Maximilian Hell
  • About
  • Blog
  • Links

Running a Country on Rhetoric

8/9/2017

0 Comments

 
Simon Kuper in the FT on the enduring flaws in the UK's workings:

"The first flaw is running a country on rhetoric. Brexit was made about 30 years ago at the Oxford Union — Oxford university's version of a children's parliament, which organises witty debates, and where future Brexiters such as Boris Johnson and Michael Gove were presidents in the 1980s. … The referendum was won like a Union debate: with funny, almost substance-free hot air. Remember Johnson's policy on cake: he was pro-having it, and pro-eating it. In Britain, humour is used to cut off conversations before they can get emotional, boring or technical.

"Oxford Tories built a cross-class alliance with the tabloids, a scaremongering force unique in western Europe. In 2002, their spectre was Saddam Hussein bombing Britain. In 2016, it was Turkey joining the EU. …

"after the referendum, the Brexiters were tasked with managing Brexit. This was like asking the winners of a debating contest to engineer a spaceship. Results have been predictable. The Brexiters cannot wow Brussels with rhetoric, because the EU's negotiators prefer rules. "That is a cultural difference," notes Catherine de Vries, professor of politics at Essex University." 
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    About

    This is my notepad.

    Archives

    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • About
  • Blog
  • Links