Last week, the UK's Conservative Party launched a cabinet reshuffle. The reshuffle, reassigning ministerial portfolios to new ministers, is a fairly standard and regular occurrence in politics. Yet this one carries a lot of symbolic meaning. In advance of the 2015 UK general election, the Conservatives reorganising themselves.
That makes their choices for cabinet members very interesting. The clothes they choose to dress themselves in tells us a lot about what they think will be needed to placate voters their less popular policies. Behind the window-dressing, matters like the choice of ministers will also give us some insight into the policies the Tories will look to pursue.
On the surface, all of the attention seems to be paid to making the party look more representative. Achieving this has meant attempting to increase in the number of women in the cabinet, and selecting an overall younger group of ministers (The Independent, 2014). Yet under the attempt to create a representative cloak, we find other, sterner and more reactionary, messages.
They read: anti-Europe; centralised United Kingdom; business prospects and profitability before the enrichment of life; institutional inequality; and, of course, the same old welfare 'restructuring' rumbling on. Herein lies the danger of a popular cause: they can too easily be used as a cloak to hide other purposes. In the case of the Tory cabinet reshuffle, paying close attention to the changes, or lack of them, can expose some idea of their true intentions.
Beneath the veneer, even some of the symbolic, representative, moves very quickly begin to look superficial. Women in
the cabinet, even those taking over positions previously held by men,
find themselves with less seniority and less pay (Mason, 2014{1}).
Meanwhile, the ministries of education, equalities and women, all individually important matters, have been combined into one portfolio, under one minister (Mason, 2014{1}). That puts a lot of broad, and quite inspecific, matters into the hands of one minister, which could be taken as a diminishment of the importance given to them. The appointment of a female minister seem like a cold cover for that.
The fact that the minister is a woman, is also a cover for some other uncomfortable facts. Nicky Morgan not only voted against equal marriage (Mason, 2014{2}), but also argued for expensive, private, higher education. She described tax-based education as an institution used as a rite of passage, rather than - as she thinks higher education aught to be - a sleek, privately paid for, system in which young people make pragmatic decisions about what will best help, and least hinder, their future business prospects (BBC, 2010).
The egregious Conservative welfare policy will continue to be reinforced by the reshuffle survivor Iain Duncan Smith. He remains at the helm of the much derided reconstruction and dismantling of the social safety net (Jones, 2014).
Pro-Europeans, and defenders of some European institutions, have found themselves purged (Mason, 2014{1}), as part of a continuing anti-European direction. Even the new Minister for Wales is opposed to devolving power and considers it dangerous, while representing part of the UK run by devolved institutions (Mason, 2014{1}).
The pragmatic, and even cynical, aspects of this cabinet reshuffle only expose how out of touch the Tories are from the world outside Westminster. Things like representation are still seen as little more than pieces to be moved around the political board, as part of an election strategy or an attempt to make the party leader appear strong or decisive (Rawnsley, 2014).
We have to expect better from elected officials than these cynical strategies, aimed at raising popular support by any means. Such populism becomes a back door, by which policies can be smuggled into government - in this case thinly veiled and deeply conservative, even reactionary, policies.
We can't let ourselves be deceived so easily, or allow such cheap deception to be one of the most effective means of gaining elected power. We must be vigilant of the danger posed by the power that is afforded to those who can effectively exploit the latest populist cause to their advantage.
==========
References:
==========
+ The BBC's 'Reshuffle at-a-glance: In, out and moved about'; 15 July 2014.
+ The Independent's 'Cabinet reshuffle: A new-look team that David Cameron hopes will keep him in Downing Street'; 15 July 2014.
+ Rowena Mason's 'Conservative backlash against Cameron cabinet reshuffle begins'; in The Guardian; 15 July 2014{1}.
+ Rowena Mason's 'Nicky Morgan's gay-marriage stance causes equalities role confusion … again'; in The Guardian; 15 July 2014{2}.
+ The BBC's Politics Show (East Midlands); 7 November 2010.
+ Owen Jones' 'Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms are disastrous – yet he’s still standing'; in The Guardian; 16 July 2014.
+ Andrew Rawnsley's 'A reshuffle that opened a window into the soul of David Cameron'; in The Guardian; 20 July 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment