Death and Taxes
The 1997 comeback of celebrated 80s Indie artisans Echo and the Bunnymen, one that benefitted from the brief vogue for sweeping majestic rock ala The Verve, more or less began and ended with an unintentionally prophetic hit called ‘Nothing Lasts Forever’. The band’s resurrection certainly didn’t, but the title of that song has rarely seemed more relevant than it currently does within the crumbling environs of the Palace of Westminster.
Because memory is naturally restricted to our own lifetime, certainties often appear immortal and unalterable. Some of the more…er…mature regulars to this blog may be able to remember a time before Queen Elizabeth II was on the throne, but the fact that one has to be at least 65 to remember crowding around a tiny TV screen to watch the Coronation as it happened leaves the rest of us with the distinct feeling that Her Majesty has always been, and will always be, the nation’s figurehead. She’ll be opening Parliament once again today, and yet one would have to be nudging towards a ‘telegram’ from our sovereign to recall a time when her speech hadn’t been penned by either the Tories or Labour. After the past few weeks, however, is Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote that ‘nothing in this world can said to be certain except death and taxes’ now especially applicable to this country’s corridors of power?
None of us can cast our minds back to 1830, but if we could we’d be witness to the Whigs being back in power after a generation. Viewed as the party of reform, the Whigs were nevertheless drawn in the main from the same privileged pool of aristocratic families that, give or take a few gentrified country squires, also supplied the Tory opposition. Although they weren’t to know it at the moment of their triumph, the Whigs were about to commit political hari-kari. The Great Reform Act of 1832 belatedly abolished the Rotten and Pocket Boroughs that had each provided Parliament with a couple of MPs representing shepherds watching their flocks whilst simultaneously ignoring the growing industrial metropolises of the north and midlands. Yet, once new constituencies were born that gave voice to self-made men and business tycoons, Westminster was suddenly infiltrated by the middle-classes, many of whom were sympathetic to Whiggery yet opposed power being the exclusive province of those with inherited wealth. Whilst still headed by distinguished Whig Peers until the arrival of Gladstone, the increasing influence of Radicals in an ideological coalition with free-trade Tories prompted the gradual transition of the Whigs into the Liberal Party.
With hindsight, the Whigs were probably casualties of the dramatic social changes that took place in the nineteenth century; a new age required new politics and new parties, something that caused the swift rise of the Labour Party from its formation at the turn of the twentieth century. An elderly man or woman in the early 1900s would still retain memories of ‘Whigs and Tories’ and yet would be resident in a country of Conservatives, Liberal and Labour. Nothing lasts forever, indeed. The Liberals could be returned to office via a landslide in 1906, yet within thirty years they were effectively over as a governing party.
By the middle of the last century, two-party politics with a minor third were firmly established as the norm. At the 1964 General Election, no seats went to anyone other than Labour, the Tories and the Liberals. The growth of Nationalist parties from the second half of the 60s, whether in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, would provoke miniscule dints in the paintwork of the Labour and Tory battle-buses, but the ruling elite didn’t take much notice until the close-run contests of the 70s required them to call on Ulster Unionists bearing gifts in the hope they could depend on their support.
When the so-called Gang of Four – Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers – bottled the tough task of wrestling Labour away from the far-left in the early 80s and instead ran off to form the Social Democratic Party, the real legacy of their endeavours was not so much the end of Tory and Labour domination, but the eventual revitalisation of the dormant Liberals and the laying of the foundations for New Labour; the old parties ended up being the beneficiaries rather than the public being given a true alternative. Not until the slow and gradual rise of UKIP would a fourth party capture the public’s imagination again, and just as the SDP momentarily capitalised on disaffection with the extremes of 80s politics, Mr Farage and his followers have equally exploited the electorate’s disquiet with the detachment of career politicians from their own everyday experiences.
The problem for the smaller parties, as we are constantly being reminded, is the system under which our General Elections operate – first-past-the-post. Discrepancies between votes and seats are nothing new, though. Take the 1951 Election: Labour polled a quarter of a million more votes than the Tories, in fact more than Labour has ever polled at any General Election, including 1945 and 1997, and more than any party had ever polled until the Tories in 1992. However, Churchill’s Tories won more seats and therefore returned to office. Despite the pre-Election hype this year, UKIP won one and lost one seat, yet still grabbed the third highest share of the vote, more than twice as much as the SNP, who won 56 seats.
