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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Is France the next to fall to populism?
Emmanuel Macron was always an unlikely revolutionary. Graduate of the ENA, high-flying civil servant, investment banker with Rothschilds, and later Minister of Finance and the Economy: his was the model of an insider’s path to power. And yet En Marche was a revolution of sorts. Despite Macron’s own background, his election was in its own way a rejection of the status quo. His style, however, was never fitted to that role – if it was even a role he accepted, which is doubtful.
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We can all do with a bit more populism
For instance, a populist administration would cut tax on fuel because the result appears in big shiny letters on signs, but they'd still need the money, because austerity is also unpopular, so they'd either levy it somewhere harder to detect or borrow the money and let the next generation pay for it.
It is a question, both in France and in the UK, whether the demands of those claiming to speak for "ordinary people" and against "an out of touch elite" can be brought back to representative democracy.
Essentially, it makes the case that Brexit and the like are really all about how "the elites" are out of touch, and make decisions for their own benefits rather than the population as a whole, and that "national populism" is the correct response to this.
Really, it's about distrust of experts.
But here's the thing I think it misses. You see, the most successful economies in the last two decades have actually been the ones with the technocratic and out of touch leaders: China and Singapore, being the most obvious examples.
The reason that Britain and other places have seen slowing growth is not because the elites are out of touch, but because demographic drag means slowing economic growth, and the rise of technology means that highly skilled workers produce so much more than the average.
Populism - to me - is claiming there are simple answers to complex problems.
If you want to solve the UK's problems, you need to take Germany or Switzerland's education systems (with their strong emphasis on apprenticeships and on preparing all for the world of work), you need to change the benefits system so it encourages work, you need to raise the retirement age, and you need to move away from a taxation system that discourages saving. These are long term solutions to the UK's problems. But they are not "populist". Quite the opposite.
https://twitter.com/MadeleinaKay/status/1071106173477314561?s=19
Which begs the question: who are the "ordinary people" and who are the "out of touch elite?
"Bollocks to Brexit" is a great slogan, and was the cry of the mass demonstration in London in October. It is very Populist in nature, rather like the Gillet Jaune, in that it knows what it is against rather than what it is for. Ultimately that tends to be the rock on which Populism founders. The Populists voted Brexit, against something, but have no agreed plan for what happens next. Even No Dealers are split between protectionism and free traders. Populism is a discontent, not a solution.
Edit/apologies, I was working up from the bottom and see that SO has already made this point.
No, this is a reaction by social conservatives against post 2000 metropolitan social liberalism, quite remarkable change in a short time that brought us things like a Black president, gay marriage and people on the bus in small towns with foreign accents.
It’s a reaction against economic changes that favours big metropolitan centres rather than small towns and rural areas. The yellow jackets, like the red necks and some leavers are from provincial areas not the big cities. Wealth in the cities has not been distributed to the country, the coast or small towns. The biggest populist reaction is in the areas that felt they used to matter.
It’s the Metropolitan bit that bites. Not the elite part.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/02/france-is-deeply-fractured-gilets-jeunes-just-a-symptom
As bad as the political dramas get here at least we're not like France.
https://twitter.com/guardian/status/818700917423898624?s=19
Meanwhile the costs and friction of working in small towns has gone up. It is much easier for everyone to have an office in the city, than an office in a town perhaps 90mins and two changes from the airport.
In my career I have seen London suck up a number of big provincial employers for that reason. It leads to provincial stagnation and the antipathy towards the metropolitan elite.
On your other point, a few days ago there was a discussion which mentioned paternalistic employers such as the Cadburys and Titus Salt, who built villages for their employees. There are, or were when I was younger, dozens of public buildings and public parks in large provincial towns which had been given by wealthy townsmen (usually men) who, having made their money in the town, admittedly sometimes by dubious means, spent it in the town.
That doesn't seem to happen nowadays.
Why? Direct access for executives to Heathrow and City airport.
The real tragedy of Mrs M's primacy is that she appeared to recognise very well the reasons for the discontent when she came into power, and committed herself to addressing them, since when precisely nothing has been achieved through a combination of lack of will, lack of ability, and lack of imagination.
You also need to end the practice of buying iPhone Xs and Range Rover Evoques on the never never.
Edit/ you are right however that the pensioners who comprise the mass of Brexit support aren't the vanguard of a revolution.
