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If an election were held today, the Liberals almost certainly wouldwin it and perhaps capture a majority of the seats up for grabs, too.

What a difference a year makes.

With 2020 coming to a close, the Liberal Party is the only federal party in a much better position than it was 12 months ago. According to the CBC's Canada Poll Tracker, an aggregation of all publicly available polling data, the Liberals are up 4.2 percentage points since December 2019. The Conservatives, New Democrats and Bloc Qubcois have hardly budged, while the Greens are down nearly three points.

Nationwide, Justin Trudeau's Liberals lead with 35.7 per cent support, compared to 31 per cent for Erin O'Toole's Conservatives. The NDP under Jagmeet Singh trails at 18.3 per cent, followed by the Bloc at 6.7 per cent and the Greens at 5.4 per cent.

A year ago, the Liberals held only a narrow 0.5-point lead over the Conservatives and were solidly in minority territory.

But today's numbers would deliver around 167 seats to the Liberals, with about 111 seats going tothe Conservatives, 32 to the Bloc, 27 to the NDP and one to the Greens.

That doesn't differ much from the current standings in the House of Commons but itdoes put the Liberals tantalizingly close to the 170-seat mark needed for a majority government.

The trend line for the Liberals has been very steady over the last few months, but it was a roller-coaster year for the party before that. The Liberals were neck-and-neck with the Conservatives for the first several months of 2020 before their support soared in the early days of the pandemic.

At its peak in early June, the party reached nearly 41 per cent support in the Poll Tracker. The WE Charity controversy, however, sapped Liberal strength. The Liberals dropped to around 35 to 36 per cent support through to September. They have been there ever since.

But the Liberals are stillbetter offthan they were 12 months ago. Now, by comparison, they have more support in every part of the country. They have seen modest increases of three points in Ontario and the Prairies (Manitoba and Saskatchewan) and four points in Atlantic Canada. They are also up about five points in Quebec.

The biggest shifts, however, have been in Western Canada. The Liberals now have 33 per cent support in British Columbia, a gain of seven points over December 2019. The Liberals are also up nine points in Alberta, but that still puts them 30 points behind the Conservatives.

The bump in B.C. is the most consequential in terms of seats. The Poll Tracker estimates the Liberals could win 12 more seats nationwide than they were projected to win in December 2019, and that half of those gains would come fromB.C.

But when it comes to winning a federal election, Ontario makes the difference. The Liberals haven't given up their lead in the province since the last election and are still nearly 10 points ahead of the Conservatives. Along with Quebec and Atlantic Canada, that puts about 140 seats in the Liberal column before they even get to Manitoba more than enough to secure a re-elected minority government.

The Liberals have benefited from Trudeau's improved personal ratings. The latest poll by Research Co. givesTrudeau a net +15 approval rating. In the polling firm's final survey before the 2019 federal election, Trudeau was -13.

With the exception of Alberta, the polls do not suggest that Liberal gains have come at the expense of the Conservatives. Overall, the Conservative Party of Canadais exactly where it was 12 months ago.

But that's not a good thing for O'Toole, since the Conservatives would probably have lost an election held 12 months ago.

Since December 2019, the party's support has shifted by two points or less everywhere but Alberta and Atlantic Canada. The Conservatives have gained four points in Atlantic Canada but still trail the Liberals there by about 19 points. In Alberta, the Conservativeshave lost eight points.

Support for the Conservatives is still largely concentrated in Western Canada. The party has 53 per cent support in Alberta and 46 per cent supportin the Prairies, with significantly more support in Saskatchewan than in Manitoba. Some polls even suggest that Saskatchewan has supplanted Alberta as the Conservatives' best provincial stronghold.

But a recent Probe Research poll suggests the Conservatives are sliding in Manitoba. The poll put the Conservatives down eight points in the province compared to the last election, awarding the Liberals a 12-point lead in Winnipeg a city the Liberals carried by only two points in 2019.

