We are going through a bad period of misleading and meaningless catchphrases designed to confuse voters.
The party conferences have given them increased impetus. Top of the list must surely be the use of ‘compassion’. Never trust it on the lips of a politician, usually claiming how ‘we’ are more compassionate than the other lot.
The term is deeply dishonest.
Of course, a politician as a private person can be compassionate in word and deed. He may give to various good causes at home and abroad to relieve suffering.
He may rush to assist neighbours in distress. But he cannot apply the big word to his activities as a legislator or minister.
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Far from being driven by high-mindedness, political decisions described as compassionate — or promises made with that label — are invariably driven by cold, hard calculation as to how many will benefit and how many will lose.
You may say this is in the nature of politics. But at least this particular label signals that someone, or even a whole party, is talking humbug.
Watch out for the ‘compassion’ mongers! Though whether you attribute to them sheer mendacity or a genuine inability to think clearly — more normally called stupidity — might provoke an interesting debate.
Another word seriously out of place is ‘social’ as in ‘social justice’. We know what is meant by justice. It is a legal concept, carefully defined, indeed ever more carefully defined as issues go from lower courts to higher courts and on to appeals.
But preface this concept with ‘social’ and a great mist of confusion descends (often intentional).
Social justice means whatever you want it to mean. It means something quite different to you and your neighbour. It is vaguely re-distributive, vaguely restrictive, vaguely revolutionary, vaguely benevolent — but above all vague.
It does not say much for the thought processes of Iain Duncan Smith, now Work and Pensions Secretary, that he set up the Centre for Social Justice when in Opposition — a study centre for the indefinable.
This is not to say this has been a useless operation, since he has, as it were, bagged one of Labour’s favourite indefinables.
The Centre, benevolent under his guidance, with its ideas about work, taxes and incomes has provided ideas for legislation, some of it highly complex.
But such an organisation could just as well have been set up by Norman Tebbit with quite different results — though he would deplore such a woolly-minded title.
Some political catchphrases can sound benevolent but be pernicious. At the top of that list must be the ‘one-nation’ theme, whichever party leader uses it.
You may recall it had quite a run not all that long ago in the form of ‘Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer’ — one people, one nation, one leader. But that is of course the logical extension of the phrase which so carried away Ed Miliband at Labour’s conference that he repeated it 45 times.
If we are to be one nation that means we should unite behind one leader. Guess who . . .
In short, it is essentially a fascist or authoritarian theme. Sadly Miliband is not alone in favouring this slogan. Just about every Prime Minister or leader, regardless of party — or indeed gender — has wheeled it out over the past century. All it really means is ‘vote for me’.
'Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country,' said President Kennedy, before he attacked CubaDemocracy is only true to itself when it does not unite one nation but has a government presiding over a whole host of differing and even hostile ‘nations’, ranging from Left to Right, from all religions to none, from anarchists to traditionalists.
And a national leader should be proud of that diversity, not keen to see it all unnaturally united.
When President Kennedy made his famous inaugural speech, he told Americans: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.’ His supposedly liberal supporters cheered like mad.
But this was essentially the same old fascist or totalitarian theme. Your duty, my fellow citizens, is to support the country, that is to say the presidency which, in this case, happens to be mine.
Having delivered this sermon Kennedy went off and attacked Cuba (unsuccessfully) and later did his bit to bring the world close to nuclear Armageddon.
Since this is the 50th anniversary of that Cuban Missile Crisis, papers have been released from various national archives, but few tell anything new.
Officially, Nikita Khrushchev backed down when Kennedy promised never to invade Cuba. But the secret bargain was the removal of U.S. missiles from Turkey.
By putting his missiles in Cuba, Khrushchev wanted Americans to know what it felt like to have these horrifying weapons on your doorstep.
The U.S. was greatly relieved by the settlement. It meant it could get back to subjugating Vietnam (also unsuccessfully).
