Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Bad news before an election, part 2

Can claims of class privilege counter the problems caused by scandal in the politics of the UK? Sir Nicholas Winterton seems to be willing to test that hypothesis.

Election Looming, Tories Put Posh Foot in Mouth

Sir Nicholas Winterton at a beer festival in Macclesfield, England, in 2006. Public revelry is not what he is best known for.

What could be more embarrassing for a party trying to change its elitist image than the existence of someone like Sir Nicholas Winterton? A Conservative member of Parliament for the last 39 years, Sir Nicholas wandered disastrously off message recently when he decided to share his thoughts on why legislators should be allowed to travel first class to avoid exposure to the common man.

“They are a totally different type of people,” Sir Nicholas declared in a radio interview, speaking about the relative ghastliness of people in standard-class train cars. “There’s lots of children, there’s noise, there’s activity…"

[Conservative Party leader] Mr. Cameron, whose party is leading Labour in the most recent polls, has made it his mission to drag the Conservatives — kicking and screaming, if necessary — away from their old chilly image as a stuffy bastion of the elite, the mean-spirited, the entitled and the clueless.

All this matters because many Britons, when confronted with privilege, are still deeply ambivalent about whether to mistrust, envy, celebrate, despise, aspire to or undermine it...

Mr. Cameron has done a good makeover job in some ways, starting with himself. Answering to “Dave” and wearing jeans and open-necked shirts, Mr. Cameron comes across as modern, sympathetic and approachable.

He supports gay and minority rights, changes (or claims he does) the diapers of his young children and rides a bicycle around town (although his limousine was once spotted being driven behind his bicycle, carting his briefcase).

At the same time, Mr. Cameron cannot overcome the fact that his own background of easy privilege fits the classic Tory stereotype, Mike Savage, director of the Center for Research on Socio-Cultural Change at the University of Manchester, said. Among the most obvious issues, Mr. Savage pointed out, are that “he speaks with a posh accent and comes from the most elite school in the country.”…

In the eyes of many Britons, the Tories’ traditional social elitism is tied to another form of elitism — what they perceive as the callous policies of the haves toward the have-nots in the Thatcher era. That was when the Conservative government cut social spending and pursued an anti-Europe, anti-immigration, anti-union agenda.

Mr. Cameron’s efforts to move past that, too, have been thrown off track by the financial crisis. Reacting to Britain’s deficit last fall by preaching fiscal austerity, the Tories found themselves once more in the position of grim spoilsports eager to cut government programs...

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Labels: cleavages, elections, politics, UK