Election 2024: some thoughts on what happened and where we're headed
Marmite politicians, calling out Islamists, unserious poscasters, 'performance art politics', PR and the partiality of civil servants, competence and why union is better than disunion
Our election is over and, not to my surprise, I now have a Labour MP. Phil Davies, the outgoing MP described himself as a bit marmite but I always found him approachable and helpful as well as appreciating his willingness to be forthright even if that means saying things some folk don’t like. One of the important lessons too few politicians learn is that because you can’t please all the people any of the time, you are better served by setting out what you believe and making that case. Michael Wharton who wrote the Peter Simple column in the Daily Telegraph for many years created a fictional Tory MP, Jeremy Cardhouse, chairman of “Tories for Progress”. Cardhouse would get himself into intellectual and physical contortions trying to square this circle:
“...he (Cardhouse) will commonly go down on all fours, smiling in all directions and somehow contriving to bang his head on the floor at the same time. These strenuous exertions have often led to attacks of Convolvulitis and periods in hospital for treatment of this rare disease, with appropriate expense claims. Altogether, although not necessarily popular with the Tory party, his total lack of Tory principles should make him acceptable to it.”
Part of the problem with politics, and especially Tory politics, is too many MPs like Jeremy Cardhouse and too few like Philip Davies.
Although the headlines are rightly about the scale of Labour victory and Tory defeat there is something of a sense that British politics, once a reasonably stable duopoly with fringes, has become more fragmented. It isn’t just the continued fracture on the right exploited by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK but the emergence of the Greens as a sort of NIMBY environmentalism party and the resurgence, across the wealthy suburbs of England, of the Liberal Democrats as a more orange version of Australia’s ‘Teal’ independents appealing to the guilt-ridden rich who can afford to vote for trendy social justice campaigners.
There’s a third set of new MPs elected on campaigns based on sectarian politics inspired by Hamas and Gaza. One is former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who declared that ‘Palestine is on the ballot’ but others were elected on this same Islamist, sectarian platform in places with large Muslim populations - Birmingham Perry Barr, Blackburn, Dewsbury & Batley and Leicester South. In one respect this is just another reflection of how British politics is fragmenting but it also brings an aggressive, shouty and often misogynist politics to these communities. MPs like Naz Shah in Bradford West, Jonathan Ashworth in Leicester South, and Jess Phillips in Birmingham Yardley were targeted by aggressive groups of Islamists throughout their campaigns. And Jess Phillips acceptance speech following her narrow victory captured the problem.
Many have applauded Phillips’s speech for standing up to an intimidating mob but at no point does she speak of why these men feel able to intimidate her. Until we begin to speak the truth about Islamism in these contexts, we will continue to see sectarian and divisive bigotry in Muslim communities. And the mob at the Birmingham Yardley count were contained in a managed and policed environment. Outside of the counting hall, as we saw on the streets of Bradford, Blackburn and Birmingham during this election, such protections are spread more thinly and we should not forget that David Amess was murdered by an Islamist terrorist in his constituency office. The problem is that Labour MPs, and possibly the party itself if people like John McTernan are listened too, will seek to head off the Islamist mob by appeasement rather than facing up to the inherent violence of this politics. They may be shouting ‘baby killer’ at people who disagree with them today but tomorrow they will be seeking to intimidate teachers, council officers and business owners who don’t conform to their Islamist world view. These results, and the unwillingness of the media and mainstream politicians to confront this terror-adjacent ideology, mean we will see a repeat of the events that hounded a Batley teacher into hiding and that saw an autistic child in Wakefield forced into what amounted to re-education. Put simply we cannot allow violence and threats of violence from sectarian Islamists to guide what is done in schools, how our politics is conducted and how we defend minorities like Britain’s Jewish community. I doubt Labour will grasp this nettle for all Jess Phillips brave words.
Talking of brave words, Steve Baker, a conservative minister who lost his Wycombe seat to Labour, had a tough exchange with Ed Balls and Geroge Osborne (respectively Labour and Conservative Chancellors of the Exchequer back in the day). Put simply Baker didn’t give the expected platitudinous reply to the question “what went wrong”. Importantly, however, Baker did point to the problem of monetary policy (too loose) and fiscal policy (too tight). The most telling point was Baker reminding the two former Chancellors that cheap money and a supply-constraining planning system was the reason young people, and the not so young, in places like Wycombe can’t afford decent housing. The problem is, of course, that despite its clear failure as policy, the new government is going to continue the Balls/Osborne policy of urging down interest rates and using property investment and values to create a false idea of growth and betterment. The result, as inevitable as the ground getting wet when it rains, is that the government will be forced into further cuts and austerity measures plus, very likely, unplanned and unpopular tax rises.
Robert Buckland, another minister losing his seat, talked about what he called ‘performance art politics’ in the Conservative Party: "I've watched colleagues strike poses, write inflammatory op-eds and say stupid things they have no evidence for...I've had enough of it,". Buckland is right, too much politics is posturing for media likes and the political podcast world that Ed Balls and George Osborne giggle and smirk their way around is the acme of such an attitude. Within the influential bubble of the political podcast there is no space for serious analysis or detailed policy. Such indulgence doesn’t get the hits, clicks and likes quite as well as gossip, ad hominem and the parroting of opinion polls. I expect the preponderance of this political style to get a rocket boost under Labour as it tries to cover up the simple truth that, right now, we can’t afford the government.
