What are the lessons for British politicians from Syriza’s victory in the European elections? They’re certainly very keen to tell voters what lessons we should be drawing. Last night Nigel Farage focused on the failure of Europe, while David Cameron pointed to the importance of a strong – you guessed it – long term economic plan. This morning George Osborne underlined that point on the Today programme, saying:
‘I certainly understand that if you have unemployment at 25%, if your economy has shrunk by 20%, as the Greek economy has over recent years, you are looking for other answers, alternatives – because ultimately this is just the latest chapter in the eurozone crisis. It increases economic uncertainty and it reminds the United Kingdom that it needs to work through an economic plan that is delivering lower unemployment and growth and economic security.’
Plus ça change. But as we accept that Britain and Greece really are rather different, it’s also worth reflecting on one other lesson that politicians across the spectrum can surely agree on, which is that politicians who don’t sound like politicians are quite attractive to European voters right now. Whether it’s Alexis Tsipras’s open-necked shirt or the disarming frankness of Yanis Varoufakis, who told Radio 4 his party had been handed a ‘poisoned chalice’, casually quoted Dylan Thomas and included a loud sigh as part of his model answer to a difficult question, politicians who appear to lack polish – even if it’s just that they’ve crafted themselves in quite a different way – are getting their way in Europe as voters tire of conventional politics. And given our own general election campaign seems currently to be running along tired old lines, with dossiers, counter-dossiers and formal line-ups of ministers at podiums, perhaps there is at least one lesson from the Greek elections that our MPs really do need to take seriously.
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