It can’t be a great time to be a politician, and I don’t just mean for those Tory MPs who have just realised that investment banking/the media/working as a Russian mercenary in Central Africa is a lot more attractive than losing their seats/deposits/last shreds of their dignity at the next general election. No, I mean, just being in politics must be exhausting. Aren’t there better ways of amassing vast wealth and wielding a God-like power over the British people, such as being a dentist or Gregg Wallace?
These thoughts passed through my mind the other day when hearing the news of the King’s illness. Twitter (screw you Musk™) slowly responded to the news, initially, at least, with a certain degree of respect.
Then, at 6.01 pm, the leader of the opposition posted his response, four minutes quicker than the prime minister who tweeted out at 6.05 pm. Maybe Number 10 didn’t get advanced notice, but it was remarkable that Starmer was the first to comment: “On behalf of the Labour Party, I wish His Majesty all the very best for his recovery. We look forward to seeing him back to swift full health.”
Pretty standard, of course, but it’s easy to imagine the conversation that could have taken place. In my mind, it’s filmed like an episode of The Thick of It.
Starmer: I should issue a statement.
Advisor: You should.
Starmer: I’m Leader of His Majesty’s Opposition. It’s expected that I make a statement.
Advisor: Just maybe don’t be so quick…
Starmer: No? Why not?
Advisor: Well, if you issue it too quickly, the Left will accuse you of being a pawn of the establishment. They will say you’ve abandoned your Socialist roots. They might even mention… Well… you know…
Starmer: What?
Advisor: The knighthood.
Stamer: Eeek! You’re right. I should wait.
Advisor: Well yes… but not so long that the moderates accuse you of being a Marxist-Leninist ideologue whose communism renders you incapable of responding on a human level. They might even mention… You know…
Starmer: What?!
Advisor: Jeremy Cor…
Starmer: NO! NO! Stop that. You’re right. So how long should I wait?
Advisor: I’d give it ten minutes…
Starmer (30 seconds later): I’ve pressed SEND.
This conversation obviously didn’t happen but managing perceptions is certainly happening on one side of the political bonfire. It’s no longer a case of a politician merely trying to say something inoffensive because inoffensive is bound to offend somebody.
Even saying being “inoffensive is bound to offend somebody” is bound to offend somebody. Getting so abstractly meta is bound to offend. As well as using the word “meta”. Gawd strewth…
(Add blasphemy to my list of offences but, to paraphrase Walter in The Big Lebowski: say what you like about the tenets of blasphemy, Dude, at least it’s an offence.)
This is the great wobbly blancmange of a problem hovering over Keir Starmer’s head and ready to rain down a sticky mess come his election campaign. To be a modern pragmatic politician making a claim for the moderate centre is to know how to offend the least number of people because the only certainty is that offence will be always taken by somebody somewhere. The calculation is knowing which people to offend, ideally the least.
This seems to be the trick that Rishi Sunak singularly fails to realise. Or perhaps he, and a few of his more incendiary kin, know something far darker about the British electorate, and that by leaning into offence, they can solidify their base.
On Wednesday, Sunak touched on the trans debate with a comment that soon had calls for him to apologise to the mother of Brianna Ghey who had been invited to watch PMQs from the gallery. As has been widely predicted, this is one of those wedge issues that Sunak is going to exploit so it’s hardly any surprise that he wasn’t for stepping back from what he said. Unlike his £1000 bet with Piers Morgan, which was just a very bad judgment call, the PMQ comment was probably calculated. It’s the Donald Trump tactic, which has been proven to be a losing strategy in four elections (including 2016 – winning by the Electoral College doesn’t count as a true win).
But, at this stage, Sunak is not engaged in an election-winning strategy. He’s attempting to limit damage. Starmer, meanwhile, gets into Number 10 by playing an innings of Geoff Boycott-like tedium. It doesn’t mean he’ll never offend, as was shown by the responses to his straight-bat answer. No sooner had he expressed his sympathy than one person had accused him of being “busy brown-nosing the establishment”. And that was one of the kinder replies.
Yet it’s not just social media that has generated this bile. Our media are complicit as well. They’re always out to stir some trouble and generate new headlines (making rather than reporting the news) but that’s long been true around general elections. Labour habitually makes it easy for the braying hunt to catch them.
At some point, their party leader is always going to be asked “Are you a Marxist”. The only exception is if their surname is “Marx”, but the rest of the time the correct reply to that question is always: “No.” It’s not, as Jeremy Corbyn answered in 2015: “I haven’t really read as much of Marx as we should have done”.
But this is the difference between Labour and the Conservative party. The latter fight general elections. They don’t fight political battles or aim to win arguments. They know that a manifesto is disconnected from the ugly business of government. They make promises they never need to keep but will win them short-term advantages at the ballot box, as well as the medium-to-long-term goals of another four years in office. Then, in the first budget, they’ll admit that (whoops!) the finances aren’t that great, and all their spending commitments will have to be put on hold. At least for another four years.
We’ve been on this spin cycle for years so it’s unsurprising that our politics is looking so thin, and frayed, and has so many holes in it. To mix my metaphors (as well as my washing): Labour are still wrapping themselves in their hair shirts and aren’t happy until they’re bleeding profusely from their self-inflicted wounds.
Starmer knows all this. His blandness is offensive on the level of it being an obvious façade but even more offensive as a symptom of a political climate that demands our politicians to be this bland.
Labour’s so-called “bombproof election manifesto”, revealed last week by the Guardian, might not be real but it should be. Starmer wants to win and should (and I think does) know that winning in a climate dominated by hostile media means not giving them the material to destroy him. So, no crazy promises. No “doing a Jeremy” by promising to fit everybody with a fibre connection or give us all our own tree.
Just. Say. Nothing.
But, of course, politicians are not in the business of saying nothing. So, they say something and that’s where things start to go wrong. And, it’s not just Britain’s centre-left that has this problem. Pressing self-destruct on winning positions has long been a feature in US politics.
Joe Biden is facing pretty much the same problem with the left of the Democrats who are demanding more action around the situation in Gaza. Biden is navigating a difficult path, at once about geopolitics, trying to find a real solution to a humanitarian disaster, whilst also not leaving himself open to attacks from the looming Trump Machine. Don’t upset the Jewish lobby, the Muslim lobby, the Green lobby, the Californian lobby, or the independent voters in the various marginal states who each have a different demographic.
He needs to be pro-Israel, yet stand apart from Netanyahu, try to bring the Saudis on board (whilst the Saudis might well be ready to pull a trigger on Biden to get their favourite back into the White House), whilst keeping the Houthis suppressed but not so suppressed that Iran gets involved, whilst Russia might be happy to see Iran involved if it means more military aid diverted away from Ukraine, whilst China is watching because any greater conflagration might give them a window to deal with Taiwan… And all the time (wake up Sheeple!) Taylor Swift is taking over the world!
Is it any wonder why any politician who stands a chance of gaining power is seeking to become anodyne, with nothing really to say? The idea of broad coalitions is so outdated when so many are willing to lay down their lives on every knoll, hillock, ridge, and butte on the political range.
Saddest of all is that the answer doesn’t lie with the alternative, which is those politicians with lots to say. Liz Truss 2.0, anyone? No, I thought not. And I nearly didn’t mention it. It is, after all, such an offensive suggestion.
@DavidWaywell
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