The World Needs Reassurance
Donald Trump seems intent on continuing to offer the easiest of targets to his many critics. It is perhaps understandable, though regrettable, that some of those whose opinions are officially those of the countries they represent (such as our own Prime Minister) should feel some reluctance about courting the displeasure of the new US President – but that makes it all the more important that those suffering no such inhibitions should make their views clear.
President Trump’s executive order forbidding entry to those hailing from seven (primarily Muslim) countries and refusing asylum to refugees from Syria and elsewhere has been roundly condemned across the globe – and it is indeed a lamentable instance of bigotry, mean-mindedness and short-sightedness.
But it is not just the substance of the decision that will ring alarm bells. The really worrying aspect of the decision is the manner in which it was made, and what it tells us about how the Trump White House is likely to function, not just on this issue but on every issue that henceforth crosses the President’s desk.
The relish with which he took the step, the television cameras in attendance as he signed the order, his evident self-satisfaction, the twittered defence of his action and the rebuttal of criticism, all speak to the same conclusion. Any hope that we might see a different Trump in office from the one we saw on the campaign trail can be set aside.
This was a Donald Trump who had clearly decided that the stances and attitudes that had won him popular support through the campaign would do just as good a job for him in the Oval office.
Indeed, it was a deliberate attempt to link the two situations. The immediate ban on Muslim migrants and visitors, and the authorisation of the wall along the thousands of miles of the border with Mexico, were intended to say, in effect, that here was a President who would act, and not just talk, and that he would brook no interference with the immediate making good of his election promises. Here indeed was “action man!”
There will be many among his supporters who will applaud what they will see as his decisiveness. But the rest of us should recognise real cause for concern.
The US now has a President whose first priority is his own image. So keen was he on striking the right pose in the short term that all else was cast aside. His total focus was on promoting himself. Nothing else mattered.
Where was the time taken for proper reflection and discussion? Where was consultation with his own experts, with even his own staff and cabinet, with his allies overseas, with religious figures and with Muslim leaders in his own country? Where was any consideration for the suffering, disruption and anxiety it would cause in individual lives, and the practical problems its implementation would bring about, let alone for the damage it would do to America’s standing abroad and its unity, peace and integrity at home, or for the propaganda victory it would hand to those he sought to disable? None of this could be allowed to deprive him of his moment of supposed glory, and all was swept aside in pursuit of building the preferred image.
That a decision of this magnitude should be taken on the basis of such a narrow spectrum of short-term considerations by the supposed “leader of the free world” – the man who has his finger on the nuclear trigger – is a cause for great alarm. The new President seems to have no understanding that there is more at stake when decisions of this kind are taken than his own personal popularity.
Our fate as a civilisation, as a species, has never before been entrusted to someone afflicted by this degree of egotism – not to say narcissism – and we have no reason to expect that future actions and decisions, of perhaps even greater magnitude, will not be taken on the same basis.
Leaks from his own White House staff record that this is a man “who would be king”. A bombastic blowhard may have amused –even fascinated – those brought up on comic books and “reality” television, but these are serious matters. A man with a significant personality defect and apparently living in a fantasy world cannot be trusted to exercise potentially destructive power on a global scale. We are all on notice that not only the US, but the world, is on the threshold of a very dangerous phase.
This is not a matter of liking Trump and his policies or not. It is a question of fitness for office. We all have a stake in this. We must all hope, and urge, that the American political system can find, if not a solution, at least some form of protection and insurance. The world needs some reassurance.
Bryan Gould
2 February 2017.
Who’s to Blame?
The Bank of England’s chief economist, Andrew Haldane, has had the good grace to admit that the Bank’s forecast of the likely economic consequences of Brexit – that consumption, employment, share values and economic activity in general would fall – was, at least in the short term, mistaken. The British economy, since the Brexit referendum, has prospered and has out-performed most other developed economies.
In making his mea culpa, he acknowledged that the error had further weakened confidence in the economics profession, but it is not only economists who must shoulder the blame. There was no shortage of establishment voices – business leaders, media commentators and politicians in particular – who issued similar ill-founded warnings; remember George Osborne’s need for an “emergency budget” in the event of a decision in favour of Brexit?
