Class War, Huh, What Is It Good For?

Good God y'all.

Looks like the battlelines are being drawn. If you're not sure which side of the barricades you belong on, a short fill-in-the-blanks quiz based on the latest Mel Philips piece should help you decide. Simply replace the blank with one of the following: A - Working; B - Upper; C - Middle:

It is the ________ class whose children are discriminated against by the rigging of university admissions against candidates from high-achieving schools.

It is _______-class aspirations for their children which have been attacked by the war of attrition waged against grammar and independent schools.

It is the _______ class whose ethic of professionalism - whether in medicine, education, the law or other disciplines - has been under sustained attack by government interference in order to snuff out the independence of mind and spirit which is one of the principal sources of ________-class robustness.

How you scored:
Mostly As - don't take the piss.

Mostly Bs - well done, comrade. You gut the last banker, I'll hang the last Master of Fox Hounds.

Mostly Cs - Bad luck. If you can't already smoke a cigarette blindfold, I'd start getting some practice in.


That anyone, even Melanie Philips, can suggest with a straight face that doctors and lawyers who can afford either to pay the fees for or live in the cachement area of a high performing school are somehow "middle" class is a joke. Here's the bottom-line: if your personal income is over £50K, you are not only one of the top 10% of earners in the UK, but you are quite comfortably one of the richest tenth of one percent of people who have ever been born.* Anywhere, ever. If your response to being in this situation is to get resentful that people worse off than you are getting government support for e.g. childcare while you miss out on tax-breaks on your second home, then you are whining in a rather unattractive fashion. If you think that you or your financial situation are in any way a priority for government, you're either phenomenally ignorant about your good fortune, or you're pathetic. Good news! You're well-off, and you're going to stay well-off. Even if you have put your child into a state school, or only pay half the deposit on his first home, you're still going to be sitting pretty damn pretty. So don't keep sticking your hand out.

The language of priorities isn't just for politicians. All of us need to start wondering whether "policies that will see me right" are really the same as the policies needed to help the country.


*Probably. Don't be fooled into thinking I'm making that statement on the basis of rigorous economic and demographic analysis.

"I just want to hear the son of a bitch deny it"

As has been well-publicised just now, the HSE website includes a section on Health and Safety myths, debunking various outrageous anecdotes - including, by happy chance, those used by Cameron in yesterday's speech. A certain juvenile type of mind would find that terribly amusing, but the fact that this site is clearly struggling to make headway is symptomatic of the way we process information. Basically, we can't handle negatives.

A couple of years ago, the US's Center for Disease Control issued a leaflet which listed various "common knowledge" facts about the vaccine and labelled them as "True" or "False". Can't get much clearer than that, right?

When University of Michigan social psychologist Norbert Schwarz had volunteers read the CDC flier, however, he found that within 30 minutes, older people misremembered 28 percent of the false statements as true. Three days later, they remembered 40 percent of the myths as factual.

Younger people did better at first, but three days later they made as many errors as older people did after 30 minutes. Most troubling was that people of all ages now felt that the source of their false beliefs was the respected CDC.

These findings have been replicated in various other experiments: we just don't seem to attach negative markers to memories. You may have experienced this yourself: telling someone a story about how you e.g. went out and thought you'd left the iron on (but hadn't), and finding out later that they no longer trust you around home appliances because they remember the story but haven't filed it under "fiction". Or, for a more fun version, start introducing your friends to people they fancy with the words, "This is Geoff, who's never had chlamydia."*

The implications for this are fairly massive. For one, it goes some way to explaining why the HSE can't get a break. More seriously, it shows how easy it is to spread falsehoods even when you're trying to fight them. The more you talk about, for example, how MMR doesn't cause autism, and there are no good studies that link MMR to autism, and that studies that do link MMR to autism are flawed then the more you're linking MMR to autism in people's minds. Denying false allegations is such a natural response as to be almost reflex, but if that's all you do then you're just going cement the falsehood in some people's minds.

Instead, if you've got a point to make, make that point. Don't say "MMR doesn't cause autism," say, "MMR is safe". Instead of "Immigrants don't steal your job" try "Immigration makes us better off". As LBJ pointed out, there's no weaker position to be in than denying something that's not true.


*NB, this works better if your friend is actually called Geoff.

Placebo politics

With the emergency budget safely pencilled in for after the election, there's clearly no need for the Tories to discuss economic policy any more. Moving down the list of key priorities, the next giant to slay is, naturally enough, Health and Safety legislation. Cameron's speech comes as a timely reminder of how tired we all are of a government that's obsessed with cheap, populist initiatives rather than addressing the big issues facing Britain today.

