One rich elite replaced by another rich elite? Surely not
Glorious, isn’t it? This exhilarating surge of popular revolts, right across the West. For too long, the arrogant elites have ignored the plight of the downtrodden working class. But now, at long last, thanks to proud patriots like Donald Trump, the voices of decent, ordinary people will be heard. From now on, things are going to be different. To coin a phrase: change is going to come.
Funnily enough, the other day I stumbled across this little-known book that beautifully captures the spirit of our times. Apparently it’s pretty old, and yet the events it describes are so familiar that it might have been written yesterday. I’ve only just started reading it (no spoilers, please!), but basically it’s the story of a triumphant popular uprising against a hated elite, and already I love it. The name of the author escapes me for a moment. Orville, I think, or something like that.
Anyway: it’s about these animals who live on a farm. Day in, day out, these animals work themselves to the bone, and what do they have to show for it? Nothing. They’re poor, they’re angry, and they feel left behind by a rural elite that is utterly out of touch with their concerns.
Finally, though, someone’s listening to them: the pigs. Now, OK, so these pigs aren’t saints, and this Napoleon guy has a bit of an ego, but at least they aren’t afraid to tell it like it is. And, no question about it, they’ve got the interests of ordinary livestock at heart. Quite rightly, the other animals trust every word the pigs say. Take the horse: maybe not the best educated, but he’s honest, patriotic and hardworking. His whole life he’s felt unappreciated. Well, no longer. Unlike the humans, these pigs respect his values.
Of course, it doesn’t even occur to the smug rural elite that their cosy status quo is under threat. But, against all the odds, the animals rise up and take back control of the farm. They’ve caused an agricultural earthquake. I was cheering as I read it.
Anyway, that’s as far as I’ve got, but everybody is certain that a wonderful future lies ahead. Well, almost everybody. The one animal I’m not so keen on is this donkey. He’s such a moaner. Always talking the farm down, and predicting that “life will go on as it has always gone on – that is, badly.” He thinks he’s so smart, just because he can read. Well, let me tell you something, Mr Know-ItAll Donkey: these other animals may not have had a fancy-pants education like you, but some things in life are more important than that. Like positivity, and faith, and proudly singing your anthem, and loyalty to your new leaders. To be honest, I’m not sure I need to read any further. The story feels like it’s pretty much done already. Sure, there may be the odd little bump along the way, but it’ll be nowhere near as bad as the humans are saying. The most important thing is, there’s a different set of guys at the top now. And there is absolutely no way on earth that the pigs are a bunch of cynical, lying opportunists who fed the other animals a load of emotive antiestablishment humbug purely so they could seize power for themselves, and then leave the ordinary workers even worse off than before. One rich, uncaring elite, seamlessly replaced by another rich, uncaring elite? Come off it. That’s not going to happen. Stop listening to that discredited donkey.
Now I think of it, it’s amazing more people haven’t read this book. They should teach it in schools. Because if they did, we’d surely learn from it. One other book helps to explain politics in 2016. As it happens, it was published in 2014. Co-written by two academics, Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin, it’s Revolt on the Right, a history of Ukip. As the authors explain, when Ukip was formed in the early Nineties, it wasn’t meant to be an uprising of the common man: it was meant to be a pressure group persuading the Conservative Party to turn fully eurosceptic. Its target voters were well-off southern Tories.
But 10 or so years ago, almost by accident, Ukip discovered that it could appeal to a completely different type of voter. In the later years of Tony Blair, and then the early years of David Cameron, many among the white working class in northern England, the East and the Midlands felt that they’d been abandoned by the mainstream parties. New Labour and the Tories were both chasing the votes of the university-educated, socially liberal, metropolitan middle class. For working-class voters who’d supported Old Labour or Mrs Thatcher, there seemed to be no one left to vote for.
Yet today, everything’s been turned on its head – because all of a sudden, it’s the university-educated, socially liberal, metropolitan middle class who feel scorned and ignored. They’ve been abandoned by the Tories (who have marched off to the Right, while pronouncing themselves champions of the working class) and abandoned by Labour (who have marched off to the Left, while pronouncing themselves champions of the working class). All the poor old social liberals have got left is a futile protest vote for the Lib Dems. There’s a thought: the Lib Dems are basically now a metropolitan Ukip. A small but noisy protest movement obsessed with the EU.
After all these years, social liberals are getting just a little taste of how the white working class used to feel. I’ve been trying to take my mind off politics by watching David Attenborough’s Planet Earth II. Unfortunately it’s full of dumb animals tearing each other apart, so it’s a bit of a busman’s holiday.
But one species that comes out of it well is lemurs. I love lemurs. A few years ago at a zoo I got to enter the lemurs’ enclosure and feed them. Here’s how great lemurs are: when humans arrive with food, the adult male lemurs all stand back and let the children and females eat first. Only once they’ve had their fill do the males take their turn. True gentlemen.
When humanity finally destroys itself, about two years from now, I hope it’s the lemurs that take over.