Janan Ganesh's column in the FT is usually a source of irritation to me, which is probably why I read it. George Osborne's biographer usually wears his prejudices on his sleeve so when he writes this today I think it would be wise for Osborne to take note:
Britain, or at least England, does not feel like a country asking to be turned upside down by zealots.
There is no mistaking what he means. He is saying the Conservatives may have won but there is no desire to shred to the BBC, tear up the Green Belt, or move right in so many areas. His conclusion is:
If Mr Cameron rules moderately, with a reformist edge, his party might indeed take out a long-term lease on power. If he tries to do Thatcher's unfinished business, he could saddle his party with a foul reputation by 2020.
I did not expect wise words from such a source. I must re-appraise him
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“or move right in so many areas.” Is there much space for that? We have a Government with immense power to move this agenda forward with 24% of eligible voters behind them. It doesn’t get much worse.
I fear the BBC is already lost. The great debate about Labour’s future that can be found in the Guardian has been almost completely missed by the BBC. Where are the voices for an end to austerity? The reform of business to bring out its best and save it from its worst? The need for more equality and redistribution to drive efficient and green growth etc.? Instead the BBC has allowed the first draft of history to become the fact that Labour went too far to the left. The need for a ‘business friendly’ politics is used as a code for the neutering of the Official Opposition and the stifling of debate.
A move to the right needs right-wing politicians, but it also requires the capitulation the left.
The latter is happening on the ‘centre’ left (once known as the centre right)
This government will not last two years and probably much less, depending on how soon their economic sleight of hand comes to roost.
Then – thanks to the Fixed Term Parliament Act – things will get interesting.
Chris- i would like to think this would happen and the whole Neo-Lib nightmare would fold but I suspect the ‘sleight of hand’ has an extendible sell-by date. Steve Keen thinks the neo-lib show will have foundered by 2020-I’m pessimistic and feel we’ve got at least 15 years of this crap.
I think Steve Keen is an optimist
It fits with the time-scale suggested in the theory of social cycles popularly known as the Fourth Turning. We’re at the end of one cycle so everything descends into calamity but there should be a new one up and running by around 2025. More here http://www.fourthturning.com/
There are a number of theories around this theme
I have some time for them
I think Keen is wrong on this one – there are still loads of public assets left around this country and if not the world – which have still to be stripped away from us and handed to the private individuals in order to make money.
With all that cash swimming about, it has to invested in something. But that is how this country has apprently become a global force in the world – by practising financial cannibalism on itself and celebrating the transactions as proof of a ‘vibrant economy’.
I’ve been waiting 45 years as a voter for a really decent Govt.
Chris – that happened before – after 2012 – and here we go again. If what you say comes to pass, there have to be viable alternatives to voters to take advantage of the train wreck you describe. Otherwise the carnage will continue.
I agree that England, does not feel like a country asking to be turned upside down by zealots but it does appear gullible and uncaring towards the poor and unfortunate in our country
Agreed. And that plus incompetence in assessing what went wrong by those opposing them is all the zealots need to be successful.
I take issue with the use of ‘Zealot’. Granted, they have zeal; but where’s the cause, the guiding vision of a better way? Tribalism and pursuit of gain do not a zealot make; and a man ‘on the make’ is not a zealot, for he will change direction for a whiff of profit.
A man “on the make” will always step back for a moment when he hears those calling for a “whiff of grapeshot”. Germany’s old political leaders thought they’d hired the extreme right in order to control them. And the left thought that “they’ll fail, then after them, we’ll come in”. But the extreme right used their governmental power to change the laws – and all bets were categorically off, for all the old participants in the political game. Vile though they are, the Tories are far from being the worse thing we can get… if we let it happen.
I think you are mistaking the coin here;
when the ‘guiding vision’ is ‘Self’ it allows them to remain true whatever path they tread.
Recognising the people who are guided by this vision from the rest of us who are not remains the job in hand. And we are doing a worse and worse of job of doing so it appears.
I will concede an exception to my comment that we have no zealots in Government: Ian Duncan Smith, who has a passion and a mission to destroy the structures and ideals of Social Security. A true zealot experiences no remorse when he sees suffering resulting from his actions, and is reinforced in his conviction that he’s right, and must strive ever harder in his Mission.
