Let’s not make saviours out of Sunak or Starmer

Politicians do not live up to messianic billing.

Cameron Wiltshire-Plant

Cameron is training to be a vicar in the city of Leicester.

Looked down upon by crowds in galleries, a politician stands amid a throng of supporters

Kier Starmer at Scottish Labour's election launch.

Pam Duncan-Glancy via Twitter.

It was 2015 and I thought Ed Miliband was the saviour of the free world. Remember, this was before Covid and Brexit and Trump, and politics seemed so binary and easy. Left-Right. Government-Opposition. Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown. Monoliths in my teenage eyes.

The excitement of the novel 2010 hung parliament and the injustice (as I saw it) of Nick Clegg (remember him?) ‘getting into bed’ with David Cameron instead of Gordon Brown had carried me all the way to the A-level Politics classroom. I was watching Ed attempt to tell Jeremy Paxman that, hell yeah, he was tough enough. A hung Parliament threatened again, until it didn’t. The Conservatives won enough to govern and the hope swelling in my breast was trodden down by spending upper sixth watching Donald Trump sweep to power.

I have learned enough since then not to cast Sir Kier Starmer in the same mould. Sunak’s snap election is not a choice between two saviours, but two politicians compromised by the grit of reality and the inheritance of a set of global circumstances.

Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, figures held up for their political savvy and economic foresightedness respectfully. To put it mildly, they did not live up to their messianic billing.

Often, we can make these political figureheads into messiahs, those who will come on a wave of hope to fix the nation’s problems, govern wisely, and bring unity. Perhaps, approaching July 4th, these feelings are intensified.

There is much in these pages excellently denoting the deliberate co-opting of Christ for nationalistic political purpose, and I am suggesting that we are often willing collaborators, bringing a religious devotion to our ideology and those which propound it: “If only it were insert politician who were running the country, then everything would be much better!”

This almost cultic reverence was present in some circles surrounding both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, figures held up for their political savvy and economic foresightedness respectfully. To put it mildly, they did not live up to their messianic billing. For others, this devotion was saved for Thatcher, Blair, Cameron, Corbyn.

A word of wisdom to my teenage self? Passion for politics is no bad thing, but devotion to human ideology is misplaced.

Rishi Sunak and Sir Kier Starmer do not quite have the same star power, with Starmer especially coming across as the more doughty-and-dependable type. But it was ever thus. Human nature is inherently cyclical, and we swing from one archetype to the next, always in the hope that the next one in will do a better job than the last.

The messiah is of course a Jewish concept, the awaited one who will deliver them from their enemies and lead them to a state of peace. Many have claimed to be the awaited one, but only one has convinced a multitude. We read of Jesus of Nazareth in our carol services every year that the government will be on his shoulders and the greatness of his government and peace will have no end. At the end of this year in which a new government is formed, perhaps these age-old claims have increased significance. They invite us to look beyond the immediate and the physical, to look beyond those names who dominate headlines, claiming to be the one who will deliver change and reverse decline.

Saint Paul has some wise words for those of us wondering how we can engage with a political world feeling more divisive and divided than ever. He tells us to pray for our government, whether you want Labour or Conservative and end up with the reverse. It is a tough job, and he tells us to give due honour to those who lead us, engaging with politics, giving it the respect it is due. But looking to politicians for deliverance? St Paul would call that folly. He only had one saviour.

For deliverance, we must look beyond the territorial and the electoral, to one who does not promise vote share or positive polling, but sacrifice and justice; to one who comes to us not with populism or popularity, but with lowliness, humility, and integrity. A word of wisdom to my teenage self? Passion for politics is no bad thing, but devotion to human ideology is misplaced. Do not put your trust in the cycle of human proclivities, but in the one whose government will have no end.