I have never lived through a national election like this one. I cannot recall a national election in my lifetime where the only question for voters was who they disliked least.
There have certainly been moments in the past when incumbent governments were so disliked that their defeat was clearly inevitable, but such times were accompanied by at least some hope and optimism for a rival to topple the government.
Now, this conclusion is inescapable, both from polling evidence that shows there is little enthusiasm for Sir Keir Starmer to become prime minister in what is seen as a presidential election, and from anecdotes and word of mouth, which are often more accurate.
Apart from vested interests in the public sector and trade unions (some of whom seem to condition their support on the promise of more powers), voters don’t seem to like the Labour Party or its leader very much, but they will vote for them anyway.
The fact that Labour’s policy statements are vague and its goals banal doesn’t faze them, because they’re not interested in it at all. Labour’s only role is to act as a blunt instrument to defeat the Conservatives. This applies equally to the Reform Party, which might be better off changing its name to Revenge.
This resentment must be acknowledged and resolved through the electoral process, but before we enter the dark world of being ruled by people nobody wants, it is important to examine this phenomenon because it is the most serious threat to a healthy democracy in the post-war era. What is happening in the UK is not unique.
Most of the Western governments that governed through the pandemic’s last few years are being ousted, sometimes with severe consequences that could never have been foreseen just a decade ago.
The politics of the developed world, once known as the free world, are in turmoil, as peoples who had absorbed the terrible lessons of the 20th century and who once seemed to have put aside fanatical demagogues and nationalistic hatred are once again at the mercy of them.
What is going on here? Day-to-day conditions for most people in this country – including groups that consider themselves unfairly disadvantaged – should not be as bad as they were in the 1970s, when, for example, the electricity periodically went out, public transport frequently ground to a complete halt in nationwide strikes, and my generation had to deal with catastrophic interest rate hikes and soaring inflation.
Of course there are real challenges and frustrations, particularly regarding the prospect of homeownership, a key part of becoming an independent adult, but this overwhelming anger is grossly out of proportion to the circumstances of everyday life.
The defining complaint is that “nothing is working” – this applies almost exclusively to the public sector, and no one in government seems capable of fixing it – the assumption is that the ruling party is either totally incompetent or indifferent to the needs of ordinary people.
This resentment is compounded by the inability of either the Conservatives, who have been in power, or the Labour Party, who have been the official opposition, to tell the truth: government policies designed to deal with the energy crisis caused by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have bankrupted the economy.
By confining people to their homes and paying them not to work, the potential for new wealth creation was destroyed, so governments printed huge amounts of money which devalued the currency. Energy prices were subsidized with further funds from the Treasury.
But the blame for this disaster does not lie solely with the ruling party: Labour was not only complicit in these plans, it was enthusiastic about them: Sir Keir, in fact, wanted to lock down earlier, lock down further and lock down for longer.
No respectable mainstream political voice argued that the economic and social damage caused by this decision to close the country, and thereby disable all mechanisms of productive, wealth-generating activity, could be devastating.
And no one in the governing class is yet ready to say that repairing this damage will require sacrifices of a kind that modern voters are not accustomed to.
You can’t fund public services without raising taxes, and raising taxes is a sure way to crush the potential for new wealth creation, making Labour’s pro-growth pledge meaningless.
For the democratic process to regain credibility, someone must come clean. After two years of a government underfunded and spending non-existent, egged on by the opposition, the day of reckoning has finally come.
This truth that no one dares to utter now coincides with a new era in public discourse: social media has opened channels for the spread of completely irresponsible, often false, and pathologically vicious content.
Armies of trolls, sometimes robotically generated, roam the fringes, largely unmonitored, spewing a barrage of hate speech and blatant deception on an overwhelming scale from sources that cannot be verified or tracked.
The Centre for Policy Research published a report last week that said this could be the first “deepfake election”, in which fake video clips of politicians making harmful statements are spread online.
Stoking hatred and distrust is the goal of this vile new game, and there is only one way to stop it: for politicians to tell the truth.
We need Churchill’s voice to deliver the message of blood, sweat and tears, which will at least be a tribute to the intelligence of our people: there are no easy solutions to our current problems.
I will ask you to make sacrifices and accept some disappointment, and remember that we have always survived as a nation by facing difficult times with courage and resourcefulness.
But it may already be too late.
