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Has there been a UK election post yet? I suppose there's not much room for culture war when all the main parties are slightly different flavours of neoliberal Blairites, but still
The News
Rishi Sunak, leader of the Conservatives, announced a general election a few weeks ago, to take place on July 4th. A slightly odd date for a party with plenty of nationalist sentiment, but probably meaningless. The Tories were coming to the end of their maximum term, so an election was guaranteed within the year, but this still came as a surprise to most. Quite simply, Sunak's Tories are on a path to certain doom electorally, and most expected them to cling on to power until the bitter end. Speculation was that Sunak was seeking to take advantage of some rare positive economic news, with others suggesting he wanted to jump before he was pushed out by his own party. Who knows? The end result is Britain is going to the polls.
The Candidates
And when I say the candidates, I mean the important ones, not the Lib Dems or the Greens.
Sunak and the Tories:
The right-wing conservative party has been in power for 14 years at this point, moving through Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, and now Sunak as leaders. And what do they have to show for it? An economy in ruins. Legal immigration at record levels, and no control over illegal channel crossings. Total breakdown of law and order, while police most concern themselves with mean tweets. Other public services mostly in shambles, chronically underfunded despite the highest tax burden in generations. Housing is completely unaffordable. Planning is a disaster and every attempt at big infrastructure has been a complete fiasco. Internally, the party has been beset by scandal after scandal.
In short, not good. Polls put the Tories on course for their worst result ever. Their natural right wing support base is enthusiastically lining up behind "Zero Seats" hoping for even greater destruction of the main right wing party.
Sunak himself is fairly hopeless as leader, with little sign of even slight recovery. He's a charisma vacuum, especially compared to Boris Johnson, already lost to the dumbest woman alive in Truss, and can't even deliver on policy. At least, that's how his detractors would put it. For me, I think analysis is a bit harsh; he reminds me of John Major. Boring, but competent enough, he's mostly brought down by his own party's failings, by time, and by external events. He probably should never have been made PM and stuck to being a perfectly fine cabinet minister, but once Johnson imploded he was still the best available.
Starmer and Labour
Kier Starmer has led the working class, left-wing labour party since 2020 when they finally dumped the useless Jeremy Corbyn. After 5 years of unpopular and often deranged far left management, Starmer moved Labour back towards the centre and now looks certain to be the next British leader, likely with an unassailable majority.
Does this mean that Starmer is the greatest political prodigy since Blair? Probably not. If anything, I'd argue the closest parallel to Starmer is none other than Rishi Sunak. Both are dull, but have an air of competence. Both are neoliberal centrists. And both came to power in largely the same way - keeping their heads in difficult positions while everyone around lost theirs. Sunak was the only sane voice during the disastrous lockdowns. For Starmer, it was brexit that propelled him forwards. But apart from that, neither really has anything to offer.
The Labour party itself remains an uneasy alliance between Corbynite communists and Blairite centrists, though Starmer has at least wrested control away from the Corbyinistas. While things are going well, there are few problems, but even in this procession of an election the party is at risk of derailment by the likes of Diane Abbott.
Nigel Farage
The biggest development in the race so far has been the return of Farage to frontline politics. He had attached himself to the Trump campaign, seemingly abandoning his old party Reform to irrelevance. However, the news of Trump's conviction must have had an impact on him, as he very quickly made his announcement of returning to lead Reform and campaigning for a seat in Clacton, a former UKIP stronghold. Farage's opportunism doesn't reflect particularly well on him, but right-wing supporters probably don't care; he is the only real hope they have.
Reform itself doesn't really matter. The party was a vehicle for Farage to push brexit through, and once he left they became a joke. Should Farage succeed in gathering a handful of seats for them, he'll probably use it as a springboard to take over the Tory party, rather than pushing Reform.
The Issues
Just read any post about Canada, Australia, Western Europe, and in many cases the US. Yes, the UK suffers all the familiar problems: housing, productivity, immigration, infrastructure, etc. But let's go through them anyway.
