The Dead Cat Strategy - A Good Way to Overcome Poor Performance

Nadeem F Paracha in The Dawn

On January 27, 2022, former prime minister Imran Khan alleged that the co-chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Asif Ali Zardari, had hired assassins to kill him.

Outside Khan’s hardcore group of followers, very few treated the allegation with any seriousness, even though, understandably, the PPP was not amused. Ever since his ouster in April last year, Khan has been churning out one bizarre claim after another in his daily addresses and press talks.

Of course, being a classic populist in the mould of Donald Trump and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, Khan hardly ever provides any compelling evidence to back his allegations. Like his populist contemporaries, he too is more interested in remaining in the news and in Twitter trends. The other reason is to deflect the media’s attention away from the plethora of scandals involving his immediate family, his party personnel and himself.

These scandals have begun to engulf him, now that he doesn’t have the kind of protection that he once enjoyed from the military establishment and the judiciary when he was PM. The scandals have dented his self-styled image of being ‘incorruptible’.

By delivering speeches almost on a daily basis that are studded with sensationalist claims and allegations, Khan is using what has come to be known as the ‘dead cat strategy’ or ‘deadcatting’. Both these terms were first floated in 2013. They are derived from a theory of a political strategist who has a history of working for right-wing parties. This is also the reason why deadcatting is often seen as a strategy that has mostly been applied by right-wing politicians and contemporary populists.
 
Both the terms are associated with the Australian political strategist Lynton Crosby. Crosby strategised the British populist Boris Johnson’s campaign for the 2008 London mayoral election that Johnson won. Crosby was first appointed by Johnson’s Conservative Party (CP) during the 2005 parliamentary elections, which the party lost.

But after working successfully with Johnson during the 2008 mayoral election, Crosby became the CP’s central strategist. In a 2013 article for the Daily Telegraph, Johnson excitedly explained Crosby’s strategy. He wrote that one of Crosby’s tactics included, (figuratively speaking) throwing a dead cat on a dining table on which people sat talking about an issue that was detrimental to the interests of a politician. So, once they see the dead cat, their attention is drawn away from the issue and towards the dead cat. Now the dead cat becomes the issue.

‘Dead cat issues’ are thus sensationalist, formed to draw the people’s and the media’s attention away from the issues that have become increasingly problematic for a politician. Johnson continued to apply this strategy when he was appointed PM in 2019. As PM, he went on deploying dead cat issues to divert the media’s attention away from the many holes that he kept digging and falling into.

But deadcatting has its limits. There are but so many dead cats one can throw on the dining table. In 2022, becoming increasingly controversial, Johnson was forced to step down as PM by his own party. The media had stopped talking about dead cats.

In 2019, the populist president of Mexico Andrés Manuel López held a press conference to announce that he had written letters to the Pope and the Spanish government, demanding that they should apologise for invading Mexico… 500 years ago. This out-of-the-blue declaration surprised many. Why was a president who had vowed to resolve Mexico’s many problems, now suddenly talking about a 500-year-old invasion?

According to the British political journalist and author Andrew Scott, López had made a sizeable number of promises, which included introducing widespread land reforms, poverty alleviation and the elimination of Mexico’s deadly drug mafias. Failing to deliver on any of the promises, López deployed the dead cat strategy. The ploy was absurd, but it did catch the media’s attention.

However, not everyone was impressed by the president’s ‘bold’ initiative to get the Pope and the Spanish government to deliver an apology for a centuries-old invasion of Mexico, whose main victims were the country’s indigenous Indian communities. The famous Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa suggested that the letters should have been delivered to López himself, because he had done absolutely nothing to better the conditions of the impoverished Indian communities, except churn out populist slogans and display meaningless stunts.

In the early 1980s, when India’s Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) was largely a fringe far-right Hindu nationalist outfit that had no mentionable economic programme, it started to encourage groups who had begun to plan building a temple on the site of a 16th century mosque in Ayodhya. The BJP turned the mosque into a ‘national issue’.

This was BJP’s dead cat that provided it mainstream traction. And so are the claims by the current BJP government, which uses these to keep the media’s attention focused on the so-called existentialist ‘threat’ to India from Pakistan and by India’s Muslims.

Imran Khan has been deadcatting ever since his government started to unravel from 2020 onwards. Some of the favourite dead cats of Pakistani politicians are ‘issues’ of morality and faith. As a PM who was struggling to deliver the grandiose promises that he had made, and facing increasing criticism, Khan decided to declare himself as the leading crusader against Islamophobia.

He started to write letters to the United Nations and other leaders of the ‘Muslim ummah’, urging them to facilitate his idea of formulating a blasphemy law which could be applied internationally. His ministers jumped in, claiming that he was fighting an international ‘jihad’ against Islamophobes and should be hailed for this.

When this dead cat could not distract the media enough, Khan threw in a bigger dead feline, by claiming that the US was conspiring to oust him from power. After being shown the door by a no-confidence-motion in the parliament, he’s been tossing dead cats with increasing frequency.