Wise words indeed, Richard. In fact, they could have come from your blog. But I’m afraid that with Letwin and Maude still acting as the ideological gatekeepers/drivers, and with zealot’s like Gove back at the centre of government, and Johnson attending cabinet, I don’t see it I’m afraid. No, what we are getting now is a nice slice of PR aimed at calming the political situation and population down before the onslaught of right wing policies start to emerge and the neoliberal project gets into top gear again. Anyone who thinks that won’t happen is burying their head in the sand.
Prima facie I’ve got to agree with you Ivan.
However, it could be that Janan senses a certain amount of triumphalism amongst the Tory ranks and worries that they will go too fast again as they did between 2010-2012?
I still think that the Tories are somewhat surpised that they are back in power – that it was closer than they think. But this will not make them a nicer party: it will make them cleverer and more measured at getting the country to where they think it should be. And that could be the worst news of all for many of us.
Another dimension is that Cameron is somewhat vindicated and much harder to bring down now. HE has won another election for THEM. So maybe his softer edged neo-liberalism will come out now in order to win the long game?
So, my conclusion is that a state shrinking Tory government will still seek to do the dirty deeds it wants to do, but will achieve these in a more gentle and measured way. They will get the presentation right this time.
Rather like another party who also promised to reduce the deficit gently but has faired less well in the election (hint, hint).
“They will get the presentation right this time.”
Mark – They don’t need to get the presentation right-the vilification of the poor/ill/unemployed worked well and they can n ow choose to intensify this.
The country swallowed the hounding of the sick; the sanctioning of the unemployed; the tripling of foodbank use – this appealed to a culture founded on schadenfreude.
As a social housing tenant I’m concerned!
I should have added this to my previous comment. Let’s not also forget that we now effectively live in a one party state. There’ll be no effective opposition in Parliament until at least the autumn when, Labour sort out and new leader, and probably long after that as whoever that is decides on which variant of neoliberalism they wish to follow, and thus what niches from the neoliberal shopping list that the Tories haven’t already adopted they intend to occupy.
Beyond that, the Lib Dems are now a joke, and are in any case utterly tainted by their time as the Tory lapdogs in the coalition. Caroline Lucas is a superb MP, but a lone voice. UKIP are finished, as their only two rationales for existing will be removed by 2017 (i.e. the country will vote to leave the EU and the Tories will have come down so hard on immigration that that issue will have been dealt with – at least on paper). And whatever the SNP might think, the Tories can largely ignore them – not least because if they make too much of a nuisance of themselves the media outside Scotland will simply carry on with the demonisation campaign that we’ve seen with the election and thus a wedge will be driven further and further into the divide between the two nations. The Unionist will be given what they want and told to go and play in their own back yard (except if and when their votes are needed). and Plaid – well, sadly, when did Wales matter to the Tories?
So, as I say, a one party state in all but name. Exactly what most Tories, The City, and their corporate paymasters wanted.
Which leaves the Fifth Estate (social media) to object
…..until Gove completes Grayling’s quest to crush dissent and dismisses all objections as the Left being bad losers?
The country may well vote to depart the EU, or it may well not; the figures are close.
However, it will not happen overnight. The period of negotiation will be lengthy, and the UK may decide to go for a ¨pre-packed¨ trade pact, such as the EEA (etc).
In which case it will also include free travel across borders.
Unfortunately, the Con party are all for the EU (never mind what they say) and also for another trade agreement, the TTIP.
Good luck with dumping trident if that goes across, at least without being sued for billions.
There are Tories, genuine Tories, and the neoliberal zealots currently in charge. The true Tories, which I take includes Ganesh above, don’t like the neoliberals either. I note too David Miliband has publicly criticised brother Ed for not being right-wing enough, suggesting that’s why he lost the election. I think most rational folk would assume he lost as a consequence of not being left-wing enough, or offering genuine opposition, in passing. It appears Both Labour and the Tories then are starting to move closer to splitting into neo and anti-neoliberal factions. Hopefully this will soon lead to the formation of new parties, offering for many the new prospect of a party they can vote for with enthusiasm.
