Newspaper columnists are queueing up to speculate upon the demise of the Conservative party. Most are presuming that the latest opinion polls, suggesting that the party will get significantly fewer than 100 seats in the next parliament, might be right. Even the wildest optimists on that party's behalf are questioning whether it might ever recover from the shock that this election, and the public reaction to 14 years of outright incompetence, might deliver.
Please forgive me if I do not mourn the demise of an organisation that has been, overall, so profoundly harmful to the well-being of this country. If the Tories can be identified for having done anything, apart from Brexit, it would be for opposing every single social reform of any consequence for many decades, if not centuries.
Forgive me too for not celebrating its demise when it is apparent that this might only be happen because the Labour Party has now morphed into what the Tories once were, with every prejudice against the majority of people in this country having been adopted by that supposedly left-of-centre party along the way. The reality is that the Tory party has not gone away. It has just changed its name.
And, whilst we are at it, let's note that the one third of the country that always appears to be inclined to vote for the denial of any form of rights or representation for the majority of people in the UK still exists. All that has happened is that their support is now divided between Reform and the Tories, with the former now having a chance of beating the Conservatives in terms of total voter share in the forthcoming election.
But what has really happened? One of the best explanations comes from John Burn-Murdoch in the FT today. He is a data specialist possessed of the ability to contextually interpret his findings in ways that are compelling. His article in today's FT includes this chart:
He notes three things. The first is that in two thirds of all opinion polls since 2010 Labour has been in the lead, but that they have not turned that into victories, so far.
Second, the 2019 victory was obviously out of character. There was a desire to close the Brexit chapter and Corbyn alienated some voters. Boris Johnson had his moment. And then everything fell apart. This was not due to any one event. Truss did not create or even change the trajectory. The collapse was because, as Burn Murdoch puts it, the Tories had a choice. They could either promote populism or what he calls deliverism, by which he means actually getting things done.
The Tories have throughout their period in office chosen populism. Election rhetoric always worked for them, and somehow kept them in office, except, that is, until Johnson made it very clear that they had never delivered, from which point their support has collapsed.
The change in the Tory's fortunes has, in other words, come about because the rhetoric has clearly failed, and been trumped by the reality of failure. For the true believers there is now Reform. For the older voter who cannot change the habit of a lifetime, the Tory party is still there. For all those who care about what government does the Conservatives have nothing left to offer because they have never made a promise they can deliver and it is now very apparent that they will not.
On a morning when a swing to the Right has been seen across Europe, this idea is very important.
It's also vital to recall that the right-wing rhetoric of the parties winning in Europe is deeply conflicted. The libertarians do not agree with the authoritarians. The free traders hate the isolationists. The pro-Europeans, like the Italian far-right, cannot abide the French anti-Europeans of Le Pen. And everywhere the right is either not delivering, or is only succeeding in crushing dissent. I am not convinced that will, eventually, work in a digital age, and that's because eventually, as is happening in the UK, people will notice this inability of the right to deliver. All they are good for is populist rhetoric.
That said, here in the UK we have to note that Labour is now a conservative party, even if it is not the party of that name. It is now populist. It is not promising to deliver almost anything. It is in denial of the duty of any government to protect the most vulnerable. It seeks to appease markets above all else. It is pandering to wealth. In other words, it too plans not to deliver.
How, then does Burn-Murdoch's chart extrapolate? I suggest that the pattern for the next five years is going to look very like that for the last five. Labour will sweep in and then see its support evaporate, steadily and decisively, as its own choice not to deliver becomes apparent to a population desperate for government who are only being offered noise by politicians incapable of delivering anything else.
The question, in that case, is not what will happen now. We know the answer to that. The question to ask now is what happens in 2029, if Starmer gets that far?
People are not going to forget Tory failure that quickly.
Nor are they going to forgive Labour if it really does not, as seems likely, deliver almost anything of substance because of its fear of creating money.
So, who fills the void then?