The 1955 General Election was notable for the fact that it was the last occasion in which the Tories held more seats in Scotland than any other party, overtaken in 1959 by Labour, who held that distinction until this year. Events north of the border, in tandem with the collapse of the Liberal Democrats and the disastrous showing for Labour, are the first real indication of a significant shift away from the old order that has held sway for almost a century. But will it have a long-lasting impact or will everything revert to type over the coming ‘fixed’ five years? It’s worth noting that membership of both main two parties has declined considerably from the mid-twentieth century. From a peak of almost 3 million in the early 50s, Conservative membership now stands at around 135,000; Labour’s drop from its own early 50s peak of a million members has been less drastic, with membership hovering around the 190,000 mark, but it’s still pretty poor in comparison to the rest of Europe, where only Poland and Latvia can boast a lower party membership than the UK. Both UKIP and the SNP, however, can boast an impressive rise in membership of late, with the latter enjoying an incredible 70% increase since the Election.
I’m not so sure that Labour won’t go the way of the Whigs now. As has been discussed on here before, Labour has perhaps a greater task to recapture power than it has ever faced in its history, and perhaps a metamorphosis into a new party along Whig/Liberal lines is inevitable. The conditions that led to the formation of the Labour party in the early twentieth century are no longer relevant and even if change is a natural progression for any political party – the Tories today are not the party they were under MacMillan or Heath or Thatcher – the decision over which direction to go could determine whether Labour rise again or perish.
The late great Bill Hicks once said that only cockroaches and Keith Richards would survive a nuclear apocalypse; if Bill were still around, chances are he’d add the electoral boomerang that is the Conservative Party to that list. They appear to have mastered the art of changing direction to fit the public mood, for good or ill, and are essentially the Manchester United of British politics, always there or thereabouts come the end of the season. Whether or not they will ever be confronted by relegation depends on a variety of factors, ones that have the potential to obliterate the certainties of the political landscape even if another Tory Government (albeit one with a slender majority) seems to point to business as usual. These are interesting times.
Petunia Winegum
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May 27, 2015 at 10:48 am -
As has been said by others, Labour distinguishes itself by hating those who are meant to be the reason the party exists in the first place, the indigenous working poor. It finds them too white, too bigoted, anti-immigration and anti-EU. They tried to import a new set of multicultural voters to bolster their flagging support by opening the floodgates, but instead just made matters worse.
A party which has such contempt for the electorate deserves death.
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May 27, 2015 at 11:20 am -
Whilst it is true that First-Past-The-Post can result in a party that, despite gaining the most votes still loses due to the event being scored on ‘seats’ not votes, this system is not alone in producing such anomalies.
Take snooker – you can pot the greatest number of balls, you can even score the greatest number of points, but you can lose the match because it is counted on ‘frames’. Same applies to tennis – you can hit the most winners, score the most points, even win the most games, yet still lose a match which is only counted on ‘sets’.
I suspect we may see improved scoring systems for such sports long before the vested interests would allow FPTP to be replaced at elections with something a tad fairer to aspirant parties.-
May 27, 2015 at 12:24 pm -
The “vested interests” being the 68% of the 42% of the electorate who bothered voting one way or the other over notions of some beginning to something “fairer” in 2011.
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May 27, 2015 at 4:09 pm -
Never forget the No 1 Rule of Referenda – you only ever allow one when you know it will produce the result you want. (And in some countries, keep on having them until one produces the result you want). The next one should follow the model.
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May 27, 2015 at 7:34 pm -
I’m sure you’re right Mudplugger, and with the resources available to Brussels, Westminster, business & the BBC, the result would seem pre-ordained regardless of how flimsy the reality of Dave’s renegotiated conditions are.
This isn’t finished, the idea that we’ll get there eventually, the Brits will just take a bit longer, could still be screwed by what happens in Greece, and it’s hard to see that ending well for anybody.
