Why are Britain's politicians so hopeless? From Tory fantasists to Labour deniers, Westminster has driven out the talented, the imaginative and the honest. The Conservative Party destroyed itself with Brexit and a cult of property and privilege. Labour has buried its belief in care, collective purpose and truth under Treasury orthodoxy. Both parties repel intelligence in different ways, one by demanding belief in the impossible, the other by denying what's obviously true.
In this video, I explain how mediocrity became the political norm, why ideology now drives out ability, and how belief in truth and public purpose could still renew our democracy.
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
Why has the UK got such poor-quality politicians?
Everybody now knows that the politicians we are being presented with, whether by Labour or the Tories, and to some extent, but much less, by other parties, are by and large utterly useless. I can't beat around the bush more than that because there is no point in doing so. That's what everybody knows. These people aren't up to the job. Why do they not have an iota of talent for the tasks they take on? Why is that? Why do we have such poor-quality politicians? That's what I want to talk about in this video.
Our political parties are trapped in hopeless ideologies that contradict the best interests of the people of this country. As a consequence, they have no hope of recruiting anyone of talent to promote or implement the policies to which they're dedicated. When the ideology that they're promoting is rotten, only mediocrity will be attracted to serve it.
The Conservatives are suffering from a delusion. Their delusion focuses on Brexit. The party has been broken by Brexit above all else, and Brexit has drained the Tories of talent. It's almost impossible now to believe that any intelligent, thoughtful person could still claim that leaving the EU was a good idea. To do so requires an act of denial so complete that it should, in fact, disqualify just about anyone from serious political office.
And the party has shrunk far from the idea of being the sound steward of the nation's assets to simply becoming the agent for the protection of property and privilege. And the two, of course, are nothing like the same thing, even though those who are left in the party seem to think they are.
There are no bright young people left who believe that tax cuts, deregulation, or desperate trade deals can now save Britain, and unsurprisingly, the Tories are devoid of talent from top to bottom.
The idea that marketisation is going to solve everything has failed.
Those who stay in the Conservative Party now do so because they can't imagine another world. That inability to imagine better is the surest sign that there is mediocrity, and that is what now fills the Tory benches.
Labour's failure is different, but as complete. It's not so much deluded as ashamed: ashamed of the fact that what it once believed in is now being consigned to the party's history. To believe in public purpose, collective provision, and a caring state was once what it was to be a Labour supporter and a Labour MP, of course. Now, its leadership acts as if those convictions were their youthful mistakes. It bows to Treasury orthodoxy and calls it virtue.
Intelligent people know that this makes no sense.
They know that governments spend before they tax.
They know that austerity shrinks economies.
They know that privatisation has failed and will fail again.
And they know that the planet cannot bear another century of growth at any cost.
But Labour demands disbelief in such realities, and as a consequence, it is drained of those who think, question and care.
Both parties now repel talent. The Tories exclude intelligence by insisting on belief in the impossible. Labour excludes integrity by demanding disbelief in the obvious.
One asks for loyalty to fantasy. The other demands silence about the truth. And as a result, neither can nurture those who might renew public life.
Across Westminster, dogmas are defining serious politics at cost to all of us. Things like the government must balance its books as if it were a household, which is, of course, not true. And the idea that markets are efficient, and that the state is wasteful, and that growth is always good, however destructive it might be, and that private ownership is always superior to public provision, and that fiscal rules are a measure of virtue.
These ideas repel bright people for the same reason that Brexit does. They require disbelief in reality.
The parties are therefore managing on autopilot. With all conviction gone, both parties are left to carry on literally in managerial roles, but without innovation.
Labour's talk of growth and stability sounds different from the Tories' talk of discipline and responsibility, but the truth is that they're much the same. The government in these roles is acting as a caretaker and not as a creator. And there is no reward in caretaking for those with imagination and courage. So, of course, they don't want to be politicians.
The most capable, the most imaginative, and the most compassionate people no longer see politics as a career option. They are building movements outside the political parties precisely because that is where ideas still matter and reality still counts. They've not abandoned politics. Politics has abandoned them.
So if talent is to return, and that is a precondition of rebuilding the democracy that we desire, belief must return first. Belief in truth, in care and in possibility. Politics must again admit that government creates the conditions for prosperity, and that markets need boundaries, and that people matter more than balance sheets. Whilst the economy must sustain life and not exploit it .
Until those things happen, the Tories will keep their fantasists, and Labour will keep their deniers. Britain will remain a country led by people who no longer believe in anything at all that is true.
But we can change that by demanding honesty, purpose, and courage from those who are seeking power, and by building movements where those values still live on and which put pressure on politicians to deliver them.
