Be informed

Back in 1983 I recall the disappointment of seeing the Labour Party under the (then) EC-sceptic, Michael Foot, heavily defeated in the polls. I admired Foot’s intellectualism, but his programme – once billed as the “longest suicide note in history” – was too backward looking. The past it referred to was never going to cut it. My early 20s, then, were haunted by Thatcher “reforms”. It seemed like every evening I came home from work and listened to the radio some new regressive policy was being announced by some ugly minister. In particular, Nicholas Ridley and Norman Tebbit. But there were more ugly ministers than them.

Finally, in 1997, the egregious Tory Governments imploded and the fresh Tony Blair led Labour to victory. Many of us had hoped to see John Smith as a Labour Prime Minister; but his sudden death on 24 May 1994 – I shed a rare tear on hearing the news – paved the way for Blairism. Blair was elected on a platform to accept the early Thatcher neo-liberal “consensus”; for example, not rolling back anti-trade union law. Indeed, the Labour Government furthered the project. In not putting a check on many of the Thatcher excesses, it made it very easy for Cameron to take over in 2010 where Thatcher and Major left off. Even worse, in deregulating financial services, a Labour Government enabled the financial crisis of 2008 and the wicked austerity that followed, the Brexit referendum, and now, with the election of a majority Conservative Government packed with characters that would make Thatcher’s Cabinets blush, an assault on all public services, institutions and the fragile constitution that so outmaneuvered May and Johnson as they attempted to get dodgy legislation through the Parliament in the face of far smarter people than themselves – here I think of Dominic Grieve and Hilary Benn, but again, there were others.

I’m not going to reflect further at this point. At a personal level, where we are now is quite the most frightful and positively scary place we could be. A demagogue now sits on a very large majority who can – and will – do what he wants. In the face of a climate emergency where every month counts, I am particularly concerned. But as I have written before, democracy is a process, not an event. I am part of the process.  Come with me.