This week heralds the silly season
of British political party conferences.
Having heard some of the speeches and also their ghost writers talking
about the weeks of painstaking writing and re-writing that go into producing a
heartfelt political speech, I feel it necessary to offer them and their
ministerial masters a few more ideas.
HOW TO WRITE A POLITICAL SPEECH
(clear throat before confident approach to
lectern)
How often from our earliest
beginnings have we heard the words “it’s not fair”. As a small boy, long since
before becoming an erected member of parliament, I was always campaigning for
fairness in my family and fairness at school – and fairness is still my guiding
light in political life today. Now as the Deputy Chief Political Advisor to the
Under Secretary of State for National Economic Development and Financial Affairs
– I’d like to focus on the fairness which has inspired the construction of this government’s robust raft of well-thought-through progressive policies which
we are unpacking and setting out on our stall for greater transparency in the
weeks and months ahead of the next General Election.
Rest assured, I won’t allow your
eyes to glaze over by talking about monetary policy, fiscal policy, the MPC, derivatives,
hedge funds, the FPC, the CPSA, sovereign leverage, mirror holdings, the IMF, dark
assets, the FTSE, short selling, acquisition modules, the PRA, the FSA, delegatory
instruments, BOE financial horizons, regulatory resilience, retail investment
firewalls, capital requirements, underlaps, prudential regulation, front loaded
structural deficits, asset backed futures, the EFSM, interest rates, toxic
holdings, the sub-prime market, collar credit swaps, liquidity, forward anchor
indemnities, collateralised debt obligations and the shadow banking system,
because we in Whitehall – who are responsible for dealing with the complexities
of allocating billions of pounds of tax payers’ money to the various
governmental public expenditure departments – are also very interested in simple
common or garden fairness, and it’s this fairness that I want to talk about
today.
First of all, the previous
government was and still is in a state of denial about the real causes of the
banking crisis which left this country with a huge financial budget deficit.
They tried to shoot the messenger who had gone the extra mile with the elephant
in the room staring them in the face. And to make matters worse, they flatly
refused to get out of the box and through a window of opportunity to see the
bigger picture of what was leading them up the garden path. Absolutely no-one
in their right mind would keep kicking the can down the road when they could stroll
round the corner, lean on the lender of last resort and get some quick and easy Quantitative Easing
from the Bank of England’s cash machine.
Secondly, there’s absolutely no mileage in bashing the bankers – they are
a national treasure, treasured by the treasury, and we won’t throw the baby out
with the bathwater. The banks are the backbone of this country’s 76% service industry,
and we need our banks and financial institutions to compete in world financial
markets, or else we’ll end up at the end of the day. We cannot afford to lag
behind in the league tables of world financial markets and leave the bankers
sitting on their hands while small and tedium sized British businesses are
going to the wall. This would be letting the economy fall into Elliotts Trap.
(use sincerity of talking to
grandmother in care home for the following)
I was up and down the country the other day talking to a man in the
street called Sanjeev, who said he was being kicked into the long grass by
government cut-backs cutting his disability benefits. I said that hard work
never killed anyone and he should get on his bike and get back to work. Sanjeev
said to me that he’d been a coal miner for 43 years and now has chronic health
problems. But despite that, he found a part-time job in a factory where he’d
been run over by a fork lift truck. Fortunately the truck wasn’t fully loaded
and he’s now back on his feet. This clearly goes to show that if low paid
workers like Sanjeev at grass roots level can get their noses to the
grindstone, then we can all do the same and pull together at the coalface of
the economy, and get this country off its back and back on its feet.
We won’t get the job done by swearing hair shirts and sandals looking
through rose tinted spectacles once in a blue moon. Make no bones about it – we
are not pussyfooting around walking on egg shells. This government has been
given a mandate by the British people to get all its ducks in a row, come hell
or high water. By any stretch of the imagination, it doesn’t take being held
over a barrel for a month of Sundays with two hands tied behind our backs to
convince us of the benefits of cutbacks. We only need to open our hearts and
minds to suffering some of the setbacks of progressive political policies – no
pain no gain as they say – which in all fairness at the beginning of the day will
ring fence our essential front line services, while at the same time reduce our
huge financial budget deficit.
In these challenging times, the challenges we face will clearly be
challenging as we bump along the bottom of a double-drip economic recession.
