Are you going to vote Audi or Skoda?
Political bloggers and journalist can’t get enough of the discussion of how the next coalition will be formed. It looks like we are heading for a perfect storm that will mean neither the Tories or Labour can form a majority coalition, with the likely outcome being a minority administration.
Which leaves one big question unanswered, why?
The mainstay of our political system in the UK has been large majority swings from left to right. Something that many would argue over time has been the main cause of our success of a small somewhat insignificant country. Our ability to elect strong administrations that would surge ahead with policy (right or wrong) has made us productive, with flipping from left to right leading to an overall balanced outcome. So the last thing we need is to be caught in the stalemate of indecision.
The biggest problem in this election, is the lack of charisma. No one leader is connecting with enough voters to have them suspend belief for long enough to think that they can bring about change. Worse still, the let down of New Labour combined with our development of the 24 hour news culture and social media means that we are all too well informed, with it being unlikely ever again that one leader might be able to pull off that illusion.
The problem is that life used to be far more polar in this country. The Labour voters in the north used to have different problems to the Tory voters in the south. The destruction of the manufacturing and mining industries in the north, and the resurgence of northern cities as centres of excellence for financial services, media and specialist manufacturing mean that lives of the middle and working classes in the north and south have converged, and with them so have their political parties. Which means in this election you really couldn’t get a rizla between Labour and Tory policy.
At the heart of it the electorate know this, which is why voting for other parties with more stark policies is becoming more popular.
Oddly the evolution of the automotive industry provides more of a parallel to the evolution of politics than you might think…
In the 80s people in the north would proudly buy Austins and Rovers, but these companies are now gone, and you are just as likely to see a financial services exec in Leeds driving an Audi as you are one in London. Do you remember the joke about Saab drivers being architects? The reality is that car brand loyalty is just as strong as political loyalty. Some people are pragmatic, changing who they vote for based on what they think the country needs, in the same way that some people switch car manufactures to follow the latest technical/automotive revolution. However, a lot of people always buy a Ford, and will continue to do so through hell or high water. In the same way they vote for a certain party. For more people than would admit it, their political stance is as much about how they’d like to portray themselves to the wider public as is their choice of car.
The trouble is that the free market has done strange things to cars. It used to be the case that an Audi was not a Volkswagen was not a Skoda was not a Seat. However, in these efficiency-driven markets that is no longer the case: the same factory makes all of them. The chassis are the same, as are the engines, and the suspension. The only difference is the body they put on the outside and how many gizmos come as standard. Buyers still blissfully believe that the end result says something different about them, and most observers buy it. But those in the know realise the charade.
Politics these days is the same. The political class is now a profession. The back room staff, think tanks, strategy moguls, PR execs et al. will work for Tory and Labour administrations alike. The hunt for votes has moderated the larger parties into the centre ground. Now, the only real differences are generated in the voters’ minds by parties’ PR machines as they hark back to the ideological distinctions of the past in an attempt to rouse the grass-roots votes. When all is said and done these parties are just businesses with salaries to pay; they need votes to stay in business. Like Audi and Skoda, they only have the illusion of difference left to distinguish them.
The coalition that no one is considering is a Tory/Labour coalition. Their policies have far more in common than, say, Labour and the SNP. Maybe the problem is that voters’s lives have converged. So the question “Will you vote Labour or Conservative?” like the question, “Will you buy an Audi or a Skoda?” is met with the same answer: “What’s the difference? Maybe I’ll buy a Prius… or vote Green.”
