Pi Newspaper | March 2012 politics@pimedia.org.uk


Has reason deserted popular politics?


Martin Beale ANY reader of Plato’s Respublica


will encounter a poignant moment towards the end of the first book, where Socrates talks to Glaucon about rulers’ natures: they tend to be motivated by either money or honour, which is why those enthused to rule


“I find it very dispiriting to live in a country


where it can benefit a politician to use a provably incorrect argument”


are seen as rather uncool. (Yes, the concept of “cool” is an anachronism; to it we return in the final paragraph.) Truly good men, Socrates reckons, may reluctantly take office when facing the gravest threat: to be ruled by those worse than themselves. This is understandable in the abstract: would you rather a disinterested, socially conscious auditor overseeing your affairs, or someone greedily driven


by selfish ambition but uninterested in anything else? One wouldn’t want to impugn the


integrity of every person in Parliament, but a glance at what is factually happening is enough to excite a sigh. Leave aside the “stunning failure of policy” to which Paul Krugman has ascribed Europe’s, and especially Britain’s, “Austerity Debacle”. Leave aside even the current troubles over the Health and Social Care Bill, which at the time of writing is opposed by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, not to mention the British Medical Association. Cast your memory instead to last spring, to the second nationwide referendum in British history. The Cantabrigian maths don


Timothy Gowers blogged memorably on the matter: “I find it very dispiriting to live in a country where it can benefit a politician to use a provably incorrect argument.” This is a second poignant moment, and not far off a recent comment of Krugman’s: “It remains remarkable to see with how little wisdom the world is governed.” Both men have outstanding minds, and stand aghast at the folly of our leaders. There are numerous roots to the folly, including cognitive illusions


(see Daniel Kahneman), “the silliness of the majority of mankind” (see Bertrand Russell), and manufactured consent (see Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky). The alternative vote referendum


was significant in terms of both psephology and argumentation: how were the victors voted to victory, and how had they argued their case? The victors were defeated in only ten


The alternative vote referendum was


significant in terms of both psephology and argumentation


constituencies: ten out of 650. Clearly, NO2AV had a successful campaign. What, though, was the social distribution of these ten constituencies, and what the substance of NO2AV’s arguments? The learned journal of colloquial prejudice, the Daily Mail, described the ten as “liberal elite”. Labels like “liberal” are deceptively vague and nearly always misleading, but this usage appeared to correspond to educated privilege: Oxford and Cambridge, the Mail’s sages explained, “are host to the world’s most concentrated communities of cloistered academics”; the Glaswegian constituency of Kelvin’s “typical occupants work as lawyers, at the university, or the BBC”; and to the other seven constituencies were glibly applied such associations. Why were this “liberal elite” not


Plato’s Respublica still holds resonance


seduced by the NO2AV campaign? Was it because, as Prof Gowers put it, “most of the arguments put forward by opponents to AV have been clearly wrong, in several cases so wrong that one can actually prove mathematically that they are wrong”? Was it, rather, that formal logic had been ignored altogether in favour of irrational propaganda? In the Plato above, “uncool” meant more like “disgraceful”. Our concept of “cool” pertains to fashion, though, and as such more to style than to substance, more to the elusive aesthetic than to ethics. Thinking back, what did “Cool Britannia” really mean? The intellect has practically vacated popular politics. Soundbites, tabloid naïveté, and irrational propaganda are the chief techniques. We have to evolve from “Rule, Britannia!” through “Cool Britannia” to “Rule Rooted in Educated and Informed Democracy”.


Mirren Gidda THE eurozone talks in Brussels


about a second Greek bailout came to a conclusion on Tuesday 21 February. European finance officials announced a bailout of €130bn after talks lasting 13 hours. As a result, Greece is expected to cut its debt to 120.5 per cent of GDP by 2020 - a target made possible by private bondholders agreeing to accept greater losses and Athens agreeing to make deeper cuts.


It is estimated that Athens will


write off €100bn of debt as bonds are swapped for longer lasting securities which pay less interest. Private bondholders have agreed to accept losses of 53.5 per cent on the value of their bonds. The European Central Bank has also agreed to give profits made from buying Greek bonds to national central banks. It is expected that these banks will pass the profits on to their governments to give to Athens. The bailout itself will be used


to finance the aforementioned bond swap and stabilise the Greek banking system. An estimated €30bn will be given to the private sector to encourage them to join the bond swap. €23bn will be given to Greek banks and €35bn will be used to buy back bonds. Notably however, almost nothing has been reserved to help the Greek economy directly. The question remains whether


this second bailout, just under two years after the first, will be effective. Although it should prevent Greece defaulting on bond repayments due in March, many critics of the bailout see it as a short-term solution. A report prepared by the ECB, EU and IMF suggested that Greece needed extra relief to cut its debt and furthermore


that if it didn’t make enough economic reforms, its debt could reach 160 per cent by 2020. The news of the bailout was met


with anger by many Greeks. They see the deal as bringing about more severe cuts and a future devoid of economic growth for Greece for at least a decade. A political poll taken before the bailout talks showed that support has shifted towards leftist political parties in Greece who opposed the bailout. It appears unlikely that the bailout will see an end to the civil unrest in Greece as wages, pensions and jobs continue to be cut. With that said, there have been


some positive results from the bailout: Italy and Spain saw their bond yields fall as investors saw the threat to the eurozone reduced. The euro itself increased in value by half a cent following news of the bailout whilst crude oil increased in price to match increased expected demand from the eurozone. Many sceptics, however, don’t


expect the good news to last. There is suspicion about whether Athens will stick to their prescribed but unpopular austerity measures, especially given the forthcoming April elections. European heavyweight Germany has expressed their doubts about Greece’s commitment to the plan and suggested that they appoint a European “budget commissioner”. Nevertheless, as Swedish Finance


Minister Anders Borg commented, although Greece is still in trouble, the bailout has “reduced the Greek problem to just a Greek problem”. At the very least, the bailout has temporarily secured the eurozone from a Greek exit or default. What remains to be seen is whether Greece itself will use this bailout for good or remain unable to make the necessary savings to reduce their debt.


pimedia.org.uk | 13 politics


An end to the Greek tragedy


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