Since the onset of social democracy for the masses in Britain, post 1928, politics has been seen to be slowly drifting to the middle. By the end of the 20th century this had become a worldwide phenomenon, and it’s now possible to study the development of ‘the middle’ ground, (which is at different stages across the planet), depending to social conditions. Perhaps the models which are most progressed are those existing in the new world democracies where ‘old world baggage’ has largely been jettisoned. Canada is perhaps a good example of this.
In Britain, old world baggage is still a profound cultural item. 1066 and all that, and although getting to the middle started in 1215, it’s only just arriving now. Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham hung on for a long time here.
However, we’re nearly there. The Blairites stopped the pendulum from meandering out towards the left, after Thatcher’s cronies had tried to get back to the fleeting fantasy of virtual feudalism, old money and the shires, and has reached a place where neither has very much currency any more; i.e., the middle. The last ten years, since the IT explosion, has seen a huge rise in paper money theft by scam artists, which has landed the world’s financial centres in massive amounts of debt.
It’s not hard to notice that the media polls of the last couple of weeks have had Cameron on 34%, with Brown fading and Clegg rising, both on 28%. This potentially means several things. Brown’s old religion isn’t cutting it anymore, and his support for the Iraq war has come home to roost. His is probably the most just solution for the British economy. It probably involves less pain than The Sheriff of Oxford would heap onto the public sector; but it’s probable that his moves are going to be achieved without him actually being at the helm. Milliband will overtake him very soon.
Cameron is a very fresh face – hiding the frayed edges of the uneasy union between Basildon boy and old Etonia with all the arrogance that can come with perceived inherited entitlement. The politics of his party will involve trying to shore up what residual wealth there is in the shires and the off-shore City and relying on a great deal of Middle England charitable pre-grannies to fill the craters he creates in the public sector.
Clegg is an extremely fresh face who was never allowed more than two questions at PMQs on a Wednesday lunchtime and who has exploded onto the electorate with all the frustration he’s been harbouring for a couple of years and more. His precise policies are not as honed as the other two, as yet, but he has a better idea of where we’re at both on a human level, as a thinking person, and as a politician. He’s more real, but his policies, as with all three parties, will have to be tailored to the actual circumstances existing on the actual balance sheets at the Bank and Whitehall.
In a fantasy world, I’d rather have him as the next leader, being assisted by Vince Cable, with Brown on hand for advice, but that’s just fantasy. Unless something remarkable happens, Brown is gone, and actually deserves to be. I rate his economic nouse on a higher level than the other two but he’s not the leader. He was washed up on Blair Rock as a leader. He should have struck out with Robin Cook against the Iraq War but he didn’t and he’s tired figure now. He has the voice, but he should have used it for all the people not just the Presbyterians.
So what do we have? We have three ghosts of three parties who’ve been with us since the 19th century. The conservatives have changed the most, because they’ve been forced to, to stay in the game, but they still represent an old world that should now be gone. Labour represent their antithesis. Born in the late 19th century out of justified social unrest they have reached their goal with a nanny state that doesn’t quite know how to pay all the nannies any longer. Then there’s a so called Liberal Democratic Party which was totally reborn in the late 20th century out of the elements of the labour party who wanted to move toward the middle (the SDP), and virtually the old Liberal party of Joe Grimmond with its fair middle class principles which leant to the left.
This means that what we have is a working class and its supporters and sympathisers on the Labour left, the Liberal party to the left of middle, and a conservative party trying to maintain the class divisions and modus operandi of 60 years ago (“You never had it so good”) with that same condescending tone in the delivery of “you”. This means that 34% of people are on the right of the spectrum, and 66% in some way lean to the left. If I lived in a constituency with a big Labour or conservative majority I’d vote for the green party, but I don’t, so the best thing that I can do would be to try to help change ‘Old’ politics for good by voting Liberal. In our different ways, 66% of us will do that. We should not be dethroned by the 34% who will vote for something slightly more antisocial.
Rules.
1. Do not accept Osbourne under any circumstances.
2. Vote for Clegg.
3. In a safe seat, vote Green.
And hope that Miliband is Labour leader by June 1st.
Then hope that social justice is the model that allows the ape to successfully address the neurotic shortcomings that would threaten his own survival.
