David Howarth’s YouTube Moments

The Cambridge MP, David Howarth, entertained Kensington and Chelsea LibDems this evening, when he addressed a Food for Thought event on Liberal Politics in the Era of the Superficial. His sub-title was a question, whether the political life is still worth leading. Given the fact that David followed several years as leader of Cambridge City Council by getting comfortably elected to parliament in 2005, to an extent the answer was self-evidently ‘yes’. But he had some hard truths to tell about the limitations of politicians, the public and the media.

The very word ‘politician’ has recently assumed negative tones, he argued, irrespective of party. And the inquisitorial style of Jeremy Paxman, John Humphrys and Co has turned news and current affairs programmes in the media into humiliation ceremonies. Moreover, politicians are under scrutiny by the public all the time, constantly at risk from people’s mobile phones and digital cameras, with the possibility of being broadcast on YouTube. No wonder so many of them no longer do anything as reckless as declare openly what they actually believe.

David revealed that all MPs are now routinely given training and advice on presentation — everything from their clothes to their delivery. According to the trainers, one’s appearance has eight times as much impact as what one actually says. And in a postmodern society (well, David is an academic by profession, after all), in which nothing really matters, the superficial is paramount. Chilling stuff, though delivered with his trademark dry humour and self-deprecation.

  

Andy Mayer and the Orange Bookers

The blogger, prolific photographer and linchpin of the now defunct Liberal Future, Andy Mayer, gave a very professional presentation on the Orange Book last night, at a Pizza and Politics at the home of the leader of Islington Council, James Kempton. When the book came out, it caused quite a stir, not least because of David Laws’s essay on the funding of social services. It was hailed as the rallying call of Economic Liberals — as opposed to Social Liberals, who later responded with ‘Reinventing the State’ — but Andy argued convincingly that such distinctions were largly redundant, and that we should just talk about ‘Liberals’.

One kite he flew was the suggestion that has been made in some quarters that Nick Clegg has surrounded himself with Orange Bookers. But one had to balance that notion with Andy’s reflection that most people come away from talking with Nick believing that he agrees with them. Is this a skilful politician at work,  or what? The coming months will tell. But with even Nick Cohen, in the Evening Standard, musing that both Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson are so inadequate that he might have to consider voting Liberal Democrat in the upcoming London Mayoral election, we are in an interesting political situation, with everything to play for, providing the LibDems can communicate to the electorate what they stand for!