by colin tudge
Many were cheered by the election results in Britain on May 7 – a breath of fresh air! Hooray!
But I found them seriously depressing. It is sad to see the end of Labour, possibly forever. The Tories, too, in their day, had touches of greatness. The rise and rise of the Far Right and the hideous triumphalism of Farage reflects a global change that would, if carried to its logical conclusion, spell the end of what could properly be called civilisation, speed the mass extinction of our fellow creatures, and usher in a new Dark Age that would have no end: perpetual chaos descending step by step into entropy.
The Greens are succeeding not for the reason they were brought into being – to protect the natural world; to change our attitude to and our relationship with what Robert Burns called “our fellow mortals” — but because Polanski is seen to be filling the Leftwing void left by the demise of true Labour. The Lib Dems are basically sensible, beneath Sir Ed’s clowning, but in this clamorous, extremist world, they are sidelined. The possible breakaway of Wales and Scotland could be good if it leads us to a Federation of Britain (together, someday soon, with a united Ireland). But not if it takes us back, as is conceivable, to the all-against-all disputations of the 14th century. All in all, the recent results and the overall state of the world – the general failure of governments worldwide to solve the world’s multifarious problems, and indeed to create problems where there need be none – expose the inadequacies of politics as a whole.
As I see things there are two main problems. First, the wrong people are in charge. And secondly, more profoundly, politics as now conceived and practiced is not up to the task. The world’s real problems are not adequately analysed and the ideologies and algorithms (and technologies) that are brought to bear upon them miss their mark. Thus:
1: The wrong people are in charge
Politicians in general aspire to lead and as Jesus said (St Mark, 10:42-44):
“… whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all”
In the history of the world, some politicians from all parties, and others in positions of influence, have done their best to live up to this most challenging standard and some still do. Some indeed are true heroes. There aren’t many Nelson Mandelas but most politicians surely do have a sense of public service and most work harder than most of us would ever care to work on behalf of the people. But a critical proportion of the world’s most powerful politicians fall well short. Politics as generally conceived is a power struggle and power struggles tend to be won by people with a taste for them – who include those who are aggressive, self-seeking, and devious; mountebanks and out-and-out criminals. The names of Trump, Putin, and Netanyahu do rather come to mind (and our own, dear, Nigel Farage was a great fan of Trump until Trump failed to win his war with Iran and the price of petrol went up. And beer).
Even those who start out with the best intentions all too often stray from the paths of righteousness. For as the statesman and historian Lord Acton observed at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries:
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men”
The media from Private Eye to the ever-so-scrupulous BBC news abundantly confirm the truth of this.
2: Politics on the whole is superficial. It does not get properly to grips with humanity’s and the world’s real problems
I presumptuously suggest that we – humanity — should never stop asking ourselves the question posed by the Cambridge literary critic F R Leavis in Two Cultures? The Significance of C P Snow, in 1962:
“What for — what ultimately for? What, ultimately, do we live by?”
We need in short to define our principles: what we feel is really important, and why. And as I have suggested many a time and oft on this website the principles that really matter – the “Bedrock Principles” — are those of Ecology and Morality.
Ecology aspires to tell us how the world really works, and points out its limits, and helps us therefore to see what it is possible do to, and what it is necessary to do if we really care about humanity and our fellow creatures.
Morality aspires to tell us what it is right to do, and why. And, I have suggested, the most universally accepted and efficacious moral principles are the virtues of Compassion, Humility, and a sense of Oneness: the Oneness of each of us with humanity at large and of humanity as a whole with the natural world. All three are of supreme importance but the one that stands out is that of Compassion, which Christians in general prefer to call “Love”, in all its manifestations. As the Dalai Lama said in a lecture in Oxford about 15 years ago which I was lucky enough to attend:
“Always ask yourself what is the most compassionate thing to do”
This, though, is not a question that seems to have delayed some – nearly all — of the world’s most influential people in recent years — Trump? Putin? Netanyahu? Bezos? – or indeed ever. That alone is enough to explain the parlous state of the present world.
