Looking upon Labour’s "loveless landslide"

What watching a night that changed the country tells us about its mood.

Yaroslav Walker

Yaroslav is Vicar of Christ Church, Hampstead.

A poltiical pudit opines in a TV studio while his colleague leans in and listens.

The Two Ronnies.

I very much like Mr. Vine, but he is like a Gremlin: you must follow the rules and not give him caffeine or sugar on Election Night.

What on earth has happened to Aunty!? One of the few things that has united people from the left and right (at least according to my social media) is just how mediocre the election coverage was. The evening started badly for the Beeb when they let Channel 4 distract viewers a full 15mins early. This was to allow Not Going Out to complete its important work of informing and educating the populace.

As a result, I found myself glued to Channel 4 for most of the night, intermittently flicking back to the National Broadcaster for bouts of genuine bewilderment. In a Channel 4 lull I made the jump only to have every sense immediately assaulted by migraine inducing swingometer graphics (it was synaesthesia inducing…I could practically taste the rapid mix of red, yellow, and blue). This neurological bombardment intensified with the commentary of Jeremy Vine. I very much like Mr. Vine, but he is like a Gremlin: you must follow the rules and not give him caffeine or sugar on Election Night. His high-octane performance drove me to the limit immediately.

Regular further jumps gave me glimpses into the bizarre: a journalist standing outside of Rishi Sunak’s blacked-out home telling us the lights weren’t on, telling Steve Baker to his face that he was going to lose his seat, having an interview with Jacob Rees-Mogg where he looked like a hostage reading out demands…it really was dreadful!

Stewart was reinforced by Channel 4 Political Editor Gary Gibbon. With a soft yet authoritative voice, and the appearance of a cheeky Beano character fifty years on.

I stuck to Channel 4 as my safe space. They very much cornered the market for coverage by bagging both The Rest is Politics and the Gogglebox cast, as well as producing regularly mismatched line-ups of former MPs to pass comment. I must assume this was intentional, but even if not, it meant comedy gold. The scene opened with Emily Maitlis and Krishnan Guru-Murthy talking over each other in a stumbling staccato, while Kwasi Kwartang looked unbelievably uncomfortable sandwiched in between Harriet Harmen and Nadine Dorries (in various shades of pink).

There were many other talking heads throughout the night, who each brought some magic to the night: Nadim Zahawi (looking like a cross between a wise owl and a Bond villain), Carol Vorderman (who might have started celebrating rather early), Sir Alan Duncan (looking like a wine merchant holidaying on the Amalfi Coast). Mhari Black brought a rather refreshing bluntness to proceedings.

The standout stars, however, were Mr. Stewart and Mr. Campbell. They brought the Centrist-Dads-disagreeing-agreeably energy that has seen their podcast top the charts. They played off each other with precision and genuine affection, and a fair bit of humour. Campbell would get into a mild row, and then Stewart would jump in with careful analysis that tried to look at the broader political landscape. Dorries proved the perfect foil to Campbell - speaking in accusatory non-sequiturs, rhapsodically musing on the ‘virtues’ of Boris Johnson, weaving nonsense narratives that wouldn’t even make it into one of her novels. Campbell would retort in a tone that was at once bewildered, bored, and bristling. Stewart would valiantly intervene to find the calmer waters of consensus, and the whole cycle would repeat. Kwarteng looked increasingly uncomfortable until he just upped and vanished - perhaps from the embarrassment of being in the same party as Dorries.

In his attempt to be serious and measured, Stewart was reinforced by Channel 4 Political Editor Gary Gibbon. With a soft yet authoritative voice, and the appearance of a cheeky Beano character fifty years on, he gave the careful analysis of the polls and the turnout, which Stewart would then run with in broader political perorations. The two hosts would often chip-in (quite chippily, actually), rarely able to sublimate their obvious and banterous contempt for some of the more egregious spin.

Meanwhile, Harriet Harmon looked cross.