I don't think it is the right. Their appeal is too limited. There are few votes to be had there that are not already declared to be for them. Instead the issue is what happens on the left, which has won most opinion polls since 2010. It's a moderately left of centre government that most people want. Labour has abandoned that scene. So who fills the gap? This is going to be the question for the next five years unless Labour suddenly changes tack between now and then.
We're in for a mighty political ride.
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I feel you may be correct. I hope to goodness that you are not.
I think you’ve comprehensively covered all flavours and axes of types of government across an entire continent there and found all of them wanting. There has to be a lesson in that.
There is. Neoliberalism has failed.
Neoliberalism is a term used by some, mainly on the left of the political spectrum, to describe a political and economic ideology that emphasises the importance of free markets, individual liberty, and limited government intervention in the economy.
Definitely failed has that.
Phil Burton Cartledge was predicting the demise of the Tories years ago, since before the 2019 election. He has a recent book entitled ‘The Party’s Over’ and blogs here https://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/. Might be of interest to some?
Working on the basis that LINO win. One of the things they have promised and will probably deliver is lots more renewables & specifically off-shore wind.
The other statement they have made is to support “builders not blockers”. National Grid proposes to expand the (on-shore) transmission network by 4x.
Some of this can be done via technology (dynamic line rating and carbon-cored conductors). Much will be done by the accelerated construction of new transmission systems in rural areas. The rural areas are unhappy with the propsect of lots more lines.
The point? People’s memories are short, give it two years, massive unhappiness in rural areas and what is left of the Tories using this as a lever to regain support.
Stranger things have happened.
There is an alternative to all of the above – but Nat Grid is against it and LINO have painted themsleves into a corner with “there is no money”.
Quite so
Typo 2nd para? “Please forgive me if I do *not* mourn the demise of an organisation…”
Corrected.
Thanks
That was edited too many times
If you look at the Burns-Murdoch Chart; Conservatives, 2017-19, and continue it to today (by inspection – I do no posses the data to do the regression stats); you will note that – broadly – it does not seem that it is very different from where the Conservatives would have been, had Boris Johnson not arrived. What this suggests to me is that our politics 2017-2024 is the anomaly. The trend was set in 2017. How did that trend start; I hypothesise one thing – Brexit.
What does all this mean? FPTP depends on a Westminster cartel (a discreet conspiracy by Conservative and Labour against Parliament and people). Take the conservatives away, and out pops a foundation stone for the Cartel conspiracy. Just push it over.
Then we can start on Brexit …..
Mr Warren – indeed.
The recent non-debate showed Mordaunt & Rayner laughing and joking after the event – chums, part of a club.
I think we can all agree that the near 45 year neoliberal experiment has demonstrably failed with catastrophic consequences for the UK and all Western economies that have adopted it.
My hope for the UK is that if Labour get elected with around a 400 seat majority two things may happen.
First, with such a large majority Labour’s ministers will not be fighting the Tories on a day to day basis they will be able to concentrate on their briefs and they may disciver the ways and means account and come to realise how money can be created out of thin air.
Second, with such a large majority despite Starmer purging the left there will be a cadre of left wing MPs who will push and agitate for legislation with a scintilla of imagination and creativity that may grow more popular in a very short space of time.
Indeed I hope the real opposition to Starmer comes from neither the Tories or the Lib Dems but from within the Labour Party itself.
We’ve just seen a massive surge in the far right and fascistic groups in many European countries. France. Italy and Germany now all have very powerful right wing sectors politically. The UK is almost a bit player in the European scene in terms of the rise of rthe far right.
The foundation for this success is neoliberal hegemony, and corporatism, and I have been convinced by Chantal Mouffe’s analysis.
Her she expresses the dangers of convergence of centrist neoliberalism and lack of differentiation with that consensus.. There seems to be no coherent grouping of post Keynesian democratic socialist parties, outside the Scandi social democracies, whio have also had a regrowth of racism and neofascism, in some small measure.
” the strong appeal of ‘anti-establishment’ parties is due to the incapacity of established democratic parties to put forward significant alternatives and….this can only be grasped within the context of the consensual mode of politics prevalent today.”