Between them, the Bedrock Principles tell us all we really need to know if we seriously would like to occupy this Earth for more than a few more decades in a tolerable state (although of course for many millions of people life is already intolerable or impossible). And, I suggest, the overall task of politics, is to install governments that can run the world’s affairs according to the Bedrock Principles: sound both morally and intellectually. Or, as I like to say,
“The role of government is to enable and encourage good things to happen”
But this is not how things are. Politicians and political parties do not, on the whole, acknowledge the Bedrock Principles, or at least not explicitly. What they call “principles” for the most part are mere ideologies, which are not the same thing at all. “Principles” are ideas deep-rooted in metaphysics that aspire to identify what may be called “absolute” truths: true for all times, for all creatures, in all contexts. Ideologies do have some such metaphysical roots but the metaphysics is combined with expediency. Principles properly conceived should aspire to draw on the collective wisdom of all humanity from all traditions through all of history. Ideologies generally owe their origins to particular individuals at particular times who for good reasons or bad have inspired a following – individuals who range from Karl Marx to Milton Friedman or indeed to Donald Trump (or even, God save us, to Nigel Farage).
Furthermore, in these ultra-rational times ideologies are often reduced to algorithms or indeed to slogans as in the infamous MAGA. The “moral” principle behind MAGA is no more than “Might is Right” – which many including me would argue is the antithesis of morality. Indeed, we might suggest, the American Far Right, currently led by Trump, Vance, and the hideous Hegseth, is not merely un-moral. It has lost sight of what morality is. That is not a good state of affairs.
In truth, I suggest, none of the wide range of political parties who offered their services in the elections of May 2026 espouse the Bedrock Principles explicitly, or could be trusted to apply them to life’s realities as whole-heartedly as is really needed. Even more to the point: none of the ideologiesnow on offer in the world as a whole, or not at least by the political parties of the world’s most influential countries properly acknowledges or embraces those principles.
In practice, then, what we need to ask, and generally do not, is:
“Which of the ideologies on offer most closely reflects the Bedrock Principles?”
And:
“Which of the competing political parties is most likely to apply the most promising ideology”
And – in practice:
“Which particular politicians most convincingly understand what is most important in life, and will work most assiduously and effectively to do what’s necessary?”
Everyone must make up their own minds of course. But for my part, I suggest that of all the ideologies conventionally on offer the three that come closest to the Bedrock Principles and therefore seem most likely to deliver what’s really needed are Socialist (properly defined); Democratic; and Green.
I want to come back to what democratic and Green should mean in future blogs. Here I just want to discuss:
What Socialism is (or should be) and what it isn’t
Standard definitions as listed in Google tend to define socialism primarily or purely in economic terms. Thus Merriam-Webster – “America’s most trusted dictionary” — tells us that socialism is:
“Any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods”, or more succinctly, as “a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state”
Wikipedia and Britannica and others say much the same.
But that’s not how I see it at all – and neither I suggest do many and perhaps most people who think of themselves as socialists. For socialism should be conceived first and foremost as an exercise in morality. In the present world economics dominates. The whole world is obliged to conform to the prevailing economic formula – which at present is that of neoliberalism, conceived as an all-out competition in the “global market” for maximum profit and market share, conducted as ruthlessly as the competitors can get away with. Nothing can happen, it seems – in Britain we can’t even clean up the rivers — unless it makes the biggest possible profit for the senior executives and the shareholders. Yet as one of the greatest of all economists John Maynard Keynes once commented, in a well-run and sensible world –
“ … the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs … and the arena of heart and head will be occupied where it belongs, or reoccupied by our real problems, the problems of life and human relations, of creation, and of behaviour and religion”
Quoted by Archie Mackenzie, Faith in Diplomacy (2002)
And on a practical note, this is what Aneurin (Nye) Bevan, the one-time Welsh coalminer who emerged to become one of the great, Labour, and truly socialist MPs of the mid-20th century, said about public ownership in his “personal manifesto”, In Place of Fear, published in 1952:
“A mixed economy is what most people of the West prefer. The victory of Socialism need not be universal to be decisive … It is neither prudent, nor does it accord with our conception of the future, that all forms of private property should live under perpetual threat. In almost all types of human society different forms of property have lived side by side …”
To be sure, he added:
“… But it is a requisite of social stability that one type of property ownership should dominate. In the society of the future it should be public property”
Nonetheless, Bevan was far from being the dangerous loonie leftie as he has so often been portrayed by the Rightwing press. He was in truth a Left-leaning social democrat. He is, of course, best-known and celebrated as the founder of the NHS (or at least as a key player). For good measure, his wife, Jennie Lee, also a Labour MP, was one of the principal founders of the Open University.