A sense of angry Labour malaise was one of the leitmotifs of the night... there was a noticeable lack of celebration. No smiles. No D:Ream soundtrack. No positivity

This struck me as odd. Just before the show it had been announced that she was to be elevated to the Lords. This honour appeared to give her no joy. Harmen brought every answer back to how dreadful the Tories were, until Kwarteng tried to make a joke out of it to cut the tension: ‘You won, alright!?’ Every successful Labour candidate who was interviewed focused their responses on excoriating the legacy of the Tories, as if they were still in campaign mode. At times it got rather uncomfortable. Every time Rachel Reeves let a grin slip through, she seemed to feel the need to overcorrect by attacking her fallen foes even more harshly. On one of my disastrous forays back to the BBC I was greeted with Wes Streeting being positively thuggish in his language. It wasn’t until Sir Keir gave his victory speech that any Labour figures seemed to feel like they could actually appreciate their victory.

A sense of angry Labour malaise was one of the leitmotifs of the night. From the moment the Labour Landslide was announced there was a noticeable lack of celebration. No smiles. No D:Ream soundtrack. No positivity. Perhaps it was because they all recognised the truth, succinctly put by Gibbon when giving his immediate reflections on the Exit Poll Result: ‘That looks like love…but that is a loveless landslide.’ Voter turnout was low. The Labour Party went backwards in its vote in many areas - sometimes due to Reform, sometimes due to Gaza protests. This was epitomised by Jess Phillip’s wafer-thin majority. The always pugilistic Phillips had to give both barrels in her speech to those who had campaigned against her, who continued to attempt to drown her out.

The Labour Party’s massive majority seems to be built on sand, and Zahawi was quick to point out that sand can easily shift. Labour are the beneficiaries of our winner-takes-all electoral system (a system I very much support), and so were continually reminded of the fact that Starmer is no Blair and ’24 is no ’97. The landslide will give some cheer to those who desperately wanted to see the back of the Tories. But it belies the reality that with both the Greens and Reform having four MPs, a number of Labour MPs being defeated by Independents, and decreased majorities in safe-seats up and down the country, we are not a nation united around the charisma of our new Dear Leader.

Stewart and Campbell continually try to draw the conversation away from the tittle-tattle of what this might mean for Labour infighting and the Farage fulminations we can now expect to see in Parliament, to the broader and deeper questions for the very health of our democracy…but the pull of gossip is sometimes too great for Maitlis and Guru-Murthy.

None of this is helped by Dorries.

A big victory, but one which indicates no national unity or confidence. A defeated government that was tearing itself apart long before the loss. Low turnout and lower trust.

From the get-go Maitlis and Guru-Murthy tried to inject intrigue into proceedings; a tough ask when the result was the confirmation of what looked like a foregone conclusion from the moment the election was called. They did their best, and got some sparks from Dorries and Campbell - a Stannis Baratheon-esque grammatical correction (‘fewer’) had me roaring with laughter - but all-in-all I was uneasy. Not quite bored, but not entirely excited and hopeful. Around 3am I fell asleep in my seat. I was awoken at 6am to my children bursting into the living room. I valiantly attempted to continue to watch the coverage while feeding banana-porridge to my son, head tilted in the strain of hearing the telly over the roar of the world’s loudest washing machine. I turned back to my son, admitting auricular defeat. There is no porridge in his belly; plenty all over his face and in his hair.

At 7am I was banished to the bedroom by my exasperated and long-suffering wife - it has become clear that I am not giving my all to childcare. I saw the gracelessness of Liz Truss arriving late and then refusing to give a concession speech. I saw Stewart play the silent Scottish assassin, gently pressing Stephen Flynn to admit that perhaps the SNP’s losses have something to do with their mismanagement with the Caledonian public realm. Rishi Sunak suggested the election was about tax, and everyone groaned in disbelief - he really doesn’t have any political instincts.

I never recaptured the magic of the first couple of hours, probably because there wasn’t any. From 10pm onwards there was an underlying sense of disappointment and despair. A big victory, but one which indicates no national unity or confidence. A defeated government that was tearing itself apart long before the loss. Low turnout and lower trust. I am not surprised by this. “O put not your trust in princes, nor in any child of man: for there is no help in them.” This is the warning of the Psalmist. I have already written, a number of times, about my own disgruntlement at the political process, and my doubt that it will be easily remedied.

But watching the coverage - the baffling BBC, the political Two Ronnies that are Stewart and Campbell, the remarkable hat worn by the returning officer in Blyth - I was fortified by remembering that while the Psalmist is correct, St Paul nevertheless gave us clear advice and instruction: “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.”

I shall pray for Sir Keir, for the new government, for all newly elected MPs.

