Duffy: We saw this weird thing in the House this week, with the Liberals attacking the NDP and the NDP attacking the Liberals and nobody was attacking the government
Harper: sly grin
Duffy: Jack Layton's people tell me that they really believe the NDP could replace the Liberals as the voice of the left...Is he dreaming, is the Liberal Party on the ropes?
Harper: I don't know. I guess I'm not enough of a pollster to tell if you that is possible. What I can tell you Mike, is that the NDP so far in this parliament, although we often disagree, we know where they are coming from. The NDP was very helpful in the Accountability legislation, because I think politicians of all stripes what to see this country move forward...The Bloc is maybe playing a little more games...The Liberals that we saw in the House, the party stands for nothing. One member stands up and says one thing, another stands up and says the opposite. They vote different ways on the same issue. They contradict things they stood for in government less than six months ago. There has been nothing redeeming about the Liberal performance the last six months. Fortunately for the government the NDP in particular, and to a lesser extent the Bloc, are at least prepared to honestly look at issues based on some principle.
Directly after this interview, Duffy interviews Layton:
Duffy:Mr Layton, we just heard the Prime Minister singing your praises, talks about New Democrats being principled. Today in the House he said he would be happy to work on your ideas for the environment. How do you think things are going here?
Layton:Well I'm glad he said we are principled, but he is taking the country in the wrong direction that people didn't vote for. Lets look at examples like Afghanistan...All New Democrats voted against the deployment...But the Liberals were split, led by Mr.Ignatieff who voted with the government...They failed as an opposition party.
On another issue, Accountability, the NDP enacted 20 amendments to the bill to make it stronger. The Liberals were divided, back and forth...
Duffy:In the last few weeks we have seen the NDP sniping at the Liberals and the Liberals sniping at the NDP. I have talked to a number of your MP's, who say they see a day when the NDP, and not to far away, where the choice is between the NDP on the center-left and the Conservatives on the right. They think the Liberals are in such disarray that they are in danger of disappearing. Is that too bleak a picture?
Layton:You know, Canadians will have to decide that...
On first blush, more evidence of the alleged Conservative/NDP conspiracy to rid the world of Liberals. However, listening to both men I realized something about this perceived dynamic. Harper is propping up the NDP because he doesn't think they are a credible alternative. Harper talks up the NDP to belittle the Liberals, but he sees no political danger in empowering the NDP. It is apparent that Harper regards the NDP as a fringe party, incapable of seriously challenging him in the next election. A crippled Liberal Party would have the effect of dividing the spoils, with the Conservatives gaining the majority of seats.
Do I think Harper and Layton have discussed the Liberals- clearly. However, I think Harper is playing a different game, while Layton's motives are transparent. Obviously, Layton wants to appear relevant in this parliament, and some level of co-operation allows him to make the claim that the NDP is "effective" in delivering for Canadians. You can't really fault this approach, so long as the NDP isn't really "in the pocket" of this government. I wonder though, if Layton is beginning to realize that Harper's praises start from his belief that the NDP is forever a bit player. There is a thread of arrogance in Harper's even-handed approach to the NDP that is really anything but flattering the more you look at it.
16 comments:
The NDP thinking is the same reactionary party first, Canadians second that we have seen for many years.
They sincerely believe they could replece the Liberals as the party of the centre left.
Harper's smarter than the NDP. He knows that he needs two strongish centre to left parties to allow his party to win a majority.
He's helping build up the NDP to try to ensure that that happens and Jack Moustache is playing right into his hands.
It shouldn't be a surprise. Ralph Klein dotes on the Alberta NDP too.
I'll start to worry when Harper starts being nice to the Liberal party...
"I'll start to worry when Harper starts being nice to the Liberal party..."
That will happen just after we reach our Kyoto targets.
Jack Layton is delusional.
He, and his equally delusional followers, actually believe it's realistic to behave as though the NDP are going to treble or quadruple the highest vote percentage they have ever received come the next election.
That's what it would take for this electile dysfunctional wet dream of theirs to come true.
