It was very easy to look at the news this weekend and think that this country is tired of its government, its politicians, and its prospects, given what those politicians have to offer.
I try, almost continually, to find positives to talk about when discussing issues here. The whole of the Taxing Wealth Report 2024 is about that. It says there are better options available. I suspect most people, deep down, are convinced that this must be the case.
But what worries me is that the political class do not. As John Harris has to say in the Guardian this morning:
Which brings me to my final source of anxiety. Keir Starmer's technocratic approach to politics has obviously worked short-term electoral wonders, but it has also left a space that the re-energised post-Brexit right will sooner or later move to occupy: the one reserved for emotion, stories and narratives about what Britain is. Worse still, in the absence of those things, some Labour people are already filling the gap with some very dangerous messages.
He is right: this is exactly what Labour is doing, and people realise.
This is a crude chart, but which I hope illustrates a point:
The red line is meant to be broadly left of centre politics, and the right line is broadly right of centre politics.
People at present are hoping that Labour will be further from a right-wing extreme than the Tories are, with there being space on the right where Labour simply will not go. The result is that they hope to be better off under Labour, hence the higher peak to their plot.
The reality is that there is no real indication that this is the case. Far from creating its own distinct approaches to almost anything, Labour simply apes the Tories, as John Harris notices, being dragged behind both the Tories and Reform into places no-one ever really expected to find Labour policy going.
The result is, of course, that we are worse off. As I explained yesterday, that is because the extremist pro-market policies that too many political parties now share deliver sub-optimal outcomes simply because there are many occasions (but of course, not all by a long way) where the government can and always will be the best choice for delivery of a service, which fact the philosophies (if we can call them that) of both parties now erroneously challenges.
No wonder people are bored in that case. What is there to look forward to when nothing is working now, and the prospect is that very little will, even if the government is changed?
I hate to say it, but apathy might have the biggest turnout whenever the general election comes, as indicated by those staying away. And that is our greatest hope because no one needs a 200-plus seat majority for Labour.
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Spot on.
My sense is that people are utterly frustrated at their inability to influence positive change for the better.
Vote the Tories out and what is Starmer offering? A repeat of Tory policies.
The feeling of hopelessness is frightening.
Just heard Streeting explaining on the Today program why he’s written an article in the Scum stating that simply spending more money on the NHS won’t work as it needs, (wait for it) massive reform.
Apparently labour has to reach out to the Scum and it’s readership because it’s no good just talking to your own side. He then went on to dismiss ‘middle class lefties’ (that’s you and I dealt with then Richard) who won’t countenance NHS reform as being responsible for ‘working class’ people suffering from the state of the NHS because we regard the NHS as some kind of untouchable organisation that doesn’t need reform, and he’s not afraid of using spare capacity in the private sector to make up for problems in the NHS after 14 years of tory government.
So it’s our fault Scum readers are being failed by the NHS! Quite apart from the grovelling capitulation this represents to the appalling Murdoch, does this idiot expect us to vote for his party when he dishes out the same kind of puerile insult to people like you and me and millions of others as the Tories do?
What a choice; appalling Tories or ghastly labour.
See what I just published….
We agree….
I have Richard. Strange way to campaign for an election. Insult many of your own natural supporters. Is being middle class and left wing now a thought crime in today’s Britain? Hated by both the increasingly dreadful main parties?
Apparently, yes
Yes, I too read John Harris’ article over breakfast, and it is indeed prescient and alarming. Especially alarming was Josh Simons (naturally of the right wing faction – that now drives the party – Labour Together) writing the the Express – of all places – amplifying the anti migrant rhetoric. Utterly, utterly appalling. (Josh Simons also had some rather disparaging words to say about Scotland in the autumn – perhaps the SNP can use that in the coming election?!)
Simons represents all that is troubling about Labour right now.