O'Toole still has a lot of work to do to get the Conservatives competitive with the Liberals in key battlegrounds. The party is now in third place in British Columbia.One recent poll suggests the Conservatives still trail the Liberals by a significant margin in the Greater Toronto Area, where O'Toole has his seat.

In Quebec, the Conservative party has only 17 per cent support virtually unchanged from their performance in 2019. While Lger finds the Conservatives have an eight-point lead in and around Quebec City, they are still well behind in third place among francophones across the province.

Though the polls suggest Singh's NDP hasn't made a big move over the last 12 months, the party is in a marginally better position in some parts of the country. The New Democrats are up two points in B.C. and Alberta and three points in the Prairies, though they are a bit further back in Quebec and Atlantic Canada.

A number of recent surveys have been more promising for the NDP, however. The party has scored between 19 and 23 per cent in five of the last six national surveys, and has been first or second in 13 of 17 polls conducted in B.C. since the end of October.

This bump coincides with the B.C. NDP's provincial election victory on Oct. 24 whichmight be no accident. It's difficult to know for certain whether poll respondents in British Columbia are separating the provincial and federal parties in their minds, which puts into question the apparent gains for the federal NDP.

But there is some indication the federal NDP might be getting a real boost. According to Research Co., Singh's personal approval ratings are significantly higher in B.C. than in any other part of the country, and better than they were in September.

Yves-Franois Blanchet has successfully made the Bloc Qubcois a factor in federal politics again, but he has not made more progress since the last election.

In Quebec, the party has just under 30 per cent support in the Poll Tracker. That's hardly changed since 2019, when the Bloc captured 32.5 per cent of the vote and 32 seats. Holding those 32 seats is still the most likely outcome of another election.

According to Lger, the Bloc is the first choice of francophone Quebecers, with 38 per cent support. But they only hold a five-point lead over the Liberals outside of Greater Montreal (where they trailed the Liberals by 11 points) and the Quebec City region (where they trail the Conservatives).

Keeping their seats away from the other parties does increase the odds of a minority government, which gives the Bloc influence in the House of Commons. But to keep that influence in Ottawa, the Bloc might need to win more seats away from the Liberals to compensate for gains Trudeau's party could make in the rest of the country.

The Greens seem to be the party hurt most by the political upheaval of the pandemic. Down 2.6 points nationwide since December 2019, the Greens' slide has been even steeper in the two areas of the country where they have seats: B.C. and Atlantic Canada.

The Greens have lost five points in both regions,dropping them to about eight per cent. That could putsome of their seats in danger and with just three seats, they can't afford to lose one.

In the job since the beginning of October, Paul is the newest leader on the block. Without a seat or recognized party status in the House of Commons, it will not be easy for Paul to increase her profile.

So it could be hard going for the Greens in the polls in 2021. The party needs to hope that the brighter spotlight of an election campaign will give it a boost. One problem for the Greens, however, is that the party has tended to poll best between election campaigns, not during them.

How long that period between votes will last is anyone's guess. In 2021, very few Canadians might want to dive into an election campaign while they remain focused on COVID-19 and vaccinations. Considering where the polls stand as 2020 comes to a merciful close, the Liberals appear to be the only people with an incentive to take that plunge.

See the article here:
Liberals end year with national polling lead as opposition parties struggle to gain ground - CBC.ca

Liberalism does not have a long history in Turkey. Private possession and liberal rights were first debated by the Young Ottomans of the Sultan Abdlaziz period in the second part of the 19th century. This does not mean, however, that the Young Ottomans were liberal in belief, politics or economics. Though they had some liberal thoughts, the state was at the epicenter of their political understanding. Besides, the majority of them were public servants.

It was not until the Republican Era that one could find self-reliant liberals, who also had some differences from the average liberal figures of Western Europe. Many of the Turkish liberals have defended a mixture of economic liberalism hand in hand with nationalist politics and cultural conservativism. Moreover, especially today, liberal refers to pro-Western elements of Turkish politics including the center-left and center-right, some Kemalists and Kurdists, a few Islamists, some very small groups such as the LGBT and feminist movements, and the liberal left. Liberalism has connotations with not only federalism against the nation-state structure, which attracts the Kurdists, Islamists and liberal left, but also a certain type of Americanism that has consolidated the center-right for decades against any and all elements of the political left that they referred to as Sovietism.

