The real problem with rigmarole

In recent days, I have been stalked by a troubling thought — might the likes of Beth Rigby and Sam Coates actually be more cunning than we have hitherto given them credit for?  

In these pages, we have previously considered the rigmarole in rather disparaging terms.  Like others, I had been minded to put the news media’s obsession with trivial issues of process down to some sort of intellectual deficiency — the kind that it is almost uncharitable to mock. But it might actually be that there is something more sophisticated going on. 

This week, the rigmarole has mostly concerned the procedure around the Prime Minister’s decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to the United States.  

At this point, I will confess that I didn’t think the appointment was a particularly bad idea at the time, despite having absolutely no illusions at all about Mandelson’s character or judgment. Somewhat prosaically, I had thought about it in terms of who might make the least bad representative for the incoming Labour government in the court of an American president who was likely to be, at best, dismissive of it. Mandelson’s primary talent in life is ingratiating himself with the rich and narcissistic, and I naively thought that this might be the one moment where he could put these skills to use in the national interest. I discounted the Epstein links on the grounds of Mandelson’s homosexuality, without considering the many other ways that somebody like him could have debased himself to Epstein.

The subsequent reporting of the affair has of course been completely divorced from questions like this. Whether Mandelson might not have served effectively as a conduit between two bad governments is something that exists on an entirely separate dimension from the process and chronology-driven interrogation of decision-making that defines true Westminster rigmarole. 

At some point in the last 25 years, rigmarole became the default operating model for broadcast political reporters in Britain — with an ecosystem of online and print reporters solemnly committing the latest developments into the analects. It seems reasonable to put this down to the emergence of rolling 24 hour news coverage on dedicated television channels, feeding into the scheduled news broadcasts on general stations — all of which draws from the relentless output of commentary that prominent journalists are expected to maintain on social media. This has created a dynamic in which reporters are incentivised to maintain a continual sense of urgency in the stories they are conveying — a cycle of perpetually breaking news, from which audiences dare not turn away lest they miss the next development.  

The high watermark for this type of broadcasting was the days immediately after the 2016 EU Referendum. Unsportingly, David Cameron announced his resignation swiftly the morning after the ballot, so the press turned their attention to the opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, whom they, for some odd reason, blamed for the vote not going the way most of them had hoped. 

Despite the referendum opening up an entirely new chapter in British political history, the media focus remained firmly on the dripping tap of shadow cabinet members resigning one by one. Like a political form of Chinese water torture, but with the relentless dripping providing a merciful relief — any excuse to avoid thinking about what had just happened. 

The years that followed reinforced these dynamics, with the EU withdrawal negotiations providing a rich seam of process-based stories interspersed with occasional parliamentary drama. The No.10 cake story, and the subsequent stillbirth of Liz Truss’s premiership, gave the media the sense that they could remove governments through rigmarole alone, regardless of the underlying politics or views of the electorate. 

There is a recognisable drum rhythm to each rigmarole “scandal”, which inevitably ends up with them trying to establish the chronology in which the political target became aware of particular bits of information.  Almost always, now, this revolves around whether or not a minister had seen a particular bit of advice from a civil servant before they made a particular decision, or gave a particular statement. If they did, it is strongly implied that they ought to resign, in accordance with the protocol. Though I have always enjoyed the court eunuch analogy, there is also a strong element of the Chewbacca Defence to all of this. 

This refers to South Park’s parody of O.J. Simpson’s lawyer Johnny Cochrane, who appeared to direct jurors that if a bloody leather glove found at the crime scene didn’t fit the defendant’s hand, they were obliged to acquit him. In the parody version, Cochrane invites jurors to explain why Chewbacca — a tall, bipedal mammaloid from the Star Wars series of films — would choose to live on a planet populated by short, bipedal mammaloids. Failure to do so adequately means that they should acquit a defendant, even though the nature of the case at hand is completely unrelated. The absurdity of the argument is itself used as the basis for throwing the case out. 

The Chewbacca Defence has become a byword for a rhetorical fallacy, whereby irrelevant information is hurled at the target in order to confuse them, or to obscure the pertinent facts. In the courtroom, it can usually be observed — as the name suggests —-as a defensive ploy, but in British politics it is typically a form of attack; if the minister knew X before he said Y, he must resign. The underlying logic is that it is evidence something was said or done dishonestly — usually an attempt to cover up an earlier indiscretion — supposedly undermining the trustworthiness of the figure in question.  

Despite his reputation for flamboyant shamelessness, Boris Johnson was highly vulnerable to this kind of attack because he was so easily sick and tired of it all. Similarly, Liz Truss had almost no capacity to deal with it. Theresa May on the other hand was relatively impervious and withstood three years of unceasing rigmarole, and the current prime minister shows signs of great staying power as well. In fact, if a leader is suitably bereft of political strategy or direction, and in fact prefers to argue their case on the basis of narrow proceduralism, it may be that the rigmarole-based news cycles actually protect them. If the waters are choppy enough, they may be able to hide amidst the waves. 

Could it be that the media is actually maintaining its relentless pressure on this story in the hope that the public gets bored of it all?

It should be noted at this point that the PM has already withstood several rounds of Mandelson-based rigmarole. Whereas a more charismatic or ideological leader might have been undermined by a persistent, embarrassing political itch like this diverting them from policy priorities or great affairs of state, for Sir Keir it doesn’t seem that the triviality or the gossip is getting in the way of very much at all. For Labour backbenchers, Monday’s parliamentary session may have been infuriating or mortifying, but the Prime Minister actually seemed to be in his element. 

Could it be that the media is actually maintaining its relentless pressure on this story in the hope that the public gets bored of it all? Are the PM’s former allies in the media in fact doing their best to throw him a lifeline? All of the focus on when Starmer saw that piece of advice, or whether this article of procedure was disregarded, draws attention away from the fundamental politics of the matter. Firstly, that Mandelson was selected as ambassador because he is actually a fairly true representation of this government’s political character. Secondly, that whatever grotty revelations come out, that the PM wears a political suit of armour by virtue of the fact his plausible successors would all be even worse.