In reality, Andrew Haldane did no more than concede the truth of what had already become apparent. But the interesting aspect of his admission is not the fact that he made it, but the explanation for the error that he offered.
The experts, it seems, did not take into account the “irrational behaviour” of those who live in the real economy, rather than in one of those economic models so beloved of economists. If only people had reacted to Brexit as the experts thought they should, the forecast would have passed with flying colours.
Let us pass over for the moment the irony that what was supposed to be an admission of error on the part of those who claim to know best became the vehicle for, yet again, shifting the blame for the error on to those who were supposedly too stupid to listen to what the experts told them and to know what was expected of them.
It is nevertheless worth pausing for a moment to unpick the convoluted logic employed by Andrew Haldane to explain what went wrong and presumably endorsed by those many others who are used to being taken very seriously on important matters.
The starting point, it seems, is that those who know best were agreed that Brexit would be an economic disaster. At this stage of the argument, facts and rational analysis were apparently not needed to validate this position. It was enough that they said that it was so – and they were then able to construct a whole supposedly “economic” forecast on the basis of this rickety and insubstantial foundation.
It was then assumed that this consensus on the part of the important people – those who just knew, whatever the arguments, that we must belong to a particular economic arrangement called the European Union (not the “Europe” to which we have belonged from time immemorial) – would be listened to and acted upon. It therefore followed that, in the event of a pro-Brexit vote, the British people would be so alarmed that they would lose all confidence in their economic future, and their reaction would produce such a downturn in economic activity as to validate the initial projection as to what would happen.
This circular process, where it was not the prediction itself but the response to the prediction that was at issue, was no more than an exercise in picking oneself up by one’s own bootstraps. The British people, however, failed to react according to the script.
Perhaps they were not impressed by a perennial deficit in our trade with “Europe” in manufactured goods, or by an unstoppable inflow from “Europe” of cheap labour, or by the prospect of further concessions to meet the interests of major corporations at the expense of working people.
Perhaps they sensed that they had lost what has long been an essential part of the British heritage – the power to govern ourselves – and that it had been lost to a hegemonic continental power which, parading as “Europe”, was in reality a direct successor to many earlier attempts to establish just such a hegemony.
Whatever the explanation, the fact is that they have so far reacted positively to Brexit when the experts said that they would pull in their horns. The lesson we should learn is that experts are valuable when they deploy their expertise accurately – but postulating an a priori position and then seeking to validate it retrospectively on the basis that – true or false – people will believe it and act upon it is not expertise but charlatanry.
Bryan Gould
7 January 2017
What the World Can Expect from President Trump
John Key had a good and easy relationship with President Obama. They may have come from different positions on the political spectrum, but they shared similar values and seemed to like each other.
Our Prime Minister’s relationship with President Trump may not, though, be so easy. There are so many aspects of the new President which are problematic. And John Key will not be the only leader across the globe who will be unsure, at this point, quite what to expect.
There will be many foreign capitals trying to assess whether the Donald Trump they saw as a campaigner for the Presidency is the same man as will take up residence in the White House. They will be asking themselves how they should respond to a man who seems to fly in the face of so much of what they might normally expect from an American President.
Are they to take seriously his proposal to build a wall on the Mexican border? And what about his promise to deport millions of supposedly illegal immigrants? Even more seriously, has he really committed to re-introducing torture, including waterboarding, as a counter-terrorism weapon? How many of America’s usual allies would willingly align themselves with a publicly declared policy of that kind?
And what are they to make of a President who takes such a cavalier attitude to the constitutional proprieties? Who seems so keen to use his position to enhance his personal business opportunities? Who is so clear in his intention to abolish Obamacare so that poor families are left without access to medical care – and to stack the Supreme Court with his own nominees in order to roll back the policy advances on social policy issues that have been made over recent years? Whose initial appointments include those whose records are sullied by racist attitudes – appointments that have been welcomed by extremist bodies?
Is he to be believed when he promises to impose tariffs on imports from trading partners and to introduce a comprehensive range of protectionist measures? Will he really make good on his promise to scupper the TPPA – a proposal that will be welcome to many, myself included, but that will alarm many others, including John Key.