On the other hand, before the postmodern situation and even before the Cold War between the so-called liberal West and the totalitarian East (Soviets), there was a debate on economic models among Turkish parties, civil society and thinkers. During the initial years of Mustafa Kemal Atatrk's presidency, a pro-market economic policy was supported to some extent. In 1925, Atatrk supported the first Economic Congress held in Izmir, an international city of trade, just two years after the republic was founded and he became leader. Additionally, he also supported his friend Fethi Okyar to build a liberal opposition against his own party, the Republican Peoples Party (CHP). Okyars party was named the Liberal Republican Party (SCF), which had an obvious connotation of liberalism.

The SCF was closed in a very short time in the year of the Great Depression, which devastated national economies all around the world. Turkey also adopted a state-controlled economic policy that became constitutional in 1937 and lasted until the early 1980s. Thus, the liberal attempts in politics, the academy, intellectual circles and business fields were suppressed by the state mainly by negligence. One of those neglected elements of liberalism was Ahmet Hamdi Baars life work, which includes his business enterprises together with publications suggesting a liberal economic model.

Life and career

Baar was born in 1897 in Istanbul. He belonged to the famous Karamanolu family on his mothers side. After graduating from high school, he enrolled in the mathematics department at Darlfnun (todays Istanbul University) in 1912. After two years, he quit mathematics and enrolled in the geography department, where he graduated late in 1919 due to World War I.

Even as a student, Baar was full of entrepreneurial ideas. Besides his work as a schoolteacher during his own education at university, he opened a private elementary school called Timsal-i Maarif with friends. Later, he published his first periodical on commerce titled Ticaret-i Umumiye. He also wrote columns in daily newspapers. After 1921, he began to publish the journal Trkiye Iktisat Mecmuas.

Baar propagated what he called the national economy in his writings published in the aforementioned journals. He also helped to establish the Milli Trk Ticaret Birlii ("National Turkish Trade Association"), which aimed at supporting the Muslim traders to take the place of the non-Muslim traders in the general economy. The association was very active at the Izmir Economic Congress.

Baar was at the center of the struggle to promote the strength of the national or nationalist economy. He established the Trk altrma Dernei ("Association for Turkish Employment") with friends in order to enhance awareness about employing Turkish nationals instead of non-Muslim minorities.

Another attempt by Baar toward building a strong Turkish national economy was the Ahali Ticaret Frkas ("Peoples Party of Commerce") in 1918, which was a liberal, populist and nationalist party, among others. The organization suggested that the state should help private enterprises by granting them small amounts of capital for their startups.

Port director

Baar was not an abstract thinker. He was in business from his early youth. Besides his theoretical and civil society works, he was also the director of the Istanbul Port Company, which gifted him his nickname Limanc Hamdi, literally Hamdi from the Port.

Although Baar wrote, worked and organized politics for a national and private economy relying on the Muslim majority of the young republic, the single-party regime led by Atatrk who originally supported attempts at liberalism until his frustration about the masses being in possible opposition to his ruling CHP stopped him chose to run a fully state-controlled economy, suppressing private enterprise. Baar did his best to argue the opposite approach.

He published numerous articles to sway public opinion toward a private economy, saved and supported by the state. He even exaggerated situations in his columns and articles. For instance, he denied that the economic unrest at the beginning of the 1930s was linked to the Great Depression. This failure of the American market economy shouldnt overshadow the liberal attempts in Turkey. He thereby underestimated the effects of the global economy and insisted on defending his original position for decades.

