Andy Beckett's Blog, page 12

Pacifists are being elbowed out of British politics just when we need them most | Andy Beckett

Being anti-war doesn’t mean being pro-Putin. Yet the peace movement has been demonised in the wake of the Ukraine crisis

It’s a strange time to be a pacifist in Britain. Everywhere there are calls for an end to the war in Ukraine: from politicians to Premier League footballers to hand-painted pleas for peace in people’s front windows. The illegitimacy and brutality of the Russian invasion make it very easy to condemn.

Yet at the same time, some of Britain’s most longstanding peace activists are being attacked and threatened. The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, has accused the Stop the War coalition, which has opposed conflicts for more than 20 years, of being “at best … naive” and “at worst … showing solidarity with the aggressor”.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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Britain’s long consumer binge is ending – and the political fallout will be huge | Andy Beckett

The cost-of-living crisis is a direct challenge to the kind of lives many of us have become accustomed to living

One of the main promises of modern capitalism – of modern life, really – is that you will always be able to buy more and better stuff. It’s not true, of course. Capitalism takes away as well as provides. And for poorer people, or those who are just financially stretched, the constantly advertised pleasures of consumer life often lie tantalisingly out of reach.

But for more than half a century, enough people have been able to afford them – or been able to borrow the necessary money – for society to be largely shaped around consumer habits in Britain and other rich countries. City centres, suburban retail parks, huge stretches of the internet and the inside of our heads: all are alive with, and constantly remade by, our acquisitive desires.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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The Tories are in trouble – but history tells us a scandal can strengthen them | Andy Beckett

The party’s current crisis may be one of the sporadic upheavals that cements its longterm dominance of British politics

If you’re not a Tory, the past few months may have brought some pleasure after years of torment. Bad news for the Conservatives has suddenly started coming almost daily: misfiring smear campaigns, chaotic U-turns, potentially lethal investigations, Tory MPs and rightwing papers turning on Boris Johnson, panicky ministers struggling through interviews, leadership rivalries ruining policy announcements, and a sustained plunge in the opinion polls. The multiplying consequences of the Downing Street party scandals have changed the political atmosphere.

The importance of all this should not be underestimated. A terrible government, the most lethally incompetent and probably the most corrupt in modern British history, may finally be beginning to be held to account. At the same time, Conservatism’s image – as a rarely nice but often realistic ruling ideology – is being badly damaged. Seemingly unknown to themselves, Johnson and his remaining loyalists are becoming a laughing stock.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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Is Keir Starmer’s professed patriotism a strength or a weakness? | Andy Beckett

The Labour leader’s talk of ‘the national interest’ echoes not only Attlee and Blair, but also Kinnock

Since Brexit, saying you represent the people against the establishment has been one of the most effective moves in British politics. In a country with little respect for politicians but still some reverence for voters, however erratic or flimsily based their opinions, invoking the people is one of the few reliable ways to achieve political momentum.

Despite the fact that in parliament, the press and much of business the Conservatives and their allies are the establishment – and have been since at least 2010 – this populist rhetoric has mostly been used by the right. However out of touch and contemptuous of democracy his government is in practice, Boris Johnson claims to speak for the people at every opportunity.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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The myth of an overcrowded Britain suits our island psyche – and this government | Andy Beckett

Through Brexit, the Tories effectively promised a less crowded and less cosmopolitan country. And that is what they have created

Britain is full. That vague but powerful assumption has shaped so much of our politics. From the Brexit campaign with its “breaking point” poster of a queue of migrants and refugees, and border-fixated home secretaries from Jack Straw to Priti Patel, to the regular immigration panics spread by newspapers to voters, the idea that these small islands have reached their maximum viable population has become hugely influential.

It’s a convenient situation for the right. Blame for congestion and strained public services can be placed on population growth and migrants, rather than on our profoundly unequal patterns of land ownership and use or Conservative cuts in state spending. But the idea that Britain is full – or too full already – also appeals more widely: to some environmentalists, to people who like peace and quiet, and dislike cities or new housing developments, or think that being British is a privilege that needs protecting. A fear of overcrowding is deep in our island psyche.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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Boris Johnson’s rule is a throwback to the 18th-century golden age of sleaze | Andy Beckett

This prime minister is a reminder of an era when government jobs were sold and political leverage was bought with cash

Corruption is a word used nervously in the UK. We’re quite happy applying it to other countries; but in Britain even critics of the status quo can be surprisingly reluctant to describe as corrupt our society’s tight, often concealed circulation of power and rewards.

Partly, this is because corruption is a slippery concept. “There has never been a single, fixed, universal definition,” wrote Mark Knights of Warwick University in 2016. “Notions about what is unfair, unjust or immoral change over time.”

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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The BBC is finding out the hard way you can’t do ‘balance’ with this government | Andy Beckett

The government sees only obedient allies or enemies to be defeated: there’s no middle ground with this bullying regime

These long years of Conservative rule have been bewildering for many liberal and leftwing Britons. Your party being out of power often is. But this time, as well as all-too-familiar feelings of frustration and impotence, many non-Tories have a new sense of betrayal. They are realising they can’t rely on the BBC to stand up to the government.

During the previous era of Tory dominance, under Margaret Thatcher, the corporation clashed with her administration sufficiently often for the official history of the BBC then to be titled Pinkoes and Traitors. Challenging governments is what many Britons who love the BBC – and some who do not – believe the corporation always does. Officially, the BBC agrees. Its editorial guidelines state: “We must always scrutinise arguments, question consensus and hold power to account.”

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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The BBC is finding out the hard way that you can’t do ‘balance’ with Boris Johnson | Andy Beckett

The government sees only obedient allies or enemies to be defeated: there’s no middle ground with this bullying regime

These long years of Conservative rule have been bewildering for many liberal and leftwing Britons. Your party being out of power often is. But this time, as well as all-too-familiar feelings of frustration and impotence, many non-Tories have a new sense of betrayal. They are realising they can’t rely on the BBC to stand up to the government.

During the previous era of Tory dominance, under Margaret Thatcher, the corporation clashed with her administration sufficiently often for the official history of the BBC then to be titled Pinkoes and Traitors. Challenging governments is what many Britons who love the BBC – and some who do not – believe the corporation always does. Officially, the BBC agrees. Its editorial guidelines state: “We must always scrutinise arguments, question consensus and hold power to account.”

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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How can Britain cut emissions when the Tory party fetishises travel? | Andy Beckett

Whether it’s by car or plane, we need to do less. Yet the government thinks of mobility as a freedom for it to champion

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With Covid infections rising, the Tories are conducting a deadly social experiment | Andy Beckett

The ‘personal responsibility’ mantra has gone hand in hand with more deaths. Why has England gone along with it?

A pandemic is a political event. It exposes who is vulnerable and who can afford to escape, who is prioritised for treatment and who is neglected. The politics of a pandemic are both large-scale and intensely personal. How we behave towards each other, what balance is struck between safety and freedom, how blame is distributed, what a country considers an acceptable level of illness and death: questions that may once have been philosophical have become frighteningly real.

In Britain, the politics of Covid have been thought about and discussed almost entirely in party terms: the relative caution and competence of the SNP government in Scotland and its Labour counterpart in Wales; the recklessness and lethal mistakes of the Conservatives in England, and whether Labour can make the Tories pay for them. The pandemic has been seen as a potential turning point for all the main parties.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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