The other day, David McGrogan wrote an excellent piece for this site called ‘Why the Labour Party Will Win‘. He pointed out that we are subject to a cycle of hope and disappointment when it comes to government. After the farce of the Tory years it is inevitable that the voting public will turn to something else as a reaction, and that will in turn lead to its own disappointment.
All those who march proudly into the House of Commons in a few weeks, the new Government strutting along with self-righteous zeal, will soon hit the obstructive wall of reality.
On December 19th 1666, Samuel Pepys wrote in his celebrated diary after meeting an acquaintance at Westminster:
Sir R[ichard] Ford did make me understand how the House of Commons is a beast not to be understood. It being impossible to know beforehand the success almost of any small plain thing. There being so many to think and speak to any business and they of so uncertain minds and interests and passions.
I’m in the unusual position of being able to read his shorthand so I’ve just transcribed that passage from the original text, and that is what it says. It’s a brilliant observation which is as pertinent now as it was then.
The difference today of course is that politicians and government have far greater pretensions than they had in Samuel Pepys’s day. When the Plague hit in 1665 no-one in power had the slightest idea what to do except decamp to the countryside. When the Great Fire burned down most of London in 1666 it was down to Charles II and his brother James, Duke of York to lead the blowing up of houses to create fire breaks. But really all they could do was wait for the wind to change and let the conflagration burn itself out.
In our present age, politicians and government fall over themselves to pretend they are in control. They aren’t, but it doesn’t stop them coming up with all sorts of schemes as part of the masquerade. Various commentators have popped recently to point out how most of our present ills can be tied in some way to the measures adopted during Covid. It doesn’t matter what you think about Covid and whether it was real or not. What matters is what the Government did.
Net Zero is much the same. The illusion of state power over the natural world. Hubris beyond belief and doomed almost certainly to making things worse, only at vastly elevated expense and economic ruin.
The best column I read was Janet Daley’s piercing ‘The toxic legacy of lockdown is destroying our political system‘ because what she flagged up is the remarkable mystery of how lockdowns and the wreckage they caused have been virtually eliminated from the entire election campaign:
Locking people up in their homes and paying them not to work destroyed the possibility of creating new wealth and saw governments print mountains of money that debased the currency. Energy bills were subsidised by even more money from the Treasury.
But the governing party was not alone in its responsibility for creating this disaster. Labour was not only complicit in these plans, it was positively exuberant about them. Indeed, Sir Keir wanted earlier lockdown, more lockdown and longer lockdown.
It is truly extraordinary. The outgoing Government came to power considerably less than five years ago, but it seems like a century now, given the fallout that has followed.
But we face a probable new Labour Government by the end of this week. The shape of that victory is at the time of moment no more than the shadow of a dream. Within 48 hours the result will be a fact, set in stone for all time.
A shift to the Left is qualitatively different from a shift to the Right. I was cast back to the winter of 1977-8 and the firemen’s strike. I was at university (Durham). I was fascinated by my first introduction to the preposterous world of privileged students (we had grants back then, and our fees were paid by our individual local authorities) believing they had some sort of absurd affiliation and co-identity with the firemen’s cause. Sound familiar?
I made the mistake one morning at breakfast in my hall of residence of attempting to summarise the various ways of looking at the strike and whether it could be justified or was unreasonable. Another student, whom I had thought of as a friend, was enraged. His face became riven with anger and revulsion – do bear in mind I had not actually adopted a position myself – and he blurted out “you disgust me!” and threw his fist at me. He missed luckily, but he picked up his breakfast and stormed off. He never spoke to me again.
This is one of the features of the juvenile Left: a tendency to monocular vision, total intolerance of other views and also the belief in some sort of collective identity. The truth is the absolute opposite.
There is no such thing as the Left. What passes for the Left is a hopelessly inchoate ragbag of movements all dedicated in some way to idiosyncratic causes, only held together by not being in government. Each believes its particular trope and ideology is the path to utopia, but they are all fundamentally at each others’ throats. People’s Front of Judea and Judaean People’s Front and all that. Splitter!
I had a friend who was an unreconstructed Trotskyite. We got on well and I enjoyed our chats. I found him amusing but he took himself very seriously. He lived in a world which saw “Tory plots” at every turn, but he reserved his real ire for any faction of the Left not exactly on the same page as his brand of revolution. He’s dead now, but I treasure the memory of him expostulating:
You know what Guy, I hate Tony Blair so much that I hate him even more than I hate Margaret Thatcher. That’s how much I hate him.
