No. 83 – ‘Nudge, nudge, wink, wink’ and ‘Quo Vadis Boris? The Blame Game Begins!

Dear James,

So it’s all going to plan. Boris’s impossible proposals are going down like a lead balloon in Brussels, Berlin and Dublin.  Which is exactly what Cummings/Boris expected so that they can now turn around and point the finger of blame. The problem is that this podgy Boris digit is not exactly a precisely targeted ballistic missile. The Arabs have a famous saying that goes something like, ‘When pointing the finger of blame, remember that there are always three fingers pointing back at you.’ Go on, try it! 

Professor Snyder of Yale University knows a thing or two about the blame game. His book, ‘On Tyranny’, provides an analysis of the techniques of authoritarianism and some practical and political advice for resisting it. He cites Victor Klemperor, the Jewish philologist who noted how authoritarian language attempts to undermine all opposition. “‘The people’ always meant some people and not others… encounters were always ‘struggles’ and any attempt by free people to understand the world in a different way was ‘defamation’ of the leader.” Snyder talks about the ‘rhetorical tactics’ of authoritarianism. Reduce your message to simple propositions of ‘them and us’, ‘friends and enemies’ (even if those are dressed up as ‘Our friends and partners’ – nudge nudge, wink, wink) and repeat the slogans as often as possible. Yesterday Leave.eu launched a social media ad in which Mrs Merkel was characterised with her arm raised in a ‘Hitler’ salute and the Germans as ‘Krauts’. It has since been withdrawn and Leave.eu has apologized. But it was done. It’s out there. It is confirming the old stereotypes of the bad Germans and their Nazi past.

Last week Johnson insisted that the Benn Bill should be called the ‘Surrender Bill’. This is a classic Cummings and Boris ‘dog whistle’, a prime example of the language of division. You cannot ‘surrender’ unless you have an enemy to whom to surrender. So ‘enemy’ is implicit in the less aggressive word. Again, ‘Nudge, nudge, wink, wink?’ ‘Know what I mean?’

Yesterday Donald Tusk tweeted directly to Boris, “What’s at stake is not winning some stupid blame game. At stake is the future of Europe and the UK as well as the security and interests of our people. You don’t want a deal, you don’t want an extension, you don’t want to revoke. Quo vadis?  Boris’s reply, if any, is not known.

Professor Snyder says that the internet has a lot to answer for, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world. The internet is still largely in English and so the Anglo-Saxons have more choice. Also the Anglo-Saxons have a general culture of ‘pleasing before disagreeing’ unlike for example the Dutch and the Germans who prefer straight talking. The internet therefore allows the Anglo-Saxons to let off steam which is culturally not allowed them in face-to-face meetings. In our culture, when people meet face to face there is an automatic need to ‘be pleasant’. At least on the surface. The rule is, ‘separate the person from the content. Be nice to the person even if you disagree with content.’ Within the faceless anonymity of the internet, that requirement is lost. People can say what they like without fear of consequences. For the worst members of our society that means a ticket to ride! That’s perfect for Cummings and with Boris well trained in the arts of face-to-face ‘niceness’, they believe that their combination of niceness and nastiness is perfect for the times. The Janus face is the perfect icon for the Tory Party.

The reality is, of course, that even Boris’s form of niceness is largely fictional. While underneath it all, he probably has all the emotions of the average human being, he has been trained in the ‘Art of Pleasing’, a concept developed over the centuries from the troubadours of Eleanor of Acquitaine, the chivalry of mediaeval knights to the Earl of Shaftsbury’s views made fashionable by the  Spectator in 1711-14. As a French writer once said however, ‘The Art of Pleasing is the Art of Deception’. Every British public schoolboy is bathed in its nostrums. It is the basis of British class system. 

Yesterday Sir Kier Starmer said in the Commons that “Talks with the EU are collapsing as we speak,” and that “the government is ‘engaging in a reckless blame game. “ Most ‘ordinary’ people in our nation expect better of our politicians. So please James, as a well grounded grammar school boy, untutored in the art of pleasing, please do your bit to enlighten your colleagues. No more ‘nudge, nudge, wink, wink,’! Please ask them, if only occasionally,  to level with us!

Kind regards, 

BH - Your Concerned Constituent.