the therapy party

Liberal Conspiracy excerpts a Speccy profile of the Tories’ life coach:

“Steve Hilton, though, remains the third most important man in the party behind Cameron and Osborne…Those who are close to him are phenomenally loyal, praising him as invigorating and inspirational.

“But his ideas are often so concentrated that they need to be diluted.

“For a while, Hilton argued that Cameron’s first Queen’s Speech should contain no bills, to show that the Tories did not think legislation was the answer to the country’s problems.”

You know, my immediate, unthinking response to that last proposal - after all these years of signal sending by legislation - was that it wouldn’t be a half bad idea for any government, let alone a Tory one. New Labour’s philosophical approach seems to owe much to the precepts of Chinese Legalism in that it seems to believe that the basic job of the state is to regulate human action through legislation in order to create a desirable citizenry, a kind of sculpture-state using law to carve out a citizen from an undifferentiated and savage mass of humanity. A break from that mentality would be a very good thing. But of course, it’s bullshit from the start. All Hilton’s trying to do is - deep breath - send a signal.

I think you can identify the more general problem in the Tories in the first paragraph: it’s not Hilton’s knowledge or ideas that are valuable, but his “invigorating and inspirational” qualities. Needing power, the Tories turn to therapy (not all of them, but the kind of Tories who want power seem to need therapy). In voting for them, we’re supposed to validate that therapy. Another Cameron poster: “Vote Conservative. We’re better now. We have changed and grown as human beings. Honest.” It’s all deeply creepy.

Comments

[Alex]

But his ideas are often so concentrated that they need to be diluted.

Really? Is that like homeopathic dilution?

[Richard J]

I think it's on the same principle that seaside resorts used to pump raw sewage straight into the sea.

[Alex]

ah yes, dilution is the solution to pollution.

In the Speccy's sidebar: "Is it really racist to want an English speaking cab driver? By ROD LIDDLE"

You could mix that into a volume of water containing as many hydrogen atoms as the sun and it wouldn't be enough.

[Richard J]

Ah, there's only two people in the world I'll happily use the most offensive insult about, and Rod Liddle's one of them.

(The other is, of course, Piers Morgan. Jeremy Clarkson gets a pass for some reason.)

[ejh]

Doesn't Liddle just strike you as somebody who needs to grow up - somebody who's never got beyond the emotional stage where you think the most important thing is to say outrageous things to wind other people up?

(I've touched on that theme here before, but it tends to recur because there are really quite a lot of men like that about on the media Right.)

Actually I say "needs to", but of course he doesn't need to, which is why he doesn't. Which is another theme, that lots of men who make a lot of money never really grow up at all, because they never have to learn that saying what you want and expecting to get what you want right now isn't really the sign of a mature human being.

[jamie]

What struck me about him more is that he's someone who's come to terms with himself, who doesn't need to pretend anymore and to whom it has occured that he can profit by his bigotry in the current media/political environment.

His background's SWP then Labour then onwards rightwards (though I saw something recently where he hinted that he was a Christian socialis, so its not really a case of fixed immaturity through success at a young age. It's more a sort of second childhood: now he can say all those things. A bit like the aged Somerset Maugham interrupting a dinner party to take a dump behind the settee, and about as repellant to witness.