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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We always voted Labour when I was growing up, but this was in ’80s Newcastle, and most families I knew had relatives that worked down the pits before they closed. But Labour and the Tories have changed beyond recognition over the decades, so now I’d be voting Reform if I were still in the UK. On a scale of 0 -10, how much of a shitshow is this going to be when Labour get in?
”The tectonic political shift happening in the U.S. is not as threatening to civil order as France’s earthquake, but make no mistake: across the West, this is the end of an era. It matters immensely that the National Rally is now the most popular party in France, and that AfD is the second party of Germany. These are the core states of the European Union.
Plus, unlike in the Anglosphere, most young voters favor the hard-right parties, not the left-wing ones. The bullying they experience on the subways from migrants moves them more than the bullying they receive from establishment bien-pensants on television shows.
That said, all of this makes a stunning contrast to what will happen in Great Britain this week. On July 4, UK voters are going to give the governing Conservative Party a staggering defeat, perhaps even worse than the Tories’ humiliation by Tony Blair in 1997. Despite massive problems with migration and political extremism tied to migration, British voters will empower perhaps the most radical left-wing government since Clement Attlee’s Labour created Britain’s modern welfare state in the ruins of World War II.
Yet Labour back then was thoroughly patriotic, and it governed a Britain that was far more socially and culturally cohesive. Today, especially after two decades of uncontrolled migration, as well as comprehensive national self-hatred instantiated throughout British institutions, the UK is deeply fractured. After 14 years of Tory rule, I don’t know a single British conservative who actually believes the lies the Conservative Party tells about itself. The fecklessness of the Tories, Macronist John Bulls who governed in the interests of London elites, will have delivered Britain into a grim woke future at precisely the same time patriots in continental democracies are finally voting to save their nations.
We remember the Summer of 1914 as the last idyllic season before the West blew itself to bits with World War I. Will we recall the Summer of 2024 as the last idyll before the West destroyed itself with civil war, even if fought primarily through increasingly radical politics? That conclusion seems rash—for now—but one thing is undeniably clear: the center of Western politics no longer holds. It is dead, and the ones who killed it are not Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage, and other politicians of the real Right, but rather the managerial liberals (including Republicans, Tories, and Gaullists) who lived by lies—and who, crucially, believed their own lies.”
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/dreher/the-center-cannot-hold/
Well described
Cheers luv.
There is no conservative party anymore, it’s just the alternative labour party!
I put a comment on the DT website yesterday under the Tom Harris claptrap about left v right saying that there isn’t room for two Globalist Parties fighting it out (Labour/Cons) since they both served the WEF and the policies were therefore virtually identical.
The future was Globalist (Uni-Party) v National (Reform …. and possibly Galloway’s new outfit).
Not a swear word in it. Nothing offensive towards any individual. Nothing waycist, bigoted or insulting.
Someone replied and said my analysis was bang on the money.
My comment got deleted. Which indicates that it was
Can’t have the readers deviating from the Left v Right bollocks.
They adopted COVID and climate communism, not to mention opening up the borders deliberately. No conservative person can support such a party.
Does anybody sane believe there will be some sort of rally to the Conservatives enough to return them with a working majority?
No?
So it boils down to how big will be the big Labour majority be…. which really makes no difference.
Logically, if Conservatives want to stop Labour, the only chance is vote Reform being the Party with momentum, and actually promoting conservative values. Red Wallers should consider it too.
Voting Conservative this time round, isn’t like 2010, when the electorate had had 13 years worth of Labour so the Cons were in with a chance, it will this time be futile.
Correct. A one seat majority would make Labour vulnerable (except the SNP, Plaid, Green and LibDumbs will nearly always support them).
But the difference between a 150 seat majority and 140 or even 100 make NO difference whatsoever.
The Red Wall voters could once again surprise us all. We can but hope that their voice of sanity will be heard. Their views are I suspect more in line with Reform than the globalist Labour Party who represent only themselves and their metropolitan elite acolytes!
I will definitely not be voting for a party with a leader who admires Putin ‘as a political operator’.
Abhorrent.
So you’ll vote for COVID/climate communist who let nearly a million ppl a year in! You do realise you live in the UK and not Russia?