He replied, "I don't know anything about running to province of 60 million people, why should i have a say in appointing someone to run it"
It kind of staggered me, the whole concept of democratic accountably, seem obvious to me, but it was an alien concept to them.
A transfer market in politicians so that they can be sold between parties and countries.
There would be an awful lot of free transfers and loan deals to get rid of the dross!
While Merkel comes over a bit dour, dull and frumpy to the English, I have no idea of her personality and image in Germany
Just talking to my sister in law (she is French) who lives in a village 20 miles from Antibes.
She is not going out today, too many yellow vests about.
- The Economist
OT. BBC saying Amber Rudd backing Norway+ if may deal rejected . leaving aside whether this is possible, how much HoC backing does this have over the deal on offer? It doesn't feel that much of a change and the big difference, FoM, I would have thought makes it less attractive (unless you just want remain anyway). Is it just the least brexitty option that people can claim respects the referendum result?
And our politicians are not listening to those who wanted Brexit delivering. Next time swathes of voters will try somebody who says they will listen - and act. However unsavoury that individual.
Things sound rather edgy in France. Reminds me a little of the 2011 looting here (mostly London but elsewhere too).
"see themselves as entitled to their share."
I had a work colleague who used to moan about his finances and was always complaining how poor he was, despite earning a very good salary. My advice … stop playing golf with rich friends and find some other drinking partners. Oh, and don't shop at Waitrose.
But it's human nature, I suppose.
I currently live in France and yes have been caught up in the protests . They’ve generally been quite peaceful here in the sw . However chatting to people whilst they support the protests they were disgusted with the violence and the graffiti daubed onto the Arc De Triomphe .
The Casseurs as they’re known are hijacking these protests and are going to tarnish some of the genuine concerns people have . France as everyone knows has a history of protest and it’s wired in to most people who are generally a lot more sympathetic to disruption than say in the UK.
The problem for Macron is he came in as the sensible Liberal but some of his fiscal policies are more to the right . Because of the system here don’t rule him out yet in 2022.
Often the Presidency comes down to whose the least worst option , and the final run off could see him survive if he’s pitted against the hard left or hard right .
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2018/12/f1-team-driver-battles-in-2018.html
Some are closer than might be expected. For example, Raikkonen was closer to Vettel than Ricciardo to Verstappen (on a points-per-finish average basis). Some gaps were enormous.
https://twitter.com/i/topics/tweet/1071317477068546048?cn=ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjc18y&refsrc=email
They refuse to listen to reason, or facts. Anything that doesn't fit their Unicorn fantasy is dismissed as Project Fear. That is the real threat to our democracy.
As Trump (and Gove) showed, if you can get people to dismiss objective truth as fake news, they will vote for anyone
We’ve already had this discussion. In which I beat you mercilessly. But let’s go again. It isn’t about been awash with cash. It’s comparing like with like and comparing trends. Poverty rates across the board generally dropped during the boom years, some flatlined a little and some saw significant reductions. This pattern carried on through the crash and bottomed out in about 2015. Lowest recorded levels of poverty and inequality for over thirty years on pretty much all levels. Since then there has been a mild increase on a couple of measures and a continuing plataue on others.
Everyday life in the uk is pretty good for everyone. In 2007 British society reached the most prosperous it had ever been, it took until about 2015/16, after inflation etc to get back to the same level.
For many there’s been an eroding of the value of their salary, this is more so in the better paying public sector jobs. At the bottom end however there’s been substantial improvements in income, way in excess of anything gained higher up.
That’s the mistake labour make. They miss this. If you are not working, life is still grim, if you are on a middle income job you’ve probably seen your standard of living freeze, but working on low wages you’ve seen a substantial post inflation growth in your income.
It’s more that the last 20 years has seen the rise of a footloose global group that believe they have no obligations to any but themselves
This includes the Russian oligarchs, the Indian steel magnates, our very own Philip Green and others like him, as well as the tax obsessed tech companies
Fundamentally the wealthy have forgotten that their success isn’t just down to their own brilliance but they have an obligation to the communities that fostered them.
People resent the flashy, greedy, rub-your-noses-in-it wealth. I don’t think they mind so much the discreet wealth that makes a contribution. For example: people dislike Philip Green, but how many get that worked up about Hugh Grosvenor?
Apparently it's devastatingly effective.
