148 How to Win Every Argument
source of strength if a party can respond to criticism. Now, with our
share of the poll down to 9 per cent, I think that...'
(This can be seen in every election by every party except the winner.
It is roughly equivalent to 'I don't think that a score of five goals to
one against us should be seen as a defeat for Scottish football. It is
more of a challenge which...')The shifting sands of political fortune often coincide with the
shifting ground of the fallacy. This is because of a patently absurd
rule that no politician must ever change his mind about any-
thing. To do so would be to admit he was wrong before, and
could, by implication, be wrong now. Infallibility must, there-
fore, be sustained. Shifting ground, insecure though it might
look to us, provides a solid foundation for political continuity.
There is a certain class of religious argument in which any-
thing at all whose existence is assented to can be called divine.
Here the base of discussion seems to slide quite happily across
several continents, as what started out as a discussion about a
man in the sky with a white beard ends up in consideration of
some abstract principle of the universe.
Shifting ground is for defensive use. You cannot convince
others of a new point with it, but you can use it to avoid it being
known that you were wrong. As the victorious armies march into
your territory after the struggle, they are surprised to find you at
the head of them, leading the invasion. They had quite mis-
takenly supposed that you were head of the defence forces.
After hearing his point of view, I feel that Mr Smith's amendment to
insert the word 'not' into my motion expresses the spirit of what I was
trying to say. I therefore accept his amendment as an improvement to
my motion.