No matter that Blair had pulled off the remarkable feat of getting Labour into power. This chum of mine rode through life on the crest of a wave powered by hate. He defined everything by how much he hated it. He defined historical figures by how much he hated them, and he could explain how much he hated any variant of Left ideology other than his own. Oh yes, he was an archaeologist, and he particularly hated the archaeologist and now GB News presenter Neil Oliver for being a “disgusting traitor”.
This is what Keir Starmer will probably face on Friday. The euphoria will dissipate in hours. The factions, all greedily counting down the hours until Friday morning, will emerge from the darkness and the unravelling will start.
Labour’s dream of exerting yet more control over our lives (though after the Conservatives it will be a tough call to outdo them) will, as it always does, decompose quickly in the face of the infighting and hate that will erupt. The fake unity will evaporate when confronted by events and the political hatred, of the type only Leftist movements can really pull off when battling it out for pre-eminence among themselves, will take over.
Every dog must have its day. In truth, the new Government will do some good and probably a great deal of bad. But whatever it does it will be a great deal less than it claimed it would do, and it will lead to disappointment and disillusion. If Labour wins, the tone will be that brand of spiralling internecine self-destruction it specialises in.
We are on the cusp of change except that, as always, nothing will change at all except the colours of the wind.
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I thought McGrogan’s article was anything but excellent as it ignored the possibility of voting for parties other than Labour and Tory, some of which offer at least on paper a genuine shift – Reform being the most notable.
I strongly doubt that the next govt will do any good at all, but I don’t really look for govts to do much good, just for them not to do harm and do their basic job – protecting our borders being the top priority.
I don’t care whether the left is united or not – the only thing that matters right now is that huge numbers of people are going to vote for left wing parties – Plaid Cymru, Sinn Fein, SNP, Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Workers party – probably more than 80% of those who vote. Very sad.
It’s not the lack of Labour doing any good that is of concern, it’s the bad they certainly will do.
Should there be a subsequent Reform UK or reconstituted Conservative Government, their first challenge will be to clean up the mess and unpick the tangle, before they can move ahead.
People forget or don’t know, it wasn’t until Margaret Thatcher’s second term that things started to pick up as her first term was dealing with what Labour had left behind.
Indeed, and in all the years of fake conservative govt since Blair, they unpicked virtually nothing.
When you promise to rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on the vote(s) of Paul(s).
This is a myth the left is far more united than the right. They all agree on Marx manifesto as their 10 commandments they just disagree on the means. What manifesto do the right agree on? Without Christianity we don’t have a moral basis for our philosophy. This is why the left have completely won after Christianity was informally abolished in about 1960.
“Without Christianity we don’t have a moral basis for our philosophy.”
That is a very succinct and eloquent summary.
“Without Christianity we don’t have a moral basis for our philosophy.”
The Jews would disagree – not least since Christianity is rooted in Judaism – Jesus being a Jew.
But there is a presumption there was no moral base in our pre-Christian ancestors which is clearly not so, since much of our Common Law evolves from customs, laws, traditions of our Pagan Odin, Freya, etc worshipping ancestors and certainly pre-Christian Greeks and Romans had their moral, philosophical base.
It is certainly the case that early Christians who were something else prior to being Christians had established moral codes which shaped Christianity.
I don’t necessarily disagree. But what shapes our moral codes now? Taylor swift, Greta Thunberg and Paul McCartney. All talentless idiots. Fundamentally our whole system is about instant self gratification whilst pretending to be caring.
The right are supposed to agree on Limited Government and the “Capitalist Manifesto”. Infact it was Karl Marx who freely admitted that in a short space of time Free Markets had created more prosperity and technological innovation than all previous generations combined.
—–We should have realised back in 2018 when Teresa May lectured from a podium about “Social Justice” that Conservatives had given up the ghost and were just morphing into Labour Light. All our politicians are now signed up to International Agreements seeking to grab more government control back from the people.
——Once you educate yourself away from ideologically motivated thought you realise your ideology was a millstone around your neck. —-“In dealing with poverty here and abroad, welfare and foreign aid are a sticking plaster. It is Free Enterprise that is a cure” ————-Bono of U2
Labour is going to be riven by division.