I was disappointed that the first question asked of Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, wasn’t along the lines of “congratulations you have 71 MPs but tell me, do you think it right you have all those MPs on a lower share of the vote than Reform UK who won only four seats?” The results of the election remind us that Britain’s ‘first-past-the-post’ system has the persistent capacity to throw up results that feel all wrong. Whether it is Labour defeating Liz Truss by getting 26.7% of the vote to her 25,3% or Labour getting 410 seats by winning 34% of the national vote,just two and a half times more votes than Reform UK who won four seats. There are two possible answers - it is a terrible injustice and we should change to a system of proportional representation or our system allows for strong majorities and that is worth a little unfairness.
I’ve written about how our obsession with the constituency link is a problem and that this is a stronger argument for PR than perceptions of unfairness. But if you look at the results then the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives are not a long way from the number of seats a strict proportion would give them (71/78 and 122/156). The same applies for the SNP (10/13). What happened is that the relative even distribution of Reform UK votes and Green votes accounts for most of Labour’s majority (8/136). Our system favours regional parties like Plaid Cymru and the Northern Ireland parties along with the two big parties. Tactical voting (and suggestions of shady behind doors deals) accounts for the Liberal Democrat performance, something that means they will struggle to hold some of their new seats if there is any sort of Conservative recovery. To sum up, this isn’t an especially unfair result and does have the benefit of giving us a government with a controlling majority despite a lacklustre performance in terms of votes. We can only hope that Labour uses it well (this may turn out to be something of a vain hope).
During polling day (when the rules limit what the media can say about the election) former spin doctor Gabriel Milland tweeted: “Pubs of SW1 full of the slightly giddy senior civil service, celebrating emancipation from a political party they always disliked but came to utterly despise”. Many could be forgiven for having the same response as mine - this explains quite a lot about what went wrong and hints at a real issue with the impartiality of our civil service. It is true that a piece of gossip from within the Westminster political bubble isn’t a reliable guide to anything and one suspects most senior civil servants were either going about their jobs or, later in the day, heading home to their homes and families. But we have seen over recent years an increasing tendency for the media to view the civil service as a ‘player’ in the game of politics rather than as advisors to and administrators of the government’s policies. I cannot be alone in seeing this tendency as a problem.
One of the perceptions, at least from my distance, is that one of the reasons for perceptions of incompetence in the outgoing Conservative government is that senior civil servants have, on too many occasions, made clear through contacts in the media that they disagree with the policies being pursued by the elected government. It isn’t just the most egregious examples such as opposition to third country options as a response to rising numbers of undocumented asylum claimants but a persistent undermining of important aspects of foreign policy up to suggestions of legal action. I suspect that, through the unions and other friendly voices, Labour quietly encouraged this insubordination which raises a future possibility that the party may, if it too decides on tougher immigration measures or unpopular but necessary foreign policy positions, find itself hoist by its own petard.
If you’ve spent any time idly chatting with people in the real world, you’ll know that the biggest problems with the Conservative government were perceptions of competence, trustworthiness and sleaze. Because of these perceptions the Conservatives struggled to put forward positive policies to address the nation’s problems that also had popular support. Lots of people chatter about how the party is filled with ‘liberal’, ‘so-called one nation tories’, and ‘remainers’. The lack of action on culture war issues - the “war on woke” - is presented as the problem when, other than migration, these issues do not have enormous salience in the electorate, at least compared to perceptions of incompetence. The problem, however, is that Labour, with a hundred or so MPs without much to do, will make these MPs happy by playing to their policy prejudices around rights, culture and race. As a result politics will become more fractious and divided, tempting the Conservatives into a Trump-like stance on policy rather than one that seeks to adopt Disraeli’s edict of healing the divide between our two nations. Or rather more than two - divides between rich and poor, university graduates and non-graduates, inner urban and suburban, tolerance vs aggressive intolerance of perceived or mis-spoken opinions.
It will be interesting to see how the Conservatives navigate this dilemma especially now they aren’t responsible for implementing immigration policies or making decisions about who can use which changing rooms. Given Reform UK’s success, the instinct will be to close off their criticisms but this, other than rhetorically, is probably not the best route. Perhaps we need to think about how Conservatives might close the great chasms that Labour’s inevitable economic failure and obsession with culture war create in our society.
Thanks for a thoughtful commentary. The results is sort of fair in a perverse way. Labour have their win and can stand or fall on their record, pulled this way and that way placating the mob and the markets. The Tories are humiliated and not quite wiped out and can rebuild or disappear as Reform take over. Reform are in parliament but need to prove their worth. And the LibDems are the ornamental part of the constitution and will struggle to be simultaneously pro development and anti development. The next few years will be more chaotic and divisive. There’s a chance for the right to regroup if it holds its nerve and finds a balance between conviction, common sense and optimism. I expect a lot of young people will realise that left wing policies and mass migration have priced their futures away.
I disagree on the matter of perception of competence. All of the reasons why people ditched Conservative for Reform can be measured. Immigration is up, no-one is in Rwanda, taxes are higher than Blair, the NHS has had no reform. Wokeness is perhaps hard to measure, but I can point to Theresa May forcing companies to publish gender pay gap statistics off the top of my head, or how police forces are harassing people for the non-crime of giving their opinion of what a woman is, to no action from any Home Secretary (call me old fashioned, but I think police officers should focus on what are actual crimes, not things they don't like that are not).
I also take issue with my former MP, Robert Buckland, because the odd op-ed or disloyal ex-minister is not the problem. It's about delivering to Conservative voters what they want. I've been saying since 2008 and the election of Cameron, that it's the wrong direction, and 2010, 2016, generally mediocre election results were the warnings.
If the Conservatives don't fix this, and fix it properly, and somehow generate a level of trust in the voters then it'll be even worse for them next time.