The importance of being fairest

Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who’s the fairest of them all?

Well Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems obviously want us to think it is them, prefacing every policy with the fairness agenda. But the real question is: who cares?

In a speech last week announcing the introduction of pupil premiums, Clegg said:

“The idea of fairness is hardwired into human beings. As any parent knows, “It’s not fair”, is one of the principal rhetorical weapons used by children from almost the moment they can speak. Psychology experiments show that all of us are finely tuned to fairness and unfairness in people’s behaviour towards us, or in social structures.”

But is true?

A cursory glance at the Liberal Democrats core election pledges show that not only do they believe this, but they also think it is an effective electoral strategy.

1. Fairer taxes for all:
2. A fair start for children
3. Fair, transparent and local politics
4. A fair and sustainable economy

I think it is fair to say to say that the Lib Dem’s care about fairness, and think you and I do too.

But unfortunately it isn’t really true.  No-one is emotionally impacted by fairness, however intellectually committed to the principle they may be. What inspires people’s passions most - what Clegg was referring to when he said our sense of fairness is “hardwired” – is unfairness.

This may seem a moot point, but it is fundamentally crucial to understanding the flaw in the Lib Dem’s approach to campaigning.

Children are indeed apt to complain when life isn’t fair. But how often do you hear them expressing delight at being treated fairly? We may get upset and angry when we feel we are not getting our fair share, even as adults. But how do we feel when we do get our just deserts?

It would be fair to say: not much.

We may feel outraged at being ripped off, or even a guilty pleasure at getting more than we deserve. But no-one feels a great joy at getting just the right and appropriate slice of the cake.

Magic mirror politics

During the election I spoke to some of the most senior members of the Lib Dem campaign team, and I asked how many people would benefit from “fairer taxes” and how much you would have to earn before it became a tax rise rather than a tax cut.  Worryingly, they couldn’t give me an answer, only that “most people” would see their taxes go down by £800. People may like the idea of fairer taxes, but few like the idea of having to pay for it. People do not accept this sort of vagueness when it comes to their money.

The tragedy is this policy was essentially a fully funded middle-class tax cut. This is the political equivalent of an open goal. Yet, being Lib Dem’s, they just couldn’t hit the target.

Fairer taxes just doesn’t resonate the same way a middle-class tax cut does. It is like selling water in the desert, but telling thirsty passers-by that you are only selling hydration supply kits – then wondering why they buy their water from the store next door.

The truth is voters do not go to the polls with a magic mirror mentality. They don’t preoccupy themselves with who is the fairest. They ask: what’s in it for me?

The Lib Dem’s need to worry more about answering this question directly, and spend less time trumpeting their virtues.

The unbearable lightness of being (a liberal democrat)

Forget about the disaffected Tory right and inter-party squabbles.  It is the existential crisis of the Liberal Democrats that poses the greatest threat to the coalition. 

Poor Nick Clegg.  It wasn’t long ago that the whole country was fighting just for the chance to agree with him. Now, after just five months in government, he has become by most accounts a sort of tragic Faustian figure, selling his soul to the wicked Tories in exchange for a fancy title and a seat at the top table. 

Even more charitable interpretations cast him as a well-meaning but essentially misguided fool, discarding his principles for the promise of an AV referendum which, if current polling is to be believed, may become the most Pyrrhic of victories. 

The underlying truth, however, may be even more unpalatable to the party faithful than either of these extremes.  If Nick Clegg sold his principles, it was not by entering coalition with the Tories.  It was by masking his true beliefs and agenda from his own party and the electorate.

Take university tuition fees.  Much has been made about Clegg’s apparent U-turn since the Browne review, proposing in government a raise in fees having campaigned voraciously prior to the election to abolish them. 

But as Nick Robinson reported this week, if Nick Clegg sold out it was not in endorsing the Browne review – but in signing a pledge to abolish them in the first place.  He and his inner circle have apparently long been working to persuade their party to drop their opposition to university fees. 

He is now paying the price of this duplicity. Having campaigned hard to win the support of disaffected leftist voters with vocal opposition to tuition fees and the Iraq war, voters are now starting to experience buyer’s remorse as they get home and read the small print. A recent Yougov poll put the party on 11% - down from 23% at the general election. 

This is the essential problem for the Lib Dems.  Whilst a large chunk of their electoral support and parliamentarians hail from the social democratic wing of the party, the current leadership inner-circle are committed liberals, as suspicious of big-government as many on the Tory right. In many ways the party is suffering an existential crisis stemming inception as an alliance between Liberals and Social Democrats 30 years ago. 

And it is this intra-party friction represents the single greatest danger to the future of the coalition government.