AS I WAS SAYING
The reason we are not looking to the national election is that we no longer look to the nation state
PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE
Nation state elections are not as impor- tant as they were in the old days because, with one exception, nation states are not as important. Naturally nation state politi- cians don't see it this way because, from their personal point of view, nation states, and the elections which determine who will be in charge of them, remain very impor- tant, making all the difference between the fulfilments of office and the frustrations of opposition. Not that the fulfilments of min- isterial office are quite as uniquely pleasing as they used to be when Britannia ruled the waves; indeed probably rather less so than those enjoyed nowadays by the chairman of a large multinational corporation. Whereas in the past the chancelleries of the world had good cause to tremble at a cross word from Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, today it is proba- bly the mighty Murdoch empire's ill-will which gives them most cause for consterna- tion. Nevertheless it is still something to be a British minister of the crown and still something to be an MP, particularly if you have no other way of earning an honest — or even a dishonest — living.
From the point of view of the ordinary citizen, however, nation states are not at all what they were. Take the fundamental mat- ter of securing the nation from external or internal aggression. Before the second world war both responsibilities rested firm- ly with Westminster. So plainly it was vitally important who was in charge there. Ever since the war, it has become less important and been seen, slowly but surely, to be less so. Britain alone could have averted the Nazi German menace, if it had elected a government less appeasement-minded. But at no point could Britain alone have avert- ed the Soviet communist menace, whatever government it elected. Even securing her oil supplies against an Arab dictator became beyond the power of Britain alone.
The Falldand Islands were another mat- ter. Britain on her own was just about able to recover them and for that purpose it obviously did matter which party was in power at Westminster. It was also impor- tant during the Cold War to return a pro- American government rather than an anti- American one; but not all that important since no British party with any chance of winning an election was ever proposing to take Britain out of Nato. Even in the war against the IRA — the United Kingdom's prime internal security challenge — Wash- ington has come to matter far more than Westminster. If a new American president decided to bring pressure to bear on Dublin, the IRA could be beaten in weeks, not months. No conceivable change of gov- ernment at Westminster next month will make that much difference.
In these circumstances the only elections that have really mattered since the war are those that take place every four years in the United States, and in these the British elec- torate, in its wisdom, most certainly does take an interest, less now than during the Cold War but still very great. More British people, I would guess, take time off to fol- low the news of American general elections than to follow the news of British elections. The habit started in 1944 when President Roosevelt ran for his fourth term. It is the first election of any kind I can remember taking a burning interest in, following my parents' example. They certainly wanted to see British voters re-elect Winston Churchill in 1945, but not nearly as fervent- ly as they wanted to see the American vot- ers re-elect FDR in 1944. In 1952 I covered the Eisenhower-Stevenson presi- dential election as number two correspon- dent for the Times, in the course of which my bureau chief went overboard for Stevenson. His journalistic career never recovered. As from the night when the results of Eisenhower's landslide victory came in, he was professionally a dead man and physically almost the same, since the shock gave him a nervous breakdown. To the best of my knowledge no British jour- nalist has ever suffered a comparable fate, professional or personal, from getting a British election wrong.
After 1945, of course, the nation state made up for its declining role in protecting the citizen from external enemies by play- ing a vastly more important role in defend- ing him from the social scourges of poverty, Blair's putting clear blue water between him and the Tories.' unemployment, ill health and old age. The phrase welfare state says it all. Beveridge brought the old Hobbesian contract up to date. But nowadays even that post-war wel- fare role is being abandoned. No longer is the nation state promising to take care of the citizen's basic social needs from the cra- dle to the grave. Increasingly it is inviting the individual citizen — soon it may be compelling him — to start looking to the marketplace for some of these services. The process is known as privatisation — now backed by both parties — which in plain language means that the nation state can no longer afford to shoulder its social responsibilities alone any more than it can afford to should its defence responsibilities alone. It wants to share with the market the burden of pensions, health and even polic- ing. With the best will in the world the nation state can no longer afford to protect our homes. Citizens are advised to under- take more of the protection themselves, at their own expense, which is fine for the rich but not for the poor. Educationally, too, the state system is failing. So is the national system of criminal justice. Aggrieved citi- zens are more and more looking outside the nation state for redress.
Is it any wonder, therefore, that general elections arouse so little interest? Most citi- zens find their spare time better spent reading the special commercial offers that come through their letter-boxes rather than the party political messages. Certainly the Tories can't complain about this, because they want citizens to stand on their own two feet. Now the Labour party wants the same. The less dependent citizens are upon Westminster, however, the less cause they have to attend to its affairs, unless they happen to be public servants whose salary or wages derives from there.
If the election was about whether or not to stay in the European Union, it would arouse more interest. But not all that much more. For while few citizens want to be ruled from Brussels, not many feel it all- important to go on being ruled from West- minster. I share that feeling. National poli- tics don't matter. That is why the well-off ignore election reports in favour of the City pages and the less well-off ignore them in favour of the sports pages. When will the media realise this? I suspect the penny is already dropping — but not in time to save this parody of an election from grotesquely excessive coverage.
Previous page
