By now many of you are fed up with the endless soundbites and evasive answers you have heard in the election campaign. Two big questions are not being properly addressed. One is where are we going to get the money from to repair our broken public services, and the other is how are we going to improve relations with Europe to boost our economy?
We are also exhausted by the barrage of opinion polls which seem to land every day. I rely on two things to predict what is going to happen. One is my own experience on the doorstep and the other is the opinions of reliable academics who. One of them is Robert Ford, Professor of Political Science at Manchester University. His findings tend to align with my own experience talking to voters.
Academic analysis
Last Sunday Ford wrote in the Observer that although people are fed up with the Tories and Labour is likely to win, that does not necessarily mean the stonking big majority many commentators predict. The general dullness and lack of any real bite in Labour’s campaign could mean they lose voters on the left to the Greens and the Liberals, and on the right to Reform, certainly in this part of the world as I have long predicted.
There is another famous academic whom I am sure you have all heard of, Sir John Curtis at the University of Strathclyde. Many of you are familiar with his interpretation of voting figures, but he has just produced, along with Ian Montagu, and Chujan Sivathasan a report for the National Centre for Social Research entitled “Damaged Politics?” The impact of the 2019-24 Parliament on political trust and confidence I think this is of more long term significance for our national politics than all the pronouncements of the pundits and commentators.
Damaged Politics?
It is not very long and easy to read, so I suggest you look at it – it is online. Its basic point is that trust in politics and politicians is now at its lowest ever. Now I know we all meet people who say all politicians are rogues and there is no point in voting for anybody. I have met such people on the doorstep. But a majority used to trust our system to work reasonably well. Not any more it seems.
To quote from the report:
“Public trust and confidence has fallen now to record lows across a range of measures:
· 45% would ‘almost never’ trust British governments of any party to place the needs of the nation above the interests of their own political party, more than ever before.
· 79% believe the present system of governing Britain could be improved ‘quite a lot’ or ‘a great deal’, matching the previous record high in 2019 during the parliamentary stalemate about Brexit.”
There have been crises before. Sleaze in the 1990s and the expenses scandal in 2009 but trust actually went up in 2019 and 2020 when Boris Johnson’s government did actually seem to be implementing the result of the Brexit Vote. However, since then it has gone right down again when the promises of Brexit have not been delivered, and the performance of the economy is much worse.
Another interesting finding is that four times as many people as then now say “The system could be improved”, with the proportion now at 79%. In other words, people might be warming to proportional representation. The clamour for this could become overwhelming if Reform gains a substantial vote, but few actual MPs are returned.
Our leaders
I think, however, that the malaise goes deeper than that. We have been very ill served by our leaders over the last couple of decades. A prime minister has to have charisma in this age of mass media, to have some sort of vision for the country, be able to implement it, and also be able to communicate well with the country. Tony Blair, for all his faults did score well on all these counts. People forget that on his watch the economy performed well, and the NHS and education substantially improved. David Cameron had charisma, but he allowed Andrew Lansley to go ahead with a disastrous reorganisation of the NHS which he did not really understand, and allowed himself to be bullied by a minority in his party to hold the Brexit referendum without giving much thought to how he could actually win it. Most politicians know you do not call a referendum unless you are sure you can win it! He was followed by Theresa May who was an honourable woman, but a bad politician, lacking charisma, and unable to communicate her ideas to the wider public.
We had the age of the populists, Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss, who were able to talk ideas, but unable to deliver them. If we are to regain trust in politicians, we need to remember that ours is a representative system, not a presidential one, and we need to elect honest people who can communicate well, have a vision for the future, and be able to guide our country in the right direction. Populists inevitably disappoint.
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