How on earth do you get to there from my comment?
What a very silly comment!
Nobody’s perfect!
Indeed not and it is a great pity because Reform stand for so much that I agree with.
Putin is a murderous barbarian devoid of morals, quite possibly a psychopath.
The idea that the leader of a British political party that wishes to be taken seriously could admire Putin in any way, shape or form is completely beyond my comprehension.
You should stick to the MSM, more your sort of people.
You should stick your comment where the sun don’t shine.
More your kind of thing.
Getting out of bed is beyond your mental capacities most days given the drivel you come out with.
But he looks fab, topless on his horse in those photos he did. Is it okay to admire him that way?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvujypVVBAY
Editing software problems!
You really are an abhorrent pillock. You never address facts, you just throw out nonsense.
Respect your enemy in order to defeat him.
The down vote wasn’t mine!
Perhaps you should actually read Farage’s comments a little more carefully rather than accept the spin that MSM has applied to smear him. Voting according to MSM headlines is only for those who lack the intelligence and intellectual capacity to look beyond the headlines and consider the situation in depth.
MSM has become adept at spin, nudge, censorship, cancellation and blatant propaganda. They are no longer purveyors of the truth and rational argument.
I’ve mentioned this previously, but my old mum was a clippie on the buses 60 years ago (Ribble Buses, Lancashire). As a mid-teen, I was selected to represent a party in a school mock election. Scarily, my manifesto such as it was, was described by our art master, my mentor Mr Lambert, as ‘broadly fascist’. I asked my mum who she voted for and got the reply, “It makes no difference son, they’re all the bloody same.” Time has proved her spot on!
Mr Lambert sounds like the fascist.
Mothers usually know best – but perhaps I’m biased!
I’m doubtful anything much will change economically for most people, certainly not beyond frog boiling speed. I guess we’ll continue ti run about a 4% budget deficit so borrowings will be 20%-25% higher than now come the next election, which means interest rates will have been kept relatively high.
Labour will have overseen a looser monetary policy so we’ll have relatively high inflation.
There’ll be some taxing of wealth, property & pensions but in general people with assets will still do ok.
The bigger change will be on low cost issues, which means stoking the culture war to maintain some semblance of difference to the Tories or Reform.
The wheels of net zero will be looser too. The prospect of net-zero by 2030 will have receded, so Tory & Labour policy will turn out to be identical apart from self-ID of trans.
This all presupposes we’re not suckered into another war.
Don’t forget Scamdemic ll coming soon.
As an article on here said….We need more Victor Meldrews. I would add we still need the Alf Garnets of this World, at a back stop against Woke.
Many people of my acquaintance would probably describe me as a perfect fusion of Alf Garnet and Victor Meldrew.
I don’t know why
I don’t belieeeve you…
Hitchens is like a dog that is mistreated by his master every day, beaten and starved but still remains by his side out of misplaced loyalty.
Plonker!
He urged people not to vote Tory decades ago, and they ignored him. He was right. He’s no admirer of the Tory party.
If you’d read anything he has written on this subject in the last 20 years you would know that he is more aware than most of the failings of the Tories. His position now is that Labour will be so bad that it is imperative they be stopped, and voting Tory is a way to do that. I don’t agree with him but it’s a plausible and honourable position and calling him a plonker for it doesn’t seem appropriate
Sounds like JRM.
One tries to be fair-minded and looks for things that have imporoved in their tenure or at least situations that have been managed well under difficult circumstances. I can’t think of one and I can’t thing of one under Blair either. Obviously this is because it is supposed to be that way given the real state of affairs. In the time we live in, every leader will be worse than the last; even the noblest of characters can do nothing to stop the decay. Clive James asked the question, how was it possible for Blair to inherit a country ruined by Thatcher and Major and then make it even worse. It is baked into the pie I’m afraid and we are going to chobble on it whether you want to or not. On the plus side these leaders tend to last for shorter and shorter periods at the end of empire which has a funny side to it.
This country was DEFINITELY not ruined by Margaret Thatcher, in fact just the opposite. Yes she had faults but she didn’t seek to destroy us. Bliar did. Bliar is still doing it and must be positively drooling at the prospects come July 5th.
