Modern Debate

This week, I've been thinking a lot about arguments. To an extent, the row over Cherie's flat buying has been stirring these thoughts, but I've also noticed a number of other fine examples of modern debating skills. Or rather, the lack of them.

Let's start with Mrs Blair and the Bristol flats. The story of someone buying two flats with the assistance of a man of dubious honesty may, on the face of it, appear somewhat unremarkable. A closer reading does little to change this impression. Many middle class parents are buying flats near universities, both for their offspring to live in and as an investment. Equally, most of us are willing to overlook the dishonest past (and often even present) of a friend of a friend. Both are common, if somewhat dubious, ways of acting. Perhaps the story would be more understandable if the focus had been on why the wife of a supposedly socialist Prime Minister was investing money in property speculation, given the enormous damage such speculation has caused to the standard of living and aspirations of so many in the South.

Slightly more interesting stories are the help that Mrs Blair has provided to Foster in his bid to remain in this country and whether her husband broke parliamentary rules governing the blind trust used to purchase the flats. Either of these could reasonably be expected to produce a small number of stories, mainly in the broad sheets and of interest mainly to the politically literate. Nothing here justifies the scale - or the ferocity - of the Mail's coverage.

To be blunt, the Mail was simply looking for an excuse for a personal attack on Cherie Blair. Apparently, the paper is upset at their inability to attach any sleaze to the Prime Minister directly, so they instead decided to sensationalise a minor story about his wife. There it should have ended. A week later, the Mail on Sunday might still have carried the story, but the rest of the media would have moved on. The reason that the story refuses to die is Mrs Blair's inept handling of the event. Instead of an immediate admission designed to minimise the damage - "He's the friend of a friend, and offered to help. I don't feel it is my place to judge or investigate the company my friend's keep" - Mrs Blair chose to lie.

Lying is a tempting, if temporary, way out of trouble, and many of us have done so. What is surprising is that Mrs Blair did so. We are not talking here about an average person here. Mrs Blair is a senior lawyer in her own right, grew up in a celebrity family, and is married to a highly successful politician. There can be few people better placed to understand the dangers of telling a quick lie, and hoping the matter will be dropped, or of how relentless the press can be in pursuit of a story. Especially one which began as a personal attack. The famous tearful apology was equally poor, leaving so many questions unanswered or glossed over that further attacks were inevitable.

The Blairs versus the media is not the only recent debate lacking in sensible arguments. As well as Cheriegate's pointless lying and blustering, over the top aggression, we've all been treated to the meaningless statistics of the fire fighters dispute. Indeed, in many cases the statistics have been quite simply been made up. Andy Gilchrist has stated that fire fighters work a forty-eight hour week. In fact, they work forty-eight hours in every eight days - a forty-two hour week. Similarly, he has claimed the fire fighters wish an £8.50 per hour take home pay. Their claim for £30,000 a year, while reasonable to my mind, amounts to an hourly rate of closer to £10 after tax. Worse than one man's inability to do basic arithmetic, the other side have not to my knowledge challenged his figures. Instead, the government has concentrated on their own arguments, seeking to justify such strange assertions as "the government cannot possibly find the money to pay for a rise" and "paying the fire fighters a higher wage will ruin the economy/public services/inflation targets". One example should suffice. After the fire fighters and employers reached an agreement around a pay deal of 16% over two years, someone came up with the quick estimate of the deal costing £240 million. Several days later, government sources were still claiming they didn't know where the figure came from. In fact, this figure is the worst case scenario, assuming that government funds will pay the whole cost of the pay rise, except the 6% over two years that the fire fighters would have got anyway. Hardly rocket science.

As well as a notable inability to do maths, the fire dispute has seen another prevalent problem in modern debate, a refusal to define terms. Both sides in the dispute are holding their own, private debate, from which the other has been excluded. The government has demanded 'modernisation', the fire fighters claim they already have 'modernised' and are willing to continue doing so. This seeming contradiction vanishes when you realise that while the two sides are using the same word, they have very different meaning. The fire fighters believe modernisation means the same number of fire fighters doing a better job - saving more lives, more property, and, ultimately, more money for insurance companies. The government finally revealed that they view modernisation as meaning fewer fire fighters doing the same quality of job.

I've given three examples of problems in modern debate - emotional, rather than rational, motives and arguments; bad mathematics; and a refusal to define terms. Worse than this, though, is that these cases demonstrate the inability of the media, and more generally the public, to stop these abuses. Why was attention not drawn to Gilchrist's bad maths? Why did it take so long to get even a hint of what the government meant by modernisation? Clear and open debate is the life blood of a democracy. By allowing (and often even helping) debate to be conducted in such an obfuscated manner, the media is failing us all.

One final thought. The standards of debate seen in public life are mirrored elsewhere, but without the benefit of the media, however lax, to restrain the worst excesses. Twice in the last week I have heard someone in a debate rest their argument on a wrongly defined English word - "regulate" in one case, "glad" in the other. When challenged, both people claimed the challenger was "ignoring the facts". The failings of politicians stretches into the academic, literary, and artistic worlds as well. Raising debating standards may be the most important action we can take to improve our culture.

Graham Robinson. 11th December 2002.

archives :: links :: faq :: feedback

Find out how you can support Online Opinion

Online Opinion is a trademark owned by Graham Robinson. All rights reserved. The copyright on all articles, columns, and letters on this site is owned by the original author. The copyright on all other material is owned by Graham Robinson. Permission is granted to download and store these pages for personal or research purposes only, and only as is consistent with normal viewing of web pages. All other rights reserved. Permission is granted to freely link to any page within this site, as long as ownership of the material linked to is clear. No advertisements may be associated with this site, whether explicitly or implicitly, without prior written permission.