No.100 - The Brexit Election or 'The Dance of the Seven Veils'?
Dear James,
Your Tory Party local brochure plopped through the letterbox this morning. Apart from the full frontal of you standing by the ford at Kersey, I counted 47 separate photographs of your good self grinning endlessly into the camera in a variety of local contexts. I am afraid that I am not impressed. Pretty images fail to hide the reality behind them. For in truth the nation is gritting its teeth as we are forced to endure the political version of the dance of the seven veils. Your brochure is merely one of the veils to be whirled before our tired eyes.
On the larger stage, Salome, in the form of our two main party leaders, wafts and swirls, swishing the veils over gyrating hips as they bestow promises of topaz treats and amethyst goodies galore upon the nation. Both our main parties are doing it. You can have everything that you ever wanted if you vote for us. Boris tempts us with promises of 50,000 nurses, 20 police officers and 6000 new GPs. Jeremy lures us with his attacks on dodgy landlords, high-end tax dodgers, bad bosses and promises to compensate the thousands of pre-retirement women who were betrayed by the Tory government. He will nationalize the railways, the water utilities, the Royal Mail and part of the broadband internet in addition to increasing income tax for those earning over £80,000 p.a. Boris will simply ‘get Brexit Done!’
No-one wanted this election. It’s the wrong time. The wrong weather. The wrong season and the wrong reasons. And it is certainly neither the time nor place for such provocative displays of sensual politics. As the diaphanous membranes are swirled before us, the top layers are discarded to reveal glimpses of juicy flesh beneath. Jeremy’s 107 page brochure is pitched as a ‘radical plan’ to transform Britain by tackling inequality, protecting the environment and reversing austerity. Government spending as a share of GDP is likely to rise to 43.3% by 2023-4. It is adding £150bn to its investment plans over five years.
On the other hand, Boris is playing safe with a manifesto of just 59 pages and few surprises. Hiding the big question of care for the aged behind a rather large fig leaf, he is playing on his attractiveness to those who think he is a doer. He says he will cut net migration, increase public spending to 3 per cent of GDP over the five-year parliament. He will spend £100bn on new infrastructure, cut four business rates, freeze income tax, VAT and National Insurance and build forty new hospitals in ten years. His seductive veils waft the perfumed scent of renewal to satisfy the lasciviousness of the faithful. But who, except the faithful, is going to believe all this? Because it is all part of an elaborate ritual that will fool only those who wish to be fooled.
Meanwhile, the more thoughtful part of our nation sits bemused and confused as it watches the two main parties putting them through the agony of this crazy dance. It is as if we have all been dragged along against our will to the theatre of the absurd. We don’t want to be here. We want common sense to return. When the pollster Deborah Mattinson recently asked voters to fill in the blank in “Make Britain … again”, the responders chose “calm”, “normal” and “one nation”. Some hope with what’s on offer!
But the veils continue to swirl. Beneath them, our two main parties are behaving like children with their hands in the cookie jar. The manifestos are offering us all so much comfort and joy that for a moment the public might think that their troubles are over. It’s whoopee time, the taps have been turned on, the stable door is open and the nation can breathe freely once more. When the fact is that the UK is at a moment of profound crisis that will be solved by neither of our two main parties. The only adults left in the room are the Lib-Dems. They will keep us in the EU and restrict their total budget increase to £54bn over 5 years. They will invest £150bn in infrastructure, increase corporation tax to 20% and keep debt to 1% of GDP. And 1p of every £1 in income tax will be ring-fenced for spending on the NHS and social care measures. The voices of common sense are still loud and clear.
The problem is that, once all the veils are discarded, we shall be left with the naked and unalluring figures of Boris and Jeremy or, as the cartoonists might put it, Boris, the bloated, blubbering fleshpot and Jeremy the dehydrated stick of a Worzel Gummage scarecrow. But by then it might be too late.
The dance of the seven veils ended with the head of John the Baptist being delivered to Herod. The equivalent in today’s context would be the delivery of Britain into Boris’s 'Brexit by Christmas'. And if people fall for Boris’s pledge they are likely to be making one of their worst mistakes since the second world war.
And that, I am afraid James, is the truth behind your glossy brochure!
Kind regards,
BH - Your Concerned Constituent