Royal Mail: the rhetoric of privatisation

Those interested in the snakelike rhetoric of neoliberal political economy will have pricked up their ears recently when business minister Michael Fallon went on the Today programme to explain the imminent privatisation of the Royal Mail. He spoke, as though it were perfectly natural, about "allowing" Royal Mail to get "access" to "private capital" or "private investment". This cleverly implied that it's Royal Mail that has been desperately wanting to be sold off all along. The postal service has been straining at the leash for years, fantasising about "access" to Smaug-sized hoards of "private" money. ("Private" is a better adjective than "corporate" here, as the latter might make us think of speculators seeking to extract profit-rents.) So what the government is doing now is merely stepping aside and letting plucky little Royal Mail fulfil its dream. Agency and responsibility, on Fallon's adroitly designed story, have been transferred to the object (or victim) of the sale itself.

Opponents of the privatisation can react to this in two ways. One can simply point out the contentious ascription to Royal Mail itself of the desire to be sold. Or one could adopt a vivid opposing metaphor: say, selling the family silver, or selling the golden goose. (Royal Mail is now presented as profitable, to make it attractive to "private investment", though that undercuts the supposed urgency of selling it.) It's true that "family silver" is rather remote from most people's household experience, and not many folk keep geese any more. But something along these lines would count as a "reframing" strategy. This is sometimes thought to be the key to political persuasion, especially by liberals who are miffed at how much traction conservative frames enjoy.

Now, a report by the New Economics Foundation proposes just such a rhetorical countermovement for the left, to challenge the "austerity" narrative of the past few years. Certainly, in the wake of the financial crisis, the Unspeak of "austerity" was very useful: it evoked the austerity regime of rationing after the end of the second world war, to convince us that the situation now was equally desperate, and the bitter medicine of spending cuts was necessary. And, as austerity is a virtuously severe discipline, so citizens were expected not only to submit to it, but to agree that it was good for them. Boris Johnson went a little off-message early this year by suggesting the government should "junk the rhetoric of austerity", so apparently confirming that it had all along been merely a verbal device to justify policies preferred for other reasons. But the NEF observes that, thanks to "austerity" and associated metaphors ("mountains of debt", "maxed-out credit card"), a majority of Britons polled still believe that spending cuts are necessary.

So what does the NEF want to put in austerity's place? We should, it suggests, talk about a "casino economy". Why? Because "casinos are associated with excess, unearned wealth and unfair stakes". The report neglects to mention that casinos are also associated with glamour, good fortune and James Bond. I for one would rather live in a casino economy than an austerity economy. I would be wearing black tie at all times, and my glass would surely get topped up more often.

Meanwhile, we should also talk about "big bad banks". Why? "Bankers act as a storybook villain," the NEF report explains approvingly; "their continued wealth and the lives of excess they lead still anger people." One might be sceptical of the value to rational public debate of consciously exploiting a "storybook villain". Although, anything's worth a try for Ed Miliband: perhaps he should start ranting about how David Cameron is like Dan Dare's green, swollen-craniumed adversary, the Mekon.

If one does not hold the public in complete contempt, the drawback of "reframing" strategy is its condescending view that people are too stupid or lazy to pay attention to detailed discussion of facts and policy: they are sheep who just need to be hypnotised with the appropriate image. ("Opponents of austerity need to repeat the phrase 'casino economy' as often as possible," the NEF advises brightly, as though everyone were not already tired of politicians hammering on approved message-nuggets like malfunctioning robots.)

The NEF's report relies on the "reframing" hypotheses of George Lakoff, the American linguist and friend of the Democratic party. Among his creative proposals has been to rename taxes "membership fees", of the kind one might pay to join a golf club. That one didn't really catch on. But the broader problem is that even if oppositional reframings are successful, they are by design biased and loaded. The NEF's "big bad banks" doesn't help us think more rationally about the banking system. In a civilised society, the answer to Unspeak is not more Unspeak.