And what about climate change? Will he really water down the consensus, arrived at after so much effort, on the need for action? And what would that mean for small Pacific nations in particular?
Above all, will a Trump-led America be a reliable ally? Will it stand by its friends if they are threatened by hostile forces? Or does “put America first” mean a withdrawal into isolationism?
Some Trump allies can be heard to say that the stances he has taken on these issues should not be taken too seriously – but in that case, why did he commit to them? If they were merely commitments made for the purposes of the election campaign and can therefore be disregarded, what does that tell us about the reliability of anything that President Trump might say in the future?
Underpinning many of these concerns is perhaps a deeper anxiety. President Obama’s dignity, good sense and wide understanding of the world epitomised what many expect from someone who is inevitably and by default recognised as the leader of the free or democratic world. But when we recall the Trump we have come to know – the bigot, the braggart, the self-obsessed chancer, the groper of women, the purveyor of insults – do we see someone who has the moral and intellectual standing to lead us? Does he represent an exemplar of the great virtues of democracy and a symbol of hope to those millions who are denied its advantages? Can he earn the respect that his job demands?
Little wonder, then, that a Trump Presidency is viewed with some concern by leaders around the world. That world is now a different place, for good or ill. John Key, and others similarly placed, must make the best of it. They have no option but to deal constructively, so far as they can, with the new leader of the world’s most powerful country – but, in the course of doing so, they might see the need to let him know just what is now required of him by his new responsibilities.
Bryan Gould
26 November 2016
What Happened in the End?
Politicians and political journalists enjoy (if that is the right word) a symbiotic relationship. A state of respectful and mutual dependence is not always easy to maintain – as I should know, since I have been both.
Journalists depend on politicians to make the news – or at least part of it. The politicians are glad to oblige but are often displeased by what they see as the slant put upon what they do and say by the journalists. They depend on the journalists, on the other hand, to disseminate the news, while the journalists in turn are inclined to doubt that they are always given access to the full or truthful story.
The politicians are often inclined to agree with Stanley Baldwin who famously described the role of the press as “power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages” – a stinging remark he is said to have borrowed from his cousin, Rudyard Kipling.
Whatever the finer points of this somewhat testy relationship, we can surely agree that a free, fair and effective press is an essential element in a properly functioning democracy. And we should not accept Baldwin’s judgment that the power of the press can or should be exercised without responsibility. In particular, the role of the press is not just to raise issues, but to pursue them and explain them satisfactorily to the public.
A case in point is the story that recently hit the headlines. New Zealand steelmakers were reported as complaining that the Chinese were dumping sub-standard steel in our market, and thereby unfairly undercutting New Zealand producers. We were not alone in raising this issue; similar complaints have been made in a number of other countries.
“Dumping” is a practice that is outlawed by most trade agreements – both bilateral and multilateral. It is not hard to see why, since it means that a supposed trade “partner” can inflict great damage on another country’s industry by selling its product in that country at lower than the cost of production.
The Chinese reacted adversely to this criticism and threatened that they would retaliate by imposing sanctions on New Zealand exports to China if the criticism were pursued – at least, we were told that that threat had been made, although it was initially denied by the government and the Prime Minister. The media did their job, however, and it was eventually conceded that the threat had been made; this was confirmed by the agencies – such as Zespri – whose products had been mentioned as being vulnerable.
The next step in this saga was that exports of kiwifruit to China were halted for up to a fortnight. It seems that a fungus was discovered in a shipment of kiwifruit and Zespri decided to suspend exports until procedures for checking for the fungus had been improved and they could assure the Chinese that there would be no repeat – and, presumably, deny the Chinese any excuse to stop the trade themselves.
Any connection between this development and the earlier Chinese threats of retaliation were of course immediately denied, and it may be that there is indeed no connection. But the story seems to have died and the trail has gone cold. That means, one assumes, that – quite coincidentally – there has been no action by the government to deal with the dumping issue. If there had been, we would surely have heard about it and know something of the outcome.
We are entitled to ask whether the Chinese threat, whether or not followed up by the hiatus in our kiwifruit trade, was enough to deter our government (which never seems very keen to take on powerful interlocutors) from acting to investigate the complaints and protect the interests of New Zealand steelmakers? And, if no action has been taken, even just to investigate, why not, and why has this not been reported? Why, in other words, has the story been left hanging in the air?
