The rat's right of reply

In a short, but remarkably undignified, post on Conservative Home, Stephan Shakespeare (who is 49 years old and owns a business and everything) calls me a "rat", a "former jobber for the left", a "careerist" (uh?) and a "chameleon". Among other things.

And I love you too, darling.

Aside from remarking that this is the sort of rhetoric that demented Marxist sects sink to just before they disappear, I will resist the temptation to reply in terms.

Instead let me deal with the substance of the argument.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a column for The Times on the changing face of the right all over the world. Stephan is writing in reply to this.

He starts by saying that I appear only to be interested in winning, not in principle:

Just once I want to hear the chameleons argue as if they care about something other than the mere game,

as he charmingly puts it.

Would that it were possible merely to engage other conservatives on policy and principle. Sadly, there are so many misconceptions about electoral reality that they have to be tackled.

Dispelling illusions about the desires of voters is a vital part of the argument.

Those who wish conservatives to resist any change, persist in arguing that a traditionalist position is a vote winner. It isn't. And that has to be stated robustly. 

Stephan goes on to write something that unintentionally rather makes my point.

He states that:

There is something bordering on intellectual dishonesty in Danny Finkelstein using John Howard's election defeat as evidence that a lower tax agenda should be sidelined.

Hilariously, in a sentence about intellectual dishonesty he hasn't correctly represented my argument. What I actually said was this:

Always an automatic crowd-pleaser in the past, it [tax cuts] isn't working quite as reliably as it used to. John Howard, for instance, lost in Australia despite his promises.

This is simply a fact. But it is one that many don't wish to acknowledge. Why? Because they are absolutely, but incorrectly, convinced that making an upfront tax cut promises (that is specific promises to cut the overall tax burden by a set amount) is a run away winner.

Any fact that gets in the way of this argument is denied. It is frequently, and ridiculously, asserted, for instance, that William Hague and Michael Howard didn't really campaign to cut taxes.

Here though is the kicker - one of the reasons why the upfront tax cuts promise wouldn't work electorally is that that making such a promise would be wrong. In other words you can't simply separate electoral and principled considerations.

Conservatives have gone to the country twice promising to net off tax cuts in the first budget against extremely shaky savings proposals. This did not amount to a proper strategy for lowering tax. And I doubt very much the ability of an opposition party to create a robust budget while out of power.

This, incidentally, was a major reason why Margaret Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe did not make such a promise.

The alternative idea, of promising tax cuts on the assumption that they will pay for themselves through increased growth  (a particular favourite of Conservative Home), would not work electorally either. Why? The voters would doubt that the politicians could be confident of making up the revenue. And they would be right. Again - principle and electoral considerations.

And the same applies on issue after issue.

Good insults though, Stephan. "Rat". I love it.

Comments

[Kate Bollinger]

Looks like youre being a bit touchy here! He said he "smelt a rat", that's a phrase dontcha know.

[stephan shakespeare]

Dear Danny,

You say I misrepresent your argument, and then you misrepresent mine. I do NOT think that promising tax cuts now would be a runaway winner – indeed, I questioned precisely that in my previous post on CentreRight.com. (I do though think that promising to match Labour’s spending is crazy).

My argument is not with any specific policy advocated by ‘über-modernisers’ (as you call yourself), but the way that the argument is conducted – as an endless seminar on politics as life-style branding. You tell us lots of policies we shouldn’t put forward, and lots of ways we should present ourselves, but very few things that we should actually commit to changing. That’s a problem because people are failing to enthuse about the Conservatives precisely because they don’t know what a Cameron would do and would stand for.

The rat-fink line was just for a laugh – I do apologise. On chameleon and careerist, these were not particularly leveled at you.

All best, Stephan

[pregethwr]

This is what blogs were invented for. Brilliant.

[Richard Weatherill]

God, this is boring. Who the hell cares if you two have a spat?

[paul Newman]

I `m quite interested and inclined to think that you are a bit shallow. tax cuts have demonstarted that tey are a vote winner on IHT. Obviiusly they would win support becaus ethe married single income house is so grossly predated upon etc.

The question is with reciepts plunging and the government having obtained a national debt proportionally larger than the US dare we go for growth and hope the revenues follow in such a precarious position Small c Conservatives are likely to think thats a bit ...."brave" eeeeek!

I rthink i follow the main the piointbthough which is that you are busy writing what Judy Burchill peice (incorrectly ) it appears ,when the argument has moved on.Nic Boles wrote something about the matter that was quite perceptive in the DT a while ago. hewasa good apologist.

[loyaday]

Brown agrees to leave the security council, and for europe to have one vote, where are all the journalist and commentators, ah looking where brown wants you northern rock.

[Dr. Irene Lancaster FRSA]

Do you think the 'rat' epithet is similar to the 2005 Labour Party 'pig poster' campaign aimed at turning votes away from Michael Howard and Oliver Letwin?

In one of the most antisemitic passages of 20th century English literature, T.S. Eliot talks about Jews as 'rats ... underneath the piles'.

So it's not just Hitler and his ilk, then, but respectable Americans and Brits.

With a name like Shakespeare, Stephan ought to know better.

[Bill Hessle]

This started out as typically sterile blogger bolgs blogger blogging blogger story, but now that Hitler and the Jews have been brought in, it is truly beyond parody.

[bill grant]

dont worry danny. stephan slags off everyone. its part of his charm and his insecurity

[Dr. Irene Lancaster FRSA]

No it's not a parody. There is something called the 'unconscious', after all.

[Will Longmore]

Boys, boys. Handbags... it's just sooo Thatcher(Lite)

[Austin Lane]

"With a name like Shakespeare, Stephan ought to know better."

Mr Kukowski is in fact only a Shakespeare-by-marriage.

[James, London]

So does this make you the Judean People's Front or the People's Front of Judea, Danny? Or maybe the Popular Front.