Rayner vs Starmer
Corbynistas vs Starmer
Islamists vs Zionists
Hard left vs traditional moderates
Traditional NHS supporters vs Streeting supporters
Free gifts for everyone vs prudence
The Blob vs any change whatsoever, except growth of the Blob.
Abbott and Lammy vs anything rational
plus many more I am sure you can add for yourselves.
The future is change – change is not necessarily better.
Yep they disagree on the means by which they press us but not on the idea of collectivism though.
The word locally is that Ranting Rayner’s position is knife edge.
All revolutionaries begin with a purge of their own supporters.
So shall it be. Starting Monday. The lists will already be drawn up. It wont be made up changes of treason as favoured by Hitler and Stalin. Starmer isn’t the type to put bullets in heads. He does know a bit about character assassination though. I see that there is breaking news about a huge fraud scandal in Manchester doing the rounds on X. Two birds, (Raynor and Burnham..?) one stone…
Rayner is a thief and a liar. Burnham sold his soul years ago, straight out of the Bliar playbook. And just as damned awful.
She can go an hang out with her Muslim men friends. That’ll go well for her……
“In truth, the new Government will do some good and probably a great deal of bad.”
Concluding that Kneel will do “some good” is optimism off the scale frankly. The closest that WEF chimp can get to doing good is to do nothing.
Yes, there’s going to be big celebrations at the weekend by everybody’s ‘favourite’ public menace, West-hating w*nkers, predictably. Grim. Starmer is to be their bitch, or else;
”On Saturday pro-Hamas & pro-Palestine demonstrators will be out in force.
Emboldened by a big Labour majority, they will expect Stamer & Lammy to play ball. If not I can see things kicking off.”
https://x.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1808474264028197371
It won’t matter if Kneel gets in on the back of a large muzzie vote or not those with loud voices will claim it was so and demand payback.
Yes, Kneel will be their bitch.
Socialism is evil masquerading as good – and Socialists are the worst kind of evil-doers, mitigating what they do as necessary to do good.
Precisely.
It helps to remember that nearly all major legislation is fed into Parliament via our civil service acting as conduit for a huge network of international bureaucracies – some known like the UN – but most unknown – which decide regulatory frameworks things internationally for many things which affect our day to day lives.
People complained about how much UK regulation came from the EU, but actually it wasn’t/isn’t the originator they are just an input mount for the global nexus.
And of course all Countries receive their regulation this why, which is why all Governments (with a few exceptions) behave the same, enact the same regulations.
When people claim Labour and Conservative have been captured by ‘globalists’ this is what it means.
The start point for reform, is fire the entire civil service and cut off the input. Reform UK will have to grapple with this if they wish for future success.
I agree that the CS will have to be tackled, and NF is the one to do it. A business run like the CS doesn’t last long and neither should they! WFH works for a few, disciplined people, it does not work for people with young children dogs, or other interests. Make them work properly.
.
An excellent article as always, thank you Guy. I hope your prediction comes to pass.
The 4th of July 2024———-Remember this date as it is when you moved into an Eco Socialist Dictatorship with Obersturmbannfuhrer Miliband coming after your standard of living and the Climate Gestapo monitoring your every action and movement. If you decide you’re not having a smart meter, heat pump or electric car you will have the “Climate Denier” star painted on your front door.
R.I.P
The last vestige of British values
Murderer by ignorance
4th of July 2024
May it rest in eternal peace or, until the next incumbent leadership brings it back from the dead
Peopl under the age of 30 should never be allowed to vote. Their brains are not fully formed until 25, and then they need a few years experience of life before they should be given the dangerous privilege of voting.
Labour will implement a lot of nasty, communist policies before their infighting comes to the surface. That is the horror that awaits us. The factions will remain disciplined for long enough to let Stalin Starmer change the House of Lords and hand over more parliamentary power to quangos and civil serpent leftists. Only violent disobedience will undo that, in my opinion. Bad times are ahead for all of us.
They’ll do what the WEF has told them to do. As Starmer said, the real “work” happens in Davos.
“Life of Brian” was a brilliant film. The political undertones so closely matched our own problems. We have the Saviour available, called Nigel Farage! Vote Reform, not the various terrorist groups determined to ruin Britain.