Think about that - 3 to 4 times the highest number of Canadians who have ever voted for the NDP in the entire history of either the CCF or NDP.
Next year you're going to make 3 or 4 times more money than you've ever made.
It's a belief style that comes from the same place that the Bush administrations beliefs about Iraq come.
Like George W., Jack's creating his own reality.
dana
The reasons you outlined are exactly why Harper can reasonably calculate that propping up Layton poses no threat, but softens up the Liberals.
p.s- electile dysfunction, quite clever
Oh yes, I'm a clever devil, I am.
Remember the oh so naughty childhood joke about the ant with an erection floating down the river on his back calling for the bridge to be raised?
That's Jack Layton.
I confirmed with my financial institution last week that my monthly contribution to the NDP has indeed been stopped.
To paraphrase Caesar on first tasting mushrooms, "What fools these mortals be."
Of course Caesar was talking about organisms raised in the dark on beds of cow dung.
Jack Layton supporters live in pure sunlight on beds of fragrant roses.
Odd how everything eventually becomes it's opposite, isn't it?
Or, and just consider this for a moment, the opportunity is actually there for the NDP to supplant the Liberals as the real alternative to the Conservatives.
Nobody believed that the Progressive Conservativs could be reduced to a fringe party until it happened. Few would have believed only a few years ago that the Reform/Alliance party would be running the country.
I agree Harper believes that the NDP aren't a threat to him or a credible governing alternative. I think he's wrong on both counts. I think the Liberals are going to continue to be distracted, unprincipaled and dead in Quebec even after they pick a leader, probably Ignatieff.
Labour went from the perrenial outsider of British politics to the natural governing party in a handfull of years.
Yes they did. And look what they became.
Agreed, they've become unprincipaled and Thatcherite lites and it's cost them. But government is still theirs to lose as the Tories and Lib Dems still aren't seen as real alternatives - remember a lot of Labour's troubles stem from a British public that has become MORE left wing than the current Labour Party.
http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content
/articles/060619roco03
By Henry Porter, perhaps the first really good post 911 spy novelist.
"In the guise of fighting terrorism and maintaining public order, Tony Blair's government has quietly and systematically taken power from Parliament and from the British people."
This is a repost of my previous deleted comment because I didn't preview...
The Liberal Party is too firmly entrenched in Canadian politics to be completely vanquished. See above, their ranks are swelling :)
Harper's support is narrow, non-city, ideological, and rightwing. His appeal to urbanites, who are liberally-minded, and who favour a federal government with a definite role in making Canada work, is limited. His five priorities gave these people little to convert them from wariness to supporters of the New Tories.
Harper's personal style is abrasive and confrontational, and his petulance is – drop by petty drop – wearing thin the honeymoon voters gave him.
Also, many of the actions taken by the New Tories (Kyoto, Kelowna, gutting of the accountability promises made during election) are sending signals to voters that their mistrust of a hidden agenda is correct.
The polls show a leaderless Liberal Party with Harper getting a free ride, and Layton yapping at the Liberals' heels.
That free ride stops when a leader is elected.
Especially if that leader has the political smarts that Bob Rae has. Battle for the soul of Canada will then be joined.
Good analysis Steve, I think you have raised a very good point. Harper does not perceive the NDP as a threat to his desires for a majority government, he sees them as the means to gaining it by vote splitting the left the way the right was throughout the 90s between PCPC and Reform/CA. This is not exactly something he has kept a secret either. What I do not understand is why Layton is so willing to be his tool in this goal, and even more importantly why he thinks it will not cost him.
As I have said here before, if the NDP wants to shift from being a conviction first party into a big tent party that is their choice. The problem is though I have never seen any discussion within the NDP itself on whether they really want to make this fundamental a change, since up until Layton the NDP placed fighting for the principles they believed in above simply trying to win seats, no then they believed it was standing up first for their principles would be how they gained seats/power without selling out their souls. Indeed, it was because of this conviction and commitment that I could on occasion vote NDP when I did not like my choice with either Lib or PCPC, because I knew whatever else the NDP really placed its principles above lust for power.
