I'm not so optimistic.
Labour will smash this election which is great. But if you step back and look at the bigger picture there are two types of politics now. Serious politics that takes on the issues of the day and unserious populist BS politics that tells people what they want to hear, plays on fears and prejudices and ignores the hard reality.
The old left and right divide is gone as we are taxed about as much as is possible and yet the revenue is not enough to stop the decline of public services.
The serious politicians have an almost impossible task. The BSers will have an ever bigger range of grievance to tap into.
Except we tried unserious BS politics and tore up a half-century of ‘reality’ in terms of domestic and foreign policy and ended up with chaos, five PM’s in eight years, and everything shittier than it was before. Starmer’s impression of an uptight 1950’s bank manager and threatening us with a ‘serious but boring administration’ is the message most of the country wants to hear.
Projecting forward there will be two factors at play. One is a Labour Govt which I think will do just enough, not only in policy but in the act of governance. The Tories have neglected the basic task of running the country. Having functioning adults in charge will make a difference. Secondly, there is no major grievance target as there was with the EU. No ‘leave this and all your problems magically disappear’. We tried that and it predictably sucked.
The UK has had its populist moment, and it will hang like a stench that no one wants to talk about. We will never rejoin the EU, but we will be absorbed into its economic bandwidth and that will ease some of our logistic and supply chain issues.
Immigration will be the major issue, because with an aging population it is unavoidable and the one ‘grievance’ issue, except what is any party going to do about it? Exit the world? Ultimately, we will suck it up, because we have no choice. The consequences of ‘net zero’ will crash any Govt in a heartbeat. No one or party has the answer to what will happen to services, healthcare, taxes etc without positive immigration.
The Tories are now carrying the can for the consequences of the last ten years. All shades of the political spectrum want to see them punished - well, apart from Labour supporters who hate Starmer. Labour, LD’s and Reform are the weapons with which to beat the Tories. Once that is done, the dust will settle, and we will see what remains of the political landscape, but I’m pretty optimistic going forward.
