The UK & We the People

"Mark my words: overseas observers of life in the U.K. are about to get ringside seats for a period of seriously bad juju that is about to unfold. There is a breakdown coming in the relationship between the Government and the people, and things are going to get hostile. There will be tears; there will be a hard rain. We’re going to have to batten down the hatches and pray we make it through.The hostility is going to come mostly from one direction: Government is going to get angry, and it is going to start soon. It is already apparent to everybody that Starmer’s Labour Party consists of – to use a good old-fashioned word that Orwell would have loved – prigs. The main message we are getting from them is that they are disappointed in us: for driving cars, for drinking alcohol, for wanting to get good educations for our children, for greedily hoarding wealth to pass onto our descendants, for amassing nest-eggs for retirement, for engaging in filthy habits like smoking and for voting ‘divisively’ in referenda. To call them dictatorial would be in a way to give them too much credit; it would be much more accurate to simply call them bossy. The image that comes to mind is that of a stuck-up and prissy schoolmaster or schoolmarm in a 1950s children’s novel set in a boarding school; the kind of person who would appear in a Jennings or Billy Bunter book to bluster, red-faced, about somebody having raided the currant bun supply in the tuck-shop. And the new Government’s understanding of the word ‘authority’ is that it derives from the power to do the political equivalent of giving class detentions. Collectively personified as a teacher, the new Cabinet would be the type who mistakes surly, resentful silence for respect, and laments very much the demise of the cane.In a previous post – borrowing from C.S. Lewis – I used the word “unconciliatory” to describe Sir Keir Starmer, and I increasingly find it the most appropriate one when thinking about the tenor of governance to which we are now subject. Labour’s victory in the 2024 election was artificial and its well of support is ankle-deep; since only one in five of the electorate actually voted for the party it was already unpopular at the very point of taking office. Politicians who were not thoroughgoing mediocrities would, finding themselves in such a position, be prudent. They would recognise their priorities to be consolidation, calmness and concession – their aim would be to lay stable foundations for future governance with quiet competence. But the current crop do not really understand the word ‘prudence’, or like it. So we are patently not going to get that. We are instead going to get a programme of improvement imposed upon us from above: eat your greens, do your press-ups, and do as nanny says (oh, and hand over your pocket money while you’re at it)."

aily Sceptic