U-turns tend to be humiliating events. When performing them in a car, there’s the shame of your GPS incessantly ordering you to turn around amid the angry honking of drivers’ horns; in government, the shaming is gleefully carried out by the media and the opposition.
Political U-turns are perceived to be so ignominious, in fact, that lawmakers seem to feel the need constantly to insist they are not guilty of them. “You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning,” Margaret Thatcher told the Conservative party conference in 1980, seeking to show her strength and mark a conspicuous change from the previous Tory prime minister, Edward Heath, whose reversal on economic policy in the early 1970s had provided the original impetus for the metaphor.
We have certainly seen our fair share of government U-turns during this pandemic. In Britain, the most notable recent one was the decision to extend the provision of free meals to underprivileged children to cover the school summer holidays, after pressure from a campaign led by footballer Marcus Rashford. According to Hansard, the term was used in Parliament more often in June 2020 than in any other month ever, with the two dreaded syllables uttered a total of 69 times.
Yet the U-turn doesn’t seem to be something that those outside political circles deem particularly worthy of denunciation. Rashford himself said he was “grateful that the prime minister did change his decision”, and told the BBC he had thanked Boris Johnson personally.
It’s an example worth following: we should stop chastising politicians for changing their minds, and start cheering them for doing so instead. Rashford had pushed for something he believed in, and the government had listened. One needn’t imagine that Johnson’s about-face was motivated by anything other than public relations, but if it also leads to good politics, shouldn’t we be happy about that?
Contrary to its negative image, a U-turn is a sign of a healthy and functional democracy; a demonstration that a government is willing to listen and that the media, opposition parties and general public have the power to hold their leaders to account. As Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, put it to me: “Democracy isn’t just about an election every five years. It’s a continual process of back and forth: listening, calibrating and adjusting.”
In US politics, the U-turn is referred to as the “flip-flop”, but jeered just as often. An online store dedicated to “president flip-flops” offers punters the chance to wear contradictory statements from Donald Trump on each foot, so you can “go back on your word, one step at a time”. (We regret to tell you that all items are currently sold out.)
In the world of business, however, no such negative connotations exist — quite the opposite, in fact. Companies know that if their business model isn’t working, they must change course to keep shareholders happy. This is commonly referred to as a “pivot”, a term made famous by Silicon Valley, and tends to be welcomed by the market.
In our personal lives too, we tend to see those who are able to take criticism on board and adjust their behaviour accordingly as praiseworthy and broad-minded, while regarding those who are unwilling to listen to other opinions or advice as pigheaded or arrogant.
Political U-turns do carry potential hazards. Perform too many of them and you risk being seen as lacking in conviction and authority, even by your own party. That must be particularly abhorrent to the cabinet ministers who are sent out to defend the indefensible, only to be publicly humiliated hours later by a leader who says the policy was dreadful after all.
The main problem with U-turn shaming, though, is that the punishment is doled out at the wrong moment; we should be criticising our leaders before they change their policies, not afterwards. Yet the term continues to be used as a way of creating a juicy splash or headline, as it has since its concoction by William Rees-Mogg when editor of The Times.
Very often, this oversimplifies a complex narrative by creating a binary division between what the government had intended to do and the policy it would now be pursuing — a recent example being the alleged 180-degree turn on herd immunity. In so doing, it stokes tensions and divides us.
If we don’t start to destigmatise the U-turn, we are just encouraging our leaders to become more inflexible and dishonest, further breaking down trust in government. A new name for it might help. In Australian politics, the U-turn is known as the “backflip”. While that doesn’t feel quite right, given that one ultimately ends up in the same place facing the same direction, at least the overtones it carries are impressive, rather than embarrassing.
Whatever we call it, if we truly want better politics, with less tribalism and more robust debate, we need to learn to love the U-turn.
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WINNIPEG – The federal New Democrats have kept a longtime stronghold in the Elmwood-Transcona riding in Winnipeg.
The NDP’s Leila Dance won a close battle over Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds, and says the community has spoken in favour of priorities such as health care and the cost of living.
Elmwood-Transcona has elected a New Democrat in every election except one since the riding was formed in 1988.
The seat became open after three-term member of Parliament Daniel Blaikie resigned in March to take a job with the Manitoba government.
