Raseriets tidsålder

Jag läser mycket på nätet, men jag gillar tidningar och tidskrifter på papper. Men det tar ibland någon vecka innan mina utländska tidskrifter anländer. Idag kom t ex The Spectators 20 septemberutgåva i min brevlåda. Jag fastnade direkt för ledaren: The age of rage.

I den finns ett tema som också fanns i PJ Anders Linders intervju med The Spectators chefredaktör Fraser Nelson i senaste utgåvan av tidskriften Axess.

Lever vi i en tid där mesiga, balanserade politiker blir vinnare ? Nej, menar Spectator  och går till hård attack mot Storbritanniens premiärminister och toryledare David Cameron:

For years, politicians have laughed about voters who are ‘mad as hell, and not going to take it any more’. That joke is no longer funny. People have derided, lamented or lampooned the death of the Tory party’s grass roots. But the independence debate revealed that in Scotland the Labour party has suffered the same fate. The Better Together campaign against Scottish independence was meant to be largely powered by Labour party operatives. But the closer it came to the vote, the clearer it became that the Labour party did not have any troops to call out.

The ‘yes’ activists in Scotland and Ukip supporters in England both have a point. The Westminster system is broken, because it has been taken over by professional politicians who focus on their opposite numbers rather than on the people they’re supposed to represent. That this led to mass apathy and resentment did not trouble them at first: to a professional politician, those who don’t vote might as well not exist. But now the abstainers have found new champions in the insurgent parties. People are turning up to vote for the first time in years. A grumble has grown into a war cry, as we saw in Scotland.

Voters want parties to be different, and principled. The PR men think otherwise. If the teaching unions don’t like Michael Gove, then the Conservative party gets rid of him and ‘neutralises’ the issue. Voters are worried about the NHS, so the government pledges not to seek any savings in the health budget and ‘neutralises’ that too. Such tactics worked for Tony Blair and other social democratic leaders in the 1990s. But the public has changed. They no longer believe that the system is working for them. There may be a recovery but wages remain stagnant. Real issues remain unaddressed.

The Spectator talar om en ny politisk tidsålder:

It is crucial to recognise that the current ‘anti-politics’ mood is not an anomaly or a cry of pain. It is the start of a new political order, one in which people want bold ideas to get out of what they see as a political and societal morass.

Djärva tankar. Ja det var verkligen inte det som präglade vare sig den skotska folkomröstningskampanjen (som jag tyckte var mycket intressant) eller den svenska valrörelsen (som jag tyckte var dödstråkig).

Alliansens eftervalsanalyser kanske ska ställa frågan: Förde vi fram några djärva tankar ? Eller rentav: förde vi fram några tankar över huvud taget ? Socialdemokraterna kanske inte ens orkar med en eftervalsanalys – men deras problem är nog svårare att hantera än Allianspartiernas.

Kanske kommer tidens pendel åter att vända tillbaka till väljarönskemål om välordnad, kompetens nationsförvaltande. Men där är vi inte nu.