The Dinner Party Problem

Part two; centrist conformity

The PPE state is shaped by a political class that believes framing is equivalent to fixing; but the homogeneity is not only one of skillset, but worldview. I refer to my CapX piece on Weber, again;

Sadly, it is not a new development to us. Across most modern industrialised democracies, there has been convergence towards professional or middle class overrepresentation in politics. This began with a shift away from rural and agrarian elites, but a second strengthening has now occurred with the marginalisation of working class representation; in 1945, about a quarter of MPs came from a working-class background, based on their pre-parliament occupations. By 2019, this figure had dropped to just 7%.

Nor is the social class the only shallow pool from which political talent is drawn; recent research from LSE has shown that over the century from 1922 to 2022, Oxford educated 33% and Cambridge 18% of all British cabinet ministers, meaning over half of all cabinet ministers came from Oxbridge. The rest were drawn from a thin smattering of the better Russel Group unis;

The proportional overrepresentation here is startling.

Research into small groups with high levels of cohesiveness and conformity – as would be the case for an elite with such a narrow range of formative experiences, and can be evidenced by the relative political & ideological homogeneity of modern politics - often produce decisions that fail to account for the full breadth of information, or properly consider alternative decisions. This isn’t a particular post-Blair problem; when considering the ill-judged decisions made by the British cabinet during the Suez crisis in 1956, Hugh Thomas and Bertjan Verbeek suggested that the homogeneity of the group in terms of background mean the Cabinet suffered a ‘collective abberation’ of decision making;

The British Cabinet which took the decision to prepare this plan had now been led by Eden for fifteen months. It was a more orthodox Government than any of Churchill’s. Apart from Walter Monckton, an eminent lawyer, none of the Cabinet had much position outside politics. Tough old outsiders like Lords Woolton, Waverley, Chandos, or Cherwell played no part in Eden’s Cabinets, unlike Churchill’s. Including Eden himself, eleven out of the eighteen Cabinet Ministers had been in the House of Commons before 1939, nine were Etonians, six (Eden, Macmillan, Gwilym Lloyd George, Monckton, Salisbury, James Stuart) had served in the First World War (three were MCs, including Eden); another four had fought in the Second World War.19 All save two had been at Oxford or Cambridge. Four had been opponents of appeasement before the Second World War (Eden, Salisbury, Macmillan, Sandys), and five (Butler, Lennox-Boyd, Kilmuir, James Stuart and Home) supporters of it. The youngest Minister was Macleod (forty-three), the eldest Monckton (sixty-two); four Ministers (Monckton, Salisbury, Major Lloyd George and Macmillan) were over sixty.

Verbeek’s work tries to find cognitive explanations to explain why the Cabinet decided to resort to force despite the unlikelihood that US support, deemed essential, would be forthcoming. First of all, Verbeek examines Eden himself;

An analysis of public and private statements by Anthony Eden between 1924 and 195522 shows that his cognitive belief system was guided by the idea, or master belief, that, although conflict is a frequent feature of world politics, in the end, any conflict can be accommodated as long as the parties involved are willing to recognize and respect their mutual security interests. A necessary precondition for conflict resolution, however, is the obeyance of certain standards of international conduct. Essentially, international relations should and can be an area of gentlemanly conduct. This belief structured many other of Eden’s beliefs, including his view of the opponent: it remains possible to accommodate international conflict as long as states and their leaders adhere to certain conventions of correct international behaviour.

Eden’s inner circle – himself, Macmillan, Salisbury and Lloyd – employed collective rationalizations around the timing of the US Prediential elections and highly selective interpretation of messages from Dulles and Eisenhower to convince themselves that US support would be forthcoming after all, despite signs to the contrary. That is because, Verbeek argues, all shared collective assumptions about the US based on the fact they;

shared the same image of the nature of Anglo-US relations: first, they recognized that the United States was the world’s first power, but remained nevertheless convinced that Great Britain was its junior partner with global responsibilities of its own. Second, they were convinced that they had an explicit understanding with the USA that the Middle East was an area which was primarily Great Britain’s sphere of influence. Third, this implied that the USA would not resist the defence by Great Britain of what she perceived to be her legitimate interests

As well as collective blind spots, there is also the issue that a political elite that is so narrow will be unrepresentative of the general population. It is not an issue that politicians are unrepresentative of the people per se, but successful government is made far more difficult if the governing elite is unfamiliar with the lived experiences of the governed.

Politicians now almost exclusively rely on polling data and focus groups to keep them in touch with the electorate. It was unkindly once said to me of David Cameron that he ‘wouldn’t fart without consulting a focus group first.’’ In the past, this effect was mitigated by mass participation in party membership.