What's so good about the status quo?

For a passing moment, around six weeks ago, Brenda from Bristol unwittingly became the people’s spokesperson. Her unrehearsed soundbite in response to Theresa May calling a General Election seemed to sum it up for many, “You're joking? Not another one? Oh for God’s sake – I can’t honestly stand this. There’s too much politics going on at the moment. Why does she need to do it?”

Merriam Webster defines politics as, “The activities, actions and policies that are used to gain and hold power in a government”, whereas the OED definition simply relates politics, “to the government or public affairs of a country”. Brenda, I think, had the first of these definitions in mind. For many outside of the Conservative party, the calling of an election just 2 years into their term appeared to be a cynical opportunity to grab power and rule almost unopposed for a combined 7 years. It’s a position that I find uncomfortable at best. And noting that only 24% of registered voters voted Conservative in 2015, I might assume three out of four voters might agree.

Thanks to our First Past the Post system, it seems likely that Mrs May's gamble will pay off. And so it is hard not to feel disconnected from it all, like Brenda. What on earth is going on, that in the current climate the Tories are emboldened to fully expect an increase in their vote-share? Is there something so good about the status quo, I’m missing?

Mrs May's campaign seems predominantly to focus on repeating the "strong and stable leadership" slogan. It's insulting to our intelligence and has deservedly become the stuff of ridicule. It's as meaningless as "Brexit means Brexit" or "red, white and blue Brexit". Most of her election events to date seem equally vacuous: visiting work-places after the workforce has gone home or booking a remote village hall in Scotland as a children's party to avoid uninvited guests, then bussing in pre-vetted audience members with identikit placards.

And yet she isn't laughed off the stage. Why not?

Our voting habits seem on the whole to be determined by one of two things: tribal loyalties or the persuasiveness of the zeitgeist. Those voting according to the latter are at the mercy of the soundbites that can frame the national mood: be that more of the same or it’s time for a change. I cannot understand how our zeitgeist isn’t one of shouting for change from the rooftops from whichever direction you face. Look at the current state of the NHS. Or the cuts to funding for schools and the scandal of numbers of children in poverty. Or the cuts to the welfare system and the way we are mistreating the disabled. The massive cuts to policing. The injustice of zero hours contracts. The pot holes in our roads. Note the increase in national debt since 2010. It's a dizzying array of domestic crises, topped off by a referendum so badly mismanaged that it beggars belief in one of the oldest democracies in the world. It is well-established best-practice around the world that major consititutional change should require a super-majority. David Cameron's government chose to ignore this custom, presumably because he was so confident of winning that it didn't seem important. In the space of one year we will have had two national votes for no reason other than to address internal party disputes. The pursuit of Brexit-at-all-costs even threatens to break up the United Kingdom.

A few days ago, someone crowed to me that we'd be getting rid of the Tories "in my dreams". Well, maybe. But why would such a dream be so risible? To dream of a government that looks after everyone, including the vulnerable? To dream of grown-up political dialogue free of empty slogans? To dream of MPs who aren't in the pockets of moguls? To dream of continuing political collaboration with our European neighbours? To dream of leaders who stand up without hesitation and unequivocally reject the language and actions of hate-mongers and racists? To dream of a government that couldn't even imagine the rape clause, still less enact it? To dream of a government that engages with issues of climate change and accepts responsibility for doing something about it?
If these can only be dreams, and the acceptable bar of our status quo is so low, then Brenda I’m afraid you’re wrong. There’s far too little politics going on at the moment. But it's the tired apathy of the majority that you so brilliantly framed that may hand Theresa May power for another half a decade.

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