Each and every challenge must be met with robust aspirations for outcomes. This
is no time to stop and smell the roses, or go flatlining. We must leave no
stone unturned on the rocky road to recovery, and we will certainly not move on
by resting on our laurels with our heads in the sand, contemplating our navels
about the outcomes of a chicken and egg situation. As a previous Prime Minister
so wisely once said – “when our backs are against the wall, we must turn round
and fight”. Fight for recovery, fight for growth and fight for fairness!
(calm down – then grasp lectern
with both hands)
Some people say that fairness is rare in this unfair world of ours, and
in my neck of the woods others say fairness is as rare as hens teeth. The fact
of the matter is that in the final analysis, every challenge robustly
challenged will provide an outcome – the outcome of which will be a fresh set
of challenges to get our heads round and our teeth into, as long as we don’t
bite the hand that feeds us. It absolutely doesn’t matter where you’re coming
from, because we will give every man, woman and child down and up the country,
the incentives to meet their expectations and aspirations for higher and higher
standards of living.
We are now priming the pump to give everyone a fair crack of the whip without
leaving the stable door open for the previous government’s wild horses to drag
us back to a future on the old rickety roller coaster of boom and bust
economics. And to be absolutely fair to rich and powerful people, we won’t push
the brown envelope too far down their throats because we want them to stay in
the UK
and show us all how to get from rags to riches in one fowl swoop. However this
could take time. After all is said and done, Rome wasn’t built in a day and it would clearly
be counter-productive to count our chickens before they’re hatched.
The last lack-lustre lame duck government opened the flood gates for
reckless private and public sector spending and borrowing which caught them
like rabbits in the headlamps of the greatest British economic car crash since
well before the King died. Who in the world would stay in their comfort zone
when the writing is on the wall – only a government well past its sell by date!
Furthermore, I believe it’s absolutely not rocket science to lay a level
playing field without moving the goal posts. It goes with the territory to go
right up to the wire and right round the ring fence (without cutting corners
off the cutbacks) in order to give the British people what they deserve –
fairness, fairness, fairness!
(bang fist three times on lectern for
emphasis – but don’t knock over glass of water)
I passionately believe that the British people are not risk averse and are
prepared to hedge downside risks by making a leap of faith and going where
angels fear to tread in order to bring about a sea change across this land,
despite some sharp showers. In point of fact, it’s these very same sharp
showers that small and medium sized British businesses will welcome to water
the green shoots of recovery. Clearly, we cannot afford to shit on the fence
dangling a toe in the water when we can all roll up our sleeves and dive in the
deep end, now that the political boot is on the other foot climbing the ladder
of down to earth fairness. Fairness has got legs, and in the long run it’s
those legs that will lead us to recovery!
We especially want to see fairness for women’s legs in the workplace. For
far too long, women have been fully stretched right up a career ladder, only to
come up against a badly stained glass ceiling frustrating their desire for equal
pay and top positions with their male counterpants. The upcoming round of talks
between women’s frights movements, non-governmental organisations, trade onion leaders
and Confederation of British Industry spokesmen will be coming up soon, and we
hope this round of stalks will lead to the next leg of step changes going
forward. We also hope that when they’ve tabled their motions they will not turn
their noses up, but just open a window of opportunity for getting a grip on more
women in the boardroom and more women sitting on standing committees. We can’t
wave a magic wand to put this to rights, but we can say what’s good for the
goose is good for the gander!
(pause for sip of water and whoops
from women)
The opposition parties have got more hang-ups than a Christmas tree in
thinking they can put the fart before the horse, trying to play the end game
without going to hell in a hand cart. The previous government clearly made a big
dog’s breakfast out of the British economy, and it came down on them like a ton
of bricks. They killed the goose that laid the golden egg, and they’re still
barking up the wrong tree without any robust policies that even come close to
cutting the mustard of our huge budget deficit. They thought they could keep
their heads above water by sweeping the deficit under the carpet, but that was
tantamount to turkeys voting for Christmas. Without a leg to stand on, they
used a wing and a prayer to get on the roof but then they refused to fix it
when the sun was shining. However, the sun is now shining brightly on a robust and responsible government which is prepared to grasp the nettle of
fairness and give it to the British people!
