We’ve all met people who love to moan continually. The music was better when they were young, every party they go to is boring, and their job is the hardest. Some newspaper columnists do it for a living, grimly declaring that the country’s going to galloping ruin, to hell in a handcart. Indeed, David Cameron, the Tory leader who told his party conference three years ago that ‘sunshine should rule the day’, is now telling us of dark, gloomy clouds over what he calls ‘broken Britain’.
David Cameron’s ‘broken Britain’ is a cynical ploy by an ex PR man. He wants the next election to be a vote against ‘broken Britain’ and not a choice about which political party has the best record, or the best ideas for the future. Rather than give us a positive vision of what a conservative government should do, he conjures up a bogeyman, playing on fears and uncertainty, wanting us to believe he is the only choice we have.
The problem is that it doesn’t ring true. Compared to other countries, is our country really broken? To our counterparts in Europe and America we are a more engaged and stable nation than 12 years ago, and for the millions in the world living under the threat of extreme poverty or persecution, the idea is absurd. We are amongst one of the most successful multicultural societies in the world, among the most progressive on LGBT rights, and we lead the world on international aid and development.
Is Britain perfect? Absolutely not, there is so much to do, especially now. We are experiencing a tough global recession, which has hit home with all of us. Cameron is trying to call it Brown’s recession, but that simply isn’t true. We have felt uncertain over the last year, hoping that our jobs and homes are secure, and taking more care with our finances. Some people have suffered considerably as a result of the recession, but many more would have found themselves out of a job or home if Britain hadn’t acted to stabilise our own economy, and led other countries to do the same.
The main culprit named by Cameron for ‘broken Britain’ is ‘big government’ which he says needs to be reduced. Public services come near the top of his hit list, that’s why he promoted south-east Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan who went to the USA to describe the NHS as a big mistake and something that the US should not replicate. Labour saved the NHS from being broken by the Tories, who watched thousands suffer on 18 month-long waiting lists. Labour has replaced the portacabin school buildings that were the legacy of Conservative ministers, and built SureStart centres to give children a better start in life. Is there more to do? Of course, especially in tackling poverty, but faced with the choice between carrying on the hard work of improving services, or giving up and inflicting huge cuts on vital services, it is clear which one really would lead to a broken Britain.
Cameron illustrates his point with tragic stories about individual cases of crime, neglect and abuse that have hit the headlines. We should do everything in our power to stop these dreadful events occurring, but it is misleading and cynical to say that these isolated cases represent a wider truth about our whole society or that by cutting police numbers and imposing universal pay freezes that we would solve those problems.
The other message pushed by the ‘broken Britain’ mantra is one where he feels the traditional ‘family and its values’ are under threat from ‘big government’. That’s why he wants tax incentives to ‘boost’ marriage. This obsession with seeing anything but the nuclear family as a failure also manifests itself in the choices the Tories have made of their new European bedfellows, homophobic and reactionary. Such choices are only re-enforced by their repeated opposition to domestic equalities legislation as ‘interfering’ and ‘big government’.
Politics, especially in tough times, should be about inspiring hope and taking action. Cameron is preying on our fears, and is proposing that we retreat in our ambitions for a fairer Britain. It was Labour who inspired hope 12 years ago, and we created the minimum wage and civil partnerships to build a more just Britain, we have cut crime by a third, and trebled international aid and introduced the first climate change act to make Britain a world leader.
Twelve years on, and in the midst of a recession, it is inevitably harder for us to inspire that same kind of hope, but as our work gets harder, it becomes even more important. We aren’t resting on our laurels with a new equalities bill working its way through parliament. We are working to improve care services to give elderly and vulnerable people better support. We are seeking to stretch ourselves and other countries to tackle climate change. Having taken half a million children out of poverty, we want to ensure that no child gets left behind.
Cameron wants us all to agree with his caricature of a broken Britain, of a country that should rein in its ambitions, which should say that some problems will never be fixed so we should declare ourselves defeated. But broken Britain only exists if we agree with him, and agreeing with him gives him every excuse he would need to do nothing. I don’t want us to retreat, to be ruled by our doubts. I want us to proudly stand and say Britain is playing its part in creating a fairer world, but we can always do more.
On our economy, I want us to be creating more and better jobs, with new skills for the unemployed and school leavers. On our politics, I have signed a pledge as a parliamentary candidate to be totally open with my expenses. On our society, I will continue to support the great diversity of Brighton & Hove, my home city, but we still have to fight for greater equality, for women, for ethnic minorities, for the LGBT community and disabled people.
Above all else, we need to fight the greatest inequality, where too many people on benefits and low-incomes can’t get on in life. That is a fight which we must all continue to rally behind, as more than any other part of society, they would be left behind if we become resigned to Cameron’s broken Britain.
Couldn’t agree more!
I took some interest in the party conferences, especially the leader’s speeches. I was put off by Gordon Brown’s sermonizing and thought that it showed a lack of understanding of how to inspire the party – the unconvincing applause and standing ovations seemed ludicrous.
However, after a short while of hearing what David Cameron had to say, I quickly became convinced that he would never be Prime Minister. That sort of miserably pessimistic public schoolboy nostalgia for a past that never really existed will not enthuse the British public to vote for him. Too out of touch, I say.
And George Osborne’s “honesty” will hardly help them either. Again, public schoolboy economics that will certainly be seen as of no benefit to the ordinary person, only to the haves.
Gordon Brown is too damaged, in part through his own fault, to be a credible leader of an election battle. Who to replace him? I voted for Harriet H as deputy leader, partly because I felt it ought to be woman and she had shown some real political courage when dealing with overgenerous benefits (unlike Alan Johnson, who bottled it over public pensions), but she may be too much of a sixties leftie to carry the flag. I don’t have a first choice yet, but I am on the case.