All families are happy in the same way, but each family is unhappy in a different way, says Lev Tolstoy at the beginning of Anna Karenina. Something similar happens with political parties. The British Conservatives are unfortunate because their power is ending after thirteen years that are going to fourteen without knowing how to stop it, and the Labor Party members are unfortunate because they touch it with their fingertips after a very long exile, but they don't know what they will do with it. him when the Treasury coffers were empty.
This mutual frustration has come to the fore with the application of the new tax to the most polluting vehicles across the greater London area, making car use the new political frontier in the UK. The Tories, delivered from Brexit and Boris Johnson to the most stark populism, believe that it is one of the few issues that can give them votes, as defenders of the "man and woman of the street", of retirees and small businessmen who do not they can afford to bury their old truck, their combustion engine Ford or Toyota, and trade it in for an electric one. Of all those who think that decarbonizing the country by 2050 is an unnecessarily ambitious goal, in the midst of a cost of living crisis, and even more so when China, India or Brazil do little about it, and in the United States there are homes with four cars.
On the other side of the barrier, Labor does not know very well where to shoot. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, represents the environmental and youth wing who sees climate change as the great battle of our time and believes that sacrifices must be made as necessary to counter global warming and combat the damage that has already been done. done to the planet, even if it impacts purchasing power. But within the party there is also a group more predisposed to half measures, fearful that the conservative strategy will succeed and the campaign against the car will take away their votes in the elections scheduled for next year. That sector intends to come to power without committing to anything and without offending any group of voters.
In July, Labor lost the Uxbridge by-election, Boris Johnson's old seat and one of the 32 London boroughs to which the new tax has been applied since this week, precisely because of opposition to the rate. The initial reaction of the leader, Keir Starmer, was to pressure Mayor Khan to back off at least partially, but the trustee resisted, appealing to the fundamental right of Londoners to breathe as clean air as possible, and the plan went ahead. . Taking a vehicle considered polluting from the door of the house costs each neighbor's son 12.50 pounds (almost 15 euros), even if it is to go to the corner. A ruinous cost for many small businesses, no matter how much the City Council offers financial assistance (a maximum of 2,500 euros) to those who take the opportunity to change cars.
The implementation of the tax has unleashed war between its supporters and detractors, with demonstrations in front of Downing Street, the Westminster Parliament, and even in cities that are not London, but they see the neighbor's beards peeled and have put theirs to soak. Hundreds of cameras to impose fines have been destroyed. For some, with inflation and interest rates skyrocketing, this is not the time to take radical environmental measures, and the reduction of the carbon footprint can be done over a longer period of time. For others, there is not a minute to lose, and pocket considerations are irrelevant.
After thirteen years in power, the conservatives can hardly persuade voters that the country's problems (economic impoverishment, GDP less than Mississippi, the poorest state in America, lack of investment and productivity, strikes, etc.) are not their fault. constant, a queue of eight million for operations in public health, more and more people who do not have to eat...). That is why it plays all its cards in the culture war, appealing to those who are skeptical of climate change, opposed to progressive gender politics, still insisting that Brexit was a good idea, feel imperial nostalgia and look at the popularity of Trump. among the Republicans of the United States with a certain envy. The word tory comes from the Gaelic tórai, a term that was coined to define the royalist rebels who opposed Cromwell's revolution. Now, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wants to give it a new meaning, to patent a rebellion against environmentalism. And to persuade as many people as possible that Lord Eldon was right when he said that "all change is for the worse, including change for the better." And, therefore, it is convenient to leave things as they are.
Timid Labor leader Keir Starmer worries that the same working classes in the north of England who voted for Brexit, and who are suffering from the impact of inflation, decide that on environmental issues the Tories better represent their interests, hence his instinct The initial move was to pressure Khan to back down. On the other hand, however, he needs the support of young voters and prevent apathy from spreading among them and abstaining from the 2024 elections. That is why, in the end, and without great enthusiasm, he has gone along with the mayor of London , crossing our fingers so that the electoral price is not excessive, and that its rivals do not find a gold mine to exploit electorally. Each political family is unhappy and divided in its own way.
The Thatcher-Major era saw shrinking union power, victory in the Falklands, privatizations, the City of London big bang and the sale of council housing to its tenants; the Blair-Brown era saw the Good Friday agreements, the autonomy of Wales, Ulster and Scotland, the introduction of a minimum wage, the improvement of public health and eleven consecutive years of economic growth; the cycle that ends now offers few achievements and is that of Brexit, inflation, the deterioration of public services, mass immigration and the pandemic.
The Tories fear the end of an era, just as the Russian aristocrats so well described by Tolstoy feared the arrival of the Bolsheviks, sheltering in their dachas. And Labour, born as the political arm of the proletariat, sees that there is no money and it will not be able to redistribute wealth and make real reforms. His fear is that Bismarck was right when he said that in Britain progressive administrations take reactionary measures, and vice versa. So no one is happy and everyone is unhappy in his own way.
