There is a simple dilemma facing us as the election approaches. This is what I will call the Goodwin-Hitchens dilemma. The dilemma, for those of you who want to vote, is whether to vote for Reform or vote against Labour.
I call this the Goodwin-Hitchens dilemma because there is no question to my mind that the cases for each side have been stated most effectively by the academic political scientist Matthew Goodwin and the journalist Peter Hitchens: not least in the debate that Unherd hosted last week, ‘The Alternative Election Hustings’, where Goodwin and Hitchens spoke against each other, as well as against Rod Liddle and some others who presented quixotic, charming or alarming but ultimately irrelevant arguments in favour of other parties.
There is a consensus that the Conservatives have, over the last few years, performed poorly and ended up in a tangle. This was perhaps inevitable given their attempt to ride through Brexit. But it was certainly complicated by their capitulations to many standard administrative Leftist policies, most obviously concerning COVID-19, but also concerning Net Zero, Immigration and Diversity. These have unstuck the historical Conservative party as its subtle or cynical habit of capitulating to these while pretending not to has worn so thin that it has put itself in the position of having to admit that it is in fact in agreement with Labour — hence vote Labour — or that it has gone completely wrong — hence vote Reform.
The wonderful thing about this consensus is that it is almost universal. The entire nation is bonded together as effectively as if Henry V and Churchill and Harry Kane had formed a triumvirate. I see Labour and Green pundits using the same rhetoric of “decline” and “a need for change” as Reform and all but the most rigor-mortised brain-in-an-Egyptian-vase Conservatives. And of course now, as everyone anticipates a change, we see everyone working up a history of modern Britain in which the last 14 years are treated as a block, so that Nick Clegg and George Osborne are supposed to be part of the same rot as Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Just as everyone came to revise their estimation of 1997 in terms of the War in Iraq and the Financial Crisis, so everyone is coming to revise their estimation of 2010 in terms of Cost of Living and the Boats. Here in the Daily Sceptic we may deplore the evident absence of any discussion of COVID-19 but, let us face it, no politician ever wants to admit responsibility — except ostentatiously, for their achievements — and the truth is that what really happened during COVID-19 is still so embarrassing that it will have to be left to some future A.J.P. Taylor to tell the story at a time when everyone is willing to receive it.
Anyhow, back to the dilemma, for it is about whether we want to be positive or negative, whether we want to try to work for a long-term reform of politics — and accept that the worst that could happen has happened—or try to prevent the worst that could happen from happening. Our assessment of this depends on how serious we think it is that Labour will entrench a set of antipolitical protocols that will lock in a foolish administrative Leftist politics. Perhaps it will, perhaps it will not: perhaps, like all governments, it will do a certain amount, but then discover that the system of mediations running downwards from the monarchy, acrosswards from the institutions, and upwards from media and mass, will clog and clot its progress, and generate a situation of unexpected vicissitudes which will require the sort of headless-chicken virtue-signalling improvising which is nine-tenths of politics nowadays.
Goodwin has a point. If Labour has happened, if the thing is done and dusted, then a vote for the Conservatives will be a wasted vote, because it will appear to ratify the Bad Old System of the Uniparty or Blob — or what I prefer to call (having a taste for 18th-century language) the Court — in which Labour is the kamikaze wing of the consensus and the Conservatives are the carpetbagging wing of the same consensus. If we ratify this system then we are still stuck in the 1990s or 2000s: a mythical world in which we enjoy voting for or against Tory ‘scum’ and Labour ‘silt’, with no one doing anything about the quality of the water in the river of our politics. The problem with the Hitchens position is that although Labour is appalling, and even more appalling for lacking the decoration of hypocrisy which reconciles so many of us, at times, to the Conservatives, the Conservatives are pretty appalling too, and logically at the moment a vote for Conservatives just seems to be an admission that we are more half-hearted and cynical than Labour, while mostly agreeing with them. Hitchens’s reason for voting Conservative is very Hitchensesque, but, alas, it still ends in a vote for the Conservatives.