Layton has changed that for me, and I suspect others as well. Layton has shown that he is willing to put more importance on building a lager seat count in Parliament than in fighting for those core beliefs the NDP has always stood for. This is clear in his actions of still seeing the Liberal party as the most important threat despite being out of power and the reality that the Harper CPC agenda is a far greater threat to the social justice agenda of the NDP than anything the Liberals ever represented. Yet Layton is far more concerned with hurting the Liberals to gain more seats than he is in stopping what is clearly the greater threat to those core values of the NDP.
Layton has managed to alienate me from the NDP until he is gone at the minimum, this despite the fact that my MP is NDP AND someone I respect professionally and personally. If I cannot trust that the NDP is more interested in the social values agenda it has always stood for than in gaining more seats even if it means a Harper/CPC majority government then I cannot trust it at all. When a party leader is willing to sell out the history and principles of a party in the hope of increasing seat counts, especially when the most serious threat to those principles comes from those he is working with to hurt the party he hopes to supplant (and I agree that this is more of a pipe dream than reality at this time, the Libs lost what they did more from punishment for scandal than any other reason, especially given the shape of the Canadian economy) and particularly when this was a fundamental strategy change implemented without party discussion by the leader/Layton then I see it as no better than any other party more interested in power than principle.
The NDP always had going for it respect for being a principled party first even from many that opposed it. What Layton is doing is risking that respect and reputation in what is a long shot. If the Libs had been taken down to the levels they were in 1984 then maybe I might think Layton's strategy could work, but they were not. No, they were left with over 100 seats, a third of the Parliament. At best Layton will create a situation where the Libs and NDP split enough to be middle sized parties with the CPC the single largest plurality, or at worst they will split the vote so badly that the CPC gets a large majority and will be able to claim with not an unreasonable argument that their radical agenda they will implement was supported/desired by most Canadians since they gave them such a large majority.
I have heard many NDPers in my home area fell the same way, they are very unhappy with Layton for acting like the Libs are the government when it is the CPC, especially given the fact they see the CPC as a far more serious threat to their beliefs and agenda than the Libs were. Layton runs the risk of alienating that strong core support base in the voting public with this behaviour of his, and if he loses that base or even a significant percentage of it then he will find that instead of helping the NDP to gain seats and power he will have weakened it severely to the benefit of either the CPC or the Libs depending on how that election played out in this scenario.
Again, excellent post Steve, thanks for it.
scotian
You lay out the risks for the NDP quite well. What is interesting, I am hard pressed to find any risk for Harper in this arrangement.
Steve:
For a good reason, there isn't any real risks in this for Harper. At worst things go back to the status quo, at best he weakens both opposition parties to him for strong majorities for a decade or so before fatigue from the voters sets in as it did with the Libs. His own voter base will see this, and rightly so, as Harper getting them payback for the last thirteen years of "leftie" (of course not all of his voter base will feel this way but more than enough and the rest will not mind seeing the NDP taken down a notch along with the hated Libs) dominance federally.
This is what really bothers me about Layton. He has been consistently over the last year or so been penny wise and dollar foolish. He is so locked onto short term potentials that he fails to examine the likely long term repercussions of taking these chances, and Harper clearly sees that in Layton and is using him to maximum impact to not only cripple the Libs but the NDP as well. While strongly political NDPers may see this for the tactical alliance as Layton sees it and accept it despite the discomfort of working closely with a Harper government, what about the rest of the NDP base?
They are the ones that take their comfort from the NDP being a stable party of principles and ideals first before the more standard political power games of the Libs and Tories (and now the CPC whom I do not see as Tories) and I do not believe they feel consulted in this radical for the NDP change in focus. At least that has not been the sense I have gotten from many NDP voters I have talked to over the past few months, especially those that fit the description I just used. If they no longer see the NDP as a true party of conviction then they will more likely vote Liberal holding their noses to prevent a Harper majority which they see as far worse. This is what bothers them about Layton's strategy, the real enemy is being aided and not hurt, and for these people it is Harper's CPC that is the real enemy to their beliefs/convictions.
