Over two million frustrated Britons have signed a petition to rerun the general election, and the number is climbing steeply. Considering that 70 per cent of the people think they are worse off under Labour, even the sky may not be the limit. (Only eight per cent think they are better off, and I bet they are all employed in the public sector.)
No other government in history has become so unpopular so fast. Just 18 weeks, and the people have had it with the Starmer gang. They want it to go.
In response, Sir Keir stated, correctly, that the system doesn’t work this way. You are stuck with us for several years now, he added, or words to that effect.
Looking at the dull-witted faces of Starmer, Reeves, Rayner, Lammy and other nincompoops currently running our country, one shudders with fear and revulsion. A flicker of expression only ever appears there when they bray for revenge against brighter people than they are, those who don’t rely on the state’s largesse to make their way in the world.
Starmer also insisted, without citing any evidence, that the signatories to the petition hadn’t voted Labour in the first place. He would say that, wouldn’t he? I have no evidence either that many Labour voters have changed their mind, but I’m sure it’s a safe bet.
This belated plebiscite is most welcome, but it does raise an inevitable question. What part of the carnage Labour are perpetrating on the economy and every walk of life wasn’t predictable at voting time?
Everybody with half a brain could have drawn a detailed picture well in advance, and many did (you must praise my stoic self-restraint in refusing to say I told you so). This though Starmer et al. were economical with particulars. But the general tone of vengeful Leftie animus was unmistakable. Feeble minds were coming together with an all-consuming ideology, which is the worst combination imaginable.
Labour inherited an economy groaning under the weight of taxation and regulations but still not doing so badly, relatively speaking. Unlike Germany and France, Britain didn’t look as if she was teetering at the edge of an abyss, with one leg hanging over.
That situation was sure to change under Labour, which was more predictable than the sun rising tomorrow morning (actually, that, according to Bertie Russell, wasn’t predictable at all). Yet people voted for them, and even some of my readers, who tend to be rather conservative, insisted that the useless Tories had to go.
This shows that even intelligent people may not vote responsibly. For the time has long since passed when we could talk about our politicians in terms of useless or useful. They are all, with minor and unlikely exceptions, more or less rotten.
But it matters whether it’s more or less, even if this line of thought is regrettably relativistic. Today’s political thought has excommunicated absolutes. We are for ever stuck with the evil of two lessers, but one lesser is usually more evil than the other.
You realise that I’m not delving into the far recesses of recondite political theory. I just wonder why voters can’t exercise basic common sense, something they are eminently capable of in most other activities.
If the problem isn’t symptomatic but, as I think, systemic, then we are in deep and permanent trouble. After all, our democracy run riot, with everyone over a certain age entitled to vote regardless of any other qualifications, depends on a responsible electorate with a modicum of sensibility.
Our electorate doesn’t meet this requirement, which is made clear by its voting pattern. No sensible person could have voted for this gaggle of idiots bent on revenge. All they are capable of is sabotaging everything they can reach: the economy, education, medical care, constitution, foreign relations, defence, controlled immigration, energy – sniping at Labour policies is like shooting fish in a barrel. You can’t miss, which is most unsporting.
So yes, I added my signature to the petition, a desperate exercise in futility. The law says that Parliament must respond to any petition with more than 100,000 signatories, but I’m not holding my breath. Considering the size of the majority our irresponsible electorate gave Labour, you aren’t getting any prizes for guessing what the response will be.
The system is fundamentally wrong, but I doubt that even a genius like Edmund Burke could have repaired it. His idea of democracy was that MPs should be the people’s representatives, not their delegates. When elected, they should act according to the people’s interests, not their wishes. And it’s their own conscience that should guide them in deciding how those interests can be best served.
Burkean democracy was perfect in the 18th century, when the franchise was limited, Britain had a ruling class, and most politicians had trained for their mission from childhood. That’s how most of them saw politics: as a mission to serve people, not a career to serve themselves. They could indeed be trusted to look after the people’s interests – and to understand where such interests lay.
Unfortunately, a century of unlimited suffrage has corrupted not only the electorate but also the politicians. They must possess certain feral qualities to get to the top, but integrity and intelligence are not only unnecessary but, by the looks of it, contraindicated.
Yet the system, based on the ‘social contract’ first drawn up by the likes of Hobbes and Locke, keeps ticking on. I doubt the validity of that oft-used term, but one thing for sure: unlike any other contractual arrangement, this one has no stipulated termination clause.
Once they’ve cast their ballot, people have no legal recourse worth speaking of. A social contract can be made null and void only by violent civil disobedience, but that treatment is worse than the disease. Starmer and his merry friends know this, and they are smirking smugly.
It doesn’t matter whether that masturbatory petition collects two million signatures or twenty million. They can ignore it and do what they will: drive the economy into a recession if not depression, beggar people with double-digit inflation (yes, it’s coming), destroy every decent school, put farmers out of business, densely cover their vacated land with wind turbines and solar panels, render Britain disarmed in the face of her enemies.
We’ll look on helplessly, signing petitions, perhaps going on the odd march and bitching about our useless government. It won’t occur to many people that bitching – and thinking – should be done before the election, because afterwards it’ll be too late.
Even fewer will be those who’ll begin to question the very system that predictably delivers such abysmal results and, these days, hardly ever any other. We are simply not conditioned to think in such terms.
P.S. While I was writing this, the number of signatories climbed to 2.2 million, and I write fast. Even Michael Caine has signed it, but I’m still waiting for Vanessa Redgrave to do so.