My own instinctive belief, and the current performance isn’t encouraging, is still that the internal strains caused by the premature (I think) adoption of a shared currency may still have some nasty consequences to come for all of us.
I’m assuming the Labour U-turn is nothing more than look we’re listening too; they’re still dedicated to the plan, but I don’t think anybody cares.
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May 27, 2015 at 11:27 am -
Since it’s birth, the Labour party at its best has tried to stand up for the underdog; a perfectly honourable political position to take. However, whilst implemented with noble intent, many of the things it has done have turned out to be failures. Nationalisation, State education, mass immigration and policies of extensive State intervention in almost everything underpinned by high taxation (and excessive borrowing) have all, to a greater or lesser extent, failed. The NHS only has fair ‘approval ratings’ because there’s no other available option for most of us; something that must surely, in time, change. Thank the Lord they never tried to control the nation’s food supply.
Now, the nation has fewer underdogs than it did in 1900. There are, however, still underdogs around, and by their very nature they often have but a small voice. Somebody must speak for them. If not the Labour Party, then who?
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May 27, 2015 at 12:26 pm -
The Metropolitan Police and NSPCC I imagine.
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May 27, 2015 at 1:42 pm -
I see what you’re saying, Moor; and I understand why you have your tongue wedged in your cheek! However, more seriously, Charities and Faiths have a role, for sure. The Police, less so, I think; they should stick to (or perhaps more accurately, return to) upholding the Law of the Land without taking any political view at all. Neither have a voice in Parliament – and the underdogs need one if Parliament is to represent all. ‘One Nation’ is a fine aim, but could easily be forgotten amongst “Events, dear boy, events”.
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May 27, 2015 at 6:07 pm -
Not Labour, Tories or Lib Dems, that’s for sure.
The “political class” monopoly on power is virtually impossible to change by any democratic means – so it appears at present. Just look at what all the votes for Ukip did as far as parliamentary representation went, in contrast to how many SNP candidates were elected by a much smaller number of voters. The system is as rotten and “unfit for purpose” as it was before the 19th century reform bills, but, like pre 1832, it suits the ruling elite nicely. I suspect much of the “agenda” comes from the permanent civil service rather than elected politicians anyway. So the same bad policies the public in the main often don’t agree with reappear time and again whether Tweedledum or Tweedledee is “in office”. The well dug in architects of this stuff are unbothered by the changes in the “front men” elections can bring – snooper’s charter (see one Charles Farr – who elected him?), blank fag packets, road pricing (a DoT obsession), forcing radio to go digital only (which very few actually want outside the political class, the BBC and radio manufacturers).
Then, of course, there’s the imperial EU, which is about as as democratically representative as Metternich’s Austria – Hungary ( the EU is not something we can call properly separate from the idea of rule by the agenda of officials rather than elected representatives which I droned on about in the last paragraph).
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May 27, 2015 at 2:23 pm -
The problem with looking to Charities and Faith is that they have both been politicised, and the creation of APCO by Labour has politicised the Police as well.
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May 27, 2015 at 3:27 pm -
I suspect that all this politicisation will turn out to be another of Labour’s failures. The Great British Public won’t stand for blatantly political policing (and neither would most rank and file police officers, I suspect), so it won’t last. Similarly with politicisation of charities; the RSPCA caught a huge crab when it chased a politicised agenda, and lost a lot of its reputation and former donors in doing so. The same sort of thing will happen to other charities in due course.
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May 27, 2015 at 5:37 pm -
The ghastly Theresa May will possibly be giving the police the job of deciding, or at least initially labeling “extremists” who “undermine British values” with EDOs (extremist disruption orders) – all without benefit of the individual/group concerned actually breaking any law! From the bits and pieces I’ve read, a high court judge (?) will have the final say who is to be labelled an “extremist” to be “EDO’d”. It will be fascinating to see judges making decisions on this based upon subjective notions entirely outside the realm of the written law of the land. We’ll see if the “judge will decide” bit even makes it into the legislation at all. Such groups/persons said to be “extremist” will then be “disrupted” (not allowed to protest etc) and not permitted to make their views public (ie internet bans etc). May has already massively expanded the arbitrary powers of local authorities to ban just about anything in a “public space” by introducing the public space protection order (PSPO) in 2014 –
“A public spaces protection order is made by a Local Authority if satisfied on reasonable grounds that two conditions are met. Firstly, that (i) activities carried on in a public place within the authority’s area have had a detrimental effect on the quality of life of those in the locality; and (ii) it is likely that activities will be carried on in a public place within that area and that they will have such an effect.
