dom.blog

Well, as of this evening we now have a Conservative Prime Minister. And yet, I’m feeling rather content – even optimistic. Here’s why.

Since the Second World War, we have only ever had Conservative and Labour governments. In fact, until New Labour we usually had prolonged periods of Conservative rule interspersed with brief patches of Labour, but that’s just another reason why I am quite happy to have sat out on most of the twentieth century by virtue of not being born. It’s been a two-party system, with the pendulum swinging from one to another, and sooner or later every government must get so tired, weary and bloodied from office that it falls to the opposition. That’s just the way it is.

So imagine, back from the vantage point of the twentieth century, of being told that in the future there would be a thirteen year spell of a Labour government. That’s over a decade in which – for all of its shortcomings, which no doubt someone will now see fit to bring up – we got the minimum wage, record investment and delivery in schools and hospitals, a huge advance in gay rights, proper government restored to London, a big expansion in university provision and – thanks to an independent Bank of England – no ruinous inflationary economic cycles of boom and bust. (Ah – before you object – the credit crisis and subsequent recession was a quite different beast, no doubt leaving its own lessons to learn but not the same thing.) Imagine being told all this, and then being asked what you thought would follow. Well, another turn for the Conservatives, naturally. The pendulum swings back.

Except it hasn’t – not this time. I’m sure that most of the people reading this will share with me an intrinsic gut reaction against the sight of a Tory stride into Downing Street, even if deep down we recognise that the British Conservative party really is nowhere near as bad as some of its international equivalents. But, this time, he’s not walking in to lead a Conservative government but a coalition. Thanks to the Lib Dems, progressive politics now keeps a foot in the door.

The Lib Dems might now be able to act as a crucial brake on Conservative instincts. Thanks to them, we might yet avoid ludicrous fiddles to inheritance tax thresholds or marriage allowances. Income tax for the poorest might even be cut. Lib Dems will be in the Cabinet. Lib Dems might win us changes to the voting system to escape the deficiencies of first-past-the-post which brought us the two-party pendulum effect in the first place. Lib Dems in the government might just be a crucial signal to the rest of Europe that Britain is still engaged with the rest of the continent.

I say ‘might’, because they might not be able to achieve any of these things. Fair enough. But at least now we’ve got a chance – at least we haven’t gone back to a purely Conservative government by default.

And if the Lib Dems fail? Well, I happen to know of another party. It’s now in opposition, but with 258 seats in the Commons and millions of voters still loyal to it. It’s untainted by anything the government does from now on, but will soon have fresh leadership and a chance for renewal and new ideas. It’s the Labour party, and one day it will earn the support of the people to govern again.

So here we are – it’s the night before my last exam. It’s the History of Political Thought to c.1700 paper, which is unusual in the sense that we are guaranteed a question on each specified topic, so I can be certain that tomorrow I’ll be answering questions on Plato, Hobbes and International Law. I’m choosing to interrupt quote-learning for blogging, however, because it’s quite possible that immediately after the exam I’ll enter a euphoric haze that could last for quite a while. Plus I have a rather fun and exciting week lined up, so blogging there may be little!

Waking up to dismal European election results put me in a thoroughly bad mood this morning, albeit solely on the BNP angle. I don’t really mind Tory or even UKIP success with the same gut instinct: after all, there is a common community of political junkies which (I presume) works in a similar way that football fans do. Labour are my tribal ‘team’, and I am bitterly disappointed when they lose on occasions that I really and sincerely don’t believe they deserve to, of which Ken’s defeat is a classic example. But at other times, I think the grinding demands of the political cycle are overwhelming, and oddly enough I feel worse about lack of sizeable Lib Dem or Green gains than Labour’s losses. (Maybe not so oddly: I did vote Green in this election after all.)

In common with the vast majority of people, however, I feel nothing but disgust for the BNP and find any gain on their behalf deeply upsetting. Lucy put it perfectly this morning, and there isn’t really anything to add, but I would say that some of the reassurances we are offered about the far right do nothing to reassure me because they miss the point. No one is expecting the BNP to ever wield effective political power. (Unless there is some major social breakdown, of course, but then all bets are off.) It is perfectly true that very many more people are ‘anti-BNP’ than support it. But it is wishful thinking to believe that ‘anti-BNP’ carries much ideological commitment beyond a distaste for racism. Plenty of people who will never vote BNP nevertheless carry strong reservations about immigration and multiculturalism, even if this is more often just a vague feeling of dissatisfaction rather than a vote-influencing political priority.

And with every gain of the far-right, the temptation to shirk from an active defence of immigration and multiculturalism in favour of ‘tough’ rhetoric becomes ever greater. This will be admirably justified as reaching out and listening to the poor and disaffected, but it merely serves to implicitly confirm the premise that, under all of the nasty racism, the BNP do have a bit of a point.

Well, they don’t. And you might say that I’m bound to say this, given my support for a particularly multicultural vision of what Britain ought to be. It’s true: I do firmly believe that a multicultural society is by far a stronger one. But that’s not my point here. Even if you don’t agree, it is important to accept that BNP policies – or BNP-lite imitation policies – are utterly irrelevant to the real problems at hand. Attempting to change the precise number and composition of individuals in this country will not create jobs, build houses or improve service provision. Whether your neighbour is a Turkish Muslim or a Catholic Pole, you will all look remarkably similar if caught underneath rising sea levels or the blast of a terrorist bomb. The ‘planned economy’ character of a points-based immigration system is bad enough, but let’s not fall any further down this ultimately deeply diversionary route. It’s not just wrong – it’s shamefully neglectful of all of the people who need real help for their problems, not false words.