Cameron must lift British politics

The mere fact of having a direction, whatever it is, can be galvanising. And whoever charts one will at least mark himself or herself out from the carnival of froth and nonsense that Britain’s public life has become

Grief is supposed to move in five stages from denial to acceptance. Since losing its empire, Britain has skipped from the first to last. After the Second World War came the Age of Denial, when Britain charged into Suez, out of hubris and abstained from the early rounds of European integration out of magisterial disdain.

Britain now embraces its loss of global eminence, as if to show it does not mind. In place of Churchillian ( or Blairite) reflection on Britain’s place in the world, there is parochialism and frivolity. And so an MP’s faintly mocking tweet about a house dressed in English flags is enough to convulse Britain for days and force her resignation.

The stars of politics are entertainers, such as Boris Johnson, the London Mayor, and Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence party ( Ukip). Even the largest debates of the day — Scottish nationalism, London’s preponderance — are introspective in nature. Lording over it all is a narrow- shouldered generation of politicians.

British politics is not venal or incompetent. It is just small- time. There is a chance here for a leader to lift the sights of Britons beyond the quotidian, and it should be the prime minister.

David Cameron is about to give a speech hardening his line on immigration. Like so many of his interventions, it is a reaction to events. Voters resent the free movement of labour in the European Union, as do many of his fellow Conservatives. So he will do his habitual work of yielding to pressure, even if it boxes him into an inescapable corner that requires another improvised gambit later on. If you sense a prime minister living hand to mouth, that is not far from the truth.

Before the general election next May, Cameron should give another kind of speech. In it, he should transcend the smallness of politics and the reactiveness of his own premiership by giving Britain a long- term mission or objective. The idea is to clarify not what he “stands for” — an airy question that detains nobody outside Westminster — but where the country should be going.

The mission may be to make Britain the biggest economy in Europe. Given demographic trends and recent economic performance, that is not a fanciful destiny. The Centre for Economics and Business Re-

It has become pat to say that politicians since Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair do not understand ‘ aspiration’. Their habit of alternately ignoring and cringing before White Van Man, the symbol of working class self- reliance, seems to prove this right. But countries can have aspirations, not just individuals.

search says it could happen by 2030. There are hedge funds who take a similar view.

With a destination in mind, Cameron can talk about how to get there. Airport expansion, a more competitive capital gains tax, a commitment to fracking — these things are the protein of government, the point of being in power. They are the opposite of the ephemera to which politics is now in thrall.

Cameron, in his English way, hates this kind of thing. His staff have learnt to leave out grand visions and rhetorical flourishes when drafting speeches for him.

“It is hard to get him to talk about the distant future,” says a cabinet colleague. “He doesn’t like anything that could seem messianic.”

This instinct is generally sound. Humdrum managerialism accounts for most of politics, most of the time. It is a symptom of a country that gets the basics right. But a loftier approach would be good for politics, and Cameron. Voters do not care about their country’s aggregate gross domestic product, much less its ranking in the continental hierarchy. They may even find a quest for economic largeness scarily impersonal, like the “global race” that Tories have stopped talking about.

Fight to frivolity

There is, however, an unsatisfied demand for seriousness and leadership. Most people do not vote Ukip or parse an MP’s tweet for class meaning. The flight to frivolity in public life is not the voters’ doing. Many are in fact waiting for a leader to arrest it. The months leading up to May are the right time for a politician to try because the public will be paying attention. And it really should be the prime minister, with the force majeure that comes with his office.

It has become pat to say that politicians since Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair do not understand “aspiration”. Their habit of alternately ignoring and cringing before White Van Man, the symbol of working class self- reliance, seems to prove this right. But countries can have aspirations, not just individuals, and that is what the British political class is really bad at providing for.

It is not that Britain needs to head in any one direction in particular. Rather, the mere fact of having a direction, whatever it is, could be galvanising. Whoever charts one will at least mark himself or herself out from the carnival of froth and nonsense that Britain’s public life has become. As the opinion polls suggest, politics today does not seem like a game anyone can win. But perhaps it can be transcended.