The second condition is that the effect, or likely effect, of the activities is, or is likely to be of a persistent or continuing nature, such as to make the activities unreasonable, and therefore justifies the restrictions imposed by the notice.
A public spaces protection order is an order that identifies the public place and prohibits specified things being done in the restricted area and/or requires specified things to be done by persons carrying on specified activities in that area. The order may not have effect for more than 3 years and the Local Authority must consult with the chief officer of the police and the local policing body before issuing the order.
Failure to comply with a public spaces protection order is an offence.”
– All this stuff is built on the poisonous precedent introduced into our system by Anthony Blair and his government – punishment/public control without due process – the ASBO. Like the ASBO, notice the PSPO allows for severe state punishment for those who don’t toe the line, just as EDO “bans” will. A whole parallel system of state control, effectively existing outside actual criminal law as defined in acts of parliament which have gone through the proper process of parliamentary consideration, is being put in place. Now someone may have their civil rights removed and end up in jail for not having what are being called “British values” – whatever they may be.
Here is Cameron himself with a first sentence suitable for the Gestapo –
“For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone.
“It’s often meant we have stood neutral between different values. And that’s helped foster a narrative of extremism and grievance. This Government will conclusively turn the page on this failed approach. As the party of one nation, we will govern as one nation, and bring our country together.That means actively promoting certain values. Freedom of speech. Freedom of worship. Democracy. The rule of law. Equal rights regardless of race, gender or sexuality.”We must say to our citizens: this is what defines us as a society.“To belong here is to believe in these things….”
– So, even if you obey the law, says call me Dave, the state will not “leave you alone”…and since when did belonging to this country mean signing up to certain “beliefs”? Well, I guess since we ceased to be a democratic nation governed by the rule of law, and became one where state officials have been handed arbitrary power using subjective opinion to control and punish the citizen.
Yes, this hypocritical clown really did say “freedom of speech” is one of our fundamental “values” in the same speech that he said he’s going to ban it! Satire really is dead!
It appears those once fundamental British values of the rule of law and no punishment outside of that by the state, and freedom of speech (within parameters as defined in proper acts of parliament dealing with the issue) are going the way of the Wiemar constitution in 1933 . Cameron and May are extremists, extremists by their own definition of British values, values which they themselves propose to undermine in the most serious manner. One hopes the house of Lords will see this totalitarianism for what it is and do their duty.
So, the idea that the police will be getting less “political”, is, I’m afraid, not going to happen, rather the reverse. The opening of the gates to limitless third world immigration by the political class is the reason the PTB can “justify” destroying our civil rights (to attempt to keep us “safe” from the fanaticism THEY brought here) to supposedly fight the consequences of a policy THEY created, ignoring wiser heads (and often calling them nasty names) who warned repeatedly of the probable consequences of radically increasing the population of Britain in this manner.
The onward march into fascism continues – Anthony Blair, Jack Straw, David Blunkett, Theresa May… and the strange death of liberal England….
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May 28, 2015 at 3:09 am -
Bravo!
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May 28, 2015 at 7:10 am -
Engineer, I think you’re right on the consequences of the politicisation of charities. The opportunity was there to be exploited, but it only works if you don’t offend the donors. Hard to do when the thought process is that only socialism has the answers. Was it Brown who packed the charity boards?
My view is: one strike & you’re out. I can’t even remember the incident, but Macmillan, despite my respect for the staff who were so good to my wife, crossed the line a couple of years ago by playing party politics.
We may be small scale donors, but there are a lot of us, and we’re not stupid.