He published a crowded series of books during the 1930s and 1940s. He criticized the state-run economy on behalf of a nationalist understanding of the private economy. After Atatrks death in 1938, Baar became more dissident against the Inn government in economics. He became a member of the Democrat Party (DP) and addressed his crucial criticism to Inn himself at the second Economic Congress held in 1948, two years before the DP's great defeat of the CHP, considered by some interpreters as a democratic revolution.

On the other hand, Baars relationship with the liberal DP didnt last long either. He was elected as a member of parliament from the DP rows in 1950, but he resigned in 1953 due to conflicting economic ideas. He also became a dissident toward the DP government, against which he published two books. Baar was assigned as a member of the Social Works Commission of the National Unity Committee, the junta responsible for the 1960 military coup.

Baars work with the military junta seems to be a contradiction for a liberal. Yet, he was the child of the Second Constitutional and Early Republican eras, a time when nation-state and nationalism among the country's citizens came first as he experienced the very real possibility of the dissolution of Turkey.

After he left the Social Works Commission, Baar published the Bar Dnyas ("World of Peace") journal starting in 1944, but it would be his last work as he had to close it after 21 issues. The main focus of that journal was world peace, inspired by World War II. Baar criticized capitalism for being responsible for armed conflicts around the world. He thought that world peace was only possible with a combination of a rational organization of societies, the inspiration of the socialist approach and the wisdom of great religions. This mix explains why Baars liberalism was limited to free trade opportunities to be used by Turkish citizens, a nationalist position in reality.

Baar was married to kufe Nihal, a prominent fiction writer and civil society figure, from the end of World War I until they divorced in the late 1950s. He died on June 26, 1971, in Istanbul.

Read the original here:
Ahmet Hamdi Baar: Liberal but nationalist thinker | Daily Sabah - Daily Sabah

President-elect Joe Biden announces former South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg as his nominee for transportation secretary during a news conference at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Del., Dec. 16, 2020.

Kevin Lamarque/The Associated Press

With Joe Bidens election, a major historical barrier was broken. Until now, the United States has only had one Catholic president.

When John F. Kennedy became the first Catholic in the White House, in a country that was then still strongly Protestant, it was a rather big deal. Sixty years later, the fact of Mr. Bidens Catholicism goes unmentioned and unnoticed. Nobody is mentioning it, because nobody cares.

Hallelujah for that. In a time of high and growing political polarization, where disagreements are increasingly disagreeable, right and left live on distant planets, and the joy of cancelling those who say the wrong thing is what passes for debate, the discovery that an old source of conflict no longer has the power to drive people apart is good news. Its a reminder that, though some politicians, and the algorithms of Twitter and Facebook, often forge emotional bonds by feeding shared antipathies, a liberal society works best when citizens get beyond the poles of us and them, and recognize those who are different or with whom we disagree as still part of a shared us.

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Earlier this week, we wrote about what Canadas Conservatives, both the federal party and its provincial cousins, should learn or rather unlearn from their U.S. relatives.

For the sake of Canadas future, the right side of Canadas political spectrum has to turn its back on Donald Trumps hyperpolarizing politics. There is, however, a strong temptation to do otherwise. Mr. Trump did, after all, capture the presidency in 2016, against all odds. And he barely missed repeating that feat in 2020. If hed found a mere 43,000 extra voters across Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin, hed have been re-elected.

But Mr. Trump wasnt re-elected. So lets consider what the other side of the Canadian political establishment can learn, or not, from Mr. Bidens successful approach.

Frustrated voters sometimes want to burn the house down, and Mr. Trump bottled that lightning in 2016. Historically, Americans have been far more willing than Canadians to set things on fire. The U.S. is, after all, the product of a bloody, eight-year revolution sparked by a minor tax dispute, while Canada is a country created in part by refugees from that first American civil war.

But even in the U.S., voters grow exhausted from their own passions.

Thats why Mr. Biden pitched himself as the candidate of a return to reasonableness.

In every word and act, he tried to embody an anti-Trumpian calm. And he promised to try difficult though it will be to bring people together.

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The people he aims to bring together include Republican voters. He knew that many people who backed Mr. Trump had once voted for him and Barack Obama. His whole approach was about leaving the door open to them.