Once the world's richest nation now looks set to be overtaken by Poland within the decade, at least on a per capita basis. There has always been a lot of focus on why Britain seems to struggle so much since the financial crisis - see MR, for example - but the end result is a nation is increasingly poor, unable to fund key services and with little sign of any wage growth or wealth generation amongst the general populace. How much of this is the Tories fault? A fair amount, sure, particularly after the government shot both feet off with lockdowns, but a lot is out of their control. Still, the general public won't care.
Compounding the problem of a weak economy is our old friend unaffordable housing. A bonkers planning system has combined with mass immigration to leave houses in major cities unaffordable for middle class workers, while London is increasingly the playground of the global super rich. And like most nations, the political blob refuses to do anything lest they risk the wrath of the pensioner vote.
Brexit, more than anything, can be understood as a protest vote against high levels of immigration, not just from the EU. After Johnson completed Britain's exit in 2019, the conservative government then decided to pump up immigration to record levels for no apparent reason. As with Canada, the government appears addicted to cheap labour and international students, even as the apparent economic benefits disappear. Left wing Labour is pushing the right wing Tories on their unacceptably high levels of immigration; the Tories respond by promising, yet again, that they will do something. Few believe them this time.
One of Blair's most remembered soundbites is "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime". Starmer would probably do well to imitate him. A feeling of lawlessness pervades Britain's cities, and the average Brit will tell you that petty crime has become basically legal such is the uselessness of the police force. It's not clear what the cause is - too many third-world migrants? Breakdown of trust? Lack of frontline police? Mismanagement of the police force? Overflowing prisons? General economic trouble? - but it's fair to say a return to more active policing and harsher sentencing would be a big vote winner.
The beloved national health service is on its knees. Claims of austerity abound, but the NHS was always protected by the Tories and has more money than ever. The effect of lockdowns is still being felt, and an aging society will demand more and more, but these don't fully explain what has gone wrong. Labour prescripts yet more government funding. A bigger impact will probably come from the unions suddenly deciding they don't need to strike anymore.
Not really an issue. Britain does not have a big Schelling point for culture war like abortion rights in the US. People just don't care that much about trans rights or LGBT. The black population is simply too small for racial animus to play much of a part, outside of the dreams of Guardian journalists. Certainly, a growing Muslim block is troubling Labour, who have remained committed to Israel so far, but it's not going to make a difference here.
Anyway, last night saw the first TV debate between Sunak and Starmer. I didn't watch it, but it seems that Sunak performed well. I predict it won't make any difference to the final result. Labour will seize power with a huge majority, and then do pretty much nothing to address the biggest issues plaguing the UK.
There is a reason it’s called Build Nothing Britain.
When comparing London to top tier cities in the US it looks like a terrible value. High housings costs but without the comparable salaries (obviously there are people killing it in London but speaking generally).
I have always loved visiting London. It is truly an impressive city with easy access to Europe but hard for me to justify living there vs top US cities.
Hmm. I’d say £100k is equivalent to $200k in NYC. Sure, housing in London is 60-70% as expensive (still substantially cheaper), but groceries are less than half the price (Manhattan grocery store prices are often double midwestern suburb prices ime, in the UK You pay the same in London for groceries as someone in a town in Lancashire), restaurants and bars are half the price, many services and goods from private healthcare to personal trainers to piano tutors are much less expensive due to lower labor costs, Uber is less expensive, haircuts and cosmetic services are half the price, culture from museums to the opera, ballet and theater is so much less expensive. The only stuff that costs the same are consumer goods sold at identical prices internationally like iPhones and high end makeup.
There are certainly parts of London that have Manhattan prices, but they tend to be those parts where people are either independently wealthy or making ‘Manhattan rich’ salaries anyway.
These are all great points. TBH my view on London prices is based on when I’m there as a tourist so I’m likely doing all the things that are on the higher end of the cost spectrum and then comparing to more “normal” day to day activities in the US.
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