The past week has shown British politics and the appetites of the British public as mirrored by the media in a shameful light.
Acres and acres on the antics of the rich elite, including a prince of the blood, have flooded the prints and airwaves, with very little on the conditions that enable that elite to prance around ignoring common decency and even less on the policies that might put those conditions right.
The Israeli government and its IDF continue to kill Palestinians in Gaza and steal the lands and interfere with the liberties of residents of the West Bank: Russians, mercenaries and Ukrainians continue to battle in Ukraine; and destructive civil wars continue in Sudan and elsewhere. If they and similar obscenities are mentioned at all they are relegated to the middle pages. They have become “boring.”
Nearer to home an interview with Professor Kate Pickett about her new book “The Good Society” reminds us that spending on prevention services for families declined by 25% in the decade from 2011; half the children born in Liverpool in 2009/10 have been referred to children’s services before the age of 5; England’s local authorities have only 6% for the childcare places needed for children with disabilities; 65% of prisoners released from prison return within six months.
Yet it is not failure to deal with these, and related issues on the state of the roads, the financing of SEND, inadequate flood defences, interest on student "debt" to name but some, for which the Prime Minister is desperately defending his “judgement” before his parliamentary party this evening but this choice of Lord Mandelson as ambassador to the United states.
The whole issue is massively hypocritical. I have not personally kept a record, but rely on that of Jonathon Freedland in Saturday’s Guardian (7th February) that “few protested [at the appointment] at the time. . .[O]n the contrary . . .the Westminster village, including Farage by the way, along with most of the media support[ed] the appointment, declaring it a masterstroke.”
Frankly, the Parliamentary Labour party, and party members in the field, should shut up and instead of personality battles, concentrate on supporting Sir Keir Starmer and the government in getting on with what Labour governments are expected to do, not least , improve conditions for the less fortunate, not just in our society but in the world.
A fluke of the electoral system has given them a massive majority and golden opportunity. It is madness to throw in away. The right wouldn’t hesitate (indeed they rarely have).
True, not all a Labour government has done or will do will please Liberals, (see last month’s post
https://keynesianliberal.blogspot.com/2026/01/this-labour-government-is-not-liberal.html)
The quality of government would improve if the Labour big beasts had the humility to recognise that they received the support of only a third of those who voted in 2024, which given the turnout amounts to only a quarter of those entitled to vote, but that an invitation to share government with the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Nationalists would have the support of the majority and thus have the courage to bring about the reforms we so desperately need.
Sadly these leopards are not yet ready to change their spots. When will they learn, and introduce PR?
Having said all that, and being only human, I cannot resist the temptation of highlighting just one piece of the salacious gossip that has been floating around for the past week.
Mandelson’s admission that he “couldn’t live by salary alone.”
This man apparently received “compensation” of three months salary for getting the sack. That was £40,000, equivalent to £160 000 a year (plus, presumably, free accommodation in a posh embassy in Washington, on top of any parliamentary, other and Old Age Pension, bus pass and winter fuel allowance.)
The overwhelming majority of those of us paying for this out of our taxes would regard such a salary and perks as riches beyond the realms of avarice.
Thus it is not Sir Keir Starmer’s lack of judgement that has caused the political class to lose touch with the electorate, but the perpetuation of conditions which can make such outrageous claims tenable.
“Il faut cultiver notre jardin” - Voltaire.
ReplyDeleteWe must keep a good distance between ourselves and the world, because taking too close an interest in politics or public opinion is a fast route to aggravation and danger. We should know well enough at this point that humans are troublesome and will never achieve – at a state level – anything like the degree of logic and goodness we would wish for. We should never tie our personal moods to the condition of a whole nation or people in general; or we would need to weep continuously.
You (and Voltaire) have a point, but I subscribe to Aristotle's view that "man [and woman] is a political animal," so when we raise our eyes to look beyond our own back yards, rather than just focussing on who is "up" and who is "down" and wallowing in the sleaze resulting from their antics, we should engage in discussing practical proplosalsr for improving the conditions in which we all live.
DeleteSpeaking about hypocrisy, I don’t recall you saying ‘more about policies, please, and less about people’ when Mr Johnson was Prime Minister. Then it was all, ‘Who cares about policies, Boris is clearly an unsuitable person to be Prime Minister!’
ReplyDeleteWhat we have here is Mr Starmer being held to the same standards that he used when criticising the previous government(s), and discovering that he doesn’t like it. But sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, eh?
that an invitation to share government with the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Nationalists would have the support of the majority
ReplyDeleteAgain: no it wouldn’t. You can’t just add votes like that. You can’t assume that, say, someone who voted SNP would be happy with a Labour/SNP coalition government.
Lots of the people who voted Conservative and Liberal Democrat in 2010 were unhappy with the coalition government that resulted, and would not have voted for it if it had been presented as a choice before the election!
Yes it would, although there is something to be said for your argument - indeed even more since it is very probable that of the 25% who voted for Labour candidates in 2024, many (possibly most) were voting not for Labour, but ABC (to keep the Conservatives out.)
ReplyDeleteChurchill is said to have agreed that "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.) The same could be said for coalitions formed after PR: they may not be perfect but it is better to give shared poser to a group of parties whose aims over certain areas overlap, than to give absolute power (an Elective Dictatorship, as described by yet another Tory, Quentin Hogg, I think) to the largest minority, however small.
The same could be said for coalitions formed after PR: they may not be perfect but it is better to give shared poser to a group of parties
DeleteNo. That is wrong. Because that way you give power to a government that was not presented to the voters, that nobody had an opportunity to pass judgement on, positive or negative. So you don’t know how much support it might have had. It could, in fact, be less supported than one of the parties in it had individually.
Far better is for the parties to sorry out their coalitions before the election, and present those to the electorate. That’s what our system does: the Labour Party is itself a coalition between several strands, as is the Conservative Party. Those strands come together and work out a coalition document saying what they would do if they got into power, and they call it a ‘manifesto’, and then we find out which of those coalitions is preferred by more voters than any other coalition.
That ensures that whoever gets into power has the legitimate mandate on at least however many voted for them.
Whereas a coalition formed after the election has no mandate, because nobody voted for its manifesto.
In fact it is our current system which, while imperfect, is better than all the alternatives; which inferior alternatives include your system, which would produce coalitions with no mandates and no legitimacy.
The only way your system could work is if, after the coalition was negotiated, there was another vote where the public could either say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the coalition formed. If 50% + 1 of the votes are ‘yes’, then the coalition can take power with a mandate. Otherwise, a new election is held.
DeleteWould you accept that? Otherwise, I’m afraid you must admit that our current system is best, because you are admitting that you don’t think your after-election coalition really can reliably claim to represent most voters.
You have a point, but what you suggest would be awkward it there were an urgent issue to be dealt with, and there is a grave danger of voter fatigue.
ReplyDeletebut what you suggest would be awkward it there were an urgent issue to be dealt with,
DeleteIf an issue is that urgent then you can’t have an election at all — mechanisms exist for suspending elections for that reason (during the world wars, for example). So if you have the time to have an election at all then you have the time to do it right, I hope you would agree.
and there is a grave danger of voter fatigue.
Then they can vote ‘yes’, if they can’t face another election and they think this coalition is likely to be the best on offer (even if they hate it).
But surely as a democrat you think that decision should be up to the demos rather than the political class paternalistically saying, ‘don’t you worry, we’ve got your best interests at heart, we’ll sort this out and save you the stress and bother of having to make another decision’?
So: will you agree to commit that your idea requires a confirmatory vote for any coalition government formed after the vote?