Goodbye Politics
Today, I logged on to Twitter and unfollowed over 50 accounts. These included journalists, social commentators and some everyday folk who are ardent activists. It’s not something I especially wanted to do. In fact clicking the unfollow button for some accounts was especially difficult. But I had to do it. Despite the fact I am a level headed and analytical person, I can no longer tolerate the decline of UK politics and current state of national discourse. Rational debate has been replaced with tribalism and every possible subject conceivable is now presented as a partisan bun fight and you have to pick a side. For over a decade I have been politically homeless because I no longer think that any of the major UK political parties are fit for purpose. No one is interested in any form of national unity, tackling the big issues and equality. There’s a conspicuous lack of tangible, long term plans and policies. Political parties are just self serving lobbyists for specific interest groups. If you aren’t one of them or don’t fit favourably into their world view, you are effectively the enemy.
This endless conflict is deliberate and serves a specific purpose. It is essential to the “divide and conquer” ethos that is the foundation of contemporary politics. And if you have an iota of self awareness, decency and an interest in life beyond yourself and your own personal circumstances, it is utterly soul destroying. Because the daily diet of barefaced lies, the never ending refutation of objective reality and the prevailing mean spirited, sociopathic attitude that drives it all is poison. I now find myself in a situation where this unrelenting Orwellian nightmare is having a detrimental effect upon my mental and physical health. The problems that beset the UK are not going to go away anytime soon and are more than likely going to get worse. I believe the UK is following in the cultural and political wake of the US and that we are going to have to endure a period of populists madness before sanity returns.
At present the UK is sitting on a tinderbox of both private and public debt. The “First Past the Post” political system is an unrepresentative relic of the 19th Century that can be gamed and manipulated to political advantage. We have an uncompetitive economy that no longer has traditional industries but has failed to fully embrace the new. The financial sector strangles the real economy along with any means of change. And the electorate have largely abandoned reason in pursuit of dogma and blame culture and the press is dominated by client journalism. Notions of equality, the dissemination of wealth, society, collective responsibility and shared values have all been sacrificed on the altar of individualism, consumerism and capitalism. People no longer agree to disagree. A contrary opinion is a personal attack and cannot be tolerated. The various social groups that make up the UK effectively hate each other and they are not reticent about saying so. Contemporary politics feeds upon this divide and ensures that the status quo prevails, thus serving the needs of those in power.
Hence I am keeping the media circus that is UK news and politics at arm's length from now on. Part of me thinks that’s a terribly selfish thing to do. Because I have the luxury of switching off as my personal circumstances are not as bad as others. There are lots of people who are going to find themselves on the wrong side of the political and social divide in the next decade and it’s going to be a terrible experience for them. And it’s not just going to be the usual social demographics. A lot of folk who thought they were doing okay have been wrong footed by the pandemic and have had to use the welfare state and other institutions that they were previously sceptical about. And they have found them wanting and not as the tabloids told them. Without going into too much personal detail, due to my age I have a couple of options available to me which means I can move out of London and simply try to live out the remainder of my life away from the shitshow that is UK culture wars.
So goodbye politics, I am done with you. I can’t stop thinking about the song Bad Old World by New Model Army. I don’t consider myself in any way to be an ardent activist but it doesn’t sit right with me turning my back in this fashion. However this mess isn’t of my making and I’d argue that it is politics that is failing the public and not vice versa. Some may argue that it’s just a case of sour grapes and that my view is simply born of my “side” not being in charge so to speak but that is just such an intellectually weak argument. My position is driven by the fact that UK politics has simply dispensed with the pretense that it is anything other than self serving. I can’t do anything about these problems democratically at present and I don’t want to have my nose rubbed in the iniquities of the present government on a daily basis. So for the sake of my sanity, I am taking myself out of the arena (if I may quote John Morlar). You wish to do so too. I wouldn’t blame you. In the meantime, god help any politician that knocks on my front door this May, canvassing for votes.
