A good advert by a bad party
So there I was, trawling through the job listings on w4mp when I came across a rather unusual advert.
For those who don’t know, w4mp is a British website primarily for parliamentary interns that lists available jobs in Westminster. Most are unpaid; the rest are under £25k a year.
It was with surprise - and more than a hint of suspicion - then, when I came across a job with a salary of “€91,980 plus expenses”.
I thought it was some kind of joke.
The listing states:
Based in Brussels, with some time in Strasbourg, you will carry huge responsibility, acting as an Independent-minded MEP.
Yes. An advert for an MEP in the upcoming elections has been listed on a website for interns.
What party, I hear you cry, would try and recruit interns as members of the European Parliament? And how on earth can someone be an independent-minded MEP? Surely an MEP votes in line with their party, right?
Wrong. If we continue reading…
Although advertised by the Jury Team (a political party), if elected you will be free to make your own decisions and vote as you wish on behalf of millions of people within your region.
Eh?
Unfortunately there’s no turning to the party’s founder, and former Tory HQ director general, Sir Paul Judge for clarification. Because in an interview with the BBC’s Daily Politics he described the Jury Team as a “not-party party”.
Clear as mud, Sir Judge, clear as mud.
So I resorted to the party website…
Are you unhappy with the way things are? Do you believe they can change? By joining the Jury Team, you are becoming part of a political party like no other.
The Jury Team is a political movement created with the goal of making politics more accessible, politicians more accountable and political institutions more transparent.
The Jury Team intends to put forward 70 candidates for the UK and we are offering everyone the chance to run as a candidate for the European Parliament.
How very revolutionary. And the revolution doesn’t stop there because the Jury Team are a new political party, and in virtue of this - as with all new parties - they need a gimmick. UKIP had Kilroy-Silk - the Jury Team has “modern technology”…
The BBC dedicated a whole article to the gimmick: the party’s candidates will be selected by text.
I mentioned that I was suspicious when I saw the advert listed on an intern website; the oxymoronic “not-party party” did not quash these concerns, and neither did the texting gimmick. But what makes me most uncomfortable about the Jury Team is its paradoxical nature.
Bear with me.
Let us recall the ‘relativism paradox‘: relativism fails because the relativist says there are no absolutes, and yet has to claim that the relativistic principle is absolutely true. The principle is undermined by its very existence.
Now let us consider the Jury Team, or what I will entitle the ‘Jury Team paradox’: the Jury Team fails because the Jury Teamist says the party-political system is corrupt in virtue of having different parties with different aims. And yet the Jury Team is a party with its own aims (the 12 “proposals” can be found on the website) - the details of the aims are irrelevant.
The Jury Team is undermined by the principles for which it stands; it is undermined by its very existence.
I am still not entirely convinced the Jury Team is not a joke.
Either way, though, its advert is pretty damn good - see top of post. And for that I’ll forgive it a multitude - if not all (it’s hard to ignore inherent paradoxes) - sins.
This post can also be viewed on my personal blog here.
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“the Jury Team fails because the Jury Teamist says the party-political system is corrupt in virtue of having different parties with different aims”
I have been over their website and I do not see from where you have gleaned this conclusion.
They state the party system does not work because the power of the whips precludes disscussion and dissent, which are the essence of democracy.
They state the party system is corrupt since it offers MPs a level of protection when they err (for example, regarding expenses) that is unnatural, and subverts scrutiny since the other parties do not wish to point the finger in case one of theirs is caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
The Jury Team website argues they seek to overcome the first by giving MPs freedom to exercise their own judgement over policy, and they overcome the second by having candidates sign up for principles of good governance.
If you are arguing that promoting “good goverance” is a policy position, and that this is where your paradox lies, I suggest that doing something honestly and well is less a policy and more a duty.
MasterCard should sue.
The Jury Team is apparently not a joke, but a hobby horse of Sir Paul Judge. It’s impossible to find clear information on the ‘team’ on its website. Apparently, it does not yet have statutes. A bit more transparency on the ‘team’ itself would help its credibility a lot.