The zealots are there all right, both in cabinet and on the back benches. But Cameron cannot afford to give them their head; his financial backers and corporate friends want us to remain in Europe and would also like to maintain a supply of cheap labour to keep down wages and prevent any trade union resurgence. With some exceptions, neo-liberals want secure trading blocs and free movement of labour; the Faragistes want rid of both.
Ironic that so many of the leading zealots are Scots. Gove, IDS, Fallon… Quoted from today’s Scotsman
And London is one of Labour’ strongholds
It’s an upside down world
Must cross post this…
How I feel right now must be how my parents were feeling at the start of the 1980s (on Dad’s retirement from the army). They took the decision to emigrate to Australia rather than stick around under Thatcher. Unfortunately for me, the current Australian government are pressed from the same mould as the Tories here (don’t let their name, “Liberal Party”, fool you… liberal is NOT what they are nor have they ever been).
There seems to be an emergence of a monoculture in this country and around the world – true enough.
But let’s face it – the neo-libs know how to stick together and advance their cause. And we were taught to fear the Trotskyists in this country!!
There is something for the Left to learn from this surely?
“But let’s face it — the neo-libs know how to stick together and advance their cause. And we were taught to fear the Trotskyists in this country!!”
By whom, may I ask?
Trotsky, Trotskyists and “Monoculture” aren’t words that should be associated in one article, let alone one posting. Historically and conceptually, pre- and post-Revolution, it’s the opposite of what the man’s lifetime struggle was about. You can’t make a revolution in anything without splitting the monoculture that precedes it.
And “the left” is nowadays pretty much what was “right wing Labour” when I was a lad. God bless ’em. Do you want them to stick together? The sound of chickens settling down for a good kip isn’t what some previously hoped would accompany their later years.
Don’t Call Me Dave.
Surely you can remember the Sun and Daily Mail/Express headliners ranting on about gays working in schools; hard working union officials labelled as ‘red’; the so-called ‘enemy within’ of the Thatcher years (usually Trots)
Come on DCMD – where have you been since ’79? The neo-libs stick together and hold the line.
The counter narrative needs to do the same if it is to win any argument whatsoever. Neo-liberalism is successful because they stick together. It is as simple as that. The counter narrative needs to do that too.
The right portrays the Left as an enemy within; but trans-global americanised neo-liberalism is the enemy without and it is now within our culture too.
Simon
I honestly think that the Tories will cut down on the vilification and may enter a period of choosing to present their policies as more rational and positive as they do not have any Lib-Dems in the way anymore.
But more importantly they have just gained more time by winning the election. Remember that even civil servants were saying that austerity was going to be so awful that whichever party instituted cuts would be out of power for a generation because they would be so unpopular. That has not happened. The Tories can relax a little.
I think that that is what Janan is echoing in his comment in the FT. In order to cut their £12 billion new victims may well have to found to take the cuts and they may not be so easy to point the finger at as previous victims.
We’ll see.
Finally, I’d appeal to myou to consider that a number of factors have led to the Tories winning – not just people agreeing with food banks, houdning the sick etc.,.
I really hope you are right Mark!
Well I’m not going to do what the very stupid Mr Ashdown as the exit polls came out that is for sure.
Having listened to today’s policy announcements, it could be that the Tories pick their victims very carefully from now on.
It could be that the Tories will get carried away. Hearing Theresa May talking about punishing hate crime, when the Tories themselves have perpetrated hate amongst the workless, disabled and Scottish filled me with anger at the hypocrisy.
I could be wrong Simon – I could be very wrong!! And so Janan could very well be ignored!
There should be no move rightwards by the Labour party. They must ignore the siren voices calling for a return to a Blairite-style era.
Labour will get simply nowhere trying to be a moderate version of the tories. Not for nothing did Margaret Thatcher call New Labour “her greatest ever creation”.
On the contrary.
Listen carefully to the way in which this Tory government talks. It says one thing and does another.
That is the lesson Labour needs to learn so I’m all for them using Tory/right rhetoric only for them to do something entirely different once they get in.
That seems to be how politics works at the moment I’m afraid.
I agree stevo