Are we now a nasty nation?

 Way back in 2002 Conservative politician Theresa May warned hge Tories  that they should be careful not to  be seen as "the nasty party,"  

Sadly , eleven years later, as Home Secretary, she was the one to hire lorries to tour areas of high immigration with posters threatening people who might not be legally here to "Go Home of Face Arrest." 

 Under May the  Home Office deliberately tied to create a Hostile Environment. "  It was officially  intended to deter those whose legal presence might be questionable, but in practice tends to create hostility towards and uncertainty within all those communities who "look a bit different."

And last Thursday 7th May 2026 the acceptability of this policy was confirmed by just about half those who took part in the election.

The combined support for  the Conservatives, who have moved even further to the right under Kemi Badenoch, and Nigel Farage's Reform party, was 47%.  This is massive compared with the raggle-taggle support of the Labour Party (15%) and the Liberal Democrats and Greens each with 14%.

The right wing massive superiority will not go unnoticed by the whichever Tory leader survives to the next general election, and the triumphant Nigel Farage.

Yet are we really so nasty as a nation?  What has happened to our much-vaunted virtues of  tolerance and belief in fair play, not to mention our Judaeo-Christian heritage? 

 The division in British  politics were ably described in an article by  Andy Beckett in the Guardian on the day before the election:

“On one side are millions of left-leaning Britons whose economic prospects are worsening, whose anxieties about climate change are rising, whose horror at Israeli and the US’s  wars is absolute, and whose alienation  from  the compromises of conventional Labour politics is deep. . . . . .

 . . . .another [is] a coalition of interests, including the right wing media, the right of Labour, the Tory party, corporate lobbyists, defenders of Israel and the Anglo-American “special relationship”, and supposedly realistic centrists from the pages of the Financial Times to the deep-state recesses of Whitehall. Protecting the status quo against the disruptive plans of the left has been one of this  loose and adaptable establishment’s  main priorities for decades, arguably for centuries.  And it has rarely been defeated in this struggle.”

One can quibble about the details (I don‘t believe all “progressive’s” economic prospects are worsening.  Some of us are very comfortably situated) but the gist, especially the summary of the forces of the establishment, has the ring of truth. 

 That right-wing coalition is now led by a charlatan whose greatest gift is persuasive communication by appealing to our lowest instincts.  He is also good a gaining financial support from those interested in maintaining their own positions financial advantage.  Not all of them may love in this country

 Form where did all the money to finance Reform's incredibly successful campaign come? 

Whether Sir Keir Starmer survives as Prime Minister or not,the Labour Government with its massive  parliamentary majority should waste no time in imposing the strictest possible rules for donations to and the financing of political parties.

 The rich and unaccountable should not be allowed to use their money to poison the electorate.

 I am reluctant to accept that we are really a nasty people - but we are easily led astray.