Two politics

"Local politician considers becoming MP" should, be rights, be a story only of interest to local newspapers. If the national media take an interest, it should only be to ask whether a man who has twice been sacked for dishonesty and who has conspired with a serious criminal is fit to enter parliament.

Which poses the question: why was this story the lead item on Radio 4's news yesterday and in the Times today, and in hagiographic terms?

Partly, it's because the media is so London-centric that it regards the North Circular Road as an iron curtain. But there's something else going on. It's that there are two types of politics which have become so distant from each other that they shouldn't share the same name.

Politics1 is politics in its traditional form. It asks how relations between citizens should be regulated.

Politics2 is the subject of political journalism in the media. And this is often a different thing entirely, being focused upon personalities and presentation. It is that makes Mr Johnson political2 news, because he is a "character" who fulfils a major function of politicians - to provide entertainment for journalists*.

It's become a cliche to say that politics2 is a soap opera. But this is an insult to soaps, which contain diverse and sometimes sympathetic characters, and which often raise important issues.

Even when politics1 and politics2 should coincide - for example on the Scottish independence debate - they don't: Radio 4's PM programme, for example, tried to reduce it to a matter of Salmond's and Darling's personalities. The fact that the BBC gives so much publicity to Mr Johnson and little to serious MPs such as Jesse Norman or Jon Cruddas shows that politics2 has displaced politics1. It's no wonder, then, that so many social and economic changes are happening without politicians' noticing.

I think of this as a political blog. But what's striking is that the things that I consider to be political1 questions are so rarely discussed by mainstream politicians, and certainly don't form the substance of the BBC's political reporting: is the wealth and power of corporate bosses justified? What should be the respective domains of market, hierarchy and cooperation? what is the relationship between institutions, culture and morality? What role should emotion, ideology and irrationality play in public life? How do bounded knowledge and cognitive biases shape politics?

For me, questions such as these (and there are more - these are just some of my interests) should be the basis of politics. But they are largely ignored.

This ignorance serves a deeply reactionary function. In keeping fundamental issues off the agenda, whilst promoting an image of politics as a wrestling match between "characters", politics2 helps to preserve the power and wealth of elites by failing to ask the questions that might undermine their legitimacy.

* I'd even put another of the week's biggest news stories - the resignation of Baroness Warsi - into this category, because it is about what pose to strike about the middle east: would Benjamin Netanyahu ever say "Best seek peace with Hamas, lads, because the Brits are cutting up rough?"

Comments

[Calum]

>>why was this story the lead item

In addition to your explanations, there is the simple fact he has a high chance of pulling it off. The media would be remiss not to be talking about him

[Luis Enrique]

The people who run Politics departments at universities don't study either poltics1 or politics2, or at least they certainly don't study the examples you give (justification of bosses power, role of hierarchies etc.).

Whereas economists do (see here for some of that http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9889.html )

are you sure this isn't an economics blog?

[Dave Timoney]

Politics2, the focus on personality, long predates modern media: consider Athens and Rome. But these are not real personalities, they are projections that we all (not just journalists) use to incorporate certain ethical and political ideas.

The significance of Johnson is not his capering buffoonery, or his Churchill tribute act (though both are important signifiers), but his role as The City's man and thus the shifting balance of power within the Tory party between varieties of capital.

That he should have declared himself as a "safe" Eurosceptic, in order to win a constituency nomination, while publishing a report by Gerald Lyons that (quietly) advocates staying in, is politically significant.

That we (media folk and civvies alike) articulate this through tales of his hypocrisy, unreliability and boundless ambition is just a way of dramatising the contending forces. It worked for Aristophanes.

[Guano]

Interesting points, especially this:-

"It is what makes Mr Johnson political2 news, because he is a "character" who fulfils a major function of politicians - to provide entertainment for journalists."

I see that a certain newspaper has a headline today "Boris Mania". The problem is that this mania only exists inside a certain part of the media: it doesn't reflect what is happening in the outside world. Those articles that try to explore what the rest of the Conservative Party thinks, or what UKIP and Tory voters think, are much more circumspect.

Johnson does far fewer public meetings and fewer press conferences than Livingstone, and he looks really uncomfortable when he does. It is difficult for him to hide behind his Dennis the Menace persona, which only really works with a small part of the "political" media.

[Phil]

This chimes with the minor point I was making in my BBC post the other day. I'm genuinely shocked at how debased the Radio 4 news, in particular, has become. The parliamentary sketchwriters are a lost cause, and the main newsreader's script is starting to go the same way - one of the neutral links in the Johnson story described him as "someone who would make the House of Commons that bit less dull" or words to that effect. Taking politics seriously is becoming a minority sport even among the minority who think about it at all.

[Chris Purnell]

Actually the Johnson coverage isn't about Johnson it's about Cameron. The bookies currently offer 4/5 on a Labour majority and therefore there will be a leadership contest. The coverage on Johnson is early coverage of that leadership contest. Whether a fat baffoon is electable in the country as a whole is very problematical as many Tories know (outside the M25 that is).

[mutant_dog]

Assuming my reading-comprehension function is online, I believe that, in your concluding paragraph, where you cite politics1 you actually meant to complain about politics2 displacing politics1.

[chris]

Thanks mutant - you're right. Correction made.

[Churm Rincewind]

My understanding is that the majority of polls (of varying quality admittedly) establish Boris Johnson as the most respected/influential/popular politician in Britain today.

I have my own problems with that, but I really can't blame the media for responding to what is clearly intense public interest in the man.

[Guano]

Here is someone who thinks that Johnson made his announcement about seeking to be an MP to distract attention from his own failure to be an homme serieux.

http://blogs.wsj.com/simonnixon/2014/08/07/boris-johnson-is-talking-piffle/

[andrew]

I agree with the general notion, and this rather depresses me.

Apart from one point - as other posters have said, this is an economics blog. not a political blog.

Economists report and describe

Politicians report and prescribe

It is fairly clear where your sympathies lie (and I agree with many of them), and there is no clear dividing line between description and prescription, but very little of your writing tells us what to do to make things better.

[shorebreeze]

I think your post misses the point slightly. If that local politician is the mayor of the capital city who is quite open about his ambitiousness, then of course it's national news, even before you consider all the ethical issues. On the other hand, the UK media are getting to be as confined within the North Circular Road as the US political media have long been confined to a within-the-Capital-Beltway perspective, and that's a worrying development.

[Laban Tall]

o/t, Chris, but no comment on this Globalist piece? It must be the first time for years that they've implied that increasing the labour force might lower wages.

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21611074-how-new-technology-shaking-up-oldest-business-more-bang-your-buck