1 August 2024

Trumpism

Home counties style.

By John Watson

It is a time for optimism. A new government has taken office. There is a new Prime Minister, described as decent and public-spirited by his predecessor, a man who has undertaken to govern on behalf of us all including those who voted against him. That is not just a pledge you might expect from the leader of the King’s new government. It is a pledge that requires a response. Those of us, and your correspondent is one, who voted against Labour must cut them a little slack as they get their feet under the table, giving them a fair trial, understanding the difficulties of government and allowing them the benefit of the doubt when things go wrong, not cavilling and sneering as if we were on one of those dreadful TV panel shows but with a genuine hope that they succeed. After all, a more prosperous and better organised nation would benefit all of us.

One of the best moments of the post election period was the sight of Starmer and Sunak processing out of the House – I think it was after the King’s Speech – chatting amicably. There at least political conflict did not seem to have descended into personal animosity. Britain at its best!

Good God! What is this? Has the Shaw Sheet turned into a Pollyanna jelly? Have we lost our bite, merely asserting fatuously that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds? Not quite.

I was at a gathering last week chatting to somebody who is a Labour supporter; they were the sort of Labour supporter I like, sensible, decent, honest, charitable and public-spirited but when we discussed the election they said the oddest thing, that because Sunak was rich he could not understand the concerns of the poor. Well it is true, of course, that Sunak has not experienced their problems personally, but unless a man is a fool, which Sunak does not appear to be, he cannot have a successful political career without realising what they are. Anyway, if you take the argument that only those who have experienced something are fit to set policy on it to its logical conclusion, you end up with an odd sort of government: an agricultural minister who has been a farmer; a rich minister to represent the tycoons and businessmen; a housing minister who has worked as an estate agent; a minister for the poor who has been a bankrupt; a minister for the arts who wears a velvet jacket; a minister of education who has a science degree – and perhaps another one with a humanities degree, et cetera et cetera et cetera. Each of these ministers would then represent his “constituency” in a way which would put the NIMBYs of the home counties to shame, imbuing political life with a splendid mixture of bile, coalitions and infighting. It would be magnificent in its way but not a very effective system for governing the country. The art of politics is to see the point of view of people whose experience is different to yours and to accommodate it.

I explained this to my friend and, seeing the main thesis torpedoed, they fell back to a reserve line. Ah well, Sunak himself is very rich and has no understanding of the poor.

No evidence was offered in support of this, no rationale; it was just an attempt to step back from the logically absurd to the merely unsupported. It was as ludicrous as the allegations that Corbyn is an antisemite or that Starmer was a failure at the DPP.

“So what?” you might think for a moment. But suddenly I  saw something rather ugly. Here lurking in polite society is our own version of Trumpism, the replacement of sensible argument with the statement that your opponent is unfit even if there really isn’t anything to back it up. We all do it a bit, of course. I do. You do. The King – well, no, the king probably doesn’t, but he might do if he wasn’t King. It is a very human weakness but the sad thing is that the society which is so fond of calling out sexism, racism, cultural appropriation and all the rest of it, does not protest at this particular form of bigotry. So if you want to do something for Britain, to help clear the political air, you can do this. Go to some fashionable cocktail parties. Wait till you hear some politician being criticised unjustly on a personal basis and then kick the person making the criticism vigorously down the stairs. Even if you are arrested for it you will still be in the right.

tile photo; Michael Discenza on Unsplash