I have suffered from a very strong feeling of late, which is that it is becoming very hard to escape the theatre of political distraction right now.
The lights are bright, the noise is relentless, and the cast is depressingly familiar. Whether it be Donald Trump and his shenanigans, Nigel Farage with his latest grievance, or the latest seemingly inevitable distraction created by the royal family, there has seemed to be one thing after another to fill front pages and soak up airtime with issues that divert attention from what is important in the world.
While attention is given to these issues, something else is happening - or rather, not happening - in the real world. The attention of the government, the media, and far too many concerned people is being taken from the issues that actually matter in this country at present.
So, too little attention is being given to the fact that far too many children are still living in poverty. In Britain, which remains one of the richest countries in the world, free school meals are still unavailable to many who really need them, and food banks now serve millions. The fact is that the quiet crisis of child poverty rarely makes the headlines because it cannot be made to glitter. Yet it is one of the most accurate measures of national failure that we have.
Then there is the issue of poor housing, which has become a daily misery for far too many. The government continues to treat the housing market as a market for financial speculation, and not a human necessity. Rents rise, mortgage costs soar, and housebuilding targets are presented as progress without ever seeming to recognise that much of what is built is unaffordable. The result is a generation priced out, trapped, or homeless, creating a slow, grinding disaster that barely cuts through the celebrity noise.
Meanwhile, too many of our care services have all but collapsed. The NHS is failing, and people are still dying in corridors. Social care is rationed, and those who provide care, whether professionally or within families, are exhausted, underpaid, and unseen. The politics of spectacle demands heroes and villains. The politics of care demands patience, compassion, and commitment, which are qualities in short supply among our political showmen.
And in the background, the energy transition on which the future depends has stalled. While the world burns and floods, Britain dithers. Investment is withheld. Infrastructure decays. Policy is delayed. And ministers still pose at podiums, claiming global leadership on climate issues whilst simultaneously approving new oil fields. The contradiction is obscene, but effective. It maintains the illusion of activity while ensuring that nothing changes.
All this is happening because we have allowed our public and political spheres to be captured by media-focused performance. Those who profit from power without responsibility thrive on this distraction. The fact is that the populist, the demagogue, and the courtier all share the same instinct to keep the spotlight on themselves, hoping the public will not notice what they are losing in the process.
That consequence is profound. When attention is monopolised by the politics of noise, democracy itself is weakened. Accountability fades. Real policy disappears. Public services disintegrate quietly, defeated by deliberate neglect.
So, what is to be done?
First, we must look away from the media spectacle. Every minute spent debating the latest Trump headline or royal family-related issue is a minute not spent asking why people in Britain cannot afford food, shelter, or warmth.
Second, we must rebuild the politics of care, which is the politics that begins with the question what do people need to live well, safely, and with dignity? That requires public investment, and not austerity; taxation of wealth, and not punishment of poverty; and an economy designed around well-being, and not spectacle.
Third, we must reclaim attention itself as a democratic resource. What we choose to notice determines what gets done. The media, for all its complicity, responds to demand. If citizens insist that the stories of poverty, care, and ecological survival matter, then the cameras will eventually have to follow, and this could happen because we know that there is massive fatigue with the news as it is being portrayed at present: viewing figures prove it.
The alternative is the continuation of the pantomime and the endless reruns of outrage and distraction while real life deteriorates in the background.
We can no longer afford that. The world is burning, the country is breaking, and those who suffer most are invisible precisely because attention is the currency of power.
It is time we stopped funding the circus and started funding the future.
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Have you the spare capacity to make a video on this? It’s a good call to action for letters to MPs and news outlets.
Now there’s an idea…….
… and it’s a very good idea
I agree with every word of this and will be sharing it.
Thanks
The UK political groups believe that the UK cannot afford it, so tinkers, pandering to the financial elites.
Constant media pressure such as “benefits budget is spiralling out of control” and so on.
Meanwhile the majority get poorer, sicker, less job opportunities.
Where is the vision? The desire to treat real world problems. Look at no steer, spends most of the time out of the country “basking” in foreign policy.
The UK is definitely producing ” leaders” who are narrow minded donkeys.
Apologies to the donkeys for linking them with the UK idiot elites.
Very much agreed.
