Idle Thoughts On The Upcoming Election
Idle Thoughts On The Upcoming Election
Edmund Blackadder: (to George, indicating Baldrick) Meet the new member of Parliament for Dunny-on-the-Wold.
Prince George: But he’s an absolute arsehead!
Edmund Blackadder: Precisely, sir. Our slogan shall be: “A rotten candidate for a rotten borough.” Baldrick, I want you to go back to your kitchen sink, you see, and prepare for government.
– Blackadder III, Episode 1 – Dish and Dishonesty.
The above was funny once, really.
I wish I felt more optimistic about the forthcoming election in Britain. But I’m not.
I remember Tony Blair taking office in 1997. He seemed to be a breath of fresh air, the person who would reshape Labour for the new millennium and be a better more principled politician than John Major, who was a very grey character, and Margaret Thatcher, who was hideously controversial and widely disliked. I wish I could say that I saw trouble brewing when I watched him on television, and studied pictures of an always-smiling Blair in the newspapers, but I had hopes for the future at the time too.
Blair’s fundamental failing, as I see it, was that he liked to be liked. He wanted the pomp and circumstance of being Prime Minister, a towering figure on the world stage, without being willing to do the hard work to make it possible. Many of his decisions were made because they looked good, or they promised to make him look significant, rather than any sensible assessment of what Britain needed and how Blair (and by extension Labour) could provide it. The idea of joining the invasion of Iraq in 2003, for example, was not inherently wrong, but Blair was unwilling to acknowledge that this required a far greater military commitment than he was willing to provide, and wound up leading to a deeply embarrassing military catastrophe, as well as undermining Britain’s position elsewhere.
Blair was merely the first in a series of Prime Ministers who managed to be promising candidates but failures when they got into office. Gordon Brown appeared more sober than Tony, yet he was unable to reshape British politics in a more rational direction, a task made much harder by the expenses scandal. David Cameron, on the other hand, did very well during the expenses scandal, and made himself look like a prospective Prime Minister in waiting. However, he severely misjudged the mood of the country in the run-up to the BREXIT referendum, failed to convince Europe that if they did not make concessions there was a very good chance Leave would win the day, and – at base – could not balance the competing demands of the Europhile and Euroskeptic sides of the Tory party. Theresa May had the same problem, as – in a very different sense – did Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
And – let’s be honest here – Rishi Sunak is starting to look an awful lot like John Major.
The difference, however, is striking. The last few days, ever since the announcement of the general election, have been full of gloating about the disintegration of the Tory Party, which came into office with David Cameron into 2010 and managed to accomplish very little until (supposedly) being booted out of office after the coming election. However, in 1997, John Major faced Tony Blair, who was astonishingly popular and had the personal prestige to convince doubters that New Labour would not have the weaknesses of Old Labour. By contrast, there appears to be very little enthusiasm for Keir Starmer and it appears that his victory will not come through his own efforts, and his ability to present a message to the public, but through his enemy’s weakness. He may sweep up a vast number of votes from people who are not so much pro-Labour as they are anti-Tory.
It is clear to see the problems threatening to destroy the Tory Party. Labour should be careful before it engages in too much schadenfreude, however, because they have the same problem. The core of the party has become hideously – hilariously – disconnected from both the party membership and its historical voter base. The collapse of the Red Wall in 2019, where a number of consistencies that were historically solidly Labour chose to vote Tory instead, did not come out of nowhere. The Labour party’s leadership could be said to be Europhile; the rank-and-file could equally be said to be Euroskeptic, if not downright Europhobic. Labour does not appear to have realised that it needs to win those voters back, by proposing a series of realistic policies and preparing to implement them on the day it takes office. Instead, Labour has been caught up in the culture war – another issue when the leadership is often out of touch with the party base – and is currently dealing with the fallout from the conflict in Gaza, a problem that cannot be handled without severely displeasing at least a third to a half of Labour’s current voting base.
Put bluntly, Labour appears to have learnt nothing from Tony Blair. It is putting forward ideas and concepts that look good, at least on paper, but have severe problems when it comes implement them in the real world. Blair’s failure to deliver fatally undermined his position and, by extension, the party’s position too. If the Tories were remotely capable of putting their own house in order, Starmer would be heading for another defeat. Instead, he might well win, despite the lack of enthusiasm for a Labour government, because voters are sick of the Tories.
In a sense, Britain has the same problem as everywhere else these days. The politicians have lost touch with their voters, to the point that they literally cannot comprehend the problems facing the people they are supposed to represent or understand that their inability to tackle the problems is opening the way to political parties and personalities who are far more hostile to democracy than anyone currently in power, and that their future success owes much to the failures of present-day politicians. In turn, the people have become increasingly convinced that the politicians are insane and are looking – desperately – for another option, all the while doing their best to ignore the politicians who have long since thrown away their final shred of credibility.
Perhaps I’m just depressed, in this wet and miserable weather, but I fear for the future of British politics.