What do you think? Do you think I'm right?
Do you think that we are governed by people who have lost all ability to actually undertake that task because they're fantasists or deniers of the truth?
Do you think it's time that our political parties were renewed?
Where do you think Reform comes into all this?
Do you think it is possible that we could have a movement for political renewal in this country?
Is there still politics that is possible, even if it's living outside mainstream politics now? Let us know. Your comments matter, and there's a poll down below which focuses on some of these issues.
But we will take note of what you say because they do influence our future videos on this channel.
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I think this started back with Blair when both main parties stopped standing for what they believed in and instead said what the focus groups said people wanted to hear. The end game is that no-one knows what they they stand for anymore including themselves, and a politician without conviction is pretty useless. The public are now after a global financial crash and 15 years of austerity crying out for hope and they’re not getting that from either major party. There is nothing to attract young people to either of them and without young life they are slowly dying.
Alongside this is the fact that FPTP and two party politics are no longer working and people are no longer prepared to vote for the least bad option. And without this both parties become redundant. I’ve not voted for either for a very long time preferring to vote for a party that stands for things I believe in, not one that claims to only to backtrack and tell me my idealism is unrealistic. So I won’t cry at the demise of two parties who have lost sight of what is important and instead focus on what their donors want.
Focus groups are literally burying Labour at the moment. Their focus groups consist of practically exclusively middle-aged or older white men from the Midlands and the North (of England) who say they’d vote Reform. The thinking behind it is that they need a chunk of this vote. But they treat everyone else as static. They live under the illusion that their vote from 2023 has stayed with them and will stay in future and all they need to do is attract some Reform voters. Good example is something that might seem irrelevant in a grand scheme of things, but should be an absolute no brainer for a Labour government. Instead it has probably alienated a huge number of Labour and Labour curious voters. Swift bricks – they cost nothing and even developers didn’t have initially anything against them. Instead of introducing them straight away Labour have made this into a hugish story and still refuse to make them mandatory. I’m pretty certain this goes back to their peculiar focus groups – but I’m also sure that they won’t get a single vote out of it and will lose quite a few.
Much to agree with
After putting wood oil on the carport and having that cup of tea…
The NEXT book title about Starmer’s Labour…
“Hills Not To Die On”
Suggested Chapter Titles…
Swift bricks
The 2 child benefit cap
Genocide in Gaza
Employer’s NI Increases
Immigration
Assisted Dying
Toilets
Inflation
Fiscal Rules
The Special Relationship
Peter Mandelson
Cardboard Terrorism
HS2
Special Needs
PIP
Morgan McSweeney
Keir Starmer
Neoliberal austerity
Dirty water
Dirty late trains
Alternative book title…
“Hills Labour WILL Die on”
Suggested Chapter Titles…
(See above)
🙂 And thank you
As has been pointed out before, go back to the 50’s and 60’s and the Labour and Conservative parties had literally millions of members. MP’s were not involved in the sort of casework they now get and relied on the Constituency Chair to feed back the mood of both the membership and the country.
Clearly times have changed but its hard to see that having a Conservative/Labour/Green/Lib Dem/Monster Raving Loony club, busy every night on every High Street wouldnt improve the standard of politics.
If we accept that the Tories have always used and benefited from allowing themselves to be aligned with vested interests, and this includes the supercharged Neo-liberal version (whose fake intellectualism was just an excuse for greed) it is Labour that has actually failed.
The current Labour party has not set out to change anything – it capitulated rather quickly and chose to ‘accept the world as they found it’. Previous iterations of this party certainly did set out to change things. Politics works via contention and differences. You have to have an opposition or else, what is all the fuss about if there is not one! The fact that there is a STP in the UK and U.S. is not politics as even the Chinese – whose society has changed rather a lot under one party – have pointed out.
But the biggest weakness is maybe that we all believe in a democracy that is simply not there because we have never dealt with the agency problem of how politics is funded these days. Private funding of a public good (democracy/government) is all I see folks. And the biggest wad wins and wads of capital have been getting bigger and bigger. Maybe this is the world that Labour is actually giving in to. With all that money about, ignorance can be bought and is. Time and time again Labour has been timid and could have taken a leaf out of the Tories book and been decisive about a whole slew of things and just done it – PR for example.
And finally, there is the shadow political sector – the ‘political advisor’. Why do people like Starmer need ‘political advisors’? They’re supposed to be the politicians! No wonder you say that these modern politicians are like blank canvasses.
It is voters who should be political advisors to politicians – end of. But that is not the case, so politics is played in the margins, whilst at the core everything is in its right place for the country to continue to be plundered by capital. It’s a disgrace.