Four years ago, Hillary Clinton committed the unpardonable gaffe a gaffe being when a politician accidentally says what shes really thinking of calling Mr. Trumps supporters a basket of deplorables. Where Ms. Clinton recoiled, Mr. Biden reached out.

In the game of electioneering, there are those who argue the clearest path to victory is through base motivation, which means polarizing the electorate. The scarier the them, the more motivating for us. Mr. Trump has been a genius at it.

Mr. Biden, in contrast, went out of his way to avoid demonizing people who might have leaned the other way in 2016, or mocking their concerns or fears. On the contrary, he sought to allay them.

One of Mr. Trumps jumped-up appeals to voters centred on trying to take advantage of the riots and looting that accompanied some Black Lives Matter protests last summer. He told voters that Democrats were going to let crime run wild, making the election a choice between the extremes of defund the police or blue lives matter.

Mr. Bidens response was to reject that false choice. He condemned rioting, full stop, and praised peaceful protests, full on. He backed both the rule of law and racial justice.

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Mr. Trump was selling anxiety, and even paranoia. Mr. Biden went the other way, sticking to offering practical solutions to the practical problems of middle-class Americans, from COVID-19 to policing to health insurance. Analysts will long debate exactly why Mr. Biden won. But he did, and theres a lesson for Liberals and New Democrats in there.

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Continued here:
What the Trudeau Liberals can learn from Joe Biden - The Globe and Mail

While the KordaMentha report was triggered by allegations of branch stacking, it also identified other activities deemed to be gravely detrimental to the best interests of the party.

The report found Mr Muthyala had paid for other peoples memberships, but The Age is not suggesting the other people named were involved in this activity.

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The investigation was launched after The Age and Sydney Morning Herald revealed allegations in August of extensive branch stacking centred around Mr Bastiaan, who resigned from the party soon after the story broke.

The report found a high number of instances of party membership records being accessed after hours and by unauthorised persons. A key culprit found to have been behind this activity was a staff member for federal MP for Deakin and Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar, who was not one of the four people set to be punished.

The log-in credentials assigned to the individual was used to access the partys membership records 288 times in 2017 and 949 times in 2018, the report found.

Branch stacking involves powerbrokers organising large numbers of people to join the party to influence key internal processes including preselections.

The review also found evidence of warehousing, where party members are recruited to branches using false addresses to achieve an internal party outcome. About 220 members were warehoused over the past five years, the review found, including about 45 per cent of members in the Deakin electorate in 2017.

The Age previously reported the practice of warehousing appeared to be used in the Ringwood branch located in Mr Sukkars electorate. The party is considering whether to make it more difficult for new members to vote in internal elections.

The administrative committee will meet again next week to discuss what actions to take following the report, including potential disciplinary action against the four party operatives. The administrative committee does not have the power to expel members and a two-thirds majority of the partys state assembly is required.

Mr Sukkar and Mr Andrews were cleared by the Commonwealth Finance Department of wrongly using taxpayer-funded resources for branch stacking.

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Victorias corruption body is assessing allegations Mr Sukkars office misused taxpayer funds, but no action has been taken.

Mr Sukkar and Mr Andrews will not face internal disciplinary action.

Key figures in the scandal have refused to speak to the KordaMentha investigators, prompting Liberal Party president Robert Clark to warn party members in late November that suspension or expulsion could be the consequences for refusing to co-operate.

In an email to party members on Thursday night, party president Robert Clark said the membership activity was at best ... a deliberate circumvention of the Partys constitutional provisions.

At worst it is a form of branch stacking to gain votes through bringing into the Party persons who are unsuitable to be members and/or are not joining with a genuine commitment to the Party, he wrote.

On either view, what has occurred shows the need for urgent and substantial constitutional amendments to ensure the Party consistently encourages and welcomes genuine and committed new members while declining applications from persons who are unsuitable or seeking to join for inappropriate reasons.

