Martin Kettle's Blog, page 19

Trump’s march back to power has faltered. Now comes the real challenge for the global left | Martin Kettle

The US midterms have provided modest relief – but dilemmas facing US allies from Ukraine to the UK remain

“It could have been a lot worse” will never be the most inspiring verdict on any election result, especially in a political and media environment that insists on absolutist conclusions and disparages nuance. In the case of the US midterms, however, it is the wisest one.

American democracy is flawed and under threat. But an overlooked virtue of well-rooted democratic political systems, not just the US version, is that they rarely produce catastrophes, even if sometimes they can come close. The midterms were just such a non-catastrophe.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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Alcina review – Royal Opera's witty and vibrant staging full of beastly style

Royal Opera House, London
With Antony McDonald’s colourful designs, Richard Jones’s lively production is aimed as much at the eye as at the ear, and Lisette Oropesa is perfect in the title role

Richard Jones’s new production of Alcina takes the bull by the horns, literally so at times in a show where animal heads loom large. From first to last, Jones offers a stylish and witty rendering of Handel’s opera as an almost pantomimic contest between sacred and profane love, culminating in a clever final reveal that brings laughs all round. After his problematic Wagner for ENO last winter, this is Jones back on top form.

Alcina has a chequered history at Covent Garden. Premiered here in 1735, it did not return until the 1960s. It has not featured for a generation. But it is far too enchanting a work to be ignored for so long and Alcina’s time seems now to have come. This is the third production in Britain this year, following stagings by Tim Albery at Opera North and Francesco Micheli for the Glyndebourne festival. Jones has come up with an Alcina that will stay the course and be revived.

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Sunak’s job now is not about securing a Tory win, but merely avoiding an electoral disaster | Martin Kettle

The new PM is far from a magic bullet for the Conservatives – and rehiring Suella Braverman has already shown his weakness

As Rishi Sunak was pronounced Conservative leader by the backbench 1922 Committee this week, few noticed a tantalising anniversary. It was 100 years ago this month that Tory MPs abandoned the coalition that David Lloyd George had led since the end of the first world war. The decision proved to be a Tory triumph. The party won the resulting election and, without knowing it yet, seized control of 20th-century party politics. The dauntingly successful Tory party of the democratic era dates from that period. So does the 1922 Committee’s name.

Whether Sunak will be able to take that record of Tory electoral dominance into a second century is very much an open question. History casts no light on the future. The prime minister is focused not on securing another Tory electoral triumph but on avoiding an electoral disaster. A Conservative resurgence like the one that followed the realignment of 1922 remains a long way off.

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The trauma of the Truss era will afflict British politics for years to come | Martin Kettle

This ‘never again’ moment will inform everything from fiscal policy to Brexit – most importantly, what about public trust?

Traumatic events bequeath traumatised legacies. We know this in our personal lives. The same is also true for nations and their politics. The tragedy and farce of the past months are not over. There may be further convulsions, especially if Boris Johnson returns. But even if he does not, these months will leave searing effects as British politics endures a form of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Many countries continue to live with much darker horrors in their collective psyches. Modern Germany is still shaped by an unbending rejection of the Nazi past. United States foreign policy remains indelibly marked by the disaster of Vietnam. In Russian history there was a period, lasting from 1598 until 1613, that is simply known as the “time of troubles”; Vladimir Putin constantly tries to bolster his authoritarian rule by warning that such a time must never come again.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian associate editor and columnist

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Suella Braverman’s fall would be astonishing at any other time. But chaos is the new normal | Martin Kettle

With a humiliating admission and a show of defiance, she has left Liz Truss even deeper in the mire

Suella Braverman’s “departure” as home secretary after not much more than six weeks in the job would be astonishing at any other time in modern politics. Right now, though, it looks like merely par for the course in a Tory party that seems utterly chaotic, unable to govern – and further proof, if it was needed, that Liz Truss’s administration may not make it into November.