But Hitchens also has a point. This is because Starmer is extremely Blairite in one and perhaps two respects. He is Blairite in one obvious way, and this is in the positively Mandelsonian attempt to avoid letting Labour startle the pigeons. No one in Labour will disturb those busy dirtbirds of the City of London. Labour wants economic stability. This is New Labour redivivus: respectable, anti-Corbynite. And Starmer is perhaps Blairite in a second respect — if Hitchens is right — in that there is a conspiracy of the Latter Day Trotskyists to pretend to be sweet and reasonable when in fact they are committed Gramscian Marchers-Through-The-Institutions and intend to tie up the nation in a lot of what we now call lawfare, DEI, SDGs and goodness knows what else — with all sorts of newly recruited Thought Police to steer us along in our new comfortable conformity. If this is so, and it certainly seems at least possible, then Starmer’s regime may seem to be the telos of everything that has happened in the United Kingdom ever since the phrase ‘political correctness’ was first heard, whenever that was (let’s say, for sake of argument, the 1990s). Equity, Trans, Zero, Crisis, Economy, Ophobia, Privilege — everything will be bundled together in a grand Amazon packet and ‘delivered’ in such a way that it cannot be refused, even if we have to break down our doors to get the whole multi-purpose, rainbow-coloured, naughty-stepping, swear-boxing, procrustean-sleeping, brain-chipping, knee-bending, heat-pumping machine into the house.
But both sides have their problems.
Goodwin might be contributing to our doom. If Hitchens is right then there is no long term. The short term — Labour — will become the long term once Labour establishes its politics in the constitutional frame of our system.
On the other side, Hitchens might be contributing to our doom by condemning us to an unreformed system in which there is no likely that anyone will even be able to envisage opposition to the current Court of the higher-educated — half the population, remember.
What to do? No advice here. Historically, sceptics were always high-and-dry sorts who said — like Sextus Empiricus or David Hume — that one should not seek to change the world but, rather, go along with its traditions even if one personally was not entirely comfortable with them. Michael Oakeshott, a recentish sceptic, used to shrug his shoulders whenever asked a question about politics and say, “I don’t find it necessary to have opinions on such matters”. This sceptical doctrine, of course, was held at a time when societies were traditional. And we no longer live in a traditional society. Which is perhaps why sceptics are having to come out of the woodwork, the ivory tower, or the garden to say, “What the hell is going on?”
Good luck!
Dr. James Alexander is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey.
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This whole level of discourse is a joke. If you hadn’t noticed the most remarkable trend of the last few years is the utter disenchantment and rejection of mainstream political discourse. Just normal people who never bothered looking into anything are know beginning to ken it. In a time like this more can happen in a few weeks than happened in the prwvious few decades.
Osborne is a delusional quomble just like Boris.
For the Tories to gain the centre ground would mean they have to move a significant amount to the right of where they currently are.
I hope they stay where they are or move to the left so they occupy Osborne’s “centre” ground; that will ensure their deserved extinction so that a truly conservative party can take its place.
Osborne is peeved.
The fake tories managed to hold on to 121 seats but the Davos Deviants wanted them wiped out. The tory hierarchy, which of course includes people like Osborne – another non-flushable turd – failed to do their job properly so he is encouraging the rump to go back to their Bliar lite ways thus guaranteeing that if there is another election they will finally be disappeared for good.
“George Osborne has said the Conservative Party must resist chasing Reform voters and instead move back to the political centre ground if it wants to return to power.”
And what part of the political battlefield does Osborne believe the criminal, lying tories are occupying exactly?
The only reason Ozzy doesn’t want the tory remnants chasing the Reform position is because he knows this might prolong their miserable lifespan and as stated above the DD’s don’t want that.
This is the woke circling their waggons around the Tories in the hope that they won’t be able to escape from their clutches. Simply put, Osborne, like Johnson, is a globalist traitor who wants British people to suffer and to diminish the UK as much as possible because that’s what his masters demand.
How does one remove the neocon globalists from power, that is the question.
Coming from a fully enrolled attendee of Bilderberg meetings, George Osborne’s musings on trying to lure back voters hold about as much weight as a Gary Glitter announcement on childcare.
I like that we can see that they try to maintain the mainstream narrative and yet people look upon it with scorn and derision and laughter. In that sense this is a fine time to be alive.
The centre ground is code for “my views and policies”.