“The growing success of populist parties provides an excellent illustration of ….. the absence of an agonistic debate among democratic parties, a confrontation between different politicaI projects, (so that) voters (do) not have the possibility of identifying with a differentiated range of democratic political identities.
This created a void that was likely to be occupied by other forms of identifications which could become problematic for the working of the democratic system.”
I can offer no immediate solution, except to express the hope that the democratic left needs to coalesce around the politics of sustainable development, equitable distributuon and soclal equality.
This weekend we’ve just seen a massive surge in the far right and fascistic groups in many European countries.
France. Italy and Germany now all have very powerful right wing sectors politically.
The UK is almost a bit player in the European scene in terms of the rise of rthe far right.
The foundation for this success is neoliberal hegemony, and corporatism, and I have been convinced by Chantal Mouffe’s analysis.
Her she expresses the dangers of convergence of centrist neoliberalism and lack of differentiation with that consensus.. There seems to be no coherent grouping of post Keynesian democratic socialist parties, outside the Scandi social democracies, whio have also had a regrowth of racism and neofascism, in some small measure.
” the strong appeal of ‘anti-establishment’ parties is due to the incapacity of established democratic parties to put forward significant alternatives and….this can only be grasped within the context of the consensual mode of politics prevalent today.”
“The growing success of populist parties provides an excellent illustration of ….. the absence of an agonistic debate among democratic parties, a confrontation between different politicaI projects, (so that) voters (do) not have the possibility of identifying with a differentiated range of democratic political identities.
This created a void that was likely to be occupied by other forms of identifications which could become problematic for the working of the democratic system.”
I can offer no immediate solution, except to express the hope that the democratic left needs to coalesce around the politics of sustainable development, equitable distributuon and soclal equality.
“There seems to be no coherent grouping of post Keynesian democratic socialist parties, outside the Scandi social democracies”
Unfortunately, the Scandi social democrat parties have all swerved rightwards and adopted the privatisation and neoliberal approach. As a consequence, they have lost much support and seen the rise of support for nationalistic, very right wing parties. And yet the social democrats continue on their self-destructive path.
Not so sure there is a void to fill. The Tories will collapse and move even further to the right. (Either Tories will join Reform, or Reform will join the Tory rump, T-rump?) and Labour will move into the space left by the Tories.
All that will change is that Labour will continue to be pulled further to the right, but by Reform rather than Tory .
Any void will be the same void we’ve had for half a century, that is, politics devoid of the last vestiges of social democracy
So there is a void then
I think we need to stop trying to frame the chaos of modern politics in the simple-minded ‘left-right’ binary division; based on our narrow historical perspective, based on a two hundred and fifty year old conceptual socio-political separation established in the French Revolution, and given a refinement by the industrialisation era, between property/capital and worker/labour; sharpened and expanded by class distinctions, and class politics as a solution. Capital has survived, but everything else has gone. Now the central tension in the West is with globalisation, and the disruption it visits on nations states; combined with a massive world movement of populations accelerated by globalisation, and the globalised digital revolution. This is a different world from the antiquated rubbish on which our politics focuses, and the nonentities who pretend they can make it work.
Capital remains and adapts as it always does, and the only other ever present is not some left/right ideology, but what really holds us back: the world is full of crooks and gangsters, more often in our midst, pretending they are something else, and succeeding.
We are not going anywhere with this language of the past. I read this thread and see only that we are going round in diminishing circles. Forget the ideology. Look beyond it. I do not say this because I understand all this, and have the answer; but I can see when we are slowly losing the plot, and in britain we have already lost the plot.
Point acceoted
But that is part of the ride we are on…
Mr Warren, one of the best posts/analyses I have read in some time.
Talking to my political group last night I had a rant about “left – right” & posed the question: “so are hungry kids a left – right issue or are they just hungry?” Silence.
There are some partial answers: localism/Community XXX coupled to circular economy (build stuff to last – & for on-site maintenance) etc. Small stuff but could start to make a difference. Left – right offers nothing & I agree, it is out-of-date.
We shouldn’t be riding this horse; we should be showing how it can be led.