Recently, one also saw the current finance minister, Ishaq Dar, deploy the dead cat strategy after being castigated by the media for failing to stabilise the economy. He had been brought in as a miracle worker, but his performance has been rather dismal.

Being a Pakistani, he of course began to tweet verses from Islam’s holy scriptures, indirectly suggesting that the failing economy was due to the mysterious ways of cosmic forces. Ironically, rather than diverting attention, this dead cat ended up magnifying his failings.

Should we have a ‘truth law’?

Today’s politicians mislead with impunity – could we legislate to stop them lying? asks Sam Fowles in The Guardian



 
For months the British government has floated the idea of unilaterally breaking the so-called Northern Ireland protocol, part of the withdrawal treaty it agreed with the European Union. That would undermine the Good Friday agreement, reanimate the prospect of sectarian violence and damage the UK’s international reputation. Such action demands a weighty justification and ministers have one, with the attorney general arguing that “Northern Ireland’s economy is lagging behind the rest of the UK”.

Except it’s not. Statistics show that Northern Ireland is outstripping every part of the UK except London.

In recent years politicians have repeatedly based the case for historic changes on lies. These have ranged from the infamous “Brexit bus”, which promised £350m a week for the NHS, to government framing of recent rail strikes as “selfish” because, as Boris Johnson told one interviewer: “Train drivers are on £59,000 and some are on £70,000.” (The average wage of a striker is below £36,000.) Politicians consistently mislead about issues of national importance. I know this first-hand – I was part of the legal team that proved Johnson’s prorogation of parliament in 2019 was unlawful.

Truth is democracy’s most important moral value. We work out our direction, as a society, through public discourse. Power and wealth confer an advantage in this: the more people you can reach (by virtue of enjoying easy access to the media, or even controlling sections of it), the more likely you are to bring others round to your point of view. The rich and powerful may be able to reach more people but, if their arguments are required to conform to reality, we can at least hold them to account. Truth is a great leveller.

The problem is that our public discourse has become increasingly divorced from reality. The pollster Ipsos Mori conducts regular surveys on what the British public believes about the facts behind frequently discussed issues. In one memorable study it discovered that, in the words of one headline, “the British public is wrong about nearly everything”. Among the concerns was benefit fraud: people surveyed estimated that around £24 of every £100 of benefits was fraudulently claimed, whereas the actual figure was 70p. When asked about immigration, people estimated that 31% of the population were born outside the UK, when in truth it was 13%.

Members of parliament have played a prominent role in getting us to this point. They make and vote on laws, help set the political agenda and influence the national conversation. Of course, politicians have always had a tendentious relationship with the truth. From the Zinoviev letter to the Profumo affair, history is littered with scandals that result from lies being exposed. Profumo resigned because he misled parliament once. Today’s ministers regularly do the same with impunity.

Commentators often paint Johnson as uniquely mendacious, but he is merely the latest prime minister to embrace lying for political gain. David Cameron won two elections by misleading the country about the causes of the financial crash and the economic impacts of austerity. Theresa May built her early career in government on dubious anti-immigration rhetoric, notably the lie that one immigrant had been allowed to stay in the country because he had a pet cat.

Democracy cannot function properly in this environment and an existential problem demands a radical solution. So, MPs (and peers in the House of Lords) should be formally required to tell the truth: in the debating chamber, on TV, in print and on social media. To publish a statement that wilfully or negligently misrepresents information should be classed as misconduct in public office (a criminal offence). In other words: we need a truth law.

Ensuring the offence captures both “wilful” and “negligent” misrepresentation will obviate spurious defences such as Johnson’s claim that he thought the Downing Street parties were “work events”. With researchers and civil servants at their disposal, parliamentarians have no excuse for misrepresenting the facts. Even so, I suggest that they should not be prosecuted if they correct the record and apologise in parliament within seven days.

Radical as it may seem, we already have all the tools to make this work within established law. “Publish” has a clear legal meaning (essentially “to make public”). Tests of wilfulness or negligence are frequently applied across civil and criminal law. Determining whether someone has “misrepresented information” (ie, not told the truth) is often the core business of the courts. The penalty for misconduct can go all the way up to life imprisonment. While some may find that rather satisfying, I suggest limiting it, in this class of cases, to a fine. The courts should also have the power to refer an offender to the Standards Committee for further parliamentary sanction. 

I imagine that there will be two main objections to this idea. First, it may have a chilling effect on parliamentarians’ free expression. But parliamentarians are not ordinary citizens. They hold a special position of trust and power, which they assume voluntarily, and for which they are rewarded handsomely. It’s right that that they should be subject to stricter rules. Many professions limit the freedom of expression of their members in the public interest. As a barrister I am subject to “truth telling” rules which, if breached, could end my career (and potentially lead to a prosecution for contempt of court). Politicians’ words have more influence than barristers’, so it’s fair to subject them to more exacting standards.