I have been trying to work out what “centre” means and that is the best I can do. The only alternative is “policies the BBC will report without either a smile or a sneer”.
“The centre ground” is code language for: Sunak has cautiously back-pedalled from Net Zero a little and overseen a slight pushback against trans-ideology. This goes against the established political dogma the Osbornes and Johnsons of this world claim to be in favour of (while they’re really just sock puppets moved by invisible forces). Sunak lost an election Labour won. Labour is still fully in bed with Net Trans and Zero Economy hence, it’s now occupying “the centre ground” Sunak Right-Wing Radikalinski carelessly vacated and hadn’t he done so, the muppet show of non-conservative Tory government had certainly just continued. The Tories must therefore, urgently transition back to Net Zero True Believers and champions of the notion that human children are born sexless if they ever want to win an election again.
Under no circumstance must they become so populist to try to do what the voters they lost want to be done. That would be very bad for the puppetmasters.
Read Janet Daley in yesterday’s DT. Excellent piece and says it all in her inimitable way. Osbourne is half the trouble and Cameron is the other half. The way they went o with the Liberals from 2010 set the path of going Left and away from Conservatism.
Remember that Cameron said, when he resigned outside No 10, that his greatest achievement in 5 years as PM was single sex marriage legislation. Was not even in the Manifesto. I rest my case.
Slightly Off-T.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/we-have-to-deal-with-the-anti-vaxxers-says-kier-starker-next-uk-pm-with-the-endorsement-of-the-wef/5858558
Kneel is a serious threat to the people of this country as this article makes clear.
When Scamdemic ll launches it could become extremely nasty particularly in relation to killer ‘vaccines.’
Centre means complete adherence to neoliberal orthodoxy. Neoliberalaism is basically a scam masquerading as an ideology. Keep the charade going on long enough so that you can get away with all the spoils. It is a perfectly natural approach for someone who considers themself to be on the upper rung of humanity, Just get what you can from the peasants and store it up and weather the storm. Sadly for them things will not work out that way.
Lol back to the centre ground, from the far left…
Why doesn’t he piss off and join Labour or the Lim Dems or the Greens?
This was first asked of the Tory left at the time of Maastricht. For some the answer was to avoid the consequences of daring to deny the blackmail.
The answer since 1992 has been to use the brand of the CP to act as an anger sink and thereby facilitate a further globalist left drift.
Sadly true
It is like a predator appearing among a flock of animals or a remote SIberian village that is being terrorised by a bear. A point comes when it doesn’t matter what you know. You are alerted to the main thing which is that you are being hunted by a predator. Birds might go quiet. When Jeffrey Dahmer walked past the cells of fellow mass-murdering convicts they all stayed silent until he was past. It is never wise to take counsel of your fears but in our time everyone will get it because we have that spark. This is a serious anti-human agenda that requires a serious response.
Focus on getting the spunk. If you haven’t got the spunk then all else fails. Courage is a cardinal virtue according to Plato because without the spunk you won’t do anything. If you feel that your nutsack is depleted then store it up, That can make a big difference, Taoist alchemy involves holding the seed for many years. It is basic and primal but you have to do it. Don’t succumb to this culture that tells you that it is okay to jerk off as much as you want because it really isn’t.
Oh, for crying out loud.
Logged in to upvote.
As someone that trains, there is truth in that.
There are definitely certain individuals on here that would benefit from taking your sage advice. Depleted nutsacks indeed.
Plus, there’s also oysters.
You were given a big pair of swollen bull testicles for a reason. Now put them to use.
Pack it in.
“But the actual way the party has governed has frequently been centre-Left if not outright Left-wing, with extraordinary levels of immigration and tax, a fanatical commitment to the anti-capitalist Net Zero agenda and only a very limp-wristed effort at reining in the spread of wokery across the public sector.”
Indeed, though oddly Mr Jones forgets to mention their crowning achievement – CONVID!
Yes
Throughout MacMillan, Heath, Hague and everyone since except Maggie and theoretically Truss they have moved significantly left.
The people haven’t.
Hauge was a fake Eurosceptic. Once the 2016 Referendum came where was he!