The media, which did such a good job in bringing an important story to public attention, cannot duck out now. We need to know whether our most important trading partner is prepared to use threats of retaliation to deter even an investigation into, let alone action on, allegations of dumping; and we need to know whether our government will allow us to be bullied in this way. The responsibility of the press extends beyond simply reporting; we need investigation and explanation as well if we are to make sense of what is being done in our name.
Bryan Gould
16 August 2016
A Frenzy of Foot-stamping Fantasy
So far, we have had a petition for a second referendum and a campaign for a retrospective change of the rules so as to require a larger majority. We have had the promise of a legal challenge to the validity of the process and of the decision and of any other aspect of the referendum that can be dreamt up, and the threat of a prosecution for criminal conspiracy of those who advised a vote to leave. We have had proposals that Scotland and Northern Ireland and the new city-state of London should go it alone and re-join the EU on their own. We have had offers of German citizenship to disappointed Remainers. We have even had suggestions that the vote should be withdrawn from that older generation whose historic contribution to the development of Europe, as well as much else, is now apparently regarded as worthless.
We have had a response, in other words, that is best characterised as a frenzy of furious, foot-stamping fantasy from those who seem to have no understanding of arithmetic or regard for the majority of their fellow-citizens – so much for a mature democracy.
So little did the minority understand the issues at stake that they could not grasp that the vote was not about whether or not they could continue to share in and contribute to the glories of European civilisation but was rather as to what price had to be paid in terms of jobs, houses, schools and hospital beds by millions of their less fortunate compatriots for the strictly economic arrangement that was all that was on offer.
So, where to from here? The cheer-leaders for the foot-stamping – as they did throughout the referendum campaign – will continue to cry doom and destruction. There will be nothing – from the state of one’s in-growing toenails to the result of the 4.30 on Saturday – that is not attributable to Brexit.
But there are already signs of a more sensible agenda emerging over the next year or so. Stock markets have already bounced back quickly. The fall in the pound, if we are lucky, may take longer to reverse; unfashionable as it is to say so, a lower pound could provide just the kick-start the economy needs.
The government has already stated its preference for an orderly disengagement, to run alongside some serious thinking on both sides as to the kind of arrangement that would best suit each of them. It was always ridiculous to imagine, as the Remain campaign kept demanding, that either negotiating party would reveal its hand in advance. There is no reason why a sensible negotiation should not – like most negotiations – give both sides most of what they want, and that will be just as true of the EU, once they have got over their initial shock and pique, as of the UK. For the UK, the recovery of the powers of self-government offers every hope of a better economic performance and a better integrated society.
Surprisingly, the Tory party, whose travails provided the trigger for the referendum, is providing an object lesson in calmness and stability. The pursuit of power is, after all, a remarkably unifying force. Those who cried, and still cry, havoc could do worse than look to the Tories, and their leadership election, as an example of that mature democracy whose supposed demise they are so keen to lament. If only we could say the same about Labour!
But even Labour is true to form, Brexit or not. Those gunning for Jeremy Corbyn were doing so before the referendum and will continue to so after it. The post-Brexit attempt to dislodge him is purely opportunistic; his supposed deficiencies as an anti-Brexit campaigner have been pressed into service but any other weapon would do.
If Labour has any lesson to learn from the referendum campaign, it is that the party is gravely damaged by the schism that has now unmistakably widened between working people in the North and the Midlands on the one hand and the middle–class, self-proclaimed intelligentsia of London and Roseland on the other. It does not help to heal that division when one side expresses, and continues still to express, fury and disdain at the failure of the other to do what their supposed betters told them to do in the referendum.
In terms of what might have been, it is tantalising to ponder what might have been the outcome if Corbyn had not misguidedly and unsuccessfully attempted to placate his critics but had instead, while leaving it to each individual voter to decide, stood by his own convictions and placed himself at the head of what turned out to be the winning side. How much stronger would his and Labour’s position have been, how much greater would have been Tory disarray, and how much better-balanced would have been the debate – and how much larger would have been the vote to leave!
Bryan Gould
6 July 2016