And they don't come much bigger than this: bureaucracy is killing the village fete. I'm going to repeat that so the full horror can sink in: bureaucracy is killing the village fete. Or in other words, the people in charge of organising village fetes are such gullible, lazy, pigshit-thick inbreds that not only do they believe they'll have to fill in reams of forms to get a tombola permit, but they are so scared by the prospect of reading, understanding and completing said mythical forms that, like the selfish bastards they are, they'd rather see the whole village go without the much-anticipated, long-remembered once-a-year thrill of winning a bottle of Tizer at a coconut shy than crease their illiterate brows in thought, or sweat over a row of tick-boxes.

It hasn't occured to them that the popular conception of Health & Safety as bureacracy's war on common sense is outrage porn peddled by right-wing tabloids who are still institutionally aghast at the Factory Act. It might have occured to Cameron, but if it has he's doing his best to hide it. For example, if you're going to kick off your speech with dramatic anecdotes about kids being forced to wear goggles to play conkers, you could have the decency to point out that this nonsense has been debunked by the HSE:

This is one of the oldest chestnuts around, a truly classic myth. A well-meaning head teacher decided children should wear safety goggles to play conkers. Subsequently some schools appear to have banned conkers on ‘health & safety’ grounds or made children wear goggles, or even padded gloves!

Realistically the risk from playing conkers is incredibly low and just not worth bothering about. If kids deliberately hit each other over the head with conkers, that’s a discipline issue, not health and safety.

Cameron does, eventually, admit that the problem lies not with the HSE, but with employers and councils who are a) wilfully ignorant of the regulations and b) terrified of being sued. In fact, he's even prepared to admit that maybe we're all a bit to blame for being so keen to sue over accidents. But that doesn't mean he won't blame the HSE, or commission a report on how quickly workplace safety regulations can be overturned. As Boots recently admitted in a different context, just because what you're selling doesn't work doesn't mean people won't queue up to buy it.

Not as exciting as I first thought

Probably for the best, but the headline: "Hunt for Scottish sharks officer" refers to a recruitment drive, and not a tragically ironic tale of a man feared to have made the ultimate sacrifice in his quest to protect an endangered but lethal species.

Similarly, "Shuttle astronaut becomes father in space" isn't quite as groundbreaking as you might have expected. It's almost like they're doing it deliberately.

Tom Swifties

By way of light relief (and because Tom Freeman seems to have the franchise for Uxbridge English Dictionary):

"I'm off angling," said Tom acutely

"I'm going to swim to the Isle of Wight," said Tom insolently

"Sergeant, take the prisoner downstairs", said Tom condescendingly

"I'm determined to air-cool this small biting insect," said Tom fanatically

"Sorry, but I've got to let you go," said Tom discerningly

...and, by way of variation:

"But I don't want to eat whale meat," Tom blubbered.

Winds of change

As a follow up to the below, I've come across a more directly applicable study on people's susceptibility to be swayed by the "local" majority. This study from the LSE shows what happens if you feed people slanted news on an issue (in this case, the EU). Astonishingly enough, being presented with consistently biased information does change the way you think about an issue. But it does it gradually:

Michael Bruter, a senior lecturer in European politics at the school, fed a steady diet of slanted newsletters about Europe and the European Union — either all good news or all bad — to 1,200 citizens of six countries over two years.

Over time, Bruter found, and without exception, the readers subconsciously adopted the bias to varying degrees and changed their view of the EU and of themselves as Europeans, a few of them in the extreme. Surprisingly, they didn't register any change right after the newsletters stopped — not until full six months later, when they had obviously let down their guard.

This, then, is why it matters that, (e.g.) the Sun is supporting the Tories. Not because it can order its readers to vote accordingly, but because it can decide the story it wants to tell them. Then they'll make up their own minds accordingly. But of course, this has to be a somewhat subtle process. Step over the line between impartial judgement and naked character assassination, and people quickly start to question the quality of the information your feeding them. And in the present case, it seems the Sun has made people think better of Gordon Brown, which is no mean feat nowadays. But only, I suspect, as far as that one story goes. In one month's time, this incident will be firmly in the past but the one-sided narrative, and its effect on voters, will remain. The best way to destroy reputations is erosion, not demolition.

Deeply polarised debates

Because human beings are basically awesome, we're now able to build models of how political opinions take hold in a society by applying what we know about how ferrous metals become magnetised. How cool is that?

It works like this: you create a virtual society made of agents who have one bipolar attribute: they're either going to vote Blue or Red. Then you give them two means of making a decision: either external (mimicing political campaigning) or internal (driven from each agent's interactions with other agents). Then you use the external influence to set some initial conditions (say, 55/45 in favour of Blue) and then observe how your internal mechanisms affect the final outcome.

In the basic model, each agent is influenced by a local majority, so that they tend to vote for the same party as the agents they interact with. (This, of course, uses the techniques invented to understand magnetisation.) The basic model, however, is banal. As you can imagine, the initial majority usually stays the winner.