Second, any truth law would breach “parliamentary privilege”. This guarantees that MPs will not be prosecuted for anything they say in parliament. That rule was developed to stop monarchs persecuting their political opponents. It was never intended to be a licence to lie. We now have an independent prosecution authority and independent courts: it’s time we addressed today’s challenges to democracy, not ones that were last relevant centuries ago.

My proposal won’t eradicate lying in public life. But it’s an important first step. Imagine, for a moment, that we could genuinely trust our elected representatives. That shouldn’t be a utopian ideal – and in the law, we have the means to make it a reality.

To predict government policy, listen to Boris and wait for the opposite

At every stage in the coronavirus pandemic, the prime minister has been hopelessly behind the curve writes John Crace in The Guardian 

‘During the biggest national health crisis in 100 years, it’s just our luck to have Boris Johnson in charge.’ Photograph: Andrew Parsons/No10 Downing Street 



In hindsight, the clues were there for everyone to see. Last week, the government forced a vote on extending recess by an extra week until 11 January. After all, it wasn’t as if there was a lot on for MPs to scrutinise. Brexit was bound to be going swimmingly and the coronavirus was near enough completely under control. So sure enough, on the very first day of its prolonged holiday, Boris Johnson announced that parliament would be recalled on Wednesday.

It’s now becoming easier and easier to predict government policy. Just listen to what the prime minister said in the morning and the opposite is likely to be true come the middle of the afternoon. It’s almost like clockwork – the government does what most reasonable people would have done several weeks earlier.

At every stage in the coronavirus pandemic, the government has been hopelessly behind the curve. From being late to lockdown in March while the Cheltenham festival and Carrie Symonds’s baby shower went ahead. From ignoring the Sage advice in September for a second national lockdown and being forced into one in November by both Keir Starmer and the rapidly rising rates of infection. From announcing a five-day Christmas free-for-all in early December – everyone knew Covid liked to take time off over the holiday period – which he then had to cancel after everyone had already made their plans.

During the biggest national health crisis in 100 years, it’s just our luck to have Johnson in charge. A man pathologically unable to make the right calls at the right time. The prime minister is a narcissistic charlatan. The Great Dick Faker. Someone who can’t bear to be the bearer of bad news or to be proved wrong by people who disagree with him. So he stubbornly ignores the evidence until he becomes overwhelmed by it and public opinion has turned against him. He isn’t just a liability as a leader, his indecision has cost lives. His hubris will only cost him his job.

So the day started off much like any other day for Boris. A quick feelgood photo opportunity jaunt to watch someone get the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine on its first day of national distribution and a short clip to camera. Schools should definitely remain open, he insisted, apparently oblivious to the fact that most health and teaching professionals had said otherwise.

But Boris thought differently. Most schoolkids only got a mild dose of Covid and the teachers should stop moaning. Despite the increased infectivity of the new coronavirus variant, teachers should take one for the team as children couldn’t afford to fall further behind in their education. It didn’t seem to have occurred to him that children also have parents and grandparents with whom they live and who might not be so lucky.

There might be a time for increasing restrictions – Nicola Sturgeon announced Scotland’s early in the afternoon and the Labour leader had made a second appeal in two days for Johnson to see sense – but now was not the right time. Which begged the question: “If not now, then when?”

With infections increasing exponentially, the death rate rising and hospitals struggling to cope with the rate of admissions, just how many more people would have to get seriously ill before Boris could be bothered to take action?

As it happened, not many. Because shortly after filming this interview and insisting there would be no No 10 press conference that evening, Johnson announced he would be addressing the nation on TV at 8pm. Yet again, Boris had been shamed into another U-turn. Better late than never. Though too late for some.

For his TV address, a dishevelled Boris – why change the habit of a lifetime and make it look like you give a toss? – didn’t look serious so much as scared shitless. Someone for whom reality had – temporarily at least – penetrated his self-delusion. There was little way to sugarcoat the news, despite him talking up the vaccine. No triumphs to be declared, no ersatz leadership theatrics for reassurance. Only the despair of a down-on-his-luck TV evangelist was on offer in the eight-minute statement.

He began as if the huge rise in coronavirus cases had come as a massive shock to him at lunchtime, even though it was old news to the rest of the country, and spoke of his deep regret – the hurt was all his – at putting the country back into a total lockdown. Including closing the schools he had opened that morning.

“Some of you might be wondering why we haven’t done this before,” he said. A question literally no one was asking as no one expects anything but incompetence and delay from this government any more. Typically, there was nothing about financial support for those whose livelihoods may be affected. He ended by saying that if all went well, there could be an easing of the lockdown by mid-February.

But not even The Great Dick Faker, the master of self-deception, sounded convinced by this. As usual he didn’t have the balls to level with the country and tell us what we all deep down know. That it’s going to take at least three months before there’s even a hint of a return to normality. And that’s if we’re lucky.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”