“Why do people like Starmer need ‘political advisors’? ” – cart before the horse.
As plenty of books have shown – Starmer was chosen for his “properties” or lack thereof. The UK last year did not elect a LINo gov, it elected a fascade behind which sat a clique who tell the fascade what to say/think. Thus: the political advisors NEED their Starmer (or Reeves) since this is the way in which they exert political power. In 2024 – MwSweeney told the new LINO MPs that they were not really needed – hardly even lobby fodder. Starmer – the ultimate Manchurian candidate.
I’ve just started reading my purchased copy of “The Fraud”, by Paul Holden, about McSweeney’s project to take over and re-engineer the Labour Party.
It’s also being serialised in The Canary (No paywall).
It’s a detailed, documented, verifiable example of what Mike Parr is talking about.
In an earlier era it would have led to the resignation of Starmer’s government and a number of court proceedings.
Even though I knew the broad outline of what he describes, from having been IN Labour from 2018 till Starmer became leader, and reading Labour Leaks, the EHRC antisemitism report, the Forde Report and other material, I am still appalled by what I am reading – and it takes a lot to shock a world-weary political cynic like me.
Have a cup of tea.
Repeat as necessary.
I did not vote because the answer I looked for was not there. In my opinion, the reason we have no talented is because our electoral system is simply a beauty contest, with no talent required.
You have covered this before, but our politicians are allowed to be elected on words, not deeds – if you are charismatic, a good orator or rich, you will get elected ahead of those with talent. Why should the talented bother to apply?
Very simply, in order to be elected to parliament, you should have served as a parish councillor, then a town councillor, then a county councillor. There should be a minimum term, which you are required to serve on each, and and the winner of each election must gain more than 50% of the votes cast, to make the election valid.
Whilst this will not solve all the ills of Government, ensuring those elected actually have a track record in government, and perhaps having to start at the bottom allows them to understand what it and isn’t possible. Just like any other job.
Noted
In effect, the Conservative Party split over brexit, but I wonder if brexit itself was just an expression of deeper crisis. The last time UK Conservatism split this seriously was over the Corn Laws – the division was of course expressed in terms of personalities and policies, but in hindsight was really driven by diverging interests in its funding, membership and voting coalition, between landowners (who wanted to keep food prices high to enable them to collect more rent from farming) and the interests of industrialists (who wanted low food prices so they could pay workers less). The old Tory coalition broke down, and was out of government for a generation, until Peel and the industrial capitalists eventually developed modern conservatism.
The Whigs were once the progressive party in the UK. Even great labour movement pioneers like Joseph Arch (landworkers’ union) remained loyal to the Whigs when they became the Liberals – but gradually, as a number of pieces fell into place – most importantly the development of a coherent urban working-class and the extension of the franchise to it – the Labour Party took over as carrier of progressive politics. Similarly, kind-of, the republicans in the US were once progressive, because they represented the rising northern industrialists against the southern agrarian Democrats – but once the industrialists’ power was secure, they became conservative, and the Democrats moved to the oppositional, progressive role.
So I’m inclined to think that if the current shuffling of UK politics (and indeed that of other countries) is really a fundamental realignment, what we need to understand is the change in the underlying economic and social forces that are driving apart the vested interests of party funders, members and voters.
Noted
In the past 10 years, I have been asked to stand as a city councillor, a borough councillor and a parish councillor. Two different parties involved, I’m now not a member of any political party and have no intention of joining one.
I, and I suspect many others, have found working in the community far more rewarding.
I walked a couple of million steps trying to get Labour MPs and councillors elected between 2015 and 2020, I wouldn’t do that for the current iteration of Labour.
I do help the Greens out a bit locally but we have a Tory council so they can’t really change anything.
I have met one or two of the current crop of Labour MPs.
They are carefully chosen to be as uninspiring as possible.
A complement to this post might be the following: Why We Get the Wrong Politicians
by Isabel Hardman, 1 Sept 2022. It is three years old, but not thereby irrelevant on that account, I think.
I think a lot of the problem lies with the Westminster parliamentary system and the centralisation of political power in London. The most successful and popular politicians of the last twenty years have been people who chose to remain or step out of that bubble ( Andy Burnham, Nicola Sturgeon ). In part I think the absence of talent is due to the decoupling of the London economy from the rest of the country. If you are a talented youngster in the North Of England how do you afford to move to London now without running the risk of getting into some sort of financial diffculty over housing ( See Angela Rayner)? Then there is the arcane system in the HOC with its adversarial system, which is not designed for co-operation and problem solving. We have, in my view, long needed constitutional reform, with abolition of the HOL in favour of a Senate of the Regions, a new parliament housed somewhere else and greater devolution of power so that decisions are taken closer to the people affected by them. The accretion of wealth, money and opportunities in London and the South East is I think another cause of the disillusionment with politics. People outside of the golden triangle feel they have too little power over their lives and there is too little hope of things getting better. The political spectacle in the HOC at Westminster just seems too remote from their lives and too unlikely to affect them for the better. So more devolution, politicians closer to and better known by the people they serve might help matters and motivate young idealistic people to go into politics locally and try to make a difference.
