I have published this video this morning. In it, I refer to those politicians (all of them) who say they 'won't discuss hypotheticals' when that is literally all they exist to do.
The video can be viewed here.
The transcript is:
Politicians keep saying they won't talk about hypotheticals. And that is complete and utter nonsense that makes me want to scream at the television or radio or wherever else I hear them say it.
Why? Because everything about politics is about hypotheticals.
The future is hypothetical, it hasn't happened yet.
Therefore, it involves speculation.
And everything about politics is how we're going to change from where we are now. to where we want to be and is, therefore, about the hypothetical changes that they can make for our hypothetical advantage.
So why do politicians say they don't want to talk about hypotheticals?
Well, first of all, because they're stupid, and that's my first and obvious reaction to the claim.
And secondly, because they don't want to be held accountable for what they might do and therefore have to explain to you why they might have failed in the future.
Any politician who says they won't talk about hypotheticals is not worth listening to.
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“the future is hypothetical, it hasn’t happened yet. Therefore, it involves speculation.”
Re-framing: hypotheticals involves discussing alternatives – one considers this.. or… that.
Goodness we can’t have that – alternatives. As St Thatcher-the patron saint of neolibtards once thundered “There is no alternative” – TINA.
& that’s why politicos don’t do hypotheticals – for them it is the road to ruin – because it raises questions – & we can’t have that. Ever.
Neat
As Varoufakis observed TINA no longer rules the roost. TATIANA is queen: That Actually There Is AN Alternative.
I thought that was neat and it turns out it’s also memorable. Also invariably true.
Is the ultimate hypothetical not the Growth Fairy, who will make all the good things happen when she appears?
There are certain areas of policy where revealing in advance what your response would be to certain things is not a good idea; ambiguity is essential. Eg. Listing exactly what we might do with regard to Ukraine against a list of possible actions by Russia would be foolish. For a start, we are part of a broader alliance where we do not call the shots but, more importantly, telegraphing in advance what we would do would be of huge benefit to Russia.
However, in most areas you are correct…. but it might help if the media asking genuinely inquiring questions rather than just looking for the “gotcha” moment. We know that any attempt to express uncertainty or different possibilities is seized upon as “weakness” which ends political careers. So, it is not surprising that the quality of debate is so poor.
But as Stephen Flynn demonstrated on Friday, it is possible to rise above this morass
Stephen Flynn wasn’t impressive, why do you think he was?
He floored Farage on migration and the NHS and Labour and the Tories on spending
He was the unambiguous outright winner – including with the audience
Our total failure over the Ukraine is far deeper; it began with Litvinenko (2006). Londongrad and Putin’s People demonstrated to Putin how weak we were. Brexit told him europe was weak. Sorry, but the idea that the problem is: “Listing exactly what we might do with regard to Ukraine against a list of possible actions by Russia would be foolish”; just doesn’t wash. The ship with our position on Ukraine had long sailed (Putin first invaded in 2014 – we did nothing). There was nothing cleverly cautious about our position; it was utterly incompetent; policy was too influenced by greedy economic opportunism, of the worst kind. We should have stayed in europe, fought our corner, and stood up to Putin long, long ago. Putin’s policy in Ukraine was built, parlty on our gross irresponsible stupidity.
Sorry, this is quite wrong.
Not suggesting for a moment that our policy wrt to Russia has been anything other than grubby and greedy.
I was just fishing for a current area of policy where setting out in advance our responses to a list of hypothetical things is a bad idea.
All agreed, but I think the fault originated with the US free market ideologues parachuted in the 90s, pre Putin, who oversaw the super privatisation process. The rapid and heavily corrupted sell off of USSR state assets set the oligopolistic drive in motion, and that produced an innately corrupt system
Hypothetically speaking, LINO will be as corrupt as the current crew. This was quite interesting:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/labour-lobbying-macquarie-lexington-hakluyt
It profiles at length all the “advisers” supplied to LINO and paid for by various companies.
The Section on Peter Kyle, LINO MP for Hove is worth a read.
The UK – shamocracy.