I circulate this posting of someone's purely personal viewpoint about the future not because I agree with all its conclusions but because I profoundly applaud its ability to face the utter nastiness of what’s to come.
The general attitude is that ‘It’s nothing to do with me and I’d best ignore it.” The worst will - assuming the Tories win- happen under a Conservative government for Brown is skillfully avoiding it happening when he is still in charger. He’s succeeding in this by borrowing yet more money which will only make matters worse in the next parliament. It was a French king’s mistress who said “Aprês nous le déluge” but Brown has learnt well from France’s ancien régime.
I have emphasised what I personally regard as the most deplorable aspect of the situation in which we find ourselves - the disintegration of the integrity of the British people themselves.
Christina
================================
CONSERVATIVE HOME 24.10.09
Taking stock
Posted by Melanchthon
So, where is British politics at the moment. Here's how it seems to me:
1. Labour faces electoral catastrophe. Barring some bizarre moment of political self-immolation, the Conservatives are going to win by a huge landslide. There seems to be some odd idea around that Labour isn't going to get as small a percentage of the vote as indicated by the opinion polls. There are those who contribute on this site that follow these things much more closely than I do, but my understanding is that a consistent feature of opinion polls over the past twenty years has been their (quite significant) over-stating of Labour support. I simply don't get this thought that Labour will do better than the opinion polls suggest.
2. There is little, if any, enthusiasm for the Conservative offering amongst voters. Voters have a fairly settled opinion that Cameron doesn't believe in anything much or that if he does, it's indistinguishable from Blairism. This is a shame, since, in fact, that Conservatives have developed interesting and radical policy approaches across a wide range of policy areas (excluding the disaster zone that is our health policy).
3. The incoming Conservative government will face the worst inheritance almost anyone can remember. The only serious competition seems to be the Wilson government of 1974 and the Thatcher government of 1979. But each of those, in their different ways, had big advantages over the Cameron government of 2010. The combination of the worst recession since the 1920s; unemployment that will rise above four million unless something dramatic happens; public finances of the order of a banana republic; public spending on the scale of a soviet republic; the major industry of the economy (finance) crippled to the point of nationalisation; households burdened by ruinous debt; a war we absolutely must win but show little signs of doing so amidst widespread voter disillusionment with its value; a society ravaged by nihilism, sloth, adultery, divorce, irresponsibility, selfishness, promise-breaking and faithlessness on a truly epic scale; a political establishment that has no faith in itself or in the value of its ideals; an incoherent patchwork of overlapping legislatures in a constitution savaged beyond recognition; tension with our friends and partners in the European Union on the point of breaking out into open hostility - these and many other problems represent the backdrop to the 2010 General Election.
4. Voters don't want what we have, but they have no idea what they want instead. It's no use at all asking them. You have to tell them what you want and see whether they'll vote for it.
5. The Cameron administration will probably see very major power struggles and splits within the Conservative Party. We should not aspire all to agree upon what is the best way to deal with the appalling problems I listed above - debate and disagreement over a variety of approaches will be very valuable. In contrast, with a large majority and the opposition parties in utter chaos, the value of unity will seem small. We may well see two or even three Conservative Party leaders during the 2010s.
6. As unemployment rises above three million next year, and (barring something extraordinary) above four million over the following winter, the Conservative Party will be blamed. People will say that it's the spending cuts and the public sector redundancies that are the cause. There will be unprecedented social tensions associated with there being so, so many unemployed. Given the very low trust there is in politicians and the general scale of nihilism and social decay, the situation could become volatile - in an extreme case, in specific regions, even quasi-revolutionary (of the order of quasi-revolutionary union activities in the early 1970s, but probably not, on this occasion, at the instigation of unions). I have no idea how the Conservatives intend to deal with that - and, I think, neither does anyone in the Party.
7. The implications of unemployment on this scale and related tension could well, in the end, be regarded by history as the defining feature of the Cameron government.
Posts