The party is set to revamp its constitution to crack down on branch stacking and an independent tribunal may be created to sanction members.

Mr Bastiaan said in a statement on Thursday night that KordaMenthas enquiry found no evidence that I or the membership and training committee breached the Liberal Partys constitution.

I am pleased but not surprised to be cleared of all branch stacking allegations, he said.

After reviewing 12,000 memberships KordaMentha identified an average of 34 members per year had been paid inappropriately. The job of the president is to protect and preserve the reputation of the party, not to create the impression that we have suffered the same problems as Labor.

Tonights party wide email blaming volunteers for the 2018 election loss is unhinged and unbecoming of the state president. Party volunteers are not to blame for Robert losing his safe seat after 30 years.

I remain strongly supportive of the Liberal Party and hope new members will succeed in driving renewal and change.

The report was only made available to committee members who were physically present at the Thursday night meeting. The measure was designed to prevent details of the report leaking to the media.

The rule meant Education Minister Dan Tehan, representing Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Victorian shadow minister Kim Wells, representing Opposition Leader Michael OBrien, and former party president Michael Kroger were all unable to view the report as they were attending remotely via Zoom. A post-meeting briefing occurred for those who attended virtually.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said Joshua Bonney would face disciplinary action. This is not the case.

Paul is a Victorian political reporter for The Age.

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More than 170 Liberals to have memberships revoked after review - The Age

Fully 30 years after she was eased out of her job by her own party, Indian admirers of Britains Iron Lady are sending up fervent prayers for Margaret Thatcher Redux. Hacks are flooding the media space with froth as they sing paeans to the dear departed lady. (Their ardent hope is to be delivered soon from the ignominy of too much democracy.) And they dont want their readers to remember that, alone among Britains many Oxford-educated prime ministers, it was Thatcher whom her alma mater refused to award an honorary doctorate. She was still very much in power, and her lobbyists had left few stones unturned in their efforts to secure for the PM that nearly routine honour from Oxford. And yet she was snubbed. And what a snub it was! The meeting of Congregation, Oxfords governing assembly, convened to consider the proposed degree to Thatcher, was the most crowded assembly of that august body that most of those present could remember. And what followed was a wounding blow to the PM:

The No exit at Sir Christopher Wrens Sheldonian Theatre was jammed like a London Tube station in the rush hour long after the Aye door had taken its last voter. Dons and senior administrators decided by 738 votes to 319 against giving Mrs Thatcher the scarlet and crimson gown and velvet bonnet of a doctor of civil law.

For the record, the only other important Oxonian to be denied that honorary degree in the 20th century was Z.A. Bhutto for his dreadful human rights record. Interestingly, Bhuttos report card at the Congregation hustings was way better than Thatchers: 191 for and 239 against. Indeed, in Thatchers case, a banner had even been slung across Somerville, the PMs old college at Oxford, saying, No degree for Mrs Thatcher, an honour denied to the Pakistan PM. About Thatchers abortive degree bid, The Guardian had noted at that time that

(t)he scale of the PMs defeat was due to a huge turnout by scientific and medical dons, who rarely take part in academic debates but have been roused by the effects of government economic curbs on their research.

That memorable put-down, delivered to a sitting PM, has since entered Oxfords folklore. Indeed, in her home country today, derisive references to Margaret Thatcher (a Marmite figure, La Pasionaria of Privilege, .) are far more common than benign ones, even among conservative circles. But in Britains former colony India, time seems to have stood still since Thatchers glory days. So we have a senior English language journalist grandly talking about Narendra Modis Thatcher or Anna moment, even as the Indian PM finds himself besieged by tens of thousands of farmers protesting at Delhis borders against his governments farm sector reforms. The Anna moment, in this journalists book, is a proxy for the Manmohan Singh moment, by which is meant capitulation and surrender: isnt Singh famous for how he caved in to the Anna Hazare movement against corruption? By contrast, the Thatcher moment

would mean when a big, audacious and risky push for reform, that threatens established structures and entrenched vested interests, brings an avalanche of opposition. (Emphasis added)

So Modi has a stark choice to make: either retreat like Manmohan Singh did under pressure, or push farm reforms in Margaret Thatcher style. And how Modi answers this question will determine national politics going ahead.