However, Zack Polanski is very much injecting hope into the conversation talking about the broken system created by neoliberalism and billionaire wealth, and offering a recognisable social democratic green alternative. He is speaking boldly and loudly, and making the right squirm (with right wing TV resorting to attacking his appearance – like Corbyn – all very tired and sad).
This has resulted in the latest Find Out Now poll putting the Greens ahead of Labour and the Tories and only behind Reform (who have plateaued).
Also Zack is relatively young, bright, and without Corbyn’s history and aligned with a party that already has significant success at local level.
And the latest YouGov poll, analysed by age ranges, puts the Green Party top on 25% in the combined 18-49 age groups – Labour is second on 21%, then Reform on 19% and the Tories on just 11% (Reform are of course top in this poll too when older people are added).
Could not agree more. Incidentally, Peter Watkins has just died. The deliberate use of pop culture to distract from real issues was one of his themes. The media has mostly ignored this news, except for the Guardian, which hasn’t however allowed any comments. We can comment on boyfriends, holidays and, er, making ginger biscuits, but not one of the best documentary makers of the second half of the twentieth century, whose films are still relevant today.
Much to agree with
As Juvenal observed of Rome…. it’s Bread and Circus – except today there is no bread.
🙂
Thank you all for a most percipient and timely article!
Might the recent book, “Why Civil Resistance Works” by Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan be of help in this (organised) tsunami of diversion and distraction?
It is deeply researched and offers realistic hope through the development and use of critical thinking and critical asking by the members of an alert and cohesive society, or some thereof.
Might it be of assistance if state education enabled and encouraged students/future citizens to be less compliant and more informedly questioning and groundedly assertive?
“Civil protest is an essential, if under recognised, part of a valid democracy.”
Much to agree with
On the basis that we all use them might I suggest looking at the roads – ironically when I went to Kent this summer they were some of the worst I have seen.
Overgrown and dirty signs
Worn out road markings
Potholes and other damage to the road surface
Reckless and illegal behaviour by road users
I suspect that if I was a Civil Engineer I could add a few more
Its a very visible indicator of the state of the country
John – you should come – but then again, maybe not – to rural Derbyshire. Increasingly the roads are being closed and not fixed. Over time, some of these roads to beauty spots that I have known over the years are just going to get washed down the hills. The council seems to have just given up.
This is a country that is obsessed with taking money away, thinking that it can save money up to spend.
It’s complete bollocks. This is a country that should be investing in its future; where there is money, there are jobs and some sort of growth thereof. Invested wisely, there is also sustainability.
The political failure here is unforgivable to the point that there has to a reckoning of some sort.
The media circus is meant to stop that reckoning.
It’s not just roads. Here’s the NHS under Streeting’s Labour.
After a bout of venous eczema, I got two venous ulcers on one of my legs. This is because the leg is damaged by thrombosis when I was younger. I’ve had these before – sometimes going to 2-3 years without one. Initially when one arose, off I went to my local doctor and the district nurse to sort it out. Eventually – after 2010, I had to drive 6 miles to another town in the district to have it seen to but all I had to do was ring them and turn up.
Now…..I have to be ‘referred’ to the wound clinic I used to be able to turn up to. As a result I have a holding letter telling me to wait for an appointment. What they have done, is shoe horned all the wound cases in the district and beyond into one outlet to achieve ‘economies of scale’. I’m told they are ‘really busy’. Bien sur!
I am being managed now as a statistic – not as a person. The fact I was an an intermittent case but that my leg had a history of ulcers is completely ignored (my leg will never be as it was again, and worsen as I age). I fell off their list. They are obsessed with statistical completion – not treatment.
That is what happens when politics manages services instead of funding them properly.
Up yours Wes!
There are several A roads in Wales now reduced to what seems like permanent single lane status controlled by lights which will one day slip away.
And we are the sixth richest country in the world, supposedly.
You might want to ask your GP if you can be referred out of area, I know for instance that the local Stockport team are not so stretched or weren’t at any rate.
The importance given to measuring ‘cured’ and thus discharged patients is also causing problems to my personal knowledge in mental health and chronic pain management. In both cases I have to be referred again by my GP, when a lot of the time a single phone appointment with the relevant team member would suffice if I was still on their list. It is a ludicrous waste of my GP’s time and that of the appointments teams, when as with you the conditions will not be cured and will only get worse. A classic case of inadequate care when setting targets which, despite the knowledge that there are many areas for which it does not work, persists.