Led somewhere constructive, and under democratic control. It isn’t going to happen with all this pointless political noise in Britain, when it is clear the Parties and politicians are quite obviously out of their depth, and everybody (including those being manipulated by Trumpists) can see it.
I have written here in the past the point that Trumpism started in the Tea Party; and the Tea Party began in outrage against Washington. I could have been anti-Bush, because it was caused by the financial crash; but they blamed Obama, because Obama’s Treasury betrayed Main Street (think Bedford Falls, think Jimmy Stewart), and they never forgot. I cannot here write an essy on the detail – read Neil Barofsky, ‘Bail-Out: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Mainst Street While Rescuing Wall Street’. That was Obama’s Treasury. That is the origins of Trump. It always happens that way; decent people do nothing, and opportunists seize the day.
We can see from the Post Office scandal, just how weak people become under any institutional pressure at all.
Mr Parr, thanks for that supportive comment; it is appreciated. Instead of immediately framing any issue in left-right terms; we only need to ask two questions:
1) What is the problem? (and ensure the problem is not being selected by a politician, or political party – they survive by a special form of selectivity of facts they can bend).
2) What is the best way to fix the problem? (and ensure the fix is not being selected by a politician, or political party – they survive by a special form of selectivity of facts they can bend).
Democratic socialism, with PR a plank of the programme, seems the only way to go positively. The left is full of little factions and grifters currently, and there is no kernel for a DSP. It needs one domino to fall – either someone/people to gain a foothold (e.g. by Independents of that ilk coalescing) or a significant defector. The centre left is there in the population with no real representation currently.
I can’t see any party filling the void when LINO fail. Rather, people will lose what little faith they have left in democracy, then all bets are off. What definitely WON’T ensue is the orderly society based around market principles, which neoliberals thought they were creating.
You are being too kind and naive. They definitely didn’t think, or indeed care, about making an orderly society based around market principles. They were just taking the money.
@Martin,
Hmm.. I think people like Hayek, Mises and even Thatcher did believe something of the kind, but you’re right about the opportunist grifters who’ve succeeded them.
I think you over estimate the insight of Hayek, for example; or the way in which he was extremely confused about the role of law in a free market society, and “letting the players play”; a phrase that has followed his legacy. It fits every financial crash and economic bust to which neoliberalism has led. He tried to reconcile that idea of letting the player play, however for a market economy and its reconciliation with the rule of law, which he believed could be done because of the reliance of law itself on a spontaneous order of custom and natural evolution, in conformity to his idea of freedom. In the ‘Constitution of Liberty’ he does, however follow the evolutionary theses of Smith or Ferguson in his application of law, because they “knew that it required the artifices of institutions and traditions to reconcile the conflicts of interest” (Ch.4, p.118) that arise. The artifices, however were not necessarily the result of spontaneous order, but there to protect society, and freedom from the conflicts adapting themselves to establish a spontaneous order of corruption (which fits rather well the age in which we live). Smith and Ferguson understood this; Hayek coneniently, and quickly – forgot.
Instead The Mont Pelerin Society set out calculatedly to take over the politics and economic theory of Capitalism (which has never had any intrinsic ‘standards’, but always serves its own interests – spontaneous order is not essentially ‘moral’); not by proof of the wisdom of their dubious reliance on what the older Hayek turned into an ideological theory, over the fundamental priority of observation of the world and phenomena as they are, over theory; but rather in targeting the ivy league Law Schools in the US, and the young law students there (who, of course understood little about economics) as ripe for conversion. That was how it was done. The rest is history. Law and lawyers in the service of neoliberalism.
Well we all have our points of view. Personally I don’t see it. Thanks.
@ John S Warren
TBC, I don’t attribute any “insight” to the likes of Hayek, who’ve always been useful idiots for plutocrats IMO.
Thanks for clearing that up.
Thanks, the idea that “deliverism” is the converse to populism is quite illuminating. Clarifying that populism is no more than empty talk.
Whether that axis could replace the conventional right-left axis isn’t clear though. It would certainly offer a good way for Biden – and for that matter Starmer – to present themselves since they really aren’t on the left. (Of course whether Starmer is capable of delivering anything is unknown, but he needs the opportunity; Biden has some sort of track record despite his difficulties with Congress).
