The bigger the promise, the bigger the let-down ...
Like flashy cars, flashy gestures are exciting in the immediate unveiling, before the thrill fades, leaving that unsettling thought: just what is this compensating for? In the case of Labour’s grand reveal this week – free broadband for the nation – it’s hard to know which troublesome deed they’re trying to cover up quickest. Is it the routine anti-semitism, or the unseemly company so many of them keep? The fact that their party leader is at odds with the Brexit position the majority of its voters hold, or that he’s happier darting into the overgrowth of his front lawn than answering questions about how he might run the nation?
Any and all of the above might easily apply. But the people’s broadband, which Labour estimates will cost £20 billion to set up (they always get you with those one-off installation charges…) is one ludicrous, Ed Stonesized promise too far. And one reminiscent of the Lib Dems in 2010, when Nick Clegg’s manifesto policy of scrapping tuition fees succeeded – in the short term – as a gesture of grand enough proportions to get a chair at the big boys’ table in Westminster.
The final leadership debate was held at my university, Birmingham, on a rainy late April night almost a decade ago; we gathered before screens on the sports pitches, sitting on splayedout plastic bags (it was 2010 and they were yet to be “cancelled”) as the three near-indistinguishable contenders mostly said the same things. Until Clegg reminded everyone of his trump card: no more tuition fees, an assurance that was met with roars from the crowd.
It worked, in the sense that the primary objective of electoral success was achieved. After that? Not so much. The next public test of their favour, by which time fees had gone from £3,000 a year to three times that, was, in Clegg’s words, a “cruel and punishing night” for the party. When he gave his glassy-eyed resignation speech as leader in 2015 – one of just eight Lib Dems to win a seat, compared with 57 in the election prior – it was as though that solitary failed promise had swallowed him and the party of decent liberal politics whole. He has picked himself up again since, in that way posh boy politicians do when they set fire to a country and then scarper, receiving a knighthood in 2017 and now working for Facebook in California. But that betrayal still looms large. For what is left of his clunkily repackaged party, their greatest hope of pulling in votes, is that they are neither the Conservative nor Labour parties.
In the spirit of scoring own goals in spite of a keeper-less one on the opponents’ side, Labour have promised to abolish tuition fees, too. As well as the free internet, and the (highly realistic!) pledge that, come December 12, the NHS will be brought “back from the brink”. Is growing a magic money tree for all voters the next fantastical announcement on Labour’s list? The bigger the promise, the bigger the let-down, and after three and a half years of unremitting disappointments we have, frankly, had enough. It’s not that the Conservatives or Lib Dems are doing a better job: post-referendum politics has largely become about who will put us out of our misery fastest, rather than supporting those who represent the ideals we hold dear. But in the time they have had to cultivate a credible opposition, Labour have yet to learn how to distinguish backside from elbow. And no gesture – super-speedy internet or otherwise – can be big enough to conceal that.
Stand up straight: not just the call of beleaguered mothers to their perma-hunched offspring (this one included) but the title of a self-help book from Sandhurst Military Academy – yes, really – which is being released in time for the festive season. Quite canny, really, given that Brits – and men in particular – are buying tomes of this nature at a record level, up 20 per cent this year on last, which has been put down to the fact that political turmoil has unseated other areas of our lives, too.
But I wonder whether Sandhurst’s offering will succeed for two reasons: first, that its title shares one of the 12 rules for life espoused by Jordan Peterson, the meat-only-eating sage for young men who struggle with human interaction, and the second being its release in the age of Marie Kondo, the tidiness guru who urges people to cast off anything that doesn’t “spark joy” – a mantra that has helped her create a £6 million empire.
I’m sure the military has lots of useful tips to share for those of us who might never see a battleground deadlier than the Tube in rush hour. But anything fit to fill a stocking is now at risk: they will have surely been cast out by extreme Kondo-ers long ago.
In a world where traditional industries are dying, and new ones that promise the earth pop up and pop off in a fraction of the usual life cycle, we should take heart that one area is booming: acting. Not the regular silver screen stuff – that’s as merciless and murky as it’s ever been. Yet said murk has given rise to a
proliferating field – office harassment videos.
Indeed, there is now such demand for companies to show employees how not to commit sex crimes that listings for actors looking for the role of a lifetime as “sleazy salesperson” and “account manager who stands up for herself ” have gone into overdrive. Gigs a little more textured than Bystander #4, we can agree. And one film produced last year even won a Telly award (me neither, but they have a website) for their tale of a woman being groped by her superior after a conference, set to a backdrop of flashing neon lights.
Rewarding financially for those involved, one hopes. Though probably best left off the showreel.