WE'RE EITHER VICTIMS OR CARERS

Theodore Dalrymple looks at the Labour

and Tory advertising campaigns and discovers a deeply Hegelian mess

THERE are advertising hoardings opposite the entrance to my hospital. Not long ago an election poster for the Conservatives appeared there. It consisted of a dismal and forlorn-looking lady in late middle age, clutching her metal crutches as she sat in a deserted hospital outpatients department, with the slogan 'You paid your taxes — so where is your operation?' above her.

I am not sure that this poster would be very encouraging to the patients emerging from the hospital. Of course, for them the question is not so much where their operation is — under the NHS there is no choice in the matter — but when. And another thing (even political propaganda should be accurate): no hospital outpatients department in this country is ever deserted. On the contrary, such departments are always full of people describing the complications of their various illnesses and treatments to one another, while up above them closedcircuit television relays advertisements for lawyers who will help them with their litigation when things go wrong. 'Remember,' says the television, 'where there's blame, there's a claim.' This inspiring thought does wonders for everyone's morale and attitude.

Not long after the Conservative poster appeared, it was joined and opposed by a Labour one: a kindly looking woman bent over a helpless old-age pensioner, doing something for or to her, with the slogan `The work continues' above them both.

This poster did not last long. It was soon replaced by one suggesting that anyone who voted Conservative would soon lose his house, thanks to high interest rates. Perhaps the spin doctors for Labour decided that it was better to concentrate their efforts on scare tactics, on attacking the opposition, rather than on extolling the achievements of the government: exiguous, except for the avoidance of complete economic collapse. Treatment under the NHS is not exactly Labour's strongest card at the moment, as the episode outside the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham seems to have demonstrated to the Prime Minister.

When the two original posters faced each other, however, they symbolised the dialectic that governs British political life. This is the dialectic between victim and carer, into which two categories the population of the country is more or less evenly divided. It seems that 50 per cent of the population — deeply feminised, of course — is helpless victim, while the other 50 per cent — also deeply feminised — selflessly looks after it.

The opposition is the natural party of the victims, in so far as it alleges that not enough is being done to help them. If only the opposition came to power, the victims would be victims no longer: fully active, they would be able to pass over into the camp of the rest of the population — that is to say the carers.

The government, on the other hand, is the natural party of the carers. No government has ever provided so many carers for victims as this one, and everyone is already looked after as she should be; so the corporate interest of the carers is to keep the government in power.

Naturally, the dialectic is an unstable one, and there can be (to change the philosophico–psychological metaphor slightly) a sudden Gestalt switch. The opposition can become the party of the carers, while the government can become the party of the victims. Indeed, the government might try to palm itself off as the party of the victims and the carers simultaneously, thus obviating the need for an opposition at all. It is all a deeply Hegelian mess.

What is perfectly clear from the adver tisements, however, is that the synthesis between the thesis and the antithesis (the victim is the thesis and the carer is the antithesis) is the government. It is the government that brings about the Hegelian Aufhebung of the terms of the dialectic: that is to say, the abolition of suffering through its good offices. Vote for me, and there will be no more crutches; vote for me, and the limitations of human life will disappear.

Of course, the dialectic could only exist in a population as sentimental as the British, which has become convinced that the only purpose in life — or rather the only purpose that can be openly acknowledged, which of course is not quite the same thing — is the reduction of suffering in the world. If you yourself can't do much to reduce suffering because you have not the skills, the inclination, the knowledge or the ability, only one choice is available to you: to join the ranks of the suffering. Is there anyone in this country so lacking in compassion that he does not pity himself?

In other words, we cannot just cross the road; we must either help others to cross, or be helped ourselves. There is no possibility of, like the chicken, merely crossing the road to get to the other side.

The dialectic of victim and carer flatters the self-regard of politicians and demeans everyone else. It suggests that they have a providential role in a society which can do nothing for itself without them. Vote Tory and throw down your crutches! Vote Labour and suffer the little children to come unto Downing Street! One can't look at such posters without experiencing nausea.

But there is no escaping politics. One of the strange and tormenting aspects of modern political life is the contrast between its seeming importance to the country and the complete insignificance of the people who actually engage in it. The state apparatus, unfortunately, has become so large and intrusive into every aspect of our lives that the identity of the people who control it seems to be a matter of supreme importance; yet only people with the minds of apparatchiks could be bothered to devote their lives to achieving that power. Most people, including the inventive ones, have better things to do with their lives.

For myself, I want to be neither a victim nor a carer, at least in the saccharine, death-of-Little-Nell sense of the Labour advertisement. I am a doctor and do my best for my patients, of course, but I am far from supposing that the main business of life is medical care. Medicine should be the means by which people return to a full and rich life, not the means by which politicians massage their self-regard and garner votes. Personally, I long for the Italian solution: governments so unstable and lacking in legislative majorities that for long periods we don't have one. Think of it: no new legislation! No frenetic activity masquerading as progress! Then, truly, we could throw down our crutches and walk.