The Insular Nature of Politics

I was speaking to a friend after I wrote about one of the fatal flaws of British politics. I was irritated by the overall news landscape, the latest story of Renee Good combined with another Conservative Party psychodrama of Robert Jenrick - an odious man - left me feeling a distaste for party politics.

Jenrick claimed that he wasn’t motivated by ambition or self-interest in his planned defection to Reform after he spent twelve months moping about losing the leadership election over a year ago. Jenrick proceeded to get on stage and trash the Conservative party and their record in power — after having been in 4 different Ministerial roles.

That Jenrick has gone on a road to Damascus in the last few years, from a Cameronian Conservative to some right-wing saviour, is remarkable. I have met very few people so clearly motivated by self-interest.

British politics - in my opinion - is very insular. Some would call it a circle jerk. Conversations revolve around gossip: who knows who, and what or who they are doing. On my first day, I was presented with a variety of open secrets: “Don’t talk to this person” or “Don’t spend time alone with them.” Does anything happen? No, of course not.

But worse for me is the obsession with SW1 stories. I am sure very few of the people reading this know who Robert Jenrick is, nor what actually happened in the correct order. Very few people actually care about any of this; it has no influence on most people’s lives. Yet it dominates the headlines and the minds of politicians. Political drama is like catnip to journalists and politicians alike.

I remember speaking with a very close friend who lived in the UK a couple years ago about Keir Starmer (whilst he was Leader of the Opposition); their response was, “Who is Keir Starmer?” - two years after he was elected LOTO. My own landlord the other day couldn’t name the current Leader of the Opposition — this actually represents the higher percentile of political awareness.

Yet, if you immersed yourself in the commentariat bubble, you would not believe that to be the case. Constant murmurs of “Oh, this person is going to Reform” or “He’s going to challenge the Prime Minister.” All whilst the economy staggers along, infrastructure collapses, the cost of living increases, and the quality of life falls.

In some ways, my previous comments are correct: voters do expect impossible results from their politicians. Yet, in many ways, it would be very useful for politicians to have a kick up the arse.

But arguably worse for me is the quality of British political journalists. Journalism is a noble profession at its core, but I fear that the current operators are far from the standards of the past. “Gotcha” questions that prove essentially nothing, the bending of social norms such as the privacy of texts, and - the worst feature of all - a bloodhound-like desire to seek the next story that topples the government a la Partygate.

Whilst I have never been a fan of some journalists, such as Kay Burley, I fear that Partygate emboldened the worst excesses of the journalist class. Suddenly, they felt as though all the levers of power belonged to them. Every story was suddenly “the end” for the government — something the right-wing papers are leaning into with their coverage of Keir Starmer.

Of course, a constant feature of politics will be partisanship. Left-wing papers will bias towards left-wing parties and vice-versa. But ever since the Boris Johnson government, this has felt extra so.

To large swaths of politicians, journalists, or activists, politics is a game; a way to get on TV and have their five minutes of fame. Their ambition is centred around increasing their own profile; a political party is a football team that they must support, not a way for them to achieve change and improve their country.

There are, thankfully, principled politicians (however oxymoronic that seems) and journalists; however, they are few and far between.