Some thoughts about the political implications of the pandemic and political expectations

The other day, on BBC Radio 4's 'The World at One', a family, whom we were told had mostly, with the exception of one member, voted Conservative at the last election, were interviewed. The subject was their overall assessement of the performance of the government during the pandemic. Their perspective was overwhelmingly positive. Allowances had to be made for the government, as the situation was 'unprecedented' and couldn't possibly have been foreseen. The one member of the family who had voted Labour endorsed Rishi Sunak's performance without hesitation, and appeared to view him as a quasi-socialist. The continuing ravages of austerity were not mentioned, as, for many people, these are part of the 'landscape', and something to be endured, like queues ; neither was Brexit, as they obviously assumed that that had been 'done'. This interview cannot be dismissed as unrepresentative of public opinion. Polls show that the government is still several percentage points ahead of Labour (although Starmer himself has been polling above Johnson for some time).

Listening to the interview was a salutary experience. For some time, various pundits and commentators on the left and centre-left have asserted that the pandemic must bring about fundamental changes ; that it conclusively demonstrates that rampant capitalism, extreme inequalities and humanity's abuse of the environment must, and will, be reversed. Although I share their political perspective, similar things were said after the financial crisis of 2008, and did not come to pass. It is possible that this commentary, which can masquerade as wish-fulfillment, obscures the more difficult aspects of our world, which the pandemic has also revealed. These are: a trend toward atomised individualism, which technology encourages ; an observable nationalism and xenophobia in many places, and a turning away from multilateralism and internationalism, as signified, among many other things, by Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organisation ; a pervasive climate of fear, hardly propitious for progressive social change ; and an increased trend toward State and commercial surveillance over citizens of all kinds, including bio-surveillance. Societies will not change in a leftwards direction unless the Left is strong. At the moment the Left is weak, all over the globe ; and in those places where the Left shows signs of growth it is often divided (as in the United States.

History often gives us nasty surprises ; it moves in unpredictable directions ; and among those directions are the hellishly dystopian. Nobody can assert that they have not witnessed some glimpses of a possible dystopian future both during and before this pandemic.

I think that it is also true to say that if a Labour government had half-destroyed the social fabric of this country through austerity ; had shamelessly consorted with Russian oligarchs, and had taken their funny money ; had deported and criminalised many of our fellow citizens for the crimes of living here and working hard (the Windrush outrage) ; was contemplating cutting ourselves off from the nearest single market, at an incalculable cost to our economy ; and was also, through its inattention and lack of preparedness, responsible for the needless deaths of thousands of people, it would have collapsed through an explosion of popular and media outrage. Perhaps people are prepared to accept all sorts of things from a Conservative government, as they have been taught by the experience of the past forty years not to expect much from one. (This particular prime minister is, of course, an extreme case of 'failing upwards', so the bar of expectation is correspondingly set very low). Therfore, it seems that, as expectations of a Conservative government plunge ever lower (expectations which it is bound to exceed), those of the Labour Party go correspondingly higher, making the goal of attaining power ever more difficult. That is also a salutary thought.