Peter Franklin is an Associate Editor of UnHerd.
Of all the gestures that BBC newsreader might make on air, the extended middle finger is among the least ideal. Nevertheless, that’s what happened last week when Maryam Moshiri’s mis-timed studio prank went out live to the nation.
It was embarrassing, but at least was an accident. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for a CCHQ tweet on the same day. This featured a still of Moshiri’s faux pas with the caption: “Labour when you ask for their plans to tackle illegal immigration.”
Some of our MPs were appalled — ” [this] is beneath us” tweeted Alicia Kearns. However, Jonathan Gullis disagreed: “I approve of this message,” he said.
Well, I’m afraid I don’t approve — and that’s not because I’m a liberal on immigration. It’s plain to me that the failure of successive Conservative Prime Ministers to regain control of our borders is the biggest reason why we’re heading for electoral calamity. As for the current level of legal immigration, it’s unsustainable — the product of a failing institutions, flawed assumptions and cheap sentiment.
Fundamental and difficult reform is required, but that’s precisely why we need to communicate it with the utmost care and sensitivity. We must never forget that while we cannot throw open our borders, migrants — including those arriving here illegally — are human beings. Defeating the people smugglers will require firm and effective action, but not at the cost of our own humanity.
The “finger tweet” sent out by CCHQ last week compromises the moral seriousness with which Conservative immigration policy ought to be advanced. If it were an isolated example it wouldn’t matter much — but it’s part of a wider pattern.
For instance, in 2012, the then Home Secretary, Theresa May, declared the government’s intention to create a “hostile environment for illegal immigrants”. The most visible component of this strategy was to send out advertising vans to targeted areas bearing the slogan “go home or face arrest”. Even Nigel Farage described the stunt as “nasty”.
The performative unpleasantness carries on to the present day. Examples include Downing Street’s “immigration week” earlier this summer, which featured the Bibby Stockholm — a three storey residential barge that was presented a solution to the asylum seeker accommodation problem. It’s not much of a solution at all, but the forbidding appearance of the vessel was clearly meant to create the semblance of a draconian crackdown. The same sort of gesture politics was on display when a mural featuring a Disney cartoon characters was painted over at a children’s asylum centre in Kent — reportedly on the orders of the then immigration minister, Robert Jenrick.
Even the government’s flagship immigration policy — i.e. sending a very small number of asylum seekers to Rwanda is more about creating an impression than real change. Again, it’s not the supposed substance of the policy that I object to — I have no problem with the offshore processing of asylum claims. However, to stake the credibility of a British government on the co-operation of a third world strongman strikes me as a bizarre arrangement.
Then again, the weirdness may be the point: we have become a party for whom the grotesque is the primary mode of communication. Just to reiterate I’m not talking about policy or principle here, but a predilection for the odd and off-putting in presentation.
It is a bad habit that goes back a long-way. For instance, older readers may recall some frankly bonkers conference speeches from the pre-1997 era. Classics of the genre include Peter Lilley’s toe-curling pastiche of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Little List” song and the bombastic absurdity of Michael Portillo’s SAS speech.
The rise of the modernisers after 1997 (including Portillo’s damascene conversion) was a reaction against the weirdness of the past. Sadly, though, it wasn’t a clean break. We still fought the 2005 election under the slogan “are you thinking what we’re thinking?” — which was almost self-parodic in its sinister implications.
It wasn’t until David Cameron — the first PR-man Prime Minister — that the Conservative gothic was decisively rejected. But even then there were lapses — for instance the leg-splaying horror of the “Tory power stance“. This is a posture that supposedly helps one project authority. Perhaps it does in an upper body shot, but in a full-length photograph it looks freakishly unnatural.
When the moderniser project collapsed in the fires of Brexit, all the pent-up weird weirdnesses of the Conservative Party were released. There’s no point going over the chaotic events of the May, Johnson and Truss years: the pandemonium is seared on the public memory.
Rishi Sunak’s reign represents the come-down from this psychedelic trip — but even now the grotesque keeps creeping back in. I’ve seen Sunak on the campaign trail and he’s a natural — both in delivering stump speeches and pressing the flesh; however, his comms people have ruined him. His leadership campaign videos were distilled cringe and, as Prime Minister, his pieces to camera are delivered as if addressing an audience of four-year olds. The effect is irritating and, after a while, unnerving.
The worrying thing is that I’ve only just scratched the surface of Conservative strangeness. For instance I could have mentioned Liz Truss’s pork markets speech or Theresa May’s Dancing Queen or Jacob Rees Mogg recumbent or Penny Mordaunt’s raised finger (index not middle) or Gavin Williamson’s tarantula or Matt Hancock.
But what it is all comes down to is this: why can’t we just be normal for a change?
Part of the answer lies in the Conservative Party’s high tolerance for eccentricity. This, of course, can be a good thing. For instance, it allows us to have highly unusual but brilliant leaders like Benjamin Disraeli, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. Labour Prime Ministers are quite dull by comparison — and Keir Starmer is set to be the dullest yet. The same is true further down the ranks — after all, there’s a reason why politicians who become celebrities tend to be Right-of-centre. Apart from the odd exception like Ed Balls, Labour MPs are a boring lot.
That doesn’t mean they can’t have extreme opinions, but if communicated in formulaic, virtue-signalling soundbites by humdrum personalities, Left-wing battiness can easily escape detection. For instance, it took two elections for the voters to cotton-on to Jeremy Corbyn.
Conservatives, however, have a greater affinity for immediate outrage. They wouldn’t be Tories in the first place if they weren’t inclined to go against the grain, so crossing the line comes naturally. Furthermore, in a media environment that craves sensation, grotesquerie is rewarded with attention.
For comms professionals who only care about the here-and-now, that presents an irresistible temptation: to use outrage as a short-cut to engagement. This is how we’ve ended up with the Downing Street grid as a substitute for a coherent programme of Conservative government — and nowhere is this more true than in regard to immigration policy.
How else could we have arrived at a situation in which we’re widely accused of pursuing a far-Right agenda while presiding over record levels of inward migration? It’s not solely a case of leftist hyperbole, we ourselves share in the blame — specifically, by using provocation as a replacement for action.
There’s only one way to get out of this post-modern trap in which impressions count more than reality — and that is to mind our language. We must return to the discipline of choosing our words and images as if the truth matters, which of course it does.
In this column I’ve said some blunt — but I believe, necessary — things about our party. So I’d just like to finish on a more positive note.
Last week provided an example of how Conservatives should speak about difficult matters. I’m referring to Kemi Badenoch’s contribution to the Commons debate on transgender issues.
This is a subject that can lend itself to grotesque, dehumanising language. It would be equally easy for a Conservative minister to submit to the liberal orthodoxy — or to be intimidated by Left-wing attempts to silence dissent. But Badenoch did none of those things. Instead she sensitively engaged with the complexities of the issue, but without ever losing sight of the realities.
More of this, please.