Much to agree with
Having moved to the South West 10 years ago I feel totally disenfranchised as no one is interested in the region which the Tories see as safe seats and Labour know that outside the cities there are no votes to be won. We get no funding despite Devon and Cornwall having significant deprivation and policies that made sense in the South East do not work here. We definitely need more decentralisation and local decision making. I’ve lost count of how many times funding has been agreed to reopen a local station only for the next government to cancel it. Reform are sadly doing very well in appearing to speak to the lost and forgotten.
No disagreement with your comment but omitting the ideological effects of Neoliberalism since Thatcher and Blair’s/Starmer et al continuing of it, misses a very important element in my view. The dark hand of the neoliberal apparatchik is seen embedded everywhere in the parties and media. If not ‘ one of us’ as Thatcher put it- you’ve no future. See Nancy MacLean : Democracy in Chains for details of the well honed, super funded game plan that she uncovered. How easy it was for them to use the media to destroy Corbyn’s chances at governing and the betrayal of youthful ideologues using scurrilous propaganda.
As you might say, much to agree with!
This rise in mediocracy has been coming for a long time. Peter Oborne, a journalist that once upon a time I used to consider was not a political bedfellow but recognised his integrity, documented this in his 2007 book “The Triumph of the Political Class”. As for Brexit, chapter 14 of Simon Kuper’s book “Chums” is also illuminative. It is all about the Brexit and the perverse influence of certain characters at the Oxford Union.
However, it is not just the politicians that are mediocre. The same accusation can be levelled at the upper echelons of the mainstream media and within the Civil Service. But I do believe the public are starting to see through this, hence the growing interest in new political parties, new economic policies and the rise of citizen journalism like the Byline Network or local outlets like the Stroud Times or the Dispatch in Birmingham.
Unless the two main parties wake up and face reality (which personally I doubt if they are capable of doing) then an even worse fate awaits them as the public turn to treating them, at best, as utterly irrelevant and beyond contempt. It is not inconceivable that both the Tories and Labour parties could be consigned to history come 2029. What fills the vacuum created as a result is the great unknown.
I take heart from the results of the recent Gigapoll. I believe that the public know better and will be receptive to new ideas such as MMT and they will also see through the politically dishonest attacks on net zero policies and they will be drawn to the potential positives of a switch to the green economy. These are policies that the two main parties refuse to acknowledge for the reasons that you identify.
It is possible that the forthcoming budget could be a pivotal moment. If Reeves continues with the 45 year failed experiment and doles out yet more tax rises and public sector cuts rather than implement a radical new approach, then the decline of the current political class may well accelerate and the public turn from contempt to outright hostility. If so, then the political class may reap the whirlwind sown by its arrogance and incompetence.
The ‘who funds you’ question is the beginning and end of whats wrong with our now utterly corrupt system. PSR is pretty well bang on. The big parties no longer need and certainly dont want ‘members’. Its almost a version of what we hear about ‘third world’ countries – about ‘tribes’, about mafia, etc.
McSweeney/Starmer executed a probably illegal coup in the Labour Party funded by shadowy undeclared sources.
We need a Commission on the Constitution COTC to get rid of corrupt dark money funding, 2nd ‘jobs’, bribery , cash for honours, insider contracts, freebies, revolving doors and all the rest. It should also set minimum democratic standards for political parties – as proper membership organisations.
But as the book ‘Parliament Ltd’ made clear there is no appetite for that in the main parties, so it looks as though we are going to hell in a handcart.
… shadowy undeclared sources? …
Nothing shadowy about Trevor Chinn or any other pro-Zion funders. Indeed nothing shadowy about Russia, big oil, and most of all USA funders like Heritage, TPUK etc. It all out there, but not even mentioned in the MSM, a triumph for those same funders.
Agree with your surmise Richard.