So far, so good. The scribe is stating his case. It is clear on which side his sympathies lie, but that can hardly be faulted. Indeed, it is a perfectly acceptable opinion piece by a journalist up until this point. But he signs off with an extraordinary flourish:

Our wish, of course, is that he [Modi] will choose Thatcher over Anna. It will be a tragedy if even Modi were to lose his nerve over his boldest reform. (Emphasis added)

This, to me, reads more like a political manifesto than a journalists despatch. (Note how the whole news portal has been deftly subsumed in that clever our wish. The message is: here are a couple of hundred votes to give you strength. Good luck and godspeed!) And this is not all. Elsewhere in the piece, even as he grudgingly concedes that farmers blockading the capital make for really bad pictures, the writer doesnt forget to tell us why this is bad optics: after all, these arent nutcases of Occupy Wall Street. This speaks to visceral contempt for organised mass action, the kind of contempt that underlies the now-famous Hard work versus Harvard witticism. The contempt is targeted in both these smart quotes at a common enemy: the Khan Market Gang (yes, gang with an upper-case G), or the tukde tukde Gang, if you like.

Farmers arrive in a tractor to attend a protest against the newly passed farm bills at Singhu border near New Delhi, India, December 14, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Adnan Abidi

And this is not a solo journalist waxing eloquent about the Thatcher/Modi likeness. Others are piping up, all of them in the same strain: this is the Modi governments make-or-mar Thatcher moment, and Modi can let go of this propitious moment only at his own i.e., his reforms peril. A quick scan of the last few days opinion pieces in various news media gives me access to another journalistic tirade on another news portal against protests from a select group of farmers, who have received a megaphone from the domestic and international press, as well as opportunistic support from opposition parties, which finally see a possible wedge issue to use against Modis government. (Megaphone, indeed! What happened to the sundry media platforms who were proving to be so loud a megaphone in the protesters hands that these same protesters were obliged to boycott them wholesale?) And this writer proudly reminds us that the Modis Thatcher moment tagline had occurred to him as early as March 2015 when he penned a learned essay on this same subject. He also closes his recent piece with this fond wish:

Modi in 2020 is a seasoned, powerful leader. Lets hope he fulfils the promise of the moment.

Amen!

Neither of these men deems it necessary to argue their i.e., Modis case. It must be self-evident to all but the Gang, so. But probe it a little and you will know that they are Crusaders against that pernicious phenomenon called subsidies. I remember having once watched the better-known of these two journalists in a TV discussion in which he frankly confessed that he found subsidies vulgar, antediluvian. Of course, he was referring only to the poor mens subsidies those attached to food and cooking gas and by no means those which are reserved for the rich ( tax breaks, for example, which are meant to unleash corporate animal spirits).

So, can we take a quick look at their iron-clad case against the one subsidy that is troubling their conscience most at this point? We will necessarily need to compare these subsidies with those given by rich countries to their farmers. Surely, developed (and efficient) economies dont entertain such antiquated, fossilized handouts as subsidies? And if they do, these must be no more than a trickle while the privileged protesters at Delhis borders wallow in a whole sea of them?

In a study compiled by professor Bharat Rameshwaram of IIT Delhi in March 2019 for the Fifteenth Finance Commission, he puts annual Central government subsidy to farmers at Rs 1,205 billion: made up of fertiliser subsidies (Rs 700 billion), price support (Rs 240 billion), credit subsidies (Rs 200 bilion) and crop insurance subsidy (Rs 65 billion). Parallelly, there are subsidies offered by the state governments which together work out to Rs 1,140 billion: power subsidies (Rs 900 billion), irrigation subsidies (Rs 175 billion) and crop insurance subsidies (Rs 65 billion). In addition, the state governments in 2017-18 had announced farm loan waivers of the order of Rs 1,220 billion. In all, then, farm subsidies add up approximately to Rs 3,500 billion, or to 2-2.25% of the countrys GDP. They also form about 20% of aggregate farm income, annually. Another study by the Centre for WTO Studies (part of the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade) estimates Indias per-farmer aggregate domestic support in 2018-19 at $282 (roughly Rs 20,000).