Some might say you must be joking,
your policies are counter intuitive – but we say when the going gets tough, the
tough get going. Clearly, we can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear stuck
between a rock and a hard place, so we won’t go there. And even if this country
is on its knees and up to its neck in sovereign debt, we will give short shrift
to those who think that our policies are not robust enough. The robustness of
our well-thought-through policies doe snot mean that we are control freaks of
top-down parliamentary party power games – the type of games that were played
by the previous government’s executive to get bills passed without a second
reading in the cold light of day. Where’s the fairness in that?
We believe the fairest way going forward is to replace the old party
voting mechanism with a new free voting mechanism. Therefore, we will strictly
restrict the party whips whipping backbenchers off their seats and into the
lobbies forcing them to turn the other cheek, vote against their consciences,
and vote against their constituency constituents’ best interests. In the past
this parliamentary party game has led to a backlash with cries of “it’s not fair”,
especially across the cross party back benches. So we will walk our talk for
fairness in the lower chamber of the mother of all parliaments. If the other
parties want to beat about the bush playing games in the House and with the
British economy – then we say no way. We will only play a game if it’s called
fairness!
(short pause – adjust spectacles and look serious)
I’m pleased to say we are giving the go ahead for slowing down the rate
of increase in the number of unresolved issues that have given rise to a
backlog of pending decisions which are dependent on internal review bodies sorting
out the chiff from the chaff in departmental administrative procedures. When
the review reports are drawn up, we can then go forward to assess the impact of
their findings and recommendations on our proposals for the analgamation of the
complementalities that exist somewhere between the various departments’
traditionally mutually exclusive operations. However, these review processes do
take time and include the time it takes to line up a timeline. After all, it
would be a false economy to adopt a pelican approach when opening up a window
of opportunity for down-sizing over inflated departmental levels of internal
expenditure.
In the short term it’s not possible to predict the outcome of mid-term throughputs
in the timeline - but in the long term we believe it is best practice to be
open, honest, transparent and fair with the British people without being
economical with the truth. The truth is, that the review processes regarding
the long overdue decisions required for implementing the reforms and
restructuring of departmental administrative operations will soon get up to
speed, and then make recommendations for much needed efficiency savings in
government back-office expenditure. These savings which are expected to be
substantially more than just on pot plants and paper clips, can then be
securitised by the Office for Budget Responsibility for the building of six new
green ultra-safe nuclear power stations to meet our sovereign energy
requirements for 2045. Despite all the radiation dangers, massive costs,
decades to build and decades to de-commission, we believe nuclear power is fair
for the economy, fair for the environment and fair for the British people.
(short pause for sip of water –
hold glass between thumb and second finger to keep
first finger dry)
first finger dry)
Now, I want to be absolutely clear about clearing up any outstanding lack
of clarity regarding our robust economic policies, particularly in relation to
the cross-party Treasury Select Committee Comprehensive Spending Review. The
comprehensiveness of the spending review committee’s enquiries into all aspects
of the economy is not just about spending, it’s also about savings, and above
all – about balance. Firstly, we must balance the books – and not cook the books like a previous last chance
Chancellor who turned his blind eye to the fire on the back burner in his
overheated kitchen economy. Secondly, we will be taking the spending review
recommendations into consideration as we keep in step with step changes towards
a significant shift in public and private sector economic activity. This will
in due course bring the British economy back into balance.
The Office for Budget Responsibility and the Comprehensive Spending
Review Committee are standing shoulder to shoulder listening to representations
from independent economic experts, treasury officials, non-governmental welfare
agencies, business and trade bunion leaders and many other advisory bodies, who
are all determined to reduce the increasing polarisation of differences between
a multiplicity of derivational imperatives, all of which require transitional
accommodation without disproportionate discretionary agendas over-egging the
pudding.
The people of this country have known for donkeys years that the proof of
the pudding is in the eating – which means if we want to taste the proof in the
pudding of fairness, all the different ingredients must be thoroughly mixed
together and then put to one side before cooking at a high temperature.