These people because they have these strong feelings are motivated voters and tend to turn out so this can have a very significant impact. This is why Harper is going out of his way to hurt the Libs any way he can both with Layton and on his own. Take the way the Accountability Act is being used to interfere within the Lib leadership race while it is ongoing. It is one thing to make such changes take effect after the campaign ends. This though is changing the rules after the campaign had gotten underway. Hardly fair and not something usually done in our politics. This is not btw meant as a critique on the rule change and their merits/flaws, it is about the process of introducing it that I am troubled by.
Harper is in a very good position, effectively as long as Layton continues this de facto coalition against the Libs he can focus on Quebec building almost exclusively with little risk. He is also being given cover by the lack of sustained focus on the operations of his own government, and given how secretive it has been operating as this is no small consideration. This works in conjunction with his media isolation strategy to shield from view much of what his government is doing until it is well too late to do much if anything about it. In so many ways Harper risks nothing and gains significantly from this alliance with Layton while Layton takes all the risks of working with someone his base finds objectionable.
In the end Harper may cripple the Libs, cripple the NDP, secure a CPC majority for a decade or so, and fundamentally rewrite the social contract of this nation with little effective opposition, and this is all because Layton appears to find Harper a lesser threat to his ambitions than the Liberals. He wanted to lead a party of principles and ideals first because he ran for the NDP leadership, not a party of the "big tent" with all the compromises of principles inevitable in such. He has chosen to place ambition and his own lust for power ahead of the welfare and history of his party. He has done so without consulting his base in any formal discussion of such a profound change of nature. Therefore he risks everything both personally and for his party and arguably the country and the social justice principles for which the NDP has always stood for.
How anyone involved in politics let alone is a party leader cannot see this speaks poorly for their grasp of realities. It shows either deliberate deception of those around them or worse in some ways, self deception and convincing those around them with the sincerity of conviction, even when the reality is otherwise. This is alas a very human trait and something many leaders of all political persuasions have fallen into before and Layton will hardly be the last. I just wish I did not feel the fundamental future of Canada hanging in the balance because of it.
In this Harper is showing his clear strategic superiority and political strategy over Layton. Layton is so outclassed here is it almost sad. I have always opposed Harper but I have done so in no small part because I recognize his intelligence and capabilities. It has been his greatest asset and greatest weakness throughout his political career and should never be discounted/dismissed. While he may be comfortable with GWB and with using GOP strategies and tactics for electioneering he is not GWB. Harper is bright, informed, and very dangerous. Thankfully his intelligence makes him unwilling to delegate like he should because he doesn't trust his underlings to get it exactly right/way he wants it done.
Layton is so outclassed here and is gambling the future of the NDP. Harper would prefer to have binary left/right politics in this country and if the NDP gets so marginalized that it becomes the new Green party in size he can make that work for him as well. Especially given how tarnished/stained the Liberals are for the time being. While the gains Harper gets out of this alliance are variable from minor to profoundly major with no real risk (well aside from the NDP vote shifting Lib heavily to block Harper even with an unpopular leader/platform by the Libs but still seen as less dangerous than a majority Harper CPC) Layton appears to me risking much for little likely return and does not appear to recognize that about himself nor how well this works for Harper, and I suspect that will also impact the NDP base when his recklessness begins to be seen as such within it. When that will be though is anyone's guess. The Sept convention should be illuminating on that.
"In this Harper is showing his clear strategic superiority and political strategy over Layton. Layton is so outclassed here is it almost sad"
Yes, it is important to not under-estimate Harper's shrewdness. Sometimes Harper shows his political tin ear, but on strategy he is quite adept, as a matter of fact the whole game for him is tactics. Harper also employs a long-range strategy, while Layton seems unable to think two moves ahead.
Layton is probably capable of thinking more than two moves ahead, given his civic history.
His handicap as regards the federal scene is more potentially devastating than that.
He is incapable of imagining that there is a nationally based political machine that could be considered to be less than fully committed to the long term survival of Canada as an independent nation state.
The Harper Conservatives have yet to prove that.
But then again none of the national media give a rat's ass about that possibility either.
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