By John C. Dyer, UK Correspondent
I recently introduced my wife to Shrek. It was another happy cross-cultural moment.
One line from the movie particularly stands out. “Ogres are like onions ... they have layers.” I recall Shrek’s line today as I struggle to explain the state of British politics to a readership that includes both British and American readers. It struck me as the perfect analogy. At the moment, British politics is an ogre.
It has layers.
First Layer
Multiple polls from 16 April through 17 April show Labour surging to a 9-10 point lead over Conservatives. Labour support increased to around 41 to 43% of those intending to vote. Conservative support fell to 32%. For the Tory Party this represents a swing of at least 10 points since March and a decline of 10 points since its last previous high at the general election. Looks like good news for Labour partisans, bad for Tory.
But ...
Second Layer
It may be actually a shaky net 2-3 point gain for Labour over its last post election high of 7 points last summer. Both the dramatic swing in Tory fortunes from as much as 2 points ahead of Labour in March to as much as 10 points behind in April and the 9 point swing from Labour’s summer 2011 high to March, 2012 low may demonstrate a certain transient liability in British voter mood.
On the other hand, a poll out in advance form the night of 19 April shows Labour opening up a 13 point lead over the Conservatives. If this lead holds it will mark a significant movement toward Labour. The detail was not available as of the writing of this article. For the time being, even a 13 point lead, given standard of error, is as consistent with transient liability as it may be with a more significant long term shift. That analysis will have to wait for the future.
Third Layer
Each of the swings appears to have been triggered by a crisis in leadership credibility.
Labour lost its lead as a new leader struggled to establish his personal credibility. His party struggled with who it wanted to be when it grew up. In its thrashing about Labour alienated elements of its base while failing to impress the swing voters it so desperately sought. At the same time as Labour struggled with itself, a confident and united Coalition portrayed the crisis in the Eurozone as vindication of Coalition policies, aided and abetted in no small measure by “experts” and a media perhaps infatuated with the prevailing economic view point. Many shared the belief that Labour had caused the country’s economic woes.
Conservatives lost their lead from a combination of missteps and policy excesses leading up to and including the budget. They shook both the working harmony of the Coalition and the reputations of the Prime Minister and Chancellor for competency, honesty, and interest in the general good. I documented these crescendoing mini disasters in previous articles, warning weeks ago of the consequences of what I saw to be Cabinet indiscipline.
Conservatives did not recover from these mini disasters over the two week Easter break. Worse for the Conservatives, the damage seemed to harden into a public perception of incompetence. Conservatives themselves seemed to validate this assessment as they attempted to spin the outcry as the consequence of an incoherent Coalition narrative, the failure of the Communications team, or the Prime Minister’s hands off approach and use of Civil Servants to compose the Number 10 Policy Team. This spin just served to reinforce the impression of incompetence.
The polls that show Conservatives losing 10 points also show a fourth party, UKIP (The UK Independent Party) gaining as much as 7 points from last summer. They also show UKIP drawing even with or leading the Liberal Democrats at 8-9%. This latter poll standing is a pitiful remnant of the Liberal Democrats’ pre-general election high of 23%.
It is debatable what this shift to UKIP means for the respective partisan fortunes of UKIP and Tory Parties. The 19 April poll shows UKIP support falling back to 7%. But whatever the debatable points concerning UKIP's fortunes, it is conventional wisdom the Liberal Democrats lost support because the Lib-Dems are considered a) indistinguishable from the Conservatives on all points of interest to voters, and b) so infatuated with power as to be untrustworthy with stated commitments.
I would submit that is also the meaning of the 10-12 point reversal of the Conservative’s March lead, as it was with the electorate's general election disenchantment with Labour. In short, it is at least as likely voter confidence in Coalition competence and reliability has been shaken by missteps and excesses as it is Labour has gained in voter confidence.
Fourth Layer
The shifts in partisan fortunes disguise a British electorate that at least through the 17 April poll remains evenly divided between Center to Right and Center to Left.
Although former Labour activists helped to form UKIP, UKIP today is a determinedly Euroskeptic Party in most ways philosophically similar to the Conservatives. Its leadership is substantially if not entirely made up of former Tories.
More importantly, the total for Conservatives, UKIP, and Liberal Democrats has remained unchanged for almost the entire duration of the Coalition since almost the first months of the Coalition as it became clear the course the Coalition was setting. Soon thereafter the aggregate total settled in to approximately 50% of the electorate.