In short, socialism properly defined is not just an exercise in economic dogma. As the name suggests it is rooted in the (essentially metaphysical) idea that society matters, as opposed merely to individuals. Some take this idea too far. Thus in the old United Soviet so-called SocialistRepublics, individuals were often treated with scant respect. Life for most people was grim. But many (including me) take it to be obvious that societies are composed of individuals, and that individuals matter, and a society that does not seek to take due care of each and all of us is not truly socialist at all. And as Sue Gerhardt has pointed out not least in Why Love Matters (2003) people cannot truly become themselves – “as God intended”, some would say – unless they are treated kindly, especially in their early years.
To be truly socialist we must above all be compassionate and inclusive – and Britain’s Labour Party was established with this thought very much in mind. Many people were involved in establishing Labour but, as is widely agreed, the key figure was Keir Hardie – also a coalminer, though in his case from Lanarkshire. Hardie wrote in his most famous book, From Serfdom to Socialism (1907):
“To the Socialist the community represents a huge family organisation in which the strong should employ their gifts in promoting the weal of all, instead of using their strength for their own personal aggrandizement”
Labour’s most successful Prime Minister Clement Attlee (1945-51) said much the same:
“Socialists are not concerned solely with material things. They do not think of human beings as a herd to be fed and watered… They think of them as individuals cooperating to make a fine collective life”
Quoted by Lisa Nandy in All In: How We Build a Country That Works (2022)
I do like this too from the late, great Bill Shankly, who managed Liverpool FC through some of their glory years from the late 1950s to the early ‘70s:
“The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having a share of the rewards. It’s the way I see football, the way I see life.”
Quite so. Who but a sociopath would fail to feel the appeal of this?
All in all it is as Harold Wilson said in a campaign speech in 1961 (he first became PM in 1964):
“The Labour Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing”
A tale of two Keirs
Keir Starmer was named after Hardie. He is a knight of the realm and a KC but is proud of his humble origins. His father, he has often told us, was a toolmaker (as indeed were the first bona fide human beings, Homo habilis – “handy man”). He is surely driven as Hardie was by moral fervour. But this, alas, does not come across. Thus in what the press likes to call “a landmark speech” in Coin Street Neighbourhood Centre in London in December 2005 he said many of the right things about “giving our children the best start in life” and “unlocking their full potential” and many other good things – but he soon homed in on the need for economic growth and assured us that “our fiscal headroom is up significantly”. The call for social justice, rooted in compassion and centred on the care of children can and does inspire. Fiscal headroom does not, necessary though it may be.
Then again, on a practical note, many have argued that the prime cause of Britain’s and the world’s economic problems is not the lack of overall material wealth, which indeed would seem to require economic growth. It is the huge, foul, morally indefensible and growing gap between rich and poor – the former growing ever richer while the rest stand still or grow poorer. Some indeed are making billions from the wars and other disasters that are destroying the lives of so many and wrecking the natural world. Labour may have made some people’s lives easier but they have not tried as hard as is needed to close the economic divide or to curtail the extreme wealth and influence of the super-rich, most of whom seem to have no interest in the wellbeing of humanity or of the world except insofar as it affects themselves, and some of whom have more power than entire nations.
