The recent UK election was a quarrel about the character of politics. On the one hand, the Labour Party argued that it can be used for good, ‘for the many’. They promised to transform lives and communities, to take action on climate change and poverty.
The Conservative Party, conversely, claimed that politics is bad. They promised to banish it from your life, to ‘get Brexit done’, so that we can all forget about it and get on with Christmas shopping.
The Conservative strategy was, therefore, simple: wage war on the political process, on trust, and on truth. Ensure the whole experience is miserable, bewildering and stressful, then ask voters to make it go away.
