Realism over populism

SOMETHING odd has happened to politics since I was a young man. In particular to the right wing of politics.

I know, the right-left description of politics is very one-dimensional, but it’s pretty much all we’ve got, and everybody else uses it, so I am going to sink to their level.

As a teenager – like many of that age – I was a real idealist. I’ve tried to hold on to those ideals as I’ve aged, but the real world does tend to knock the edges off them over the decades. Anyway, as a young idealist, I was naturally drawn to the left side of politics. Centre left. Old fashioned Liberal or soft Labour policies.

I wanted greater equality, I wanted an end to poverty (I still do) and I wanted a co-operative approach to the challenges of society rather than relying on the dog-eat-dog world of unfettered competition and self-interest.

The thing is that I wasn’t completely stupid or naive, even back then. So despite being very much drawn to the left, I realised that some of the policies being put forward by politicians of that ilk didn’t really stack up. They were talking about the world as they wanted it to be and ignoring some of the hard realities of life. I had no problem with their ideals or where they wanted society to end up – it was their unrealistic route map for getting there which seemed to make little sense.

All too often their economic policies were frankly illiterate.

Often involving wholly irresponsible levels of borrowing, because they were convinced that their aspirations were inherently right, and there was no other way to pay for them. They made no attempt to bend to economic realities because dogma had to trump reality.

The thing is that it doesn’t. Not even the most impeccable and undeniably morally correct dogma. Just churning out rhetoric about where society ought to be, without the practical skills to chart a realistic course to get there, isn’t good politics.

It’s just self-indulgent.

That is the main reason I have drifted to the centre of politics over the decades. Not because I have really lost my idealism. Rather that I have become far more interested in practical policies that help us move towards those ideals than in just displaying the purity of my ideology without having any clue as to how to implement any of it.

I want to see policies which really help those who need it most, but which also stack up financially. Policies which break down the old boy network, the class system, and the glass ceilings facing so many, but which don’t cause any damaging unintended consequences which make us all poorer.

A big ask? Perhaps, but I do actually think the often maligned ‘New Labour’ experiment made a pretty good fist of marrying up the three principles of the French Revolution – liberty, equality and fraternity – with the harsh realities of a market economy. In fact, personally, I feel Gordon Brown is one of the most under-estimated statesmen of the late 20th and early 21st century. An unpopular view, I know.

But this column is not supposed to be about what happened to the left. It is supposed to be about the astonishing change that has occurred to the right wing of politics – both in Guernsey and the UK.

What did I make of leading right wing politicians in my youth? In some ways I found them unappealing, unsympathetic, and harsh in their world view. There were some Tories I warmed to but those on the right wing of the party I found to be – frankly – quite unpleasant. They seemed to the teenage Roffey to be all about wanting to maintain a regime where they and their chums could thrive, in a very unequal world, at the expense of most of the rest of the population.

I don’t think I was far wrong, but even back then there was one quality of the right wing of politics – both hard and soft – which I couldn’t help but admire. The ability to face reality and to try to deal with it head on.

Even if I didn’t approve of their proposed solutions I admired the fact that they didn’t just close their eyes, put their hands over their ears, and pretend that inconvenient facts didn’t exist. So they tended to be fiscally responsible, but far more importantly they didn’t feel scared to take unpopular decisions when they needed to. They definitely were not scared of their own shadows and often felt it was their job to lead and not just bow to public sentiment if it wasn’t well informed.

I think this was true of genuine ‘conservatives’ [small c] both in the UK and Guernsey. For those old enough to remember these characters – can you imagine Alan Grut or Bob Chilcott sidestepping an economic problem just because all of the possible answers were unpopular? Or Peter Dorey, John Langlois or Roger Berry. Of course not. They would react to public opposition by trying to explain just why, in their view, there was only one responsible course of action. Not by wetting themselves and distancing themselves from unpopular solutions while trying to blame everybody else.

Exactly the same was true of the doyens of the Tory party in the UK. In times of real challenge they rose to the occasion and were less interested in political survival than doing the right thing for the country. Thank goodness it was so because if it hadn’t been, today’s national debt would be crippling.

So how on earth did we arrive at a world where those on the right are more enamoured with shallow populism than even the most ‘away with the fairies’ socialists of the 1970s? Where we have a Tory prime minister who wants to hugely increase public spending to remain popular and to fund it all though massive borrowing? Where ‘tax and spend’ socialists have been replaced with ‘borrow and spend Tories’.

How did we arrive at a world where all the candidates to be Tory leader competed to make the most irresponsible claims over unsustainable tax cuts? And where the one who managed to achieve the most outrageous dislocation from reality won the day? Conservative chancellors of the post-war period will be turning in their grave.

Likewise in Guernsey. I think the public view the Guernsey Party, and their many fellow travellers, as being on the right wing of local politics. And yet they seem utterly incapable of dealing with any reality which appears to be even a smidgeon unpopular. One reason why I remain unoptimistic that this States will come close to tackling Guernsey’s tax conundrum.

I very much hope to be proved wrong.

What conclusion do I draw from this ramble? Well, I suppose that over the last few decades the mantle of the greatest proponents of shallow political populism has been lost by the dreamers of the left and inherited by the political chancers of the right. A depressing thought for someone who just wants to see real, workable solutions to society’s problems. Someone who wants to see realistic policies enacted to make things better in the medium term, even if the immediate result is personal political oblivion.

Time for a new, hard-headed, brave movement of the radical centre?