The late, great and sadly almost totally forgotten Iain Macleod coined the phrase, “you campaign in poetry and govern in prose”. It’s a great line, but like most catchy political soundbites it was aimed at the chatteratti and not entirely true.
Andy Burnham has had a good start. He is playing the right mood music. He has softened pillar box red to a pastel light coral which has, according to decorators a “calm and gentle feel”. He has resurrected the cliche that will resonate in every saloon bar, “if only these politicians could get together and govern in the interests of the country”. In short, consensus.
Margaret Thatcher warned, “there are dangers in consensus. It could be an attempt to satisfy people holding no political views about anything ….the process of abandoning all belief”. In many ways she was correct. It was a sentiment of its time. In those days there was a real threat of what was dubbed “ratchet socialism”. Labour would mess things up, the Tories would come in and sort it out, but the thrust of Labour’s ambitions could still, in a softer version remain.
There are times in politics where consensus is important. In war time. In trying to fix the social care system, and the third rail, immigration. In the latter we have reached a dangerous tipping point. What happened in Ceuta is a metaphor of what could happen all over Europe. Schengen no longer represents the wonders of free movement but could become a welcome mat for those who really should not be welcome. As Lenin might have said, “free movement is precious therefore it must be rationed.”
I have been an advocate of the EHCR since I was elected in 1983. Every Parliament I would follow Edward Gardner QC and about fifteen other Conservatives through the voting lobby to demand that it should become incorporated into our law. However things have changed. The post war consensus was designed to assist the dispossessed masses who had been made homeless in war ravaged Europe as were the various treaties in relation to asylum. If there is not international consensus to reform these out of date mechanisms there will be an hysterical rush to abandon them. And politics abhors a vacuum. Will Burnham’s Labour have the courage to work with Kemi on this? I suspect that Mahmood would, but the left regard her as Satan’s little helper. There lies the Burnham problem. You can have as much warm and comforting window dressing as you like. You can have soft strings, pastel colours, Diane Abbott, Angela Rayner and as many token lefties as you think might work as you can cram into a vegan cafe. But it won’t. The left have smelt blood. They despise Healey demanding cuts. They will make life hell for Pat McFadden. And they will play to their core base who want to make the Rich’s pip’s squeak. That was the other Healey and he was an old right winger trying to appease the left. The only card Burnham can play is to threaten a general election. As they ridding high in the opinion polls and have twice smashed Reform out of the park in Manchester, the threat is not as potent as it was. The trouble with the left is that their main priority is the purity of their arguments. They don’t care too much about winning elections.
I remember when John Major first became Prime Minister, Sir George Gardiner, a representative of Margaret Thatcher on earth and chief steward of the Bastards, with the smile like the brass plate on a coffin, called into Number 10 for a chat. “Congratulations Prime Minister, we are all behind you. Obviously we want to help as much as we can, but it would be much easier if you did it our way. If not things could become difficult”. Major paused for a moment, smiled and replied, “thank you George, now why don’t you just fuck off”. He went on to win the 1992 election. I wonder if Burnham can be as ruthless with the left.
Farage is in a mess. Makerfield was a disaster and the Greater Manchester Mayoral election a catastrophe. And whatever happens in Clacton the questions about his finances will not go away. He is more unpopular than Boris Johnson during partygate, with his party’s national lead is on a downward spiral. The trouble is that his supporters are worshippers. They live in an echo chamber where their deity can do no wrong. They convince themselves that they can’t lose. That anyone who thinks that there is an alternative view is denounced in the foulest of language. Theirs is the snarling, contorted face of victimhood, of rage of being cheated by the establishment. Yet most troubling is the laundering of foul views with fake news. Who cares if you doctor what people say? They live in the Trumpian bubble whereby anything goes so long as you win. They are encouraged by Russian bots who want division and chaos. The aim is that nobody can tell the difference between the truth and a lie. When that happens the biggest liar wins.
The police, the courts and our institutions are being deliberately undermined. For the very first time in my lifetime our normally stable, tolerant democracy is reaching breaking point. This is not to say that communities have not been patronised, ignored and marginalised. That we must have open and informed debate about immigration and about how some feel that they live in a country where they are second class citizens. Where people who are work shy shouldn’t be better off than those who strive and struggle to make ends meet. This is where there should be consensus. The voiceless have a right to be heard and be reassured.
Kemi gets it. I think Andy does too. But I doubt whether he is in a position to do anything about it.
I have just read on X that the young chairman of One Nation Conservatives has resigned and left the party because he feels that they are not being allowed to become parliamentary candidates. This is nonsense. Kemi has said that she doesn’t want the list to be full of failed politicians. Correct. We have to look fresh and be united. There is no point in applying to stand for election if you fundamentally disagree with flag ship policies, whether you are the right left or centre. That’s just common sense.
I had many disagreements with Margaret but would never have stood for election if I fundamentally disagreed with major manifesto commitments. There are many One Nation Conservatives like me who want Kemi to be the next Prime Minister. We are a broad church and that is our strength.
There are some people who scream that the wets destroyed the Conservatives. Nonsense. It was the dishonesty & incompetence of Johnson and Truss who did that. They were aided and abetted by the swivel eyed carpet biters who were delivered from their strait jackets to join Reform. So can we stop this puerile debate and concentrate on winning the next election?