I don’t usually follow Instagram but occasionally my family post to it which they did this morning and I came across a speech by Tony Benn from 2011 essentially predicting what has happened recently in Palestine / Israel. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPc84rXiMuN/?igsh=MW9mb3ZucnVpeTZycw==
In a nutshell, whether you agreed, or disagreed, with his views Tony Benn was a conviction politician who would speak his mind – even when it was against party policy. With the whips reigning supreme and party ideologies having all but disappeared / completely failed and coupled with a substantial proportion of mediocre politicians and a fixation on spin and soundbites it is not surprising that we are being let-down by the political process / political class leading to ill-thought out economic, social care, housing, health, education or international policies. I am not saying Tony Benn was everyone’s cup of tea or always right. However, the quality of debate and, from a Labour perspective, the commitment to welfare for all, etc., was always present. I can’t think of a politician from today’s Labour, Tory or Deform parties that could hold a candle to Tony Benn and some of his contempories (of various political stripes).
I like Tony
I did meet him a few times`
We shared tea together
A great man, even if I did not always agree with him
And as you say, a genuine conviction politician
Rightly, Richard, you draw attention to the inability of the (neoliberal) mainstream parties to recruit younger members. Yes, those parties will die, and good riddance.
But why should there be any expectation at all that young people (or older) would favour democracy? What experience have they had of it? While it may be heartening to detect a broader consciousness in the young, what reinforcement do they get for this slight tendency?
Few homes in the UK are likely to be democratically run, though many are probably fair-ish. Schools are notably authoritarian, and in most workplaces, it is clear who the boss is. Treatment by the state bureaucracies is generally demeaning, the NHS by default not intention.
Without much opportunity for our citizens to experience the benefits of meaningful and respectful participation in much of ‘real’ life, it is surely remarkable that even our pseudo-democracy has survived thus far.
I think people are capable of differentiating organisation structures for fitness for purpose.
I think at one time we have had politicians who went into politics for the right reason which was to make a difference in their community and the world we live in. I am sure there still are some who really want to do this but through capitalism we have made more and people want more, now the few have accumulated greater wealth. I think our politicians have been spurred on by the pursuit of money and power. We stopped being seen as living, feeling beings and have become simply units of labour and of consumption. This has slowly been going on for hundreds of years and my cry always seems to be we live in 2025 things should be better. We need some serious change but we seem on a relentless quest for ever growing profit and wealth while many working people are facing a daily choice between heating their homes and feeding their family. Yet still the priority of our political leaders is to keep big business growing. And none of this wealth has increased happiness or wellbeing.
Could it be the case that when politicians get to govern they quickly realise they have hit a nearly insurmountable wall of wealth, power, interference and influence, all set to drive the economy on behalf of the wealthy and powerful elite. Whether through lobby groups, think tanks, foundations and institutions, industrial / corporate monoliths with huge wealth funds and media ownership or globally agreed systems of governance like the World Bank and ICSID, they become disillusioned at their powerlessness to effect change. Those politicians that did have talent and decent ideals fade away and we are left with the gobbies, lick-spittle’s and sycophants.
Anyone with talent that sees how vast the wall is, wouldn’t come within a country mile of politics.
If you arrive without dogma of course you give in to all that.
That is the issue.
“Those charged with terrorism for supporting Palestine Action will have no jury in trials limited to 36 minutes each, with prison sentences up to six months. These are the plans for Starmer Courts for mass trials of anti-Genocide protestors.”.
Source: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2025/10/36-minute-trials-and-no-jury-starmers-fascist-mass-courts/
Fascism, in other words. No justice at all.
I knew he’d get rid of juries, for these trials, but hoped I was wrong, but clearly he doesnt trust the jury system to do what he wants.
I wonder where he can find 2,000 jail cells? Maybe release some murderers and rapists to make room?
Starmer of course has experience of organising conveyor-belt show trials to shuffle citizens off to jail en-masse. Remember the summer riots when he was DPP?
We are proceeding to full-fat fascism faster than I expected.
See also how he and Shabana Mahmood seem to be wanting more football violence, in very specific circumstances
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/oct/17/government-officials-seek-lift-ban-maccabi-tel-aviv-fans-aston-villa-game
Bring on the internment camps…
Sometimes I think that Starmer and Mahmoud are Reform moles tasked with making sure Labour loses the next election. This latest gambit seems to be to lock up some of the few remaining members of the over 65 cohort who might be Labour voters. I wonder which group of their own potential voters they will target next?
Might causes of/reasons for the so dangerous lack of capable politicians lie in the invalidity on our democracy/shamocracy, as may be seen in all its basic phases?
Imput: Elections do not and, currently cannot,p be genuinely representative.
Process: The House of is merely a loutish shambles.
Output: Some 25% of our future citizens and worker are permanently underfed/semi-starved.
I only vaguely get that
I have just watched the recorded version of this week’s Question Time. I was appalled by the uselessness of the three politicians. The audience generally ran rings round them.