However, we can’t make a pudding or an
omelette without breaking eggs. And it’s with this process in mind that we are
gathering the ingredients for recovery. We are currently examining preliminary
estimates and forward planning proposals for public and private sector capital
investment in national infrastructure programmes, including positive
discriminatory incentives to stimulate regional growth, without any noticeable
negative impact on aggregate expectations for non-inflationary economic
development. Clearly this will require the setting up of special dispensation
mechanisms for the allocation of resources that may be required to counteract interim
assessments of anomalies which could adversely affect the fairness of our
cross-subsidisation objectives. All things being equal and with a fair trade
wind in our sails, these simple measures combined with flexibility, patience
and due process will leave the way open for securitising, balancing and kick-starting the British
economy for an export led recovery.
(short pause for recovery – then press
on)
Returning to more immediate matters – cutbacks in the number of public
sector social services employees will release money for the employment of many
more Inland Revenue tax inspectors, to collect billions of pounds from off-shore
tax havens. HMRC Recruitment is offering a valuable opportunity for wealthy
corporate accountants to redeem their feelings of fairness, and achieve their
ambitions for public spirited, all-in-this-together social status by working for
the government – working for a charitable salary – and working for the good of
the country. The prospect of doing a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay will incentivise
these altruistic creative accountants to use their expert intimate knowledge of
complex tax arrangements to reveal and recover the billions of pounds of
uncollected tax oiling the wheels of big banks’ and major corporations’
double-dipping tax evasion mechanisms.
In a fair society all companies should pay their fair share of tax, but there
will still be some small, medium and multi-national organisations that operate
below the radar of national and international financial regulatory surveillance.
This unfairness clearly means that we in Britain must find ways of carrying
the can without putting a spanner in the works of the European Financial
Stability Mechanism (aka Facility) whenever avoidable events occurring at home
or abroad give rise to friendly fire and collateral damage to the sovereignty
of our sovereign economy. Otherwise, our European partners in Brussels might say – “you British had it
coming and now you’re a sprout short of a Christmas dinner stuck in the mud of
monarchy” – but they haven’t got a clue about where we’re coming from with our
sharp showers and green shoots.
(short pause for chuckles?)
In this absolutely challenging new age of austerity, I believe the great British
fair-minded people nevertheless know which side their bread is buttered. They
voted with their feet at the last General Election and kicked out a wild party parading
under the banner of ‘tax spend and borrow as if there’s no tomorrow’ – a party
that took tax payers’ money to fund unfair wars in foreign countries – a party
now clearly suffering from chronic Post Traumatic Election Disorder. We, on the
other hand, are offering jam on the bread of the British economy without fear
or favour. So when they shout about outcomes – we talk about incomes – our
outcomes mean incomes – and the outcome of incomes is of course – fairness!
(pause for applause)
I believe it’s absolutely fair to say that each and every one of us is on
a journey through life with millions of other people who want to share that
journey on the road to fairness, happiness and prosperity. So we must stand up
and start singing off the same hymn sheet. We need everyone pulling together in
the national interest for perpetually increasing economic growth and rapidly rising
levels of consumption – much more than
make-do-and-mend. In the short term we are determined to raise our falling
annual economic growth rate, and this drive for growth is hard-wired into our
mid-term mechanism for upping the end game going forward with a new road map.
The bottom line is – this country
must rise to the challenge of competing with stiff competition coming from the turbo-charged
BRIC countries and their soaring economic growth rates. Clearly, we must now
throw caution to the wind as those countries begin to get too big for their
boots. With no holds barred, we must take off the gloves and fight with all our
might for fairness, otherwise we won’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of
ever getting to grips with the real world.
(steadily raise pitch and volume of
voice to oratorical level)
In the real world of fairness we must remember to update our reality
checks, because at the end of the day we are all under the same duvet. The
challenges we face at present are clearly challenging, and we will need an
extra 120% commitment in order to face up to the challenges that lie ahead,
head on, without missing the bus that takes us to the plight at the end of the
tunnel. But no problem. This government is fit for purpose – it does what it
says on the tin – and that is fairness. Fairness for the rich, famous and
powerful – fairness for those on middle incomes and fairness for the financially
challenged – fairness for those with a glass half full and fairness for those
with a glass half empty – fairness from the top down and fairness from the
bottom up. We want everyone in this great country of ours to have their fair
share of fairness. What we are saying is – give fairness a chance!
(step back and to side of lectern
for long standing ovation while party activists sing “what we are saying – is
give fairness a chance”)
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