People are less delighted than the PM assumes

AFEW weeks ago, I was spending an evening and a couple of drinks with another Journal columnist.

The conversation, as it often does in such establishments, turned to the state of our nation. I lean towards the right-side of the political spectrum (individual freedom and responsibility, less government interference in our daily lives); he’s more on the left (big state, socialist-marxist).

We started discussing Keir Starmer. On the one hand, there was some common ground: neither of us are particularly keen on the Labour leader and soon-to-be Prime Minister from a political standpoint, for the same reasons we might both dislike Tony Blair’s politics.

On the other hand, I thought that Starmer is actually doing a pretty good job as leader of the Labour Party. He sharply disagreed.

My point, really, is that Labour was in utter disarray when Starmer became Labour leader. Scandals have been few and far between, he’s made few (if any) absolute political gaffes, and he’s generally been a safe pair of hands steering Labour away from all its internal divisions. He’s guided them from the worst election defeat since the early 1980s to being the Party likely to be in power six weeks from now.

The same pattern followed a few more times: he passionately disliked any political figure whose views differed from his own. After a while, exasperated, I said “Sometimes, I think you like or dislike people just based on whether you agree with them or not”. His response was utter confusion: “Doesn’t everyone?”

I don’t think so. Take Liz Truss for example: her ham-fisted bungling of the job of Prime Minister was disastrous. Sure, tax cuts to give people more control of their own money are in general a good idea. But, not all pushed at the same time at the very moment the country was in the grip of an inflation crisis, trying to recover from a pandemic! Even if I 100% agreed with her politically, I would still have a hugely negative opinion of her.

Likewise, I’d have far less in common with traditional Labour figures like Tony Benn – or even David Blunkett. Yet I can respect them as honest, intelligent people who had the country’s interests at heart.

We’re heading into a General Election campaign, and it could get rather messy. I don’t know who I’m going to vote for: I have strong reasons to rule out any of the likely choices on the ballot paper. But whether it’s Tory, Labour, Lib Dem or Reform, I’m not going to automatically hate the politician who’s elected simply because I don’t agree with their politics.

I’ve met the worst of politicians. I’ve seen the the money-grabbing, career-minded, back-stabbing, belief-free, tribalistic politicians in all parties who don’t deserve to be anywhere near a ballot box, not just Westminster.

But that’s not all of them. There’s a minority – perhaps a third – who are every bit as bad as the worst stereotypes.

Politics attracts a disproportionate number of narcissists and sociopaths, who are drawn to power like moths to a flame.

Then there are those are genuine enough, but who can be blinded by their thirst for ambition from time to time.

And then, there are the true believers: those who are in politics to make the country a better place. They still get all the abuse levelled at them.

The greater the abuse, the more likely we get the sociopaths (who really don’t care about any abuse) elected. Decent people start to walk away.

Rishi Sunak is perhaps none of those. He’s just a typical cookiecutter professional politician. And that’s maybe what’s led to him calling this General Election. Inflation is back under control. He’s in the Westminster bubble, presuming that the average person on the street will somehow be delighted that there’s money in their pocket again.

I don’t believe people think like that. The decision to call the election could well be the biggest blunder of Rishi Sunak’s political career.