we now have a domestic baseball competition, despite our superb international record in the rival sport of softball.

And we should also register the attempts to generate local interest in American football, and the increasing flow of Kiwi rugby players – both union and league – to American football, despite our worldwide pre-eminence in both forms of rugby.

A catalogue of American cultural takeover would not, of course, be complete without some reference to the increasing Americanisation of our language. The American accent is often used to give the impression that a given product is ‘in the swim” or “the latest thing”, with the result that it is often adopted by the impressionable in an attempt to impress.

And I was surprised very recently to hear a TVOne newsreader use the American pronunciation of the word “advertisement”, with its emphasis on the third syllable.

American spellings are increasingly adopted – for words such as “colour” or “through”- despite the fact that their traditional spellings have a perfectly sound etymological basis.

And our language is increasingly confused by the American insistence on misusing some perfectly useful words – to “lay” (down) instead of to “lie” (down), for example, and “alternate” instead of “alternative”, which manages to deprive both words of their proper meaning.

I am well aware that these observations will be regarded by many readers, particularly younger ones, as unduly curmudgeonly – to which I would answer that I offer them, not as an expression of disapproval or regret at what is happening, but simply to register that it is, so that we have the chance to decide whether it is what we want.

It may be that further, and eventually complete, absorption into the American sphere of influence is inevitable, given the American dominance of so many aspects of our national life. But it would surely be preferable that such a development should be the consequence of choice rather than drift or takeover.

The riposte might be made that I make no objection to our long-time indebtedness to British influence – but that at least is a legitimate part of our own history and development.

I have some hope that a proper awareness of, and pride in, who we are, and of what makes us distinctive, will help us to maintain a concept of our national identity. That, surely, is worth both preserving and developing further.

Bryan Gould
27 November 2019

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I had the pleasure of attending the annual Senior School prizegiving of Tauranga Boys College. Our enjoyment of the evening was of course enhanced by seeing our grandson awarded a number of prizes.

There were, though, many other aspects of the proceedings which merited our appreciation. There were interesting speeches, not least from the Headmaster, and excellent playing from the school band – but perhaps the most impressive moments of the evening were delivered by virtue of the haka that were performed at various stages of the proceedings.

Judged simply in terms of the volume of sound and the precision of movement, the haka would have scored well as performances – but the intensity and passion of the young men involved would have alerted even the most insensitive observer to the fact that the haka were more than just performances.

And a close observer would have recognised, given the different points in the proceedings at which they were delivered, that they were not all the same or intended for the same purpose.

On occasion, as when the College staff processed into the room in their academic regalia, the haka was intended as a greeting and an acknowledgment and a tribute to those whose mana meant that they deserved such an honour. At other points, as when a prestigious award was made to a young Maori scholar, the haka was the celebration of an achievement on the part of a young man with whom the performers felt a special bond – or was perhaps simply a statement of pride and pleasure.

My wife, who is English in origin, and I, both felt that the excellence of the haka marked the evening out as something that could not be found elsewhere – that they signalled to us and to everyone else present that we were in Aotearoa/New Zealand and that the school recognised and celebrated the Maori contribution to the life and personality of the school. And it was interesting and encouraging that, at some points, Pasifika students made a similar contribution to proceedings and expressed their own cultural heritage in similarly effective ways.

Our thoughts along these lines were of course front of mind because of the controversy that had been generated in some overseas media concerning the All Blacks’ performance of the haka as they started matches at the Rugby World Cup.

The ignorance of those overseas commentators about the subject on which they chose to comment was truly astonishing, as was the arrogance they showed in purporting to place the haka in a cultural context they did not understand.

My mind was drawn to the example offered by a true rugby great, the legendary former Wallaby captain, John Eales. In a match against the All Blacks some years earlier, Eales had advised his players to turn their backs on the haka.

In later years, he felt so troubled by that decision and so ashamed of his action, that he took the time to re-visit New Zealand and to make it his business to learn more about the haka. He travelled up and down the country, speaking to anyone who could offer him guidance, and he made a documentary recording what he had learned.

He emerged with a deeper understanding of what the haka meant. He acknowledged that the haka was not after all intended to intimidate opponents or to provide any other unfair advantage, but that it mattered to the All Blacks as a statement of who they are and where they had come from.

It is encouraging to discover, as our evening with Tauranga Boys College demonstrated to us, that the haka remains alive and well and is an integral part of our cultural heritage. Speaking purely for myself, I can say only that, when I am present as a haka is performed, I feel myself to be at home.

Bryan Gould
20 November 2019