When a child fails to win a reward, they are faced with options. One is to try harder or to change approach so that they can succeed next time. Another is to sulk, squabble about whose fault it was, and then decide that from now on cheating is the way to go.
The Conservative Party of former years tended to focus on the first set of approaches and was very successful at reinventing itself. When Winston Churchill lost the 1945 election he set out a policy agenda of supporting the NHS, trying to build more council houses, and taxing unearned income at over 90%. His party was back in power inside six years.
The Conservative Party of today
Modern Conservatives are a very different breed. They are no longer a party that can credibly claim to be driven by practicalities and a determination to do what is best for the British people. They are a party obsessed with extremist ideas and extremist methods that are being imported from the States.
When those ideas run into hard realities they prefer to deny the existence of those realities than to change their flawed theories. Childish sulking and cynical cheating have replaced careful thought about what lessons can be learned from mistakes.
Liz Truss’s ‘rapid results’
Take Liz Truss for example. She rose to the very top of her party and became prime minister by championing a set of ideas which appealed to the very small section of people who are active members of the Conservative Party. Central amongst these ideas was the concept that cutting taxes and weakening rules and regulations would enable Britain to become as successful as Singapore.
Once in power she put those theories into action and they achieved rapid results. She crashed the economy, forced up interest rates, cost homeowners a fortune in higher mortgages, contributed to one of the fastest rises in inflation Britain has ever experienced, increased government debt and pushed the country to the edge of recession. Rarely has any leader of any country made choices that messed up the economy so drastically in such a short time.
After a brief period of reflection, she has now returned to political activity with a new message. She thinks she would have succeeded if she had just been allowed more time and been given more support. She appears to have learned nothing from the experience of failing the nation and is busy sulking over the fact that she wasn’t allowed to mess things up for even longer.
Sunak: Tax cuts and dodging responsibility
Rishi Sunak’s approach is almost as childish but in a different way. He is busy denying he was anywhere near the scene of his party’s recent crimes and focused on blaming everyone except himself. Essentially his favourite line is – it wasn’t me! It wasn’t! It wasn’t! It was those others who made me do it!
So, he wants everyone to believe that it was only Boris Johnson who broke lockdown rules; yet he also got fined. He wants us to believe that he is nothing to do with the worst wave of strikes for decades; yet he picked the fight. To believe that he will restore stability and order; despite being a keen supporter of the Brexit that has generated much of the current chaos. To believe that he can bring the country back together; despite starting out with an incredibly divisive agenda of tax cuts for the rich, for fossil fuel businesses, and for investment bankers – whilst many of those who deliver valuable services are stood on picket lines trying to avoid another decade of declining living standards.
The dire electoral position of the Conservatives
Given the impact of his decisions on young people starting out in their working lives, Sunak is finding it particularly hard to persuade many of them to vote for him. Opinion polls have shown the Conservatives trailing well behind Labour for months. They have been even more dramatic in what they show about the size of the vote for left of centre parties compared with right of centre.
It cannot be repeated too often that at the last general election the left won almost 53% of the votes cast whereas the right won only a little over 47% of those votes but achieved a huge majority in parliament. The proportion of left-leaning voters is now much higher, according to polling, and is averaging, depending on polls, around 64%. That is an astonishing level and it is even higher amongst the young.
Why would young people vote for Sunak?
However hard Sunak tries to convince younger voters that he is the man with their best interests at heart they are faced with a lived experience that strongly contradicts his message. Getting decent wages is increasingly difficult and going shopping for basics using those wages is a scary experience. Prices might stop going up so rapidly before the next election, but they won’t come down and the relentless impact of mortgage rises just keeps on coming.
Many of the young are also deeply concerned about Sunak’s approach to climate and environmental issues. As chancellor he proved astonishingly slow and reluctant to take even the simplest and most basic measures to protect their future. As prime minister he has taken exactly the same approach and has provided huge subsidies to those who produce power from fossil fuels whilst failing miserably to help people to insulate homes and switch to alternative ways of heating them.
Crude cheating
Faced with the reality that few young voters want to support his shambolic mess of an ill-conceived government, Sunak has decided that he will try one last throw of the dice. If he can’t win their support, then he can at least cheat.
At the local elections in May an elderly voter will be able to turn up with their bus pass and cast their vote. A younger voter will be turned away if they turn up to vote with the same level of proof. This is straightforward manipulation of the election and yet the spineless BBC dare not report this as obvious cheating because it has a chairman who is a Conservative donor, a director general who is a former Conservative Party candidate, and a board that contains other Conservative Party donors.
Despite all the barriers put in their way there is a high chance that enough voters will turn out for the 4 May local elections to send our current rulers a very clear message. It will be fascinating to see how these rulers react to any defeats. My money is on a lot of sulking, much blaming of others and redoubled efforts to cheat their way to victory at a general election.
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