“Politics is showbiz for the less talented.”
(From “Have I Got News for You!”)
Fantastic piece, as ever.
A lot of people I know have turned away from corporate media (BBC, newspapers)
Speaking of which, had anyone noticed that the ITV drama ‘The Hack’ has been completley ignored by just about everyone. No coincidence?
My only suprise at the moment is just how passive people are – will we reach a point where anger translates into action?
The disparity between our lives lived to the utter lies and narratives we are expected to swallow is beyond.
Totally agree. People are desperately looking for hope. Until last year’s election many hoped a change of government would provide this, but it hasn’t and as anyone working in the public sector can tell you if anything it’s now worse.
Zack Polanski has essentially been communicating a very similar message to what you have said here, admittedly in much simpler sound bites and it’s hugely popular as the current Green surge shows. I think most people realise it will take a long time to resolve the problems of child poverty, poor housing and the NHS and ignoring climate change will not make it go away, but they want acknowledgement of the issues and a fairer society.
I particularly like your idea of a politics of care. Current political thinking is so fixated on the economy whilst ignoring human suffering. I live in a village where we care for each other, and often really little actions can show love and bring joy. We need to find ways to translate this to big towns and cities. We are told we are a rich country, but for many it just feels very unfair and unequal.
I am working on that idea, amongst others.
I know you are not necessarily Green, but it would be great if this could be collaborative. The two party system is dead and people are really sick of adversarial politics. It would be great if some of the voices speaking out could give input and I include people like Rachel Maskell and Clive Lewis as well as Zack and the Greens.
Noted
It is a myth that people do not care for each other in cities. I live in one and feel well supported by neighbours. Mine is a multi-racial city, one that is regularly denigrated as some sort of immigrant blighted dystopia by the right wing press, but let me share with you the recent experience of an 80 year old ( white female) friend of mine who fell over and bloodied her face whilst walking into the city centre. A crowd ( of varying ethnicities) gathered. She simply wanted to be helped up and allowed to stagger off back home. That was not to be allowed. A young black man produced a toilet roll to help with the blood. It transpired that he had just come from the food bank and shared with my friend his limited supplies. No ambulance could be procured so an (Asian) taxi driver took her to A&E and refused payment. My point is that there is enormous goodwill in this country still with people desperately keen to do the right thing when they can. The aim of people like Farage is to frighten and divide us. He must not be allowed to succeed.
Thank you for sharing.
I wouldn’t say people don’t care, but it’s much easier for people to fall through the cracks and generally people don’t know each other as well. I’ve lived in London and Reading most of my life. There was a strong community spirit in the area of Reading that I lived and I was actively involved in our Neighborhood Action Group and local politics, but it was nothing like living in a village where there are many extended families and we are intertwined much more closely. A politics of care would ensure no one fell through the safety net which was what our welfare state was supposed to do but no longer does.
I find it interesting that a media and culture such as ours, which cannot say enough about “innovation” when it applies to business and management, is so fearful of any innovations within politics.
I think that there may be some advantage in discussing the progressive political agenda as one that is innovative and solutions-based – basically use the pro business lexicon that everyone seems to parrot as a way of landing the ideas in groups which inherently reject more ethically focussed political discourse.
I am surprised at how much our society is eager to “return back” or “restore” when it comes to politics, yet we desire nothing less than “revolution” and constant innovation when it comes to almost everything else. There must be some way of adjusting the message strategy to capitalise on this.
An intriguing view
If I take the theme of this blog in a more colloquial manner, it’s about our government and the powerful as not giving a fuck about the majority of the citizens of this country (or indeed, many others), the I’d like to add a couple of points.
The first comes from the film, ‘Ballad of a Small Player’. The central character, a gambler who goes under the false name, ‘Lord Doyle’, goes to try to retrieve money he’s owed by a real toff, who in the course of discussing the situation ‘Doyle’ is in (which is catastrophic) says ‘…you need to become more like me – I’m dead to shame.’
