Fair enough; you make good points. Perhaps I was minimising just how bad some of what happened under the 2019-2024 Tory government actually was; when you reel it off like that, it is quite a list of some rather dodgy stuff.
My question is; why have the media latched onto the happenings of the Labour government and made it into a huge controversy with Starmer if it happened under previous governments? I guess I just hoped that with Starmer entering, we could see a more positive discourse around politics again and all this infighting and drama go away, and that doesn’t seem to have happened. I get that many of the media interests in this country are right-wing, but I’ve always felt like blaming “the right-wing media” for anything that goes wrong in left-wing government sounds like a bit of a conspiracy theory to some extent, similar to Liz Truss blaming “the deep state” for everything that went wrong in her government.
I don’t disagree that there are tough choices to be made, and I do think the winter fuel payment means testing was a good idea that we eventually needed to tackle (albeit I’m not sure I agree with the exact small print of how it’s being implemented). Pensions have been a ticking time bomb for years, with an increasing amount of elderly people requiring them and a decreasing amount of working age people to pay for them. However, there seems to be increasing evidence that some policies, such as the VAT on private schools (which I initially agree with in principle), may potentially overload the state sector further and make things worse, and it doesn’t feel like there’s been much positivity or positive happenings since Starmer came in. Everything they’ve done so far has felt very negatively driven rather than a change to make people’s lives better or make things more positive.
Perhaps it’s just me irrationally hoping that Starmer coming in would inject some positive spirit and eventually reinstate a “golden age” similar to the Blair years, where everything apparently worked and the political discourse was largely positive. That doesn’t seem to have happened thus far, and the political discourse seems every bit as scandalous, negative and dramatic as it was before the election. Since Starmer came in, it’s simply felt like doom and gloom, with the scandals, the cuts, and the right wing riots as well (admittedly not Starmer’s fault).
I sometimes feel like I was born around 20 years too late when it comes to politics. Back in the 90s, it sounds like the country was some sort of utopia (for lack of a better term), with the Blair years in particular being brilliant and so positive for the country, whereas it seems like the current UK political discourse is just constant doom and gloom with nothing working well or being positive. One of the first major political events in my time being aware of politics was Brexit (which I thought was a terrible idea even at 13, and while I accepted the referendum result and have tried to give it a fair chance since, I’m yet to be convinced otherwise thus far), and since then, it just seems like everything’s been so unstable and negative. I guess I’m sad to have missed out on what many consider the “golden age”; everything just feels so negative these days, whereas the 90s/early 2000s sounded like such a positive period where everything (or a lot of things, at least) was supposedly better.
I’m hoping that Starmer might reinstate some of that positive spirit from the 90s/2000s, but it doesn’t seem to be happening so far. Perhaps, like our good friends Bianca Samut and Scott O’Neil at Alton Towers and Merlin, it will be a slow burn process that will take many years. Although in the case of Alton/Merlin, there does seem to have been some positivity, more so than with Starmer’s new government.
I hate to break it to you Matt, but yes it is an irrational expectation. It's this horrible era of populism in which we now live, that's being fueled by almost completely unregulated publishers, namely the despicable social media companies. This isn't unique to the UK, in fact in countries like the USA it's even worse! Every time I think we're over the worst of it, something else crops up.
The savagery of the traditional newspapers hasn't changed in my whole lifetime. It's always been this way. They've just found a new way of reporting lies these days now that they've been caught so many times breaking the law in the past. Note the use of quotation marks such as 'Labour Winter Fuel Scandal will lead to "Thousands of Pensioners Freezing to Death" This Winter'. Read that and you'd think there was some sort of research that had been conducted. But no, to print a headline like that, all they have to do is ask some bloke on the street for his opinion, or worse, just rip it off of social media. It doesn't have to be fact, all they're doing is reporting that someone has said that. But if you don't read the article, the impression is already implanted in you brain.
Millions of people then take to social media, punch drunk on this nonsense, and start making up their own stuff. So many people talk about it, others with busy lives think there can't possibly be so much smoke if there isn't a fire, and it becomes an "alternative fact". Because there's so much noise, heavily regulated news agencies like BBC, ITN, and Sky then have to report on it as they're editorially scrutinised and have to report on things that are seen to be of great interest to the public.
The heavily regulated news agencies then can't win. If BBC News go too heavy on the fact checking of the story and relegate it to the third headline, the same right wing publications that started the nonsense that morning will start bleating on about "left wing bias" and call for BBC defunding. If Channel 4 News report it as their main headline, and invite a government minister on for a good grilling, leftie publications and arrogant influencers like Owen Jones will start crying about "right wing bias" and whack OFCOM complaints in.
Until the publisher's of hatred and lies, the social media companies, accept responsibility for what they publish on their domains in persuit of profit, the situation won't change. At least until the western world grows up and opens it's eyes to these toxic websites, and who owns some of them, traditional news outlets will continue throw matches in and watch western political discourse burn.
For balance, this isn't just a Labour thing either. There was plenty of legitimate stuff that the outgoing Tory government should have been hauled through the ringer for, yet there was a disproportionate amount of discussion around Sunak standing in the rain and in front of an exit sign. I found both of those things funny and quite apt, but did we really need news headlines, hour long radio phone ins, interviews, and weeks of discussion about whether Sunak has an umbrella or not?
Populism seems like it's on the march again. Corbyn is organising a group of other equally crazy MP's. Boris Johnson is slowly emerging from his political grave, lying away as usual, trying to flog his new book without an ounce of remorse for his corruption. A Yougov poll is now saying that the Farage is more popular than Starmer at the moment.
Labour have their work cut out trying to be a serious government for serious times amidst all the misinformation that's doing the rounds. A very difficult task to try and remain relevant, at a time where populism is the last thing we need as a country. And as for the battle to become Head of Deckchairs on the Titanic, the Tories are already totally irrelevant for the time being
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