Also Read: Are the New Agriculture Ordinances an Extension of the WTOs Agenda?

Let us now place that number beside per-farmer subsidies provided by some other economies: $5,357 (Australia), $8,588 (EU countries), $11,437 (Japan), $13,010 (Canada), and $61,286 (the US). For China and South Korea, the numbers are $1,065 and $5,369 respectively. Even Brazil ($332) and Thailand ($367) provide more substantial support to their farmers than India. Those challenging the whole concept of subsidies can derive strength for their case by looking at Bangladesh ($11) and Indonesia ($139), but will a comparison with such countries give them comfort?

A closer look at the US numbers will do no harm. Why analyse an outlier, you ask? Well, isnt the US the neoliberals Mecca for all seasons? Indeed, the senior journalist we are referring to here had made quite a name for himself when, in 2003, he publicly counselled Vajpayee, Indias PM then, to send Indian troops to Iraq as part of a George Bush-Tony Blair-Vajpayee coalition. His rationale was simple: if India could once prove her bona fides as a serious democracy by joining that holy war, no one would ever again manage to drive a wedge between her and the US. Alas!Vajpayee was less than enchanted by the advice. But surely Modi can be trusted to do what Vajpayee couldnt?

So, what more do we know about what the US does for its farmers? An article published by Taxpayers for Common Sense on September 3, 2020 sheds some light. Direct US government payments to farmers during the current year are of the order of $37.2 billion. Plus, the Commodity Credit Corpn is spending another $14 billion. Together, these subsidies ($51.2 billion) form 43.8% of net farm income of the country. (Contrast this with Indias 20%.) And this is far from being the whole story. The HEROES Act passed in May 2020 provided additional COVID-19 funding of $16.5 billion to agriculture. And, in the second tranche of the COVID-19 funding by way of the HEALS Act which awaits Congressional approval another $20 billion in direct payments (cash subsidies) to the sector have been proposed. If this corpus is released, aggregate US farm sector subsidies this year will top $88 billion (or, Rs 6,600 bn, approximately, or roughly twice the government support to farming in India.) And that sum will cater to a community whose size is a little over 1% of Indias farming roll strength. Vulgar? Of course not. Its the US, stupid!

And yet, at the WTO, the developed economies regularly give India a piece of their collective mind on her undue support to agriculture. How this scandalous state of affairs persists to this day indeed, how much more heat is likely to be turned on India on this count in the coming years by the rich countries is a story for another day. But there can be little doubt that Indias governmental support to agriculture is a measly fraction of what richer countries routinely give to their own farmers.

A farmer works in his field. Photo: Jignesh Mistry/PAIGAM

So, are our anti-subsidy crusaders ill-informed? I dont think so. Their problem is not informational, but ideological. To these zealots of neoliberalism, all support to the ordinary citizen is odious, and poor subsidies are pure sacrilege. Such subsidies, they are convinced, create the culture of dependency (Thatchers words) while subsidies to the wealthy are productive support. No amount of additional information will disabuse neoliberals of these prejudices.

Margaret Thatcher once famously said there was no such thing as society: there were only individuals and there were families. In much the same breath, she added, (P)eople have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations. Her epigones in India, as elsewhere, have learnt these lessons by heart. As more farmers join the ongoing agitation in and around the national capital, therefore, we can be certain to witness more smarmy invocations of the spirit of the woman who had helped introduce to the UK what one commentator memorably described as casino capitalism.

Anjan Basu can be reached at basuanjan52@gmail.com.

See the article here:
Farmers Protest: Why Are Some Liberals Invoking the Legacy of Margaret Thatcher? - The Wire