Spare a thought for us political commentators. We stare into the void between now and a (presumed) decisive Labour victory in a (presumed) autumn general election, haunted by the need to say something significant on a weekly basis at least. Yet there seems so little left to say.
Readers don’t need to be told that the Tories are in an unholy mess, or that nobody likes them
Until recently we could perhaps speculate that the election might be next month but it’s surely too late now even for that surprise. So ‘autumn’, we say: no surprise there. We think we know the winner too: Labour, easily. I struggle with betting terminology but a glance at online odds suggests to me that if you bet £5 there’ll be an election in October-December 2024 and win, you’ll get £6 back. And if you bet successfully on the next prime minister you’d get £6 for every £5 you put on Keir Starmer.
That’s hardly even gambling. Nobody thinks these outcomes are interesting because they can predict them with such assurance. But – assuming that we commentators are tasked with writing a thousand or so words every week until (say) Thursday 21 November 2024 – we have another 32,000 words to write. This is the length of a small book. Whatever are we going to write about?
We’ll do our best to fill the void. There are various ruses. A favourite is what one might call the light novelist’s approach:
‘Glancing at his menu as the prime minister sat down for the Confederation of British Industry’s annual lunch last Monday – a smoked salmon mousse with cucumber and dill to start, then chicken breast with a tarragon cream sauce and herb-roasted potatoes, followed by miniature chocolate eclairs – Rishi Sunak could have been forgiven for feeling glum.
‘Even the soaring Victorian architecture of the Grand Hall at Old Billingsgate Market, the CBI’s venue for this prestigious event, will have been unlikely to lift his spirits. The following day’s cabinet meeting would bring the usual tension between the standard-
bearers of the right urging a tougher stance on the threat posed to his Rwanda policy by the European Court of Human Rights, and the habitual caution of his cabinet moderates. A teetotaller, the Prime Minister was denied refuge even in the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc or an indifferent Côtes du Rhône. And he knew the right would be on the warpath, as we report (p.xx) today. Letters, it was being rumoured, were about to go in…’
This takes us some 170 words down the track without having said anything at all. And we still have some 830 to go – having reminded readers of what they already know about the PM’s travails, and given them as much information as they could possibly want about CBI lunches, we have to move on. How? Well, since whatever meets the eye about political prospects this year has already met the eye of our typically quite knowledgeable reader, we must next embrace what must be a founding premise of political punditry: that there is more to this much than meets the eye. And that presents us with a problem. Because there almost certainly isn’t.
Readers don’t need to be told that the Tories are in an unholy mess, fighting like rats in a sack; or that nobody likes them, most people aren’t going to vote for them and there’s nothing that even the Archangel Gabriel, still less Sunak, could do to rescue them. Nor does the reader need reminding that the Tories are already trying to blame each other for the mess, and that after the next election what’s left of the party will descend into a bloody factional fight for whatever each faction takes to be the soul of Conservatism.
There. That took only about 90 words, and any more would be superfluous. For the moment the Tories and their self-inflicted wounds really don’t matter – and this, I’m afraid, our readers have understood ahead of us pundits. We keep writing about the Conservative party as if it mattered. We really must kick the habit.
We could write instead, I suppose, about Reform, and what Nigel Farage is likely to do. We can do that in 40 words. Mr Farage will play peek-a-boo for a bit longer and finally emerge in some leading role in Reform, which will inflict serious damage on the Tories but, beyond that, never amount to much because they don’t really have any policies.
And that leaves the Labour party. As I’ve remarked, we commentators are bound to say that there’s more to Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and co. than meets the eye because what meets the eye is insufficient fuel for us: so very dreary and underwhelming. There don’t appear to be any policies worthy of the name, while the leading personalities sound like no fun at all. The best we can do for scandal is allege that Angela Rayner may have saved a few thousand pounds by deeming one house rather than another her principal home – and, really, who cares?
So if there’s more to Labour than meets the eye, what is it? ‘Ah,’ we say, ‘don’t you see? That’s exactly the point. That’s what’s so crafty. They’re keeping their powder dry.’ Then we tap our noses and explain what’s so devilishly clever here is that Labour realise that if they tell the voters their policies, the Tories will steal them/cost them/discredit them… whatever. So, ho-ho, Labour are keeping it all up their sleeve. Cunning, eh?
Well, maybe. My lifelong experience of people, politicians and parties of whom (or of which) it’s said that there’s more than meets the eye, is that there rarely is. I doubt Keir Starmer has the least idea what he’ll do in Downing Street – he just wants to be Prime Minister – while if her recent Mais Lecture is any guide, Rachel Reeves is determined only not to do anything silly.
There we are – 40 more words. Whatever shall I write next?
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