Hi Richard,
I think the analysis deliberately misses the real reasons for our politics, and that is propaganda. I say deliberately, because it is not something the ruling classes want to talk about. Propaganda, essentially the MSM, determined the outcome of the 2015, 2017 and 2019 elections. That is where power lies, in the uk. Starmer is simply a placeholder.
After 2024, MSM will rehabilitate the Tories, and denigrate Starmer and Tories will be back in power in 2029.
The only solution is not to elect either LibLabConRef to a majority, but a hung parliament, with sufficient independents to demand concessions (most importantly PR).
Right now, MSM is platforming Farage, but not Galloway, leaders debates only happening with LabCon, multi party debates downgraded to deputies of LabCon. They simply have to get Starmer in. You are being told there is only 1 of 2 outcomes, so vote for the least worst.
What comes next, is worse than you can imagine!
Regards
If you think the declining media is that powerful you are wrong
Powerful, yes
But in a digital age not that powerful
Have to agree wholeheartedly Sean. MSM are very powerful whether in print or digital. They are on the toolbar of every laptop in the land. They have significant influence in what they want the voter to know.
But you are commenting here
I have been struggling for some weeks to get my thoughts together on all of this. Quite frankly I find it deeply deeply depressing.
Your piece here really has laid it all out, spot on I would say.
I can’t help coming back to the old saying ‘turkeys voting for Christmas’, I’m not fond of using such expressions but it does seem apposite. It also seems that with those steadfast in their tory vote simply giving the reason that Labour will be worse.
Capital, like the Catholic Church, does adapt over the years to social change maybe sooner than the Catholics and avoiding major scandals like the sexual abuse that was covered up for decades, if not centuries, by Rome. However, can capital now face up to the coming climate catastrophe? The amount of capital needed for the investment in renewable energy conservation and supporting infrastructure is vast and the present major leaders or representatives of capital are either in thrall to the extreme right climate deniers or the soft pedalling “moderate” others.
Once the public realises the grave situation we are in, with the increase in large scale flooding, drought, heat waves like the tragic Canicule in Paris in 2003 when hundreds of old people trapped in non air conditionined flats, lost their lives, there could be a turn by voters to the Greens who as well as focusing on climate and environment have a positive social programme and are not afraid of taxing the rich. Looking at the many Gren election posters up in Bristol Central constituency it looks like once the Green message gets through, the public responds by giving them their vote as the other parties appear to be totally oblivious or content with just timid greenwashing policies.
Thank you, everyone.
@ John S Warren: Thank you and well said.
I was at the City’s main trade body at the time and worked with stakeholders around the world, including US regulators and took a keen interest in US matters. A few days before Citi’s nationalisation (“conservatorship” as nationalisation is a swear word in the US unless its for risk), colleagues and I were briefed on it by US officials as market reaction needed to be gauged.
Let’s start with Obama’s cabinet as per https://wallstreetonparade.com/2016/10/wikileaks-citigroup-exec-gave-obama-recommendation-of-hillary-for-state-eric-holder-for-doj/.
When Obama ran for the state, not federal, senate, some black activists called out his property developer backing. Obama married a Daly family precinct captain’s / Democrat Party machine daughter. They still are as Obama tries to get his “presidential library”, or not as it really is, built.
For his run in 2008, Obama raised more money from Wall Street than his opponents, as per https://www.politico.com/story/2009/01/wall-street-invested-heavily-in-obama-017643 .
Sheila Bair*, head of the US depositor protection and bank liquidator body (FDIC), had long rang the alarm about Citi and wanted the bank broken up and refocused on domestic finance. Bair, a Republican, also wanted much bolder reform. Obama wanted nothing to do with any of that, a missed opportunity, and put a Democrat, Martin Gruenberg, in charge.
In 2009, Obama’s adviser Christina Romer* wanted a bigger package and one aimed at Main Street, but Obama was swayed by the likes of Tim Geithner, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers.