I agree that apathy might result in people not turning out or possibly spoiling their ballot paper instead. You state that although the political parties do not consider there are many options, a part of the public does. But I think the discourse which is apparent on the BBC is also quite negative. Paul Johnson of the IFS is the ‘go to’ person who the BBC ask about economic policy, with a recent emphasis on pensions. His view is that we cannot afford the state pension and that pensioners have never had it so good. He fails to realise that some pensioners do have high incomes but a lot do not. He also seems unaware that a lot of todays pensioners lived through the high unemployment of the 1980s and 90s which not only affected their living standards then but also pension levels. Oddly enough no-one suggests that rather than means test the state pension we could return to higher income tax levels so that affluent pensioners and others could make more of a contribution!
The cult of Paul Johnson is very hard to understand
He’s ok at somethings, undoubtedly. But he really is not good at macro
Apathy? – not necessarily.
The various blogs on water led me to realise that what is needed is a more practical approach to UK problems. Start with the problems (what are we looking at here?) and then outline some possible solutions – look at what was done in the past, discard what did not work, use what did. What could be done differently?
The problem with the current political crop (Tory/LINO/Lib-Dem) is that they look at everything via the ideological lens of “the market”. Market this – market that.
“emotion, stories and narratives about what Britain is”
Nope, what Britain – could be. and what Uk citizens deserve. This does not have to be the usual nonsense of sunlit uplands – but could cover, good (public) services for a fair price, a nice environment, working and affordable public transport, fair pay/a living wage, warm comfortable homes, for all etc etc. I note that none of the main parties offer a narrative like this – which shows that none of them have much interest in UK citizens – well, interest such as it is, is as always, about getting into power. I leave it to Bowie to have the last word (the change from “Fame” to “Power” works rather well).
Power, makes a man take things over
Power, lets him loose, hard to swallow
Power, puts you there where things are hollow
Power, what you like is in the limo
Power, what you get is no tomorrow
Power, what you need, you have to borrow
I find it difficult to square the view that the current set of Conservative governments have implemented extremist free market policies. I can’t see it in housing or child care or energy all of which get ever more expensive the more the government restricts supply and loads on subsidies and regulations.
That’s just how I see it of course, this is how I feel.
But tat is what is extreme about their market view – which is not free amrket at all
I’m at the fag end of a comparatively long life and I don’t remember a time when there was absolutely no opposition to the government.
Labour and Tory, two cheeks of the same arse.
Horrifying that people have so little choice especially in England.
Pligrim Slight Return commented on Chantal Mouffe as an analyst yesterday, in his critique of centrism…and I’d guess liberalism..
She summarises the ‘two cheeks’ argument as:-
“For the liberals an adversary is simply a competitor. The field of politics is for them a neutral terrain in which different groups compete to ‘occupy the positions of power; their objective is merely to dislodge others in order to occupy their place, They do not put into question the dominant hegemony and there is no attempt at profoundly transforming the relations of power. It is merely a competition among elites.”
Foucault and Gramsci are both relevant here as a ‘two swords length’ House of Commons, symbolic of our pretty shabby ‘democracy’, just reinforces that hegemony, as does the whole structure of Westminster. It just does not deliver.
The feebleness of LINO / TCP and its obvious unthinking reinforcement of neoliberalism (and even worse – its blind acceptance of transactionalism, where ALL political choices are identified as a cynical pitch to an individualist homo political economicus) is a deterrent to voting for those of us who want significant institutional reform, at whatever level. It’s not even on the agenda.
Yet the search for reform, overcoming inertia and ‘institutional resistance’ is striking a chord in 2024. And PSR is right. Adopting the lowest common denominator levels of voting reform, or acceptance of MMT will not by themselves provide much, if any systemic change.
All that is on offer is Blarite tinkering – corporate liberalism.
Easily reversible incremental change is just not good enough.
Like so many other folks posting, I feel totally disenfranchised. I have nowhere to go in electoral terms.
I do not want to play the party political game with the current choices, and certainly not without major structural changes.
But I do not know how these can be put on the agenda, let alone achieved.
Voting for independents, protest voting, and spoiling ballot papers are all better than abstention as they require active not passive involvement, but without a focal point, are ultimately defeatist.
I think I’d mostly endorse PSR here, that centrism without some form of radical, transformative movement will not provide the means or impetus to challenge neoliberal hegemony.
