STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE
30th July 1998
In a debate on how the Government is more obsessed with
style and spin doctoring over actual government, Michael
Fabricant gave the following speech in the House of
Commons on the 29th July:-
We should have known long in advance that style would play
the predominant role in this Government's life. Before the
election, the clues were all there. I call it "The Colour
Purple"--but not because of the film about racial
discrimination in the deep south. That was far more subtle.
First, we saw the future Prime Minister change his tie. It was
a gradual process. The tie changed from red to red with blue
polka dots. Then there was a further transformation--a blue
tie with red polka dots; then a blue tie; then the final
transmogrification took place--the colour purple.
The backdrop at the Labour party conference--sadly, for the
last time in Blackpool--changed colour from red to puce. It
would have been pale blue, but that would have clashed with
Tony's tie. Of course, those were the days when Labour
considered Blackpool. After September, Blackpool will be no
more--[Interruption.]--despite the protestations from the
Minister for Sport.
It is not just about colour. The Government are about
alliteration. Government policies must all begin with the
same letter. We have seen welfare-to-work, but, sadly, all
the predictions now are for work-to-welfare. Almost every day
we hear of boom and bust--the Prime Minister used the
expression twice today at Prime Minister's Question Time.
Yet the Government are the product of bust before they have
even boomed.
It is also a question of history. Drawing from the dustbowl of
the American 1930s, there is Roosevelt's new deal. Away
with YOPs--youth opportunity programmes, for those too
young to remember. We have brought in the new deal. Is
nothing original? Is nothing sacred?
We also have Americana. Spin-doctoring is an American
expression, seized with enthusiasm here following the new
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry's internship with the
Clinton re-election campaign. However, I am pleased to
inform the House that, thanks to the tastes of President
Clinton, the prince of darkness has not had to reach an
immunity deal with special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, and
will not have to give evidence to a grand jury without fear of
prosecution.
If you want to know how the Prime Minister and the prince of
darkness work, worry not about the dome. Just watch John
Travolta in the movie "Primary Colours"--on release at a
cinema near you soon.
Lottery money has been plundered, as my right hon. Friend
the Member for South-West Surrey (Mrs. Bottomley) said,
from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, and the
additionality principle has been cast aside like an unwanted
toy, as have the Labour party's principles. Money earmarked
for charities, the arts, heritage, the millennium and
sport--normally starved of cash--has been diverted to health
and education, because the Chancellor got his sums wrong
when he was in opposition. Of course we value the national
health service and education, but they have always been
paid for by taxation.
What is the current spin? The hapless Secretary of State
has just triumphantly announced that he can maintain the
current spending on charities, the arts, heritage and sport
into the next decade. A big hurrah. Where will the hundreds
of millions of pounds a year from the millennium fund go
when that is completed at the end of 2001? Will that be
robbed from the Department, too? I invite the Secretary of
State, who is leaning back comfortably, to say whether the
hundreds of millions of pounds currently allocated to the
millennium fund will be drawn back into the arts, heritage and
sport. Will he answer me now? The silence is telling.
I should have thought that the Secretary of State would thank
the Select Committee for its support. By branding him nice
but weak and ineffectual, we have preserved his place in the
Cabinet. It is clear that the Prime Minister decided that he
would not be dictated to by the press or Select Committees,
as witnessed by embarrassments such as the Paymaster
General and the Foreign Office Minister responsible for Sierra
Leone, who have also retained their salary cheques and
Government drivers.
It is nice to see that both the hon. Member for Newport, East
(Mr. Howarth)--who once served as a member of my party on
the National Heritage Select Committee in the previous
Parliament--and the hon. Member for Rossendale and
Darwen (Janet Anderson) are members of the team. The
latter was also, in effect, on the same side as me, when we,
alone except for Angela Rumbold, fought in Committee for
Sunday trading and for ordinary people throughout the
country who thought that they should not be dictated to by
the nanny state.
The biggest example of style or spin, and one that I believe
is an attempt to mask the Government's biggest mistake, is
the so-called independence of the Bank of England. It is not
truly independent. Alan Greenspan enjoys an independent
Federal Reserve in Washington. "Independent" means that
he can set interest rate and inflation targets; but the Bank of
England has no such authority in the United Kingdom.
Eddie George has to act like a high street bank manager,
obeying memos from the Chancellor saying, unreasonably,
that inflation targets should stay as they are while they drift
up slightly in Europe and the United
States of America. The object of having low inflation is to
keep our goods competitive, but they are not competitive,
because the value of the pound is so high.
With brooding eyes and a dour face, Brown--I am sorry, I
meant to say Brezhnev--used to write out spending and
income proposals in the naive belief that, if it was written in
his grand office, it would be done. It is not like that: one
cannot set a three-year plan--a Gosplan. Despite all the spin,
the welfare-to-work programme and all the other measures
have failed to get welfare spending under control.
Every week, another statement is issued on new
Government spending, as a product of the departmental
commissioning of yet another focus group paid for by
our--the taxpayers'--money, yet every week analysis shows
that there is double counting, with the inclusion of initiatives
announced only the previous week. If the Government were a
company, the Serious Fraud Office would already have
launched a dawn raid, and the books would have been carted
off in police vans.
A Government who treat their electorate as gullible
fools--with contempt--ignore the lessons of history. The
Mississippi cardsharp and trickster may win in the short
term, but he ends up with the bullet in the head. Democracy
gives the electorate the loaded gun. The Government will be
judged on what they can deliver, not on promises, style or
spin.
