Taking a Dive

Ben Wildsmith

We’re wasting our time here, folks. Our gerrymandered, media-commanded charade of a democracy is essentially meaningless at the best of times but this year we are going through motions without any sense of jeopardy or need for debate at all.

79 Conservative MPs have, at press time, announced that they are standing down to spend more time with their non-executive directorships.

It had previously been assumed that Michael Gove could only be removed from national life by a trained professional with a tick hook, so news of his voluntary exit has a particular Robert-Maxwell-on-the-boat vibe about it.

So, very few ‘Portillo moments’ to look forward to on election night for those of us who have howled outrage at the outgoing delinquents throughout their wretched period in office.

Elections are never for people like us, though. If you’re this far into Nation.Cymru’s opinion section, down here in the murky wallows of ill-natured speculation and spiteful gossip, then you share my unhealthy obsession with the doings of our elected representatives.

We may differ in our conclusions, but we have more in common than we do with the people who decide elections.

Election time for us is to be a regular in the pub at Christmas. Your carefully ordered environment is briefly invaded by hordes of arrivistes shouting loudly and unable to handle their drink.

Your usual table in the corner, where you read the paper over a restorative lunchtime pint, is swarming with tinselled office workers who don’t know how to order at the bar.

‘A Crème de menthe and ginger, please. It’s Christmas!’

That’s who elections are for. Unfortunately, the world is crammed full of people who have a wide range of interests, a functioning family life, and insufficient time to drill down exhaustively into the blackened heart of the body politic.

The best we can hope for is to peel them off, one at a time, when they are at their lowest ebb, and reveal to them the full horror of what we know. Get to them after a relationship breakup is my advice.

The only people who seem genuinely surprised by the timing of this election are out-of-the-loop Tory backbenchers who had been banking on another six months to set up post-parliamentary gigs to support their lifestyles.

Labour, and Tories close to power, seem to have eased into the campaign without any sense of urgency or excitement. Even the participants are behaving like spectators to an inevitable process.

The only point of intrigue in all of this is whether the Conservatives are deliberately taking a dive.

From announcing the election in the pouring rain to appearing in the Titanic district of Belfast and enquiring about football in Barry, Rishi Sunak seems to be going out of his way to ensure there is no possibility of victory.

This weekend’s offering is a promise to bring back National Service, complete with graphics that look suspiciously like a National Express advert.

We have now moved beyond the performative politics of the Rwanda plan, in which an unfeasible policy was suggested in the knowledge that it would never happen.

In that scenario, the policy had support amongst a percentage of the electorate who could then be gaslit into believing it had been obstructed by sinister forces in the ‘woke’ establishment.

It was grubby but had its own twisted logic.

Here we are presented with a parody of Conservative philosophy. It exists in the same cultural space as Lenin T-shirts as a signal that a previously powerful ideology has been defanged.

The idea of herding unwilling teenagers into the modern armed forces or, God help us, NHS hospitals is so absurd that its message is clear.

You are to vote Labour.

The media have told you to, defecting Tory MPs have told you to, and the visuals of the Conservative campaign are telling you to.

If you do not vote Labour, you are either immature, immoral, or insane.

Just as in 2017 and 2019 it was socially unacceptable to vote for Labour, now it is taboo to vote against them.

After the election, when the tinsel has been swept up and we’re able to get to the bar, we’ll see what all this is about.

My feeling is, if Michael Gove is fleeing the scene, it’s about to get very ugly indeed.