Politics
For the PM, pressing domestic issues rank higher than US misrule.
Jane Clifton
The Pilgrim Fathers crossed the Atlantic to escape the licentiousness and ignorance they thought prevalent in Britain and Europe. They’d burst their bonnets if they saw their descendants revive one of the bawdier Anglo-Scots traditions: the Lord of Misrule. This was the appointment of a mock king to liven up the festive season. Some peasant or lowly factotum was annually anointed to prance about looking ridiculous, spouting nonsense and mocking institutions. His equally ludicrous entourage rode hobby horses and wore silly costumes This making of a clown into a king was intended as a safety valve to defuse civic tension. Clearly not everyone got the joke. One account of a rampage through London in 1551 noted that “not a few Englishmen” were scandalised and “the French and Venetian ambassadors showed clearly enough that the spectacle was repugnant to them”.
Fast-forward to last week’s presidential inauguration, the culmination of misrule by popular vote. Seldom outside of world war has global diplomacy faced a greater challenge. Should one tell the new leader of the free world he’s making a damned fool of himself, or selfprotectively love-bomb him in the manner of Britain’s Theresa May? As the Lord of Misrule for the modern age, Donald Trump is sticking to the ancient brief assiduously – nonsense, spectacle, hobby horses and some pretty weird dressing-up clothes among his entourage. It’s all fun and games – until someone loses a human right.
As Bill English is finding, there’s a wriggly line between telling another country’s democratically elected leader how to suck eggs – remember how we liked being badgered over anti-nuclear policy – and wimping out when home truths need telling. Our Prime Minister’s condemnation of Trump’s anti-Muslim ban was implied rather than articulated. His “not something we would do here” response was delivered sardonically, but was still a bit subtle for some Trump-fearers here.
The Opposition was quick to charge him with wussiness. As a member of the Five Eyes security alliance, we’re surely insulated against being added to Trump’s “Dangerous Liberal Pantywaist Enemies of the American People” list. We regularly upbraid China for human rights abuses, so why not call Trump out over this one as plainly? This ban is the first stage of a planned campaign of what can fairly be termed persecution, and seems likely to inflame rather than repress terrorism. We’ve just spent a term on the Security Council putting other countries’ noses out of joint working against this sort of escalatory madness.
But English’s speciality is laconic understatement, and it’s probably not a bad safety zone for now. As everyone gets their ear in for the sort of rhetoric this phase of transatlantic clock-rewinding may call for, English is being shrewd in not overtly
English’s speciality is laconic understatement, and it’s probably not a bad safety zone for now.
calling attention to New Zealand. As Trump showed by sacking his acting Attorney General for doing her job by offering inconvenient advice about the Muslim ban, he’s itching to make early examples of naysayers. He did not get a mortgage on the phrase “You’re fired!” by turning the other cheek. For the luxury of noisy virtuesignalling, we could join Mexico as an early adopter of a tariff penalty.
In the end, English will be judged by what New Zealand does, rather than what it says. On that score, his recent European trade trip underlined what side of geopolitical ructions he means us to occupy,
and it’s emphatically not
the realm of new protectionism and border edifices. He made what amounted to a mere courtesy call at No 10 Downing St, while his talks with European Union leaders were unmistakably purposeful.
Australia’s stance has been the opposite. It sees itself as strongly aligned with Britain in its post-EU, Britain-first transformation. Tellingly, leader Malcolm Turnbull embodied all three
Wise Monkeys at once in his defensive refusal to comment on Trump’s Muslim ban this week.
All this puts a painful new distance between New Zealand and its closest traditional allies and trading partners. But it’s dismayingly clear we have little to talk to Britain or the US about for the foreseeable future. Our realignment also underlines how much domestic politics in Australia and New Zealand diverge these days. There is a much greater constituency for nationalistic and xenophobic politics there than here, where a clear majority of voters find Brexit and Trump’s agenda quite bonkers.
There’s anxiety here over immigration, but it’s more to do with infrastructure overload than with security fears or cultural dilution.
With the election date now set, English has equally pressing domestic issues to address with his customary gnomic laconicism. Immigration remains a niggly one: yet another report this week by economists complains we don’t collect enough data to measure the effect of our galloping inflows.
The Government also faces new machinations round the margins of politics that could make or break its ability to lead a historic fourth successive administration. Some wily old dogs are up to new tricks: Hone Harawira and Tuku Morgan via the Mana and Maori parties; new Maori candidate Howie Tamati: the Opportunity Party leader Gareth Morgan; Shane Jones, soon to augment New Zealand First’s ranks; and Labour’s probable Ohariu candidate Greg O’Connor. Each of them could pare back the number of votes on National’s side of the House. Intense competition could disrupt voting patterns on the Maori roll, and voters can be susceptible to iconoclastic, ornery personalities.
There remains the possibility, given ominous global trends, of a messily burst housing bubble before September 23, for which National might fairly cop voter backlash. The National caucus is growing more querulous, given fierce competition for promotion. And wild-card ephemera – leaks, pratfalls, social media brushfires – will inevitably use up oxygen that might sustain more important policy debates crucial to one or other bloc’s vote margin.
But nothing will challenge complacency or English’s industrial-strength stoicism as much as the major lesson to emerge from Trump and Brexit: polls ain’t what they used to be. Though meticulously scientific, pollsters have been getting it wronger and wronger lately. Under MMP, Beehiveemptying shifts can occur in zones well below the pollsters’ margins of error. In the newly democratised version of Misrule, our politicians may as well be playing Blind Man’s Buff.
Tellingly, Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull embodied all three Wise Monkeys at once.