My understanding is that Thatcher was a plant of the G.H.W Bush CIA agenda that started in the early 1970s. What you might call ‘The Chicago Boys’, Allende in Chile being the first victim, although you you go back much earlier -Guatemala for example. . This was an economic model that brought slow destruction under the guise of illusory riches. This CIA doctrine takes many forms. I think we would be naive to see it as a positive influence on the state of our country. I can tell you with certainty that it isn’t a positive influence on our country or any country.
For me, voting Reform is a vote for Reform and is the ultimate snub to the Uniparty. I find pictures of Kiernocchio with his pathetic “Change” logo insulting. I’m far too intelligent to be the single cell amoeba he preaches to.
Within two years Labour will be seen as pariah’s. In five years time it is our turn. Always think ahead when you vote. Trying to stop Labour is empty headed and futile since you are voting to continue the Uniparty. The Tories are, essentially, irrelevant in the here and now. In the fullness of time it will become clear that I am right and only two parties now matter. We may not win that many seats but by heck are we scaring the hell out of Labour and the Establishment.
If you think that the act of putting an x on a ballot paper every four years is going to make things jolly then you are messed up. It isn’t going to be anything like that.I don’t even know where to start. We are moving into serious times and this is just another attempt at distraction. The decision has already been made for August in terms of war. No one will stop that. And I know we are an island and we think that this makes us invincible but not so much on the modern age. There are missiles that can travel very long distances. The ladder of escalation is treated with contempt by western powers because they haven’t received reciprocation yet. When it happens trust me it will be an entirely different story. Do you even have the fitness to get off your fat ass and go and hide in the cupboard under the stairs? I think not you would probably be hobbling around like a paraplegic the moment the bomb drops.
Unherd’s Horror Show. Fantastic Beasts and Why to Vote for Them.
Are we to pray in the style of Augustine: “Lord, make me see the Tory Party destroyed, but not just yet.”
The 14-year-long journey of Conservative Party governance in the slow lane of the automated highway, ‘the road of revolution’, is the route on which the whole country has ‘travelled far down’ in its unholy conversion. ‘Every institution in the nation has been subject to the Long March of the Left. The schools and universities have produced huge numbers of young men and women entirely reconciled to the Blairite new order,’ writes Mr H.
What would a Conservative Party reprieved as major opposition or government continue to be? A zombie in a horror film, a creature having lost its soul, uncomprehending of the revolution it spreads haphazardly and amateurishly: as to radicalism, always uncertainly fabian; as touching conservatism, gelded?
Of all of this, Sunak’s announcement in this election campaign that he’s ‘not against’ assisted dying is the finest example.
“For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?” (1 Corinthians.xiv.8).
If the Tory Party is ‘not against’ something revolutionary such as assisted dying, how can they be an opposition to a radical Starmer Labour government?
The Conservative Party is to be the saviour of the hour. Qualifying only because, having limited horizons conservative and radical, they have made themselves such nice revolutionaries compared to the nasty ones. As the one of the ‘two corpses’ that ‘prop each other up’ that is suffering a more advanced state of decay, a masterful attempt is made using the arcane arts of journalistic voodoo to put a tremor of battery life into its pacemaker. Yet it’s just too small a device to hold the charge of the re-animating zeal of the True Believer.
“So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” (Revelation.iii.16).
Yet it is already appearing that the March Lords will have effective power. Like the lords who edged the Western Roman Empire as it withered from Imperial Capital to provincial Ravenna. These are the religious and demographic tides welling up in the sea of the electorate. These are currents created by the Tories failures to deliver limited immigration and levelling up. These move the flotsam and jetsam of the electorate in directions that will constrict a Labour government in foreign policy and corral it in immigration policy.
For the Caesars, it was the same. Allies were made of the march lords. First given citizenship; then the dole, acknowledgement of religious difference, and co-rulership.
Vote Reform UK
as if your life depends on it, because it does.
I’m borrowing from the WEF’s Playbook.
If you want (a chance) to build back better, first you have to destroy what is in place. The Westminster Uni-Party has to be destroyed.
It’s like a 3-legged stool – red leg, blue leg, yellow leg – and is very stable. But if you break one of the legs it cannot stand.
We need to break the blue leg.