If I recall correctly what the toff said before that line, it was that this was what private school and a life of entitlement had taught him. And it struck me then, and again when reading this blog (and indeed, you other blog on Becker), that this is exactly what seems to afflict our politicians, and those with money and power who now control almost every aspect of the political system in the UK (and worldwide). Meanwhile (and like ‘Doyle’ in the film), many – perhaps the majority – of the rest of us continue under the illusion that rank inequality, poverty, disease, killing, the destruction of the planet, and so on, will eventually shame “the controllers” into action. It won’t: they are dead to shame.
On a similar theme, I came across this in Richard Flanagan’s ‘Question 7’: ‘At my Oxford college, where mediocrity was a virtue called tradition, there was a law don regarded as uncharacteristically brilliant. I had assumed from his implausible upper-class accent…to his baggy cords and tweeds and old fogeyish deportment that he too was a Martian [Flanagan’s label for toffs] But they knew who he really was. They had always known. They called him what he was, his torment, his inescapable origin, for he was, as everyone said without rancour behind his back, as the matter of fact and truth it undoubtedly was to them: the dirty little East End Jew…It was what was celebrated as a sense of humour, as wit, it always was and always would be and its name was Oxford, it was a destroyer of worlds and always was and it always would be.’
Soberingly appropriate
I was going to add – but ran out of words – that given the number of people who get into our politics and government with a PPE degree from Oxford and then make such a hash of doing anything for our country, it was very fitting. But of course, they also appear ‘dead to shame’.
Agreed.
They teach arrogant indifference as a compulsory module, I think.
There is a lot to be said for making attendance at Oxford or Cambridge a disqualifier for political life. I was brought up in Oxford, beautiful as it is, it is also stultifying and full of public school students. In fact maybe we should start earlier and also use public school attendance as a disqualifier.
Absolutely agree with every word. Despite my annoyance with a compliant media, I do see signs that the public are tired of people sowing division in society. I’m a regular listener to phone-ins on LBC and watcher of Question Time on BBC, and I’ve noticed lately that listeners phoning in and audiences are expressing sympathy toward the views expressed in the blog and more hostility toward right-wing policies and populism. To me, this seems like signs of a reversion to the kind of society we used to be before austerity and populism. I’ve always thought Reform would eventually burn out. It may happen sooner,rather than later.
I can live in hoiope, Alan
Back in 2010 Political Compass wrote
“Underlining the absence of substantial differences on the economic scale in particular, the public – and even the commentators – refer more than ever before to the three main leaders rather than to their parties. We know more about their personal lives; less about concrete policy. The tv debates, as welcome as they might be on some levels, have helped bring about a more presidential approach to politics. A presidential political campaign tends to highlight the style of the candidates rather than the substance of their policies. It’s a handy diversion in the absence of profound ideological distinctions.”
Once things have taken that path, then it’s much easier for media savvy types with an agenda to break into politics, The politicians turned politics into a show and a showman can put on a better show than a politician
I realise it is not the UK, but Zohran Mamdani’s almost-certain election next week as the next mayor of New York suggests things might be changing in at least one part of the US, though I haven’t followed the campaign closely enough to be able to say that with any certainty. No doubt he will face plenty of opposition, not least from fellow Democrat, Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York, who says she is totally opposed to raising state and city taxation on corporations and the wealthiest individuals.
This one is going to be interesting. A fight for the control of the Democrats is likely.
Agree with everything you’ve written – our politicians of every persuasion have dumped us. Well most of them. I happened to catch The Week in Parliament today on Radio 4 (forget the Today Programme which is tone deaf), there is a lot of other Beeb stuff which is factual and says how it is. I digress. Lindsey Hoyle the Speaker was talking about the horrendous abuse politicians, especially women, suffer which suggests you have to be practically a zombie to survive. He was excoriating of social media companies who allow fiction to be expressed as fact, sow seeds of hatred and division and generally don’t give a toss (polite word) for the damage they wreak. He wants to see social media companies being prosecuted and fined for allowing misinformation/lies to proliferate and mentioned Singapore as an example where this has happened. I know very little about the politics of Singapore but it is apparently law there. Listening to Any Questions, the hypocrisy and massaging of facts of the politicians of the right in particular, leaves one breathless. Step one is to clean up social media and step two is to encourage some good politicians.