We’ve debated liberal philosophies on this blog recently, with special reference to Rawls , and I think Richard’s intention in his proposed book to provide underpinning values to MMT, which is an essential first step in providing a rallying point, (and also fits Marquands analysis in the Unprincipled Society) but unless we have a means of engineering change we are stuck with the present hegemony. I’d hope that weaving the difference principle into an ethical movement with militant intent, might kickstart that. But it’ll be a long haul.
Thanks for the comment
I appreciated your thinking
Please keep them coming
It will be interesting to see how Driscoll does in his mayoral election. He has left the Labour Party behind and is trying to implement better living standards. If that is – as most of us are saying – what people want, then he should win comfortably.
The local elections may well feed the Labour focus group paranoia, if groups of Independents do well. I fear it will lead to ‘more of the same’, i.e. an even more precipitate lurch into right wing territory.
Interestingly, Driscoll has not ‘left the Labour party behind’. They threw him out as a candidate. Hopefully he will demonstrate that they are not as electable as they think they are. However, I sometimes wonder what Driscoll would have done had he been allowed to stand as the Lbour candidate?
Driscoll would’ve done what Burnham does, been a king-in-exile. Starmer’s grip on Labour exists because he – and David Evans – have attacked any potential powerbase or local initiative with venom. Since the chair of appeals is a vicious right winger, being suspended is political limbo, more effective than expulsion; the powers of Regional officials mean they can stamp on any initiative, too. There are forces in waiting but they have no current focus and no power to challenge Starmer, since he altered the rules.
The more I think about this the more frustrated I get.
We have politics without philosophy. We have politics without ideas. We have politics without care or understanding.
We have got a deep state. And it’s a state of mind. A state of mind that’s afraid to do anything that might upset the media, or the wealthy/powerful, or whoever was last identified by a focus group.
If we had had this kind of politics in the past, we would never have introduced universal education, or the NHS, or council housing, or state pensions, or …
I despair.
I like your second para
Richard’s fear of voter apathy at the upcoming general election is understandable, but from a Scottish perspective, the 50+% of Scots who support independence do so because they know how damaging the governance of the UK has been under both Tory and Labour governments, particularly in the last 45 years. That being so, the 50+% are more likely to vote than the disillusioned other 50-% who wish to remain as part of the UK. The 50+% group also understand the economic undermining which is part and parcel of Westminster’s control of Scotland’s economy, so if there is a significant failure of the 50-% group to vote because of their indifference to both Tory and Labour we could see a seismic shift in Scottish politics provided the pro-independence vote isn’t split.
I know Scotland is very different Ken, and I hope you are right.
Richard, I recognise that your knowledge of the political and economic situation in Scotland is miles better than the average Scot’s and I hope I’m right about the potential role of the 50+% too. If only the UK media had your understanding of Scotland we might get reliable broadcasting and news coverage and maybe, just maybe, Penny Mordaunt might stop presenting inaccurate and unevidenced statements about Scotland and its Government than she does unchallenged week-in week-out in the Commons.
What bothers me is that the forthcoming General Election is likely to cause a seismic shift in UK politics and, at present, the SNP is not positioned to take advantage of that. It’s in the middle of its own generational realignment as many very experienced MPs, MSPs and Ministers are likely to step down either imminently or in the course of the next 5 years. Its economic and monetary policies are at best confused and, until clarified, potentially catastrophic, and it has still to come up with concrete plans to devolve powers to local communities. There’s also the matter of SNP’s previous governance and use of funds: the police investigations proceed glacially and the longer it goes on, the more it seems plausible that the whole brouhaha was designed to bring Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP and Scottish Independence down. I view all of these as essential hurdles to be cleared if the public is to be persuaded to vote for independence and, critically, if the public does choose independence, for the safe governance of a new nation.
GE 2024/25 could present us with an open goal, but we’ve got an unhappy history of missing them by the barrowload.
The SNP really does need to remember what it is for, and why
The Sturgeon years made many at the top in it far too comfortable and remote