The recovery since the GFC has been very patchy, and focussed very much on London and the SE, with a few other university towns. Hence the bewilderment of people like @currystar as to why everyone is not as happy as him. This article covers it well, the graphs are very telling:
https://twitter.com/foxinsoxuk/status/1071300006756446208?s=19
There is also the issue of generational inequality, over and above geographic inequality.
You encapsulate the Remain problem. "They refuse to listen to reason, or facts." Exactly. There are people who don't share your views, so they are obviously wrong. Populism is something popular with which you disagree. But you only disagree because you know better.
It must be awful to live among such ignorant people. You have my sympathies.
The change in the gini coefficient since 1990 has basically been random walk compared to the explosive increase over the 1980s
Before the vote there were predictions that we would suffer economically as a result. Which is what happened. That is objective fact.
Because the scale of the hit does not match the most apocalyptic predictions, Leave voters dismiss ALL the predictions, even the ones that were objectively correct.
Now we are facing disruption in medical supplies. The Government is buying fridges like it's Black Friday. That is objective fact.
But leavers insist there is no risk to medical supplies. Not that the scale of the risk is exaggerated, that there is zero risk, that any risk is Fake News.
That is not true, and those sort of lies are dangerous.
The idea that we 'know what Brexit really means' is, despite the best efforts of the Economist, a complete illusion. It is not possible to know what it is going to be like until it is an actuality. The same is true of what Remain will mean in due course.
On another but linked point. 'Populist' is another term like 'elites', 'left' and 'right'. Usually used as a lazy way of avoiding the actual discussion of the actual contents of actual ideas and all these terms are used as a way of dismissing thoughts you don't agree with. (Even the Economist keeps on doing it, and it ought to know better.
One clear example against Bottas, but that wasn't a huge switch. Maybe the odd one for Vettel. They really didn't play a large role this year.
Edited extra bit: I do mention team orders, though, in a forthcoming post about how the 2019 titles might go. I think that's the last one scheduled, should be up around 5 January.
On topic, it's remarkable how much Chinese are bought into globalisation, which has lifted a thousand million of them out of poverty in the past thirty years. They and Macron are right, while the gilets jaunes and Brexit leavers are wrong, in an important way. Globalisation is the only game there is. You are either on board or you are left behind. The focus should be on supporting those left behind get on board.
We in the UK don't really do that sort of thing. We tried it in 2011 but didn't get a taste for it. Why not? I think, until recently, we had a much more cohesive society where strands of the disaffected still thought that the establishment got their problems and were trying to address them, no matter how ineffectually and incompetently. In France if you wanted attention you really had to burn something.
I fear that we may move closer to the French example for a number of reasons. Firstly, the arrogance and hypocrisy of those who want to overturn the Brexit decision simply because they know best and are so happy to conclude that the great unwashed were deceived or simply ignorant. That is a very French attitude. If millions of our fellow citizens feel that the system no longer respects their views we have a situation where they may need to try something else.
Secondly, the much slower growth since the GFC has made the inequality of distribution of that growth more stark. When the economy was burbling along at 3-4% a year some of that growth bled out to the provinces even if the majority was in London and the south east. Now, for several years, much of the country has a seemingly unending recession.
Thirdly, that perception of recession has been increased by the loss of many semi skilled jobs and better paid jobs outside of London. This has had many iniquitous effects. Local economies are depressed by lack of demand, shops close and High Streets are boarded up, the more ambitious youth head to the big smoke leaving behind the less capable, it is a vicious circle.
As my second and third points show this is a complex and difficult problem which may well be as beyond the capability of our government to fix (even if they had the will) as that of France. I believe that we risk undermining the cohesiveness of our society at our peril.
You can have some advice from an old git for free. Take apocalyptic warnings from media people with a pinch of salt. Check who is issuing it and remember ... cui bono. Politicians brief for party advantage, others sometimes brief for financial advantage, pressure groups brief … well that's the job. They are advocates, not scientists. the media take up stories if they are exciting (they call this being newsworthy), but they don't have to be accurate.
Even good old Dicky Attenborough can make headlines with apocalyptic warning. Global warming could be worst disaster ever for humanity? He was around in October 1962, when we were a hairs-breath away from all out nuclear war. But I suppose the cockroaches would have survived so that's alright then.
Well-considered science or factual analysis can be boring and will only be considered if they can put a sensational spin on it. Oh, and 'up to' 1,000 can also mean zero.
PS It's David Attenborough - these old gits all look the same, don't they?