What's interesting is when you throw two new types of agents into the mix: "contrarians" (who vote against the local majority) and "inflexibles" (who never change their mind). These agents are hugely and disproportionately influential. For example, if you have more than about 1 in 6 contrarians, you end up with a 50/50 split. Similarly, if your inflexibles only vote Red, you only need that 1 in 6 to gain a Red majority as the vacillating Blues adapt their position by trying to meet them half way.

This is of course only a model. But I think you can see some current debates where a minority's utter unwillingness to compromise has given their position more influence that it might deserve, e.g: teaching creationism in schools; that immigration is basically a problem; that global warning is some kind of elaborate scam; that fruit and nut chocolate is anything other than an abhorrent mockery of all that is good and pure in this world. None of these positions has won influence on its merits: instead they've won favour because a) their proponents refuse to compromise and b) their opponents don't.

So contrary to what JS Mill/your better instincts/your parents might have told you, the way to win an argument is not to reason sweetly with your opponent, take their opinions on board, or otherwise engage with them. That only works if they're playing the same game. If not, you just have to stamp your feet harder, and yell louder, than they do.

Lessons of history

From yet another article about the BNP:

This has led to concerns that Griffin has become too powerful. Several senior BNP members quit after he overhauled the constitution to make his position as leader practically unassailable.

Clearly, there are times when you can take emulation of Hitler too far.

Why not to bother watching Question Time tomorrow (or any other time, come to that)

Matthew Taylor shows why having the BNP on Question Time is pointless, when he explains his concept of the "transcendent moment in debate". Essentially, it's the point where all parties (finally) see what the debate is actually about - the fundamental difference between the sides. He quotes this example:

During the proceeding of the US Federal Panel on the use of human tissue in research he [Professor Michael Sandel] had asked an opponent of stem cell research whether he saw any fundamental distinction between using stem cells from a five day old embryo and taking the organs from a five year old child. The opponent had pondered and to his credit had said ‘no’. At this point, many undecided people on the panel had felt they had got to the heart of the difference between the two sides. It didn’t tell them what to believe, but it got them to see the basis for each side’s argument.

This is exactly what won't happen on Thursday night, or in any debate with the BNP. Griffin would rather French-kiss Trevor Phillips than publicly admit that his party's core political aim is a white-only Britain. And, indeed, has said so.

There’s a difference between selling out your ideas and selling your ideas. The British National Party isn’t about selling out its ideas — which are your [the KKK] ideas too — but we are determined now to sell them. That means to use saleable words.'...[selling our ideas] basically means using saleable words… free­dom, security, identity, democracy. Nobody can criticise them. Nobody can come at you and attack you on those ideas. They are saleable...If you hold that [fascist policy] out as your sole aim to start with, you’re going to get nowhere. So, instead of talking about racial purity we talk about identity.”

So, whatever happens on Thursday night, we're not going to see the BNP's policies laid bare. Instead, Griffin will mouth off about "our boys", "the working class", "terrorism", "jobs" and "Westminster insiders" in a manner so vague and platitudinous that he'll be more or less indistinguishable from the average Question Time panellist. Which makes the whole event something of a pointless circus.

Moronic Questions To Which The Answer Should Be Bloody Obvious

From the Mail:

Miracle or hoax? Russians puzzled as phrases from the Koran start appearing 'spontaneously' on baby's skin

You've worked out the answer just by reading the full headline. The Mail bothers to go into detail, but still fails to reach the obvious (or any) conclusion.

The one part of this story I do believe is this quote from the mother:

'Ali always feels bad when it is happening. He cries and his temperature goes up. It's impossible to hold him when it's happening, his body is actively moving, so we put him into his cradle. It's so hard to watch him suffering.'

I'm sure it is harrowing to watch your child writhe in pain. If only - if only! - there were some way she could stop her child being tortured twice a week. Should prayer fail, she might like to at least try not to (let people) rub chilli into her baby's skin. I'm no medic, nor theologian, but I suspect that might help.

This story is not about events beyond our understanding. It is not a challenge to our modern understanding of the world. It's the story of a baby being regularly abused by delusional obsessives and/or manipulative bastards for the sake of attention and status. But the Mail, which is normally so quick to demand that someone think of the children, won't just come out and say so. I can think of a number of possible reasons for this: it might be because unthinking respect for "faith" makes it unpalatable to suggest that the devout may be stupid or criminal; it might be that in the Mail's hierarchy of values "ooh, that's weird" trumps "save the baby!"; it might be because it's happening a long way away to someone very different from the editorial staff or readership and therefore counts as intriguingly exotic rather than meaningful. So, in the spirit of this post's title, let me ask a MQTWTASBBO of my own: The Daily Mail: Pandering, Ignorant or Prejudiced?