A Miracle Needed

 A new survey by the pollster Lord Ashcroft has found that 72 per cent of his sample - including more than half of 2019 Conservative voters - agreed that people were getting poorer, nothing seemed to work properly, and that big changes were needed to the way the country is run...

Yet far from viewing government primarily as an expensive nuisance, clear majorities, including most 2019 Tories, thought it should control the water, rail, electricity and gas industries. More than two thirds thought people had a right to housing, healthcare, education and enough to live on, and that the government had a responsibility to deliver these.

The Untouchables
James Ferrier Pryde (1866-1941)
Photo Credit: York Museums Trust [Public Domain} 

Although they thought government was failing, they believed the private sector was worse. Most blamed companies for putting up prices to boost their own profits. Yet many held it was the government's job to do something about this, either by helping consumers directly or by forcing businesses to behave differently...

Respondents placed fairness above productivity. A clear majority, including 43 per cent of the 2019 Tories, agreed it was more important that social divisions were reduced, "even if that means the national economy grows more slowly in the long term." As Ashcroft observes, this is a most unpalatable finding for Tories who are agitating for lower taxes, lighter regulations and a smaller state to pump-prime national growth and prosperity...

They see a free pass being given to bankers who have ruined the economy, eye watering payoffs to incompetent administrators and state handouts pocketed by those who don't want to work. In other words moral disgust has undermined the public's trust in and connection to the political and commercial structures of society...

To counter the feeling that votes no longer make any difference, governments should take back responsibility for the myriad things they've farmed out to quangos specifically to avoid being held accountable. Action against the bribery and corruption racket of the linked lobbying and honours system is also essential to counter public cynicism...

(Melanie Phillips, The Times, 2023)

It is about time that the notion of "moral disgust" entered the political equation. For too long politicians of all parties have been complicit in either being bought or entertained by various lobbyists and entry into that bastion of political insignificance - namely the House of Lords - nearly always remains the "Gift" of the Prime Minister.