A Blue Moon for Red Tories

Ben Wildsmith

Were you all out for the blue supermoon on Monday night? If you enjoyed it then, truly, I’m happy for you.

Personally, I’m done with supermoons. Every month or so a new variant seems to come along, heralded in the papers as if it were the portent of the Age of Aquarius, promising delivery from the riot-beleaguered, Ed-Sheeran-soundtracked, have-you-forgotten-your-password hellscape in which we somehow persist.

There’s only so many times, however, that you can work up a spark of celestial optimism only to find yourself standing on the patio in wet socks peering up at the clouds and asking, ‘Is that it?’ before trooping back inside to resume recreational doomscrolling.

It’s not the despair that gets you; it’s the hope.

Change

The prospect of change is the currency of elections. It’s all going to be different, we’re told. Our best days are ahead of us! If only we’ll belieeeeeeeeeeeve enough to put a cross in a box next to the right name, happiness and contentment will return to the realm. The chaos will stop, no return to boom or bust etc. etc. etc.

After our first electoral victimisation, we naturally become more sceptical about political promises.

Having been led up the garden path once, we realise that we’re not going to be unwrapping a new bike on Christmas morning.

It is reasonable, however, to expect something when we elect a new government; some token measures to acknowledge that we weren’t happy with the previous lot.

So far, Labour seems to be sending the message that voting is for suckers. Feigning shock at an £18 billion hole in the public finances that was widely reported during the election campaign, the government has resisted measures, like lifting the two-child cap, that would signal a change in moral priorities in the nation’s governance.

Indeed, by cancelling the winter fuel payment for all except the poorest pensioners, it seems to be ramping up performative impoverishment as if it accepts the fundamental ethics of Tory politics.

Money has been found, however, to settle the pay claims of junior doctors and train drivers.

Justified as these demands were, the government’s stated rationale for meeting them – that prolonged strikes are disruptive – is neither moral nor sensible.

Precedent

As well as setting a clear precedent for other unions to follow, it rewards two groups of workers that enjoy sufficient financial security to sustain indefinite strike action.

Those in jobs that pay less are unlikely to secure the majorities required to follow suit simply because they can’t afford to lose regular days’ pay.

We also learn that Labour plans to fund the building of social housing by increasing rents above inflation for ten successive years. If you can find a Labour voter who expected that when they left the polling booth, I’d be very surprised.

Housing is a devolved matter, so if you encounter Baroness Morgan on her ‘listening exercise’ around Wales this month, please ask if she can rule out taking this approach here.

The viability of devolution rests upon decisions like this, and the glib assumption that a Westminster government will act in the interests of people who voted for Labour in the Senedd will be tested as soon as the summer recess ends.

Nobody doubts the economic challenges facing the country. It’s clearly going to be a tough job to reverse the decline we have suffered during 14 years of incompetent government, and the financial crash that preceded it.

Politics is increasingly being done online and, recently, on the streets. If people are to believe in democracy, an incoming government should demonstrably reflect the values of its voters.

A failure to do so in the name of caution is recklessly complacent in troubled times.

‘I personally can’t tell the difference between a supermoon and a regular moon,’ Fred Espernak, scientist emeritus for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center told Morning Edition this week. ‘And I’ve been looking at the moon all my life.’