Cllr. Gavin Ayling

Politics evolves

What is the point of politics? Is it there to find solutions to society’s problems? Is it there to create balance in the way the country is run? Or is it not a thing at all, but a result of the interactions of politicians?

If it is the result of the personalities of politicians and how they inevitably must communicate, debate and decide, is the question better put: What is the point of politicians?

Many in today’s Britain are tired of politics. They see spin, deceit and lies as the order of the day and they assume that they cannot trust anything a politician says. How can you trust a man who claims to have the solutions and fails to deliver time and again? What do people think when they see Michael Howard before the election claiming that the NHS is not up to scratch when they’ve been told since 1994 that the Tories were the ones who messed it up through under-investment?

The problem is that there are solutions to society’s needs and people must be able to trust their representatives or there is no hope. Healthy democracy needs faith in the system and faith in the system is always being damaged by the hope dashed by the incumbent administration.

Consider the mood from 1994 to 2002. During that period people had overwhelming hope that the New Labour project would change Britain. In the years of Thatcher people had gotten used to the changed society. The had forgotten, en masse, what Britain was like before the revolution that was her government. Before Thatcher Britain was a dying socialist experiment which had not gotten over its loss of empire. By 1990 it was a vibrant competitive modern country which was rebuilding its post-colonial image. By 1994 Major had started spending more on public services in a misplaced hope that it would provide improvements that were value-for-money.

In 1997 Blair’s manifesto accepted that fact and offered reform of public services in order to build upon Thatcher’s legacy. At this point it is fair to say that politics had reached a climax. Politicians from the leadership of all parties had reached consensus: Spending money on unreformed, publicly-owned, public services does not work and is actually a waste of people’s effort. People work hard to earn and create wealth and government has an enormous responsibility to spend it wisely.

The difference between the Tories under Cameron and the Labour Party under anyone is that the Conservatives understand that.

William Hague (Britain’s biggest lost opportunity), IDS and Howard failed, not because they were wrong politically, but because people did not feel optimistic and did not understand that they were a continuation of the Blair-Thatcher consensus on economic politics. And while all this was happening something more fundamental was happening to the politics of freedom.

Like all long-term governments, Blair’s Labour party have started to believe that the public continually vote for them because they believe in absolutely everything that Blair thinks. Blair came, through a process of positive reinforcement, to believe that he could do whatever he liked.

This is how he thinks it is acceptable to ban peaceful protest, to imprison people without trial and to ban criticism of religion/fantasy.

Cameron’s apparent attack of the right of the Liberal Democrats is an inevitable consequence of this. Cameron rightly understands that Blair’s major weakness (and by association, Brown’s) is that he does not care what people think. Ironically for a man who leads by opinion polls, he is ignoring the individuals of society.

Cameron’s leadership will be exciting because he will reform public services (in the way he thinks best) and liberate people from the overzealous government that Britain has been saddled with, not since 1997, but since 1990. Cameron does not represent a return to Thatcher — he represents a return to the best of Thatcher and something entirely new — English libertarianism. I, for one, am excited.

Tomorrow I will continue the theme of the end-game and intention of politics.