Election fever.

Here we are, with just over a week to go. I always think of elections as sacred moments in our collective life, when we fulfill our covenant with those who have fought, and often died, so that we have the privilege of living in a free society. 

This time, though, there are other undercurrents: the Conservative Party’s slow motion car crash as it reaps what it has sown; the omertá surrounding ‘That Thing’ in 2016; and the rise, across Europe, of the Far Right, indicating that, as a species, we really have learned nothing.

I first voted in a General Election in 1979. It felt like an exciting time, but maybe that was just because I was in the first flush of youth. An interesting local footnote, though, was that our long-standing Tory MP, Ray Mawby, turned out to have been a communist spy. Who’d have thought it? 

And who’d have foreseen the total haplessness of the Tories’ current campaign – the rain-sodden election announcement, the Titanic Museum visit, the inexplicable early departure from Normandy and so on. Unintentional hilarity at a time of great national seriousness.

In contrast, Labour’s Ming vase nervously traverses the dragging minutes till the ballot boxes open (and full disclosure – I rejoined the Labour Party a couple of years ago after a long absence). Meanwhile, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has commendably cornered a different market, falling off a paddleboard and speaking movingly of his caring responsibilities. 

Over in Clacton, Nigel Farage promises more of all the good things that have happened since he persuaded 52% of the population to vote to leave the European Union (though of course, That Thing hasn’t been done properly, something that, if given the chance, Farage would presumably put right by making the UK and its border not so much North Atlantic as North Korea). 

It’s not breaking news to note that most voters are deeply disenchanted with politics, and therefore with this election. So – ironic blog title warning – no feverish anticipation, except maybe to see the back of the Tories. Trust has been broken, not just through the cheerful incompetence of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson’s scandal-laden tenure as Prime Minister, but going back many years. 

Like everything else, narrative and reality are in tension. People are very keen on stories, which suggest some kind of future, but less so on reality, which tends to be gritty, complicated and difficult. All politicians tell a story – that’s how they grab, or fail to grab, our imaginations – but some of those stories, and the people who tell them, are more attached to reality than others. 

The Tories used to have politicians who knew and understood reality. Johnson ejected this cadre in the rush for the That Thing finish line, leaving behind a residue of (mostly) ideologues, chancers and third-raters who, startlingly, ended up in the highest offices of state.

More than this, though: traditional Tory enthusiasm for private over public sector morphed with this latest generation into a belief that government was just in the way. And so we’ve been conducting a kind of national experiment in real time to demonstrate that, if you don’t believe in government, you’re probably not going to be any good at governing. 

Nobody wants too much government. It’s an overhead, and all overheads should be proportionate to the aim. But government is essential to orchestrating a functioning society, connecting everything together and delivering what the public needs.

So will Labour do that? Of course, as a member of the Party, I’ve got to say that it will. And I actually believe it.  But there will be challenges, not least the ruination of the public finances over the past 14 years. Rishi Sunak got credit for discovering Theresa May’s magic money tree, but really the easiest thing in government is to spend money. Good government involves hard choices, and Labour will have to make them. 

Then there’s the Reform factor. It’s strange that they claim to be something new and different when we’ve effectively been governed by them, minus Farage, since 2019. That was when the Conservative Party became little more than a tribute band to the larval stages (UKIP and the That Thing Party) of Reform. And how close is Reform’s political philosophy to that of a governing party? Think 6 January insurrection applied to the day-to-day, with Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping as cheerleaders. Farage’s recent comments on Ukraine illustrate how far they are from having any notion of what it takes to govern.

And yet a significant number of voters seem to like Reform. Polished media performer that Farage is, it’s easy to see how people are swayed. With simple, direct messaging, he helps people navigate an ocean of political complexity, even if he’s actually taking them further out to sea. 

The Far Right succeeds where there is fear, anger, hatred and blame, and there’s plenty of that about, not helped by the cesspit that is much of right-wing traditional and social media. It’s a dangerous game, particularly for centrist fellow travellers, like pedaling a cycle with no brakes very fast down a steep bumpy road towards a tunnel. The chances are that you’re going to come off at some point. The only question is, how badly?

Given that its claims and its political programme are wafer thin, the Far Right would struggle to attract support if more of its adherents could think critically. But it also needs the political centre – the people who, rather prosaically, have the managerial chops to make the complexity work – to engage with those who hold these views, understand where the hurt is coming from and develop (and implement) policy that, to coin a phrase, ‘drains the swamp’ of populist beliefs. But it also needs the political centre to stand its ground and to tell its own story – one that rests on positive values, and that (unlike those of the Right) doesn’t rely on an ever-lengthening catalogue of scapegoats.

But all that’s for the medium-term. For now, we have just a few days in which to mull over our choices and then cast our votes. For me and I suspect many other people, the centre of gravity of this election is public services, and particularly the NHS. From a recent hospital stay, I’m more convinced than ever of the need to nurture and protect it. And if that’s what we want, then the choice of who to vote for really is very easy.

Spoiler alert – it’s not the Tories. And it’s certainly not Reform.