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May 27, 2015 at 3:14 pm -
Faith, certainly of the Catholic genre, has been defeated in the west within 20 years, by stories of child abuse. Join the dots.
http://www.irishsalem.com/-
May 28, 2015 at 2:12 am -
“Faith, certainly of the Catholic genre, has been defeated in the west within 20 years, by stories of child abuse.”
“Stories” suggests to me that you view the Roman Catholic abuse cases as akin to a kind of Grimm Brothers’ fairytale. If you consider yourself a brave man, I think it would be interesting if you met some of the survivors of the late Brendan Smyth and explained to them your interesting theories in order to see the reaction.
http://www.thejournal.ie/brendan-smyth/news/
” Join the dots.”
I am unclear precisely which dots I am expected to join. I am not a psychologist but I would expect that placing young men in an institution for years of end for their training where they mainly only associate with other young men, and then sending them out to parishes where they will meet all sorts, but with the strict proviso that they cannot get married, or even lust after/pursue a female, probably has certain damaging psychosexual results, particularly for those who are probably relatively immatured when they first enter the seminary (pun intended? maybe). Indeed, it is worth noting that in Ireland, the priestly child abusers were disproportionately paedophiles of a particular type – i.e., homosexual paedophiles (although a few of the most notorious, such as the above mentioned Smyth, mainly victimised young girls.)
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May 28, 2015 at 8:47 am -
The Catholic Church’s position on priestly celebacy is nothing more than a cute business model. If you can prevent the bulk of your employees from entering into reproductive sexual relationships, that changes the whole cost-base required to support those employees. You do not have to provide suitable income or accommodation for wives and children, nor do you need to provide costly retirement plans or pensions, apart from some base-level spiritual hovels to which your aged, single employees may be directed once past their use-by date. Extrapolate that across the global reach of this huge multi-national corporation and the savings are counted in the billions.
One unfortunate by-product of this business strategy may be an increased prevelance of child-interference but, with the scale of money involved, that is a small matter which may be considered corporately acceptable, especially if you are suitably smart with how you manage to cover it up.-
May 28, 2015 at 10:17 am -
Costs currently $2B and rising. A number of US dioceses are bankrupted and the legal ripples are bound to be spreading rapidly around the globe. I think they might need a new business model.
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May 28, 2015 at 11:21 am -
They certainly do need a new business model, but the previous one had served them well for centuries. Wonder whether their new model will still include active encouragement of over-breeding to maintain mass poverty and thus the attractions of the fatuous ‘afterlife promise’ ?
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May 28, 2015 at 10:15 am -
Close-run thing at the time: “The Rev. Brendan Smyth, 67, is serving a four-year sentence in a Belfast prison after admitting last year that he molested five girls and three boys in Belfast over a 24-year period.”
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news3/1995_02_06_Dujardin_AbbotPriest_Brendan_Smyth_2.htm
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May 27, 2015 at 6:26 pm -
Petunia – Lord Mandelson let slip when he was trade commissioner in the Imperial headquarters that we are going into the post democratic age.
The ruling class were faced with the very real prospect of violent revolt by the populus before the reform bill of 1832. That’s the reason it was done – memories of 1789 – 1794 France, was strill within living memory. So the elite adapted, and continued to reform the franchise over the century – notably the Tory Disraeli (once a Tory ultra who had opposed modernising ones like Peel) enfranchised most working class men.
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May 28, 2015 at 1:59 am -
It does make me wonder if the brief period spanning perhaps no more than a hundred years, when anyone born in this country could theoretically rise up the ladder and become PM, was merely an aberration, a blip before politics reverted to type as the career of the privileged and the financially-blessed.
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May 28, 2015 at 3:33 am -
Petunia,
Perhaps too early to say, but it does look to be going that way at present. John Major was probably the last plebian that rose to Downing Street (amazing to think that just 20 years ago, there were opinion pieces in conservative, right wing papers arguing that it was wonderful to see a man that not only never went to a public school or Oxbridge, but never attended any university at all , become a Tory PM, whereas now the opinion pieces in the same papers are trying to persuade their readership that a Cabinet with only 30% Old Etonians (or whatever the stat is) is nothing to be concerned about and actually quite meritocratic because, after all, some of their parents had to buy their own furniture and worked jolly hard to pay for their offsprings’ education.
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