A political analyst the NDP is likely relieved to have kept the seat in what has been one of their strongest urban areas.
Christopher Adams, an adjunct professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba, says NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh worked hard to keep the seat in a tight race.
“He made a number of visits to Winnipeg, so if they had lost this riding it would have been disastrous for the NDP,” Adams said.
The strong Conservative showing should put wind in that party’s sails, Adams added, as their percentage of the popular vote in Elmwood-Transcona jumped sharply from the 2021 election.
“Even though the Conservatives lost this (byelection), they should walk away from it feeling pretty good.”
Dance told reporters Monday night she wants to focus on issues such as the cost of living while working in Ottawa.
“We used to be able to buy a cart of groceries for a hundred dollars and now it’s two small bags. That is something that will affect everyone in this riding,” Dance said.
Liberal candidate Ian MacIntyre placed a distant third,
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau say the Liberals have “all sorts of reflections” to make after losing a second stronghold in a byelection in Montreal Monday night.
His comments come as the Liberal cabinet gathers for its first regularly scheduled meeting of the fall sitting of Parliament, which began Monday.
Trudeau’s Liberals were hopeful they could retain the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, but those hopes were dashed after the Bloc Québécois won it in an extremely tight three-way race with the NDP.
Louis-Philippe Sauvé, an administrator at the Institute for Research in Contemporary Economics, beat Liberal candidate Laura Palestini by less than 250 votes. The NDP finished about 600 votes back of the winner.
It is the second time in three months that Trudeau’s party lost a stronghold in a byelection. In June, the Conservatives defeated the Liberals narrowly in Toronto-St. Paul’s.
The Liberals won every seat in Toronto and almost every seat on the Island of Montreal in the last election, and losing a seat in both places has laid bare just how low the party has fallen in the polls.
“Obviously, it would have been nicer to be able to win and hold (the Montreal riding), but there’s more work to do and we’re going to stay focused on doing it,” Trudeau told reporters ahead of this morning’s cabinet meeting.
When asked what went wrong for his party, Trudeau responded “I think there’s all sorts of reflections to take on that.”
In French, he would not say if this result puts his leadership in question, instead saying his team has lots of work to do.
Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet will hold a press conference this morning, but has already said the results are significant for his party.
“The victory is historic and all of Quebec will speak with a stronger voice in Ottawa,” Blanchet wrote on X, shortly after the winner was declared.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and his party had hoped to ride to a win in Montreal on the popularity of their candidate, city councillor Craig Sauvé, and use it to further their goal of replacing the Liberals as the chief alternative to the Conservatives.
The NDP did hold on to a seat in Winnipeg in a tight race with the Conservatives, but the results in Elmwood-Transcona Monday were far tighter than in the last several elections. NDP candidate Leila Dance defeated Conservative Colin Reynolds by about 1,200 votes.
Singh called it a “big victory.”
“Our movement is growing — and we’re going to keep working for Canadians and building that movement to stop Conservative cuts before they start,” he said on social media.
“Big corporations have had their governments. It’s the people’s time.”
New Democrats recently pulled out of their political pact with the government in a bid to distance themselves from the Liberals, making the prospects of a snap election far more likely.
Trudeau attempted to calm his caucus at their fall retreat in Nanaimo, B.C, last week, and brought former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney on as an economic adviser in a bid to shore up some credibility with voters.
The latest byelection loss will put more pressure on him as leader, with many polls suggesting voter anger is more directed at Trudeau himself than at Liberal policies.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
The New Democrats have declared a federal byelection victory in their Winnipeg stronghold riding of Elmwood—Transcona.
The NDP candidate Leila Dance told supporters in a tearful speech that even though the final results weren’t in, she expected she would see them in Ottawa.
With several polls still to be counted, Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds conceded defeat and told his volunteers that they should be proud of what the Conservatives accomplished in the campaign.
Political watchers had a keen eye on the results to see if the Tories could sway traditionally NDP voters on issues related to labour and affordability.
Meanwhile in the byelection race in the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun the NDP, Liberals and Bloc Québécois remained locked in an extremely tight three-way race as the results trickled in slowly.
The Liberal stronghold riding had a record 91 names on the ballot, and the results aren’t expected until the early hours of the morning.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
