When a friend messaged me on Saturday night to ask whether I’d heard about a Conservative proposal to bring back national service, I was more than sceptical.
When she showed me what appeared to be an embargoed statement on the subject, I laughed. Couldn’t she see this was a bad satire?
Drunk on certainty, I phoned my pal, a long-serving political activist who, so far as I was concerned, should have known better. “What’s wrong with you?” I asked, “This is obviously fake.”
I asked her what other Tory plans she’d got wind of. Were they bringing back rickets? Or had she heard they were going to stop the small boats by releasing sharks into the English Channel? I was unbearably pleased with myself.
Shortly after 10pm, when the national service plan was leading the news, I phoned to apologise.
Of course the Tories want to bring back national service. Why wouldn’t they? Looking at the madness that’s infected politics over the past decade, a demand for the return of conscription is perfectly in keeping with the times.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s proposal rather neatly sums up the chaotic Conservative Party. It’s not an idea designed to open new opportunities for young people, but to appeal to the rump of reactionary older voters whose support just about remains in place.
If you’re an angry old bloke, lost in a fog of resentment and nostalgia, then I’m sure the idea of feckless young people with their blue hair and their Just Stop Oil protests being made to run an assault course has a certain – possibly erotic – charge. But others might think it a crazy idea, dredged up by a party in a panic.
Can’t politicians be a bit more boring?
Don’t you ever wish they (and I mean all politicians) would stop with the mad schemes and divisive wheezes and get on with being a bit more boring?
I only ask because, shortly after their batty national service announcement, the Tories were going after Sir Keir Starmer for being – I kid you not – too old and frail to become prime minister. The shorthand for this idea was the nickname “sleepy Starmer“, which was accompanied by briefings reminding people that the Labour leader is – and you may wish to brace yourself at this point – 61 years old.
Who do you want to lead the country? This tired, dull old man, or Rishi Sunak, with all his Pixar-character energy?
I’m not sure the Tories have thought that question through. Right now, the idea that Starmer is rather dull only enhances his appeal.
The great stand-up comedian and satirist Matt Forde had a routine years ago about travelling to the USA during the Trump-Clinton presidential race. Sitting in a cab, he got talking to the driver, who was enthusiastically behind Trump. “But why?” Asked Matt.
“Because crazy times need a crazy guy,” said the cabbie. Of course, that’s the last thing crazy times need.
For more than a decade, our politics has been in a deepening crisis. Populists have shifted debates north and south of the border away from service delivery and onto constitutional questions. Divisions opened up by the independence and Brexit referendum campaigns have deepened and hardened. The effect has been to make our politics shrill and unpleasant.
Successive Conservative leaders have played their parts in this. Boris Johnson and Liz Truss will go down in history for their roles in coarsening our discourse.
Times change
I wonder whether this July 4 might be the “give us peace” general election. After years of turmoil and crackpot wheezes – like flying refugees to Rwanda or reintroducing national service – don’t we yearn for a period of calm? Wouldn’t it be bliss to have a government capable of making it through a week without inducing some national crisis?
Almost 15 years ago, the Labour Party tried to make a virtue of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s rather dull demeanour. “Not Flash, Just Gordon” was their
slogan.
The country is crying out for a different kind of leader, for someone who’ll take the heat out of politics and focus on priorities such as tackling the cost-of-living crisis
But the times weren’t right and nor was the man. Instead of feeling inspired, enough voters saw then Tory boss David Cameron as the more dynamic leader for him to take the keys to 10 Downing Street.
Times change. The country is crying out for a different kind of leader, for someone who’ll take the heat out of politics and focus on priorities such as tackling the cost-of-living crisis instead of messing about with gimmicks like national service.
What do we want? Boring, stable government! When do we want it? As soon as possible, thank you very much.
Euan McColm is a regular columnist for various Scottish newspapers
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