They need it.

More importantly, we need it.

Article

Assisted dying

Comment

29 October 2024

4 min read

Assisted Dying logic makes perfect sense but imposes a dreadful dilemma

The case for assisted dying appeals to choice and autonomy, yet not all choices are good. It means vast numbers of people will face a terrible choice as their life nears its end.

Graham Tomlin

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

A black and white picture shows a woman head and shoulders, she is looking up and to the side in an unsure way.

Anastasiya Badun on Unsplash.

Two broad cultural trends have led us to our current debate over assisted suicide.

One is the way consumer choice has come to be seen as the engine of successful economies. Emerging from Adam Smith’s theories of rational choice based on self-interest, given a boost by Reaganomics and Thatcherite thinking in the 1990s, the provision of a range of choice to the consumer is usually argued, with some logic, as key to the growth of western economies and the expansion of freedom.

The other is the notion of individual autonomy. Articulated especially in the past by figures such as John Locke and John Stuart Mill, the idea that individuals should be free to choose to dispose of their property, their time and their talents as they choose, as long as they don’t harm anyone else, has become standard moral fare in the modern world.

Put these two together, and the logic of assisted dying makes perfect sense. What can be wrong with offering someone a choice? Why should the state restrict individual freedom to end your life in the way you might decide to do so?

Yet expanding choice is not always good. Forcing an employee to choose between betraying a colleague or losing their job is not a fair choice. There are some choices that are unfair to impose upon people.

Assisted dying will lead us to this kind of choice. Imagine a woman in her eighties, living in a home which is her main financial asset, and which she hopes to leave to her children when she dies. She contracts Parkinson’s or dementia, which will not kill her for some time, but will severely limit her ability to live independently (and remember about of third of the UK population will need some kind of longer-term care assistance as we get older). At present, her only options are to be cared for by her children, or to sell her house to pay for professional care.

With the assisted suicide bill, a third option comes into play – to end it all early and save the family the hassle - and the money. If the bill passes, numerous elderly people will be faced with an awful dilemma. Do I stay alive, watch the kids’ inheritance disappear in care costs, or land myself on them for years, restricting their freedom by needing to care for me? Or do I call up the man with the tablets to finish it soon? Do I have a moral duty to end it all? At present, that is not a choice any old person has to make. If the bill passes, it will be one faced by numerous elderly, or disabled people across the country.

Even though the idea may have Christian roots, you don’t have to be religious to believe the vulnerable need to be protected.

Of course, supporters of the bill will say that the proposed plan only covers those who will die within six months, suffering from an “inevitably progressive condition which cannot be reversed by treatment.” Yet do we really think it will stay this way? Evidence from most other countries that have taken this route suggests that once the train leaves the station, the journey doesn’t end at the first stop - it usually carries on to the next. And the next. So, in Canada, a bill that initially allowed for something similar was changed within five years to simply requiring the patient to state they lived with an intolerable condition. From this year, there is a proposal on the table that says a doctor’s note saying you have a mental illness is enough. In the same time frame, 1,000 deaths by assisted dying in the first year has become 10,000 within five years, accounting for around 1 in 20 of all deaths in Canada right now. Some MPs in the UK are already arguing for a bill based on ‘unbearable suffering’ as the criterion. Once the train starts, there is no stopping it. The logic of individual choice and personal autonomy leads inexorably in that direction.

Of course, some people face severe pain and distress as they die, and everything within us cries out to relieve their suffering. Yet the question is what kind of society do we want to become? One where we deem some lives worth living and others not? Where we make numerous elderly people feel a burden to their families and feel a responsibility to die? In Oregon, where Assisted Dying is legal, almost half of those who opted for assisted dying cited fear of being a burden as a factor in their decision. Or would we prefer one where the common good is ultimately more important than individual choice, and where to protect the vulnerable, we find other ways to manage end of life pain, putting resources into developing palliative care and supporting families with dependent members – none of which will happen if the option of assisted dying is available.

Even though the idea may have Christian roots, you don’t have to be religious to believe the vulnerable need to be protected. Changing the law might seem a small step. After all, doctors routinely administer higher doses of morphine which alleviate pain and allow a natural death to take its course. Yet that is a humane and compassionate step to take. To confront numerous people, elderly, disabled and sick with a dreadful dilemma is one we should not impose upon them.