SARAH VINE: A government needs to win the nation's hearts and minds to be successful - I fear this is impossible in today's increasingly fragmented Britain
How's your brave new socialist dawn going? Mine’s a bit soggy, to be honest. Still, I can’t help thinking: thank God that’s over. The baton passes to a new government, and though I did not vote for Keir Starmer, I wish him and his Cabinet every success.
As someone who has witnessed the agonies and responsibilities of power, and who has more than once paid the price when things have gone wrong, I can’t help feeling relief that it’s come to an end – for the time being, at any rate. It’s someone else’s problem now.
I’m sad, of course, for all those people – not just MPs but campaigners and special advisers and other political folk – who have lost their jobs, and perhaps more importantly, their identities.
The empty diary, the silent phone, the falling away of close ‘friends’, the removal of familiar routines, the final farewells, the recriminations, the petty acts of revenge... I know well how that feels, and it’s never easy. My advice: stay off social media, read novels instead of the news and try not to fill the abyss with too much cheap plonk.
The Prime Minister holds his first Cabinet meeting yesterday, following Labour's landslide victory
Sir Keir Starmer waves outside 10 Downing Street as he poses alongside his wife Lady Victoria
Some cope better than others. I was struck by Nigel Evans’s sweet resignation message, defeated after 32 years – a lifetime – as the MP for the Ribble Valley. There was a lot of that, including Jeremy Hunt’s classy speech. Nice also to see one or two fresh young faces bucking the trend for the Conservatives – Gyles Brandreth’s daughter, Aphra, for example. Good luck to them all – they’ll need it.
The truth is that the Tory administration had, after 14 years, run its course. All governments end in failure.
Most people aren’t especially political in their day-to-day lives – they only become so when things aren’t working. And, as I wrote at about this time last year, Britain under the Conservatives had turned into a shambles.
Roads full of potholes, rail and air strikes, pollution in rivers, machete-wielding nutters on our streets, soaring bills and crumbling public services, crippling mortgage rates, migrants housed in four-star hotels, absurd culture wars, stealth taxation, curbs on business, constant day-to-day frustrations… the list is endless.
There was just an overriding sense that nothing was working properly. And things had not improved since.
All the reasons you might choose a Conservative government over a Labour one – economic competency, building infrastructure, allowing people to keep more of their own money, controlling migration, helping businesses and entrepreneurs – just didn’t seem to apply. For many, especially Conservative voters such as myself, it felt like a Labour government in all but name.
The Prime Minister celebrates his election with a reception at the Tate Modern in London
And then there were all the scandals, unbecoming of anyone in public office.
I had hoped that Rishi Sunak, with his strait-laced lifestyle and ex-banker’s brain, would guide the party back to first principles, but in the end, he wasn’t up to it. Or maybe it was too far gone. Either way, it doesn’t really matter now.
Now we have a Labour government led by a proper, dyed-in-the wool Lefty lawyer and stacked with die-hard socialists every bit as intractable as the old Tory Right-wingers, and they are hitting the ground running.
In yesterday’s press conference, Starmer stressed his intention to deliver economic growth. But also, with lawyerly skill, he laid the ground for much more. He projected a distinct ‘more in sorrow than in anger’ demeanour, the sense that the actions that his government will need to undertake will be borne more out of necessity than tribal desire. When politicians put their hands in front of themselves in this way, it’s always a bit of a red flag. Something radical is on the cards.
Wes Streeting has already seeded that idea with his ‘the NHS is broken’ statement: his way of justifying whatever comes next. Starmer did the same on prisons, declaring them ‘broken’ and preparing the ground for ‘tough decisions’. No doubt there will be more of the same. Housing, I sense, is next.
It is possible, of course, that tough decisions will turn out to be the right decisions. Streeting has floated the idea of working with the private sector on the NHS – and if that happened I would welcome it. As Starmer keeps saying, important national matters transcend political allegiances.
Downing Street Cat Larry walks outside No 10 ahead of the new Prime Minister moving in
Sir Keir and Lady Victoria walk into 10 Downing Street with an arm around one another
But there is one underlying problem, nothing to do with government policy, that still needs urgently addressing.
Yesterday, Starmer made much of the fact that his government has support from all four nations of the Union. That may technically be true, in terms of seats – but away from Westminster, the nation is more fragmented than ever. Labour achieved fewer votes than David Cameron did in 2010, which resulted in a hung parliament. Starmer’s voter share was less than 34 per cent of a 60 per cent turnout. That means that just over one-fifth of those on the electoral register voted Labour.
Starmer won because people were sick of the Conservatives, and because of the first past the post system, not because of overwhelming public support.
That’s not to say his victory isn’t valid – it is most definitely so under the terms of our democratic system. But to claim the entire nation is behind them is simply not true. Politically and culturally, as a nation we are atomised.
Whether the reason is because we no longer all watch the same TV programmes or because we don’t have any unifying beliefs or customs, or because the modern world seems to encourage extreme expression at all costs, or because social media has turned people into narcissists, I don’t know.
Perhaps a factor is the passing of our dear Queen, who was such a unifying force, someone who invoked the same feelings of love and loyalty across all social and political divides. When she was alive, we had a solid, fixed point and it felt the country always had something in common. Now everyone seems at loggerheads, screaming and shouting at each other, fighting over nothing, unable to see others’ points of view.
This is revealed in the return of sectarian politics, in the aggressively pro-Palestinian marches and anti-Israel/anti-Semitic sentiment that accompanies them. We see this in the rows over gender identification and the rights of women, in the disagreements over how to tackle immigration, legal or otherwise, in the behaviour of climate change protesters, in bear-baiting reality TV programmes.
It’s no coincidence that one of the most popular shows last year was The Traitors, where contestants compete to see who can do who over most successfully. Humiliating others and watching them suffer seems to have become a national pastime.
Britain used to be such a civilised place. Not any more. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s become quite unpleasant and intolerant. Everyone thinks they know best – even if in reality they know nothing.
All this poses a huge challenge, and one that any government of any political stripe would struggle with. To govern successfully, you need a majority not just in Parliament but also out there in the country, in hearts and minds – and I just don’t think that is the case.
The circumstances of Starmer’s win make him vulnerable to the whims of a testy, disloyal electorate which – as we’ve seen – can pivot at a moment’s notice. No wonder he’s a man in a hurry.
California parents terrified after group of 20 migrants try to board elementary school bus
