We all know the routine: we see it a lot these days. The leader of the opposition says the economy is in a mess, statistics show that living standards are falling, public sector debt is rising and it’s all the government’s fault. The prime minister responds that global forces are hurting people around the world, he is taking the tough but necessary steps to deal with them, and statistics show that Britain is doing better than other countries.
Exactly the same could be said in the wake of the financial crisis that erupted in 2008. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, sought to blame Gordon Brown, then prime minister, for hardship at home; Brown replied (with some justice) that he was leading the global response that was pulling the world economy out of recession.
Cameron won the political argument: he defeated Labour in the 2010 election and became prime minister, albeit needing Liberal Democrat support. Keir Starmer hopes to blame today’s problems on Rishi Sunak rather than Covid, the Ukraine war and other forces beyond the control of any one country.
As well as serving up the same disputes about blame, there is another, and arguably more profound, similarity between the Cameron/Brown and Starmer/Sunak battles. In both, ideological differences are almost completely absent. Indeed, there is little real politics. The contests are personal. Rival politicians are variously attacked as weak, incompetent and out of touch—and their policies as dangerous, stupid and wasteful. My party is public-spirited; yours is in hock to your paymasters. We’re on the side of decent, hard-working people up and down the country; you let them down.
To be fair, this is a far from complete description of what happens in parliament. Much of the time is spent doing serious work in committees and on legislation. In private, the great majority of MPs (including ministers and their shadows) are thoughtful and public-spirited. But the bits that make news and voters notice, such as Prime Minister’s Questions, are largely contests to see which side can insult the other most effectively. So are their advertising slogans. And at the root of this is a fundamental shift in the character of politics itself.
For all the rough and tumble that has always been a part of parliamentary life, the arguments used to reflect passions of substance. Left and right were divided by ideology and class interest. They had different ideas about how society should be organised. Labour believed in economic planning, bigger government and redistribution, the Tories in private enterprise, a smaller state and self-reliance. In government, they often moderated their stance, but nobody following the ebbs and flows of British politics could confuse the basic character of the two main parties.
Glimpses of those differences still remain: Tories still proclaim the merits of low taxes, Labour the need to curb corporate greed. But these are little more than echoes of ancient chants designed to cheer the party faithful. In substance, the Conservatives have presided over the highest levels of taxation in living memory, while Labour goes out of its way to befriend business. Others criticise these developments. I don’t. Taxes need to stay up if we are to improve our public services and fight poverty; the private sector must thrive if the economy is to return to solid growth. The point, rather, is that the rhetoric of division is usually trumped by the reality of convergence.
In other areas, consensus is rightly embraced. Few people would now revoke the independence of the Bank of England, scrap the minimum wage or end same-sex marriage. What’s more, the two big attempts in recent years to break with consensus have ended in disaster: Jeremy Corbyn’s crusade to revive the old-time socialist religion, and Liz Truss’s attempt to hand out large, unfunded tax cuts.
That is not to say consensus is always best. Sometimes we need real arguments. Consider Brexit. Our two main parties are equally reluctant offer a credible strategy to undo the damage it has done. Their shared caution contrasts with the rival enthusiasms of their supporters: the overwhelmingly pro-Brexit Conservative base and the equally insistent opposition to Brexit of Labour’s voters and activists. A fierce debate outside Westminster is smothered at the summits of both main parties.
Reluctance at the top extends to other issues, such as setting out a long-term reform and funding plan for the NHS, as the population ages and expensive new treatments become available. With social care, successive ministers have identified the financial challenge, only to stumble at the moments when they most needed to hold their nerve and find the money. As for the dominant problem just now—the impact of inflation and rising mortgage rates on workers’ pay and living standards—we look in vain for a serious discussion at the top of politics of how a civilised country in trouble should share out the misery. Instead we are served with soundbites: “we can’t afford it”; “get round the table”. These are not so much wrong as hopelessly inadequate.
Taking these issues together, we see our most senior politicians floundering time after time. In the absence of ideological moorings, and daunted by the challenges they face, they retreat into their comfort zone of personal attacks.
Does all this mean we should revert to the old left-right debates about the future of Britain? The modern world has surely changed too much for that. The heavily unionised mines, shipyards, steelworks and factories—the heart of the battles over class, ideology and state power—have gone. And the flow of investment, trade and finance across national borders limits the choices of any government that does not wish to cut itself off from the rest of the world.
Ours is an era of tough choices, trade-offs and uncertainty. The clarity of the battles that shaped 20th-century politics has become blurred by the constraints that confront any 21st-century liberal democracy. This requires a more mature political discourse. Instead, it is often far too childish. Egged on by a raucous press and poisonous social media, the two main parties mirror each other in their preference for insults. Welcome to the age of Malice Through the Looking Glass.
The solution? Those at the top of the main parties deciding it’s in their interests to be more honest with themselves, respectful of each other and open with us. Well, we can dream.
