Chapter 50

Chapter 50

Sidetrack (xi) - Manifesto - Prequel

- ‘What’s all this about then?’

‘So…It's no good just moaning; what are you gonna do about it?’

We’ve got to get out of this mess.   We’ve got to stop sliding down the mucky slope that’s eroding our values, our humanity, our dreams.  We’ve got to resist the drift towards narrow-minded populist attitudes, refuse to give in to the big-tech takeover of everything, and remember what we really need from our lives, what we really need from our government.

There’s enough elsewhere in the other chapters about what’s not going well, how more people are being left behind, how attitudes are polarising, how the media can be too influential and so on.  Having spent three-quarters of my life under a Tory government, bemoaning the lost opportunities and the unfairness of it all, rarely being pleasantly surprised when they did something that felt sensible or egalitarian, the fact, however, remains that I’m still so, so glad I live in a Tory Britain compared to the nightmare of living in some other parts of the world.  Imagine being in a Chinese region under the brutal thumb of Beijing’s communist doctrine, or in a developing African or Asian nation in the hands of a corrupt bully-boy dictator, or sadly these days in the USA with its head-in-the-sand dangerous mix of religion, racism and out-dated patriotism.

If the answers don’t lie within the current Conservative philosophies, then where else do we turn?  Let’s immediately discard state-controlled communism.  Who wants to live in a country where there’s no choice, no freedom and the direction of everyone’s life is in the hands of party officials?  And, at the other extreme, let’s rule out the neo-liberal, anything goes, approach that’s making such headway, championed by those silicon-valley zillionaires, Bezos, Musk, Gutenberg and Page and their all controlling organisations Amazon, PayPal-Tesla-Twitter+, Facebook and Google.  Their view of winner takes all and their anti-regulation stance is almost as scary as full-blown state-control.

Where’s the sensible middle-ground?  Slide a little too far to the right and you end up drifting past some of the benefits of Tory paternalism and end up in the market-driven doctrine of the current crop of conservatives where there are more losers than winners.  Slide a little too far to the left and over-enthusiastic socialist idealism with its dreamy-eyed town council advocates, over-powerful union barons, and disenchanted big business, and the opportunities for the growth and enterprise that ultimately funds it all are blunted.

So we’ve got to carefully pick a social democratic path through the maze that defines the centre ground, choose the best ideas and policies from just to the left, or just to the right, and wrap them up with all the good things about our nation and its people.  Easy.  The harder part will be selling it to those who might see a weakening in their power base, or a dilution in their wealth, especially if some of the more influential media take a confrontational stance.

There’s no harm in trying. So Manifesto might just take a stab at suggesting a new direction, a blend of ideas, some established, some new, most costed, some blue sky, that will cover the journey of a citizen from cradle to grave.  Wellbeing and opportunity policies for childhood, education, welfare, employment, defence, environment, health, old-age and the rest.  Defensive barriers against obvious physical hostile threats and protective measures against more nebulous creeping takeovers and influences.  Energy, the environment, trade, business and foreign relations all need to need to be intertwined in a coherent plan that people can buy into.

A plan that appeals to the compassion we know lies in the British people.

A plan that is radical without being revolutionary.  We can cope with sensible radicalism in this country but we don’t do revolutions unless of the agricultural, industrial or musical kind.

A plan that’s ambitious.  There’s no point taking little steps and as a nation we like a challenge.

A plan that’s patriotic.  We love our history and we champion our diversity without always realising it.

If we can find the plans and appropriate policies that deliver an affordable middle path, and are accepted as fair and forward thinking by the electorate, then maybe the two-party confrontational stalemate that’s existed for too long might just be shaken up.

Maybe Manifesto, if it ever appears in print, could become the policy blueprint for a new party.  One that blends Compassion, Radicalism, Ambition and Patriotism together.   Probably a crap idea but it might be fun to try.

It’s already on the drawing board and should be out in time for the next general election.   Whether anyone cares to read it will be another matter entirely.