And now we go over to the latest opinion poll which is about who voters feel is our best prime minister. Here are the results of the British jury:
May 24%, Corbyn 20%, Neither/don’t know 56%.
There you have it. The country literally in a minefield of crises from Brexit to knife crime to climate change to poverty to measles to NHS to schools and who do we think is the best person to deal with it? Either Neither or Don’t Know.
This shows unquestionably that the electorate is not stupid and it can spot a dud when it sees one. The days back in 2017 when the Daily Mail was attempting to persuade its readers that Theresa May was ‘the new iron lady’ seem a million years away. Similarly, the momentum (see what I did there?) that propelled an elderly, modestly talented career backbencher who had never had an original idea in his life to the Labour leadership stalled when voters realised the reality of what a mediocre little man he was. That is, without doubt, the reality of the political situation in which we find ourselves, a country a long way up Shit Creek without a paddle and even if it had a paddle would we trust either of our main political leaders to steer the good ship Britain back to open waters again without first sinking it?
Both main parties have been on a road to political Dignitas for a long time, now, the Conservatives finally and literally tearing itself apart over Europe and Labour is heading full speed ahead to a far left Knacker’s Yard. Politically homeless voters seek alternatives and what are they? The discredited Lib Dems, perhaps, led by Vince Cable, who sold their soul in order to prop up David Cameron’s destructive austerity driven Tory government in exchange for sundry knighthoods and gongs? The new Change UK party which so far appears rudderless, leaderless and achingly middle class?
The beneficiaries as ever will be the ego driven nationalist career politician Nigel Farage, who surfs a wave of hatred and confusion, with nothing to offer the electorate in terms of ideas or a basic plan beyond a hard Brexit which will benefit only the privileged millionaire elite to which he belongs and will benefit most. Or perhaps the remnants of Ukip which to all intents and purposes has morphed into BNP country and For Britain, an actual fascist organisation that idolises the likes of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon?
That extremes prosper is because extremes are all we have. Extremists offer simple populist slogans rather than actual policies. Farage garnered far more support from standing in front of a poster with hundreds of eastern looking people in a line, apparently waiting to come to Britain, with the by-line ‘Breaking Point’. And Boris Johnson enhanced his popularity simply by telling lies, not least over the extra money Brexit would give the NHS and pretending that hundreds of thousands of Turkish workers were on their way to Britain if we stayed in the EU. In a complex world, simple solutions are not available and that’s part of the reason we are in this mess, not just over Brexit but over everything.
I can actually see things getting worse in our country. What happens when May goes and a hopelessly inadequate out-of-her-depth politician is replaced by a populist blowhard like Johnson or when Corbyn stands aside and is replaced by someone equally as useless like Rebecca Long Bailey or Richard Burgon or whoever Labour’s de facto leader, the actual Stalinist Seamus Milne, decrees should assume notional control?
The circumstances are ripe for a proper, fully blown nationalist rising in our country. Not just a few thousand elderly football hooligans but a lurch to the political right. I am not sure if either Farage or Yaxley-Lennon are capable of leading such a far right uprising but if the real deal turns up, a charismatic Mosley-type figure, heaven help us all.