What do these three parties have in common? A commitment to free market economic liberalism and the related “Protestant” work ethic. While the Parties’ separate market shares may shift between them, the shift does not represent so much rejection of the broad economic policy framework as disillusionment with the abilities or character of those executing that framework.
As long as 50% of the British public “buy in” to this paradigm British policy makers, regardless of Party, will not be able to introduce policies that stray very far left from the framework and its assumptions. Even if the 19 April 13 point lead continues or grows, this by itself would not necessarily indicate a rethink of the prevailing paradigm, although the aggregate for Tory, Liberal Democrat and UKIP would fall below 50%.
I could end my analysis there. It would be safe. No one would blame me. Many would nod wisely, some sadly, some with satisfaction.
But ...
There is another layer
This layer is harder to document. Believing it is there depends a bit on intuition. Articulating it isn’t safe.
I think I see confidence in the prevailing economic paradigm itself softening. Perhaps the 19 April poll is the first quantitative reflection of that softening, but I am not relying on the poll for my assessment.
18 April BBC reported UK unemployment fell by 35,000 during the first quarter of 2012, with 50,000 new jobs created. Channel 4 pointed out that most of the new jobs fell into the category, “part time self-employed.” But both reported the figure as some “good news.”
Channel 4 did point out that full time jobs fell by more than the fall in unemployment. Where is the "good" in the news of a shift from full time jobs to part time “self employment”? Anyone who knows those who fall within that category knows this form of employment might be better described as “catch as catch can, when catch can catch anything.” Scavenging. It is hardly the employment base from which to rebuild a national economy.
How could anyone call this “good news” with a straight face?
I did notice the Channel 4 presenter swallow hard at the phrase. But that is precisely what I want to highlight. No one with the intelligence possessed by Channel 4’s team could describe this news as “good” and mean it. The presenters for both BBC and Channel 4 sounded hollow, looked sheepish. Whether or not they confirm it, I have no doubt they knew as they read the words that this was not “good” news.
It was not the only news of the day difficult to reconcile with the prevailing economic consensus. That same day the Bank of England finally made clear what most of us knew already- inflation is not going to fall back to 2% (as the Bank has maintained for months it would).
The British aren’t deaf, dumb, blind, or disengaged from daily life. When the British public look at the US system British leaders are so busily trying to emulate, the British public do see the 46.2 million Americans living in poverty. They do see the one third to 40% of Americans who cannot afford their medical bills. Even the 50% who still support the prevailing paradigm see that. That’s why leadership denies trying to emulate the US system even as they so clearly embrace it, even as they reject and dismantle the remnant of British socialism, the so-called “Nanny State.”
But the consensus of British pundits and the British public, surrounded by experts and advocates releasing “reports” reaffirming the paradigm, still cannot see a valid alternative. As so often when facts conflict with a prevailing ideological consensus, those who are subject to it (and unable to see an alternative) fight growing disillusionment with ritualized and hollow sounding efforts to make the square peg of fact fit into the round hole of ideology. This is where I think the majority of British pundits and the British public still find themselves.
Disillusionment is hope
Where is the UK heading? I don’t know for sure. There is no inalienable right to a UK much less a successful UK. But there’s hope even for a realistic, if moderately left of Center Left, post partisan independent.
As I noted in my last article, unpredictable political results flow from a public whose leaders leave it without hope or choice. The UK electorate remains stuck with a consensus vision that does not work in ways they can see, but with no faith that there is a valid alternative way out. They remain stuck with a Coalition at which the electorate look with increasing skepticism, but the public still seems less than fully convinced by the alternative. Scotland and Wales explore independence. Outcomes are uncertain and unpredictable as of this writing, although politically 19 April may mark the beginning of a trend toward Labour.
The geo political consequences are predictable. A nation without a consensus vision, one that validly responds to its environment, flounders. It is left behind, falling back on negotiating to lose less, losing ground steadily. This area is predictable and it, predictably, will add to the internal malaise.
But there is hope. While the British voter does feel stuck between a rock and a hard place, the British voter is also aware of feeling stuck. That is disillusionment setting in. There is hope in disillusionment.
Why? Disillusionment brings the possibility of new modes of thinking. I can imagine examples, but why delimit the general proposition to possibilities I imagine? In the current climate, possibility might then become the still born child of my premature rush of words.
Recovery from any failed behaviour begins with “no more” and ends with “never again.” The time to begin is "now."