Rish! and The Tories exposed as desperate and shameless after only two weeks.
I write this after two weeks of an already dismal and depressing election campaign – almost a third of the way through. Nothing much has shifted in terms of the polls – Labour are still a country mile in front and the Conservatives are still resolutely useless. So much so that my ingrained fear of the media establishment lying the Conservatives back to power, reinforced by enduring many unsuccessful campaigns in the past, has not really kicked in. I should be sitting back enjoying the campaign assured of victory, but I’m not. First, it’s extremely depressing watching a series of Tory ministers (or at least the few that are still standing ) lie their way through interviews, knowing that the supine interviewers will not call them out on their lies.
Second, unlike 1997, we are deprived of the delicious prospect of watching one grotesque Tory criminal after another being trounced by tactical voting. The biggest of beasts is vulnerable to ending their career in a rerun of the Portillo moment, shuffling from foot to foot in a drafty sports centre, as bepearled supporters sob uncontrollably. It’s petty and unworthy, I know, but it’s been the only thing keeping me going since 2010. Who would give the most pleasure? Jacob Rees Mogg? Michael Gove? Priti Patel? Cruella Braverman? Mark Francois? Andrea Jenkyns. Dear me, even reading the list sends a shiver down the spine, as the full depth and breadth of the Tory fuckwittery is laid bare. Deeply stupid. Deepy incompetent. Deeply callous. In some cases, vaguely criminal.
The trouble is that evolution has not produced a creature with a more acute nose for danger to their own self interest than the average sitting Tory MP. They’ve known for at least the past year that their days are numbered, and so they grandly announce their intention to stand down, citing privilege and honour, having made sure that they have secured a lucrative directorship or three of some businesses involved in their area of ministerial “expertise”. No reckoning for these charlatans after all. Michael Gove, taken by surprise by Rishi’s shock election call, didn’t even tell him he wasn’t going to stand. His announcement that he was standing down produced the most extraordinary paeans of praise for this supposed modern day titan of Westminster. The bar is set very low indeed if Gove is a titan. Coke head, drinker, lickspittle, his main achievement is proclaimed by the Torygraph and The Spectator as the rescuing of Education from the clutches of the Blob, all, supposedly in the name of “Standards”. Standards my arse, as Jim Royle might have commented. Now there’s someone who would have made a better Education Secretary than Gove. Along with Pingu, and Ant and Dec. What an interview shortlist that would have made.
The other source of pleasure denied, of course, is the prospect of an incoming Labour government that would begin the herculean task of repairing the damage created by 14 years of incompetence, greed and corruption. But unlike 1997, when there was real excitement at the end of Thatcherism, and what a Blair government could achieve, there is no similar joy or hope. Starmer has continued to disappoint and, lately, enrage. Before any of you Labour centrists explode, ranting about middle class Corbynistas threatening to jeopardize the Starmer project and thus betray “hard working families”, let me explain. (And don’t worry by the way about non-working, non families. No-one gives a toss about them. It’s their own fault.)
I absolutely get the strategy of saying virtually nothing and making no commitments that might give the Tories an easy target. We’ve been shafted too many times before by The Sun and the Mail. But what Starmer has done has gone way beyond that, way beyond what might reasonably be deemed sensible and cautious. Their policies have gone to the right of the Tory party. Watering down of the Green deal. Processing immigrants overseas. Keeping the 2 child benefit cap. Not nationalising Water, Energy, Rail etc. Not talking about Europe and the single market. Not talking about PR. The list is endless – a Mandelson-advised Labour party outflanking the Tories on the right. Who’d have thought it?
There does seem to be a genuine prospect that the Conservative Party might split after the election. Whereas before that would have been a reason for celebration, now it would just be a bit of schadenfreude. Why? Because there’s no need for the Tory Party, given the transformation of Starmer’s Labour. The Tories, who had via Brexit turned into the English National party, can split asunder. The knuckle draggers will migrate to Reform UK, who are basically the Nazis with fewer policies. The Tories who represent seats in leafy Middle England will join Labour. Socialists and even mildly left of centre libs will join the Greens. And this inexorable drift to the populist Right will continue unchecked unless Labour is deprived of a majority and PR somehow gets itself back on the table. And at the moment, that doesn’t seem likely.
This is the mother of all own goals. After what has happened since 2010, the appetite for socialist policies in poll after poll is enormous. They are clearly popular and different to the tired old policy sacred cows that derive from redundant concepts of sound money. The trouble is you have to make the case for them over time, and in doing so, debunk the hysterical name calling that promises of increased public sector spending always provokes. But the leadership don’t really seem to believe in it any more. Despite Starmer bizarrely self identifying as a – gulp – socialist. I’m still trying to work out the Machiavellian calculations that lie behind that announcement. Perhaps he just forgot.
The latest talking point is of Rishi Sunak taking politics and his own reputation into the gutter by his deliberate, desperate and blatant lies on tax. As ever with Rishi, despite the endearing flutter of excitement amongst the Media attack dogs on the night of the first debate, it’s all gone pear shaped twelve hours later. Everything he touches turns to dust, and I predict that before the end of the campaign, there will be major defections and open warfare amongst the Tories. It really couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people.
It was to be expected, of course. The Forty five year Thatcherite experiment has produced a shed load of evidence of its own spectacular failure. In every area of governance, Britain is significantly worse than it was in 2010. You only have to walk through your local town centre to see it with your own eyes. And you’d have to walk because it’s too hard to get a bus or a train. Even they can’t defend the rising tide of shit their ideology has generated, so the only thing left is to lie about it. And they’re not even very good at that, apart from their lack of shame. They are certainly world leaders at that.
I am still undecided, but currently The Greens are making it hard for me to vote Labour, but I suspect I’ll wait until the July 4th and assess the state of play then. The way things are going , I’ll be able to vote Green with a clear conscience, knowing that Labour’s majority is unthreatened. Labour’s continuation of right wing policies, their timidity on economics, their disgraceful position on Gaza and Israel’s genocidal madness make it increasingly hard to support them. Ultimately though, I take the Mick Lynch line on this: the very worst iteration of a Labour government is a hundred times better than the very best iteration of a Tory one. But it’s getting very close.
Hold the Front Page! Latest Tory haplessness – just before going to press the D Day scandal was breaking. Sunak’s crack team of advisors have outdone themselves this time. I’m starting to believe a tweet I read that suggested that the only rational explanation for their campaign’s increasing level of incompetence is the idea that Rish! has got a hedge bet on that depends on him losing the election by achieving less than 100 MPs. It’s delicious – the ultimate vaccuous flag shaggers hoisted by their own petard by the Dad’s Army propaganda sheets, The Torygraph, The Mail, The Sun and The Express.
More ramblings from the election battleground next week.
The Old Grey Owl 