So although people may tell canvassers who knock at their doors that what worries them most is the cost of living, I can’t help feeling that underneath, what people really feel, and are quite justified in feeling, is a deep dread: a sense that the world has lost its moral compass; that there is no sense of direction (except to make the rich richer); that morality – compassion – has given way to “might is right”, and to the general feeling that the traditional human “values” have somehow become obsolete. This is the battlefield on which Labour must fight its moral crusade. Worthy though it may be, “fiscal headroom” just doesn’t hack it. Instead, at least ostensibly, the moral high ground once occupied by the leaders of the Labour Party has been ceded to the Greens under Polanski; and indeed — Lord save us! – to Nigel Farage and Reform.
The politics of Reform are surely unspeakable, morally, and are also irredeemably stupid. Indeed the morality of Reform – and of the Far Right in general, the world over – is the very antithesis of what morality ought to mean. Emphatically is it not inclusive. Right-wing thinking in general is rooted in the idea that some people are simply better than others, and that society is bound to be, and should be, hierarchical. To be sure, some on the Right are nonetheless benign. They espouse the chivalric principle of noblesse oblige – the idea that those who have superior talents or greater wealth should use their advantage to help the rest. Old-style Tories often took this line, as did Macmillan, Heath, and John Major, or Ken Clark or Geoffrey Howe.
To those of the Far Right, however, such sentiments are for wimps. Those who have advantage are seen to have the right and indeed a duty to preserve and indeed to increase their advantage. Some make no attempt to defend this stance on moral grounds. They just do what they do. Those of the Far Right who do engage in moral argument are wont to suggest (sometimes invoking Friedrich Nietzsche) that they have a moral duty to pursue excellence – and of course they see themselves to be self-evidently excellent (or else they would not be rich). Some invoke Darwin, or rather Herbert Spencer’s summary of natural selection: “survival of the fittest”. They assume (as Darwin and Spencer emphatically did not) that “fittest” must mean strongest and most aggressive. So they seek to justify their own nastiness on biological grounds. But as argued elsewhere on this website, this is bad biology as well as bad morality.
In reality, indeed, the most universally efficacious survival strategy is to be cooperative – and compassion reinforces cooperativeness. By placing such store by competition, and supported in this by an ultra-competitive neoliberal economy, the Far Right would condemn us all to perpetual strife – one long battle for material advantage or, in economic terms, for ever-increasing profit and market share. But the world is now so crowded and the biosphere is now so stressed, that perpetual strife is not an option – not if we seriously want to survive in a tolerable form in the long term. Thus Netanyahu has devastated Gaza, and Trump, egged on by Netanyahu, has threatened to “bomb Iran back to the Stone Age” and although Trump briefly entertained the idea that Gaza would re-emerge as an imitation of St Tropez it is far more likely to remain a field of rubble for the indefinite future, home to scavengers and scorpions. Neither can the damage to Ukraine thanks to Putin ever be fully repaired. Indeed, thanks to all those political gangsters, the economy of the whole world is forever compromised. Such waste can never be fully made good.
In short, the ultra-competitive, brutal politics of the Far Right is not only foul, morally, but is a recipe for suicide. This seems obvious – and if, as I have often argued, most human beings are both sensible and nice, the present popularity of Farage et al is hard to explain. The standard explanation is that in times of stress people tend to turn to “strong” leaders which is what the hyper-aggressive and mouthy leaders of the Far Right seem to offer. I am inclined pretentiously to quote Yeats, the great W B, who wrote most famously in The Second Coming in the wake of World War I:
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”
The centre is, or should be, moral principle. When that is abandoned, and the fate of the world is left to the “free” market, and anything goes provided it succeeds in the short term, then of course the centre cannot hold.
All in all, then I suggest that what the 2026 elections really tell us is that conventional politics is no longer fit for purpose; and it is not fit for purpose because politics as a whole is no longer rooted (if it ever was) in the Bedrock Principles of Ecology and Morality. As it stands, in short, politics is a bubble. It dominates our lives and infiltrates our minds but it does not properly address the issues that really matter. Truly we need to re-think the world from first principles. We really do need the Renaissance.
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