Romer and Bair were sidelined. That reminded me of CTFC boss Brooksley Born* raised the alarm about derivatives and commodity trading in the 1990s and Clinton, again advised by Rubin, Summers and Geithner, sidelined her and even had a law enacted to prevent regulation.
*All women.
We are still living with the consequences of 2008 and even the Clinton regime. Wall Street deregulation took off under Clinton.
John Warren, Mike Parr, it seems to me you might be onto something important here.
Could it be that the very existence of parties is the problem? Maybe a government should govern on the basis of principles rather than on the ragbag of ideology it has accumulated over decades or longer? First decide your underlying principles – fairness, efficiency, feasability, whatever and then apply them to the problem at hand? Government from first principles, you could call it.
It’s probably unrealistic in practice – to have to start from scratch while trying to actually govern a country, but as a thought experiment it might have some promise. John Rawl’s “A theory of Justice” might be a good starting point.
https://aeon.co/videos/beyond-the-veil-what-rules-would-govern-john-rawlss-realistic-utopia
I have, in fact written numerous comments here on several threads, arguing that the most critical problem in our political system is the primacy of Party. Political Party in Government is the source of sovereign power, with surprisingly few checks and balances; and placed constantly in that critical fulcrum point, Party has a predisposition to corruption, because so much is at stake and humans, exposed to pressures easily succumb. Such centres of power as Party also inevitably attract all the people you do not want exercising power over you; most of all the over-ambitious, and least scrupulous. It follows as night follows day.
It is forgotten that Party is essentially a (relatively) modern invention. We still vote for individuals in constituencies, not Parties; it is the remnant of an older, local system. Political Parties, especially as formal, centralised institutions insinuated themselves by stealth into the Parliamentary system. Hume saw the loose, fluid associations of Whig and Tory in the 18th century were potentially lethal as they developed, because they relied wholly on factionalising politics. Politics is tribal and dogmatic because Parties need unquestioning loyalty to control Parliament (and the history of modern Party is embedded in easy and decisive, self-serving binary distinctions: capital and labour).
In the 21st century the old tribalisms have been destroyed; first by neoliberalism, then globalisation, by the digital revolution; and even convulsions like Covid, or the perturbations caused by major movements of population. We now have Centralised Political Parties who have no core, substantive base of support (save in Britain the fag end of a gerontocracy clinging on to a world that no longer exists). Party now operates entirely on its own account, in its own interest; and it seeks power to further its institutional survival, based on the patronage power bestows. It attracts the wrong people, for the wrong purposes.
I do not have a post-Party solution; but we have to start thinking about it, because the Party system is out of electoral control, and operating exclusively in its own interest. It isn’t your interest, which registers very low on Party priorities. They have found ways (particularly through Brexit, how to manipulate digital media). PR, with power returned directly to the voter would make a major difference, but does not possess all the answers. Party, as Hume understood so well, is essentially corrupt. It can’t help itself.
The FPTP system serves a two Party system; a cartel. Notice that when devolution to Scotland could not be resisted any more by 1999; PR was selected by the Westminster Parties for Holyrood; solely to “dish the Nats”, not to serve the electorate. Westminster was terrified of the SNP having the same control over Holyrood, that the Two Party Cartel already had in Westminster. They were still terrified, however so adopted the de Hondt list system form of PR. The whole point of the list system was to ensure that Political Parties alone choose who is on the list; and the Party selected the list candidate directly, and not the voter. The point of an STV system is to ensure Party does not control who is elected, but the voter. The list system makes it easier for Westminster Parties to parachute leaders into Holyrood seats; because they rarely have to fight to win. Ruth Davidson was a list MSP until late in her career (by which time she had an established public media advantage over constituency opponents)
John Warren,
A post-party solution – now that would be something.
Thank you.
The massive elephant in the room is the ongoing, overlapping catastrophes that are imminent, with the worst being the climate catastrophe, with also pollution, biodiversity loss, shortages of vital minerals, waves of immigration from countries that are becoming uninhabitable. And of course colonialist wars, which the US hegemon and its poodles (like UK) are losing.
Starmer and his gang have no ideas, and these events will drop on them from a great height.