Osborne brought us Austerity , which in reality was , do nothing . Ever since , they have done nothing and Brexit was a complete surprise to everyone except those of us could not believe how lucky we were . The final message from the Pseudo Tories , was that they were all too ready to become Autocrats and completely destroy our Trust . We are now in an age when There is No Trust and Osborne was in at the beginning !
Osborn was such a success I hope the Tories take his advice. His mate Cameron-Clegg was/were just as skilful politically and I’m sure they endorse this view.
A bigger question is just why a political party would change its values (sic) just for electoral success. If it was about values and policies rather than holding office with mates for its own sake they would campaign accordingly.
As the Tories have no values they can do no other than “let’s outflank the Labour Party to please those nice people we met at the WEF/Gates/etc conference or weekend break”.
This apparent conundrum is nothing of the sort. In Westmonster the center is assumed to be somewhere between Tories and Labour, which means it’s all part of the indistiguishable groupthink. In the real world the centre is to the right of all of them. Moving right and occupying the centreground is the same thing!
In the real world 86% of voters chose left wing parties in the last UK GE
I wonder if we can envisage something new over the rainbow free from these levels of corruption. I think it is possible. You speak to the average person now and you are pushing at an open door. They just lost their old world schema and are hoping that there is a new vision. The new vision will be formed out of the horror of our collapse and our last days might be breadcrumbs. But it has to happen. It will be harsh in Britian though how they suddenly pulled the props out of the way and lifted the curtain and you are faced with the coldness of the brick wall at the back of the thatre.There is still some native genius left I hope it manages to overcome this Satanic impulse.
We have to do something the alternative is an everlasting hell of their device.
Centre ground, isn’t as central as I remember. I used to consider myself centre-left, but magically without changing my views substantially, I have become ‘extreme far-right’. The whole concept of left and right is out of date. I would propose ‘realists’ for right and ‘idealists’ for left.
It is a terrible situation in regard to what we are dialled into in terms of the launch of missiles. All the other crap counts for nothing. For me I don’t even know how to look at such a deterioration in intellectual standards and that is before even considering the dreadful consequences to our country. I think we assume that because we are an island we are therefore immune to missile attacks. This is simply not true, We should try to avoid such an exchange in my view.
If missiles start flying about the UK will be hit before the chief warmonger Uncle Sam.
Those Bollox to Brexit leftist Lib-Dems played a part as Nigel stood down, and once he stood down, the Tories pushed the ladder away. Shame they weren’t completely annihilated.
They think of you as less than vermin. Your might might’ve served their purposes for a brief while. There was no thought for your long-term sustenance. Like they might’ve watched a million go into battle in the first world war a century ago. You are just as expendable now to them in fact even more so because they want you out of the way. As long as you understand that you are being attacked by an enemy that wants you out of the way.
These creatures still don’t get it.
As Norman Tebbit pointed out, there is no centre ground, there is common ground.
Chasing some imaginary ‘centre’ ideology misses what people actually want. It is a play ground for a disconnected political elite.
It has become dehumanised. It’s all about abstractions, generalities: the planet, the environment, stopping climate change, saving the forests, fish, apes, equality, fighting racism and obesity, etc all at the expense of Humans as individuals their prosperity, wellbeing, freedom, property rights.
Mr Osborne, if you’re reading this, great, read on…
People who voted Reform are, in the main, precisely the people you should chase. They left you because they were sick of voting Conservative, having the Conservatives win and then getting something that was more Labour than a Corbynista’s wet dream.
But then I forget – you’re not really a Tory, are you?! Silly me. No – you are, as others here have already elucidated, an unflushable turd.
Remind me which General Election Osborne won? Oh yes, that’s right. None.
What is a “moderate voter”? Is it just a particular shade of vanilla on everything? Maybe the vanilla moderate wants only some mass immigration. Maybe he wants to save the planet, but only at the weekend. Maybe he wants men in frocks in their daughters toilet if they would only just have a badge saying “Really a Man” on their chest. Maybe the vanilla moderate wants to be tough on crime but not too tough because that wouldn’t be nice.
——-Yes Politicians just love all the vanilla moderates as their votes are so easy to hoover up. It is so much easier to sell silly Kylie Minogue records than it is to sell proper music.