If talk counted for more than actions in politics, Braverman would be top of the Tory pile. Her rise has been almost as fast as her sudden departure. A second-rate attorney general who happily politicised what was once a strictly defined advisory role in government, she eyed the leadership after Boris Johnson’s fall, and then cast herself as an alpha all-action home secretary. Now she will only be remembered as the one who didn’t last two months in the job.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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Nicola Sturgeon detests Tories and still craves independence. But her route to it is perilous | Martin Kettle

With Labour resurgent in Scotland, its argument to Scots will be that to get rid of the Tories, the SNP is no longer the answer

Nicola Sturgeon declared this week she is part of the “independence generation” that will take Scotland out of the United Kingdom. She may be right. Generational differences matter a lot more in modern politics than in the past. Young people in Scotland tend to be pro-independence and may remain so as they age. Since the constitutional issue shapes party politics in Scotland so strongly, a lot will have to alter if it is still to be part of the UK in 2050.

Back here in 2022, however, things are not looking quite so rosy for Sturgeon, for the Scottish National party or for their objective of a second independence referendum. The SNP has long been the most message-disciplined party in our politics, but beneath the unchanging convictions displayed on its surface there is well founded unease about where the independence campaign will be by the middle of the decade.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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Liz Truss will fight for her vision at all costs – the problem is, her party won’t | Martin Kettle

In her conference speech she did her best to sell her crude version of Thatcherism. It may get her through the weekend

During what may yet turn out to have been only the first Conservative leadership contest of 2022, Liz Truss was extremely careful to position herself as the continuity candidate to Boris Johnson. That display of apparent loyalty was to prove pivotal with many party members when they selected her over the Johnson assassin, Rishi Sunak. Yet as Truss’s first month as prime minister has now shown, she is not the continuity Johnson candidate at all. Instead she glories in being a radical disrupter.

This was evident from day one, when Truss appointed a cabinet overwhelmingly from the Tory right, while banishing prominent ministers of the Johnson era. It became explosively obvious two weeks later, when Kwasi Kwarteng slashed taxes on the rich, setting off the chain of events that has transformed British party politics and left the Tory party’s ratings in tatters. On Wednesday, it was starkly confirmed in Truss’s party conference speech in Birmingham – a defiant address that contained no mention of Johnson whatever, let alone any endorsement of his policies.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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Who can argue now that Keir Starmer’s approach is not working? | Martin Kettle

The Labour leader has responded to Kwarteng’s gift with a textbook illustration of why thought and judgment count

If, despite the slide in sterling, I had had a pound for each time that someone had told me over the past two and a half years how disappointed they were with Keir Starmer (to which I have mostly retorted that he seemed to be playing a long game rather skilfully), I would be well placed to pay my energy bills this winter with some ease.

I am not sure these old arguments about Starmer will provide a productive income stream for much longer. The combination of last week’s catastrophic unfunded tax cuts and a solidly successful Labour conference has begun to generate a new consensus that Starmer is moving closer to power. The International Monetary Fund’s warning – greeted on the right as further proof that all international institutions are out to get them – tightens the knot a little further. The next election may now even be Labour’s to lose.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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In mourning, we may appear to be one United Kingdom – but don’t fall for the tale of togetherness | Martin Kettle

Collective grief for the Queen has shown us what the nation could look like. If only Westminster politicians cared

As the Queen’s coffin proceeded solemnly up the Royal Mile to St Giles’s Cathedral from Holyroodhouse on Monday amid packed crowds, I texted a colleague out on the sunlit streets of Edinburgh. These were extraordinary scenes, we both agreed, but would they have lasting consequences in and for Scotland? My friend’s reply was quick and emphatic. “I’ve got no doubt about it. All this unity!”

Thousands are gathering this week to mark the death of the Queen, not just in Scotland. The crowds will grow even larger as Monday’s state funeral draws nearer. The need to be part of the shared story, and to attempt to process the personal loss, is strong and widespread. In spite of the occasional protest, which it is crass to penalise, we are living through an immense collective event. It is silly to deny it – but equally vital not to misinterpret it.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com

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The loss of the Queen will test a divided Britain | Martin Kettle

A powerful unifying force has gone, leaving constitutional questions that will resonate for years to come

The death of a monarch is an entirely foreseeable event, the solemn formalities hardwired into the rituals of dynastic succession. But it is also an event that is difficult, partly for the simple reason of good manners, to anticipate with any accuracy at any particular time.

With the death at Balmoral of Queen Elizabeth II, a prepared but nevertheless shocked nation finds itself at such a moment, and it is important that our troubled politics and our wounded civil society face up to it as calmly and sensibly as possible, because this event will resonate politically and constitutionally for years to come.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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