Five wannabes pitching half considered solutions to specifically
personalised problems with no basis in fact on either side of the conversation
seems to me a perfect metaphor for the current level of political thought
within the UK.
We heard from two Conservative deserters, a party political
opening in which the candidates outbid each other to offer olive branches to,
well, whatever it was that the men from wherever wanted. We sat through
platitudes thrown to a foster mother asking where the safety net for those in
her care had gone, witnessed a 15 year old being patronised over climate change
and an Imam rendered nameless by Boris. A contributor from Northern Ireland was
told bombs can be neutralised by untested technology. After an hour of vague
assertion punctuated by wild claims and shifting alliances nothing was resolved.
Emily Maitlis, the moderator, wrapped things up with a weariness that echoed my
own.
In the course of the hour billions were spent, trickle down
economics, (that thoroughly disproven 80’s re-release), was reborn without
comment and the statements and legal decisions of a host of European countries
were tossed into a bin marked ‘bovvered’. Casual racism was blustered over with
the now pat apology to anyone offended, not for offending.
Rory Stewart, the ghost of Conservative future, attempted to
ground the debate from time to time but without success. All ended the debate
on the bummest note, denying that an unelected PM would represent anything
other than the shining democratic model that they purported to idealise. The
subtext of party before country broke through in several responses.
This is not solely the fault of those in the studio. Whether
Blair and Cameron’s triangulation, May’s direct appeals to the ‘ordinary people’
or Corbyn’s sheaf of letter at PMQs. British politics is now in a vice of its own
making. Trapped within the disconnect marked ‘elites’ that began with the
expenses scandal and has rumbled on ever since, politicians are now so scared
of the court of public opinion that difficult answers are removed from the
process. A public so distrustful of politicians that any rejection of their demands constitutes 'elitism' is a perversion of democracy that ends in
tragedy.
Brexit is the logical endgame of this, the ultimate
expression of the ‘will of the people’ that, when considered sensibly, is
devoid of meaning. Leave how? To what extent? For what purpose? The idea of a
binary vote being capable of expressing the desire of 17.4 million, let alone
53 million is a nonsense. Yet it is a nonsense that is now enshrined as the
driving principle of government and the sole consideration of the Conservative
Party.
Media coverage perpetuates this. Roaming the country to find
angry voices, a cacophony of ‘what about us?’ screeches through everything, drowning
out reason whilst allowing the levels of farce displayed last night to
continue.
Previous moments in our history that bear comparison offer
no happy solutions to this impasse.
The convulsions of the English Civil War, in reality a
British civil war, resonate to this day and only saw a partial resolution with
the imposition of a new royal line pliant to a rewriting of the concept of
monarchy allied to an imperial expansion that drove up living standards and
replaced internal anger with external might. The 1920’s and 30’s of left and
right, of Cable Street and General Strike were finally subsumed by the
emergence of a greater threat, a bogeyman we could all believe in. The Soviets served
a similar purpose in the post war period.
Anyone wishing to continue to see some light in all this
requires both immense faith and much fortitude. To return to a place where
reality drives decision making, compromise is at the heart of policy and the
subjugation of individual will to collective good is accepted by all seems as illusory as a seamless no deal exit or an increase in public spending allied to
tax cuts. Yet the former is a force for good, the latter a chimera whose
failure will only fuel further resentment and drive more to the arms of extremists.
For those who genuinely believe in a democratic future the road will be long
and winding.
