A favourite theme of the chattering classes right now is the politics of fear: Apparently our politicians have been scaring us in a desperate attempt to win our votes. A cursory glance at the political battlefield reveals that the voters are dying of boredom rather than fright, but let us press on regardless.
The latest outing for the PoF hypothesis was on Radio 4’s ‘Analysis’ programme – a sort of on-air think tank featuring a comprehensive range of opinions from across the centre-left spectrum. Of particular note amongst its presenters is David Walker, who is Mr Polly Toynbee and a contributer to a Guardian think-tank-style column called, er, ‘Analysis’. On this occasion, however, the Radio 4 version was presented by John Kampfner of the New Statesman. This was most informative, and fearlessly revealed that the politics of fear are in fact the politics of getting up the nose of John Kampfner.
And yet, there was little mention of the politics of fear as practised by the centre-left. This is a rather serious omission, because, unlike the corresponding attempts of the centre-right, this stuff actually works. Thus a large part of the population really does believe that America is the most dangerous nation on Earth; loathing of Israel really has re-ignited the flames of anti-semitism in Europe; and scaremongering over the NHS really is killing off any grown-up discussion on the level of taxation. Meanwhile, on the right side of the force, asylum hysteria has done nothing to sort out the immigration system and the fear of violent crime hasn’t done much to provoke our Chief Constables into useful action. As for the negative campaigning of the Conservative Party, we’ll know by Friday morning, but the polls sure haven’t shifted so far.
Thus when it comes to the politics of fear it is left which is scarily efficient, not the right.
So why are they afraid of the politics of fear? Could it be that the flaws in their social policies are becoming as obvious as the flaws in the economic policies? And that to invite discussion of the breakdown of multiculturalism or family stuctures or state monopoly public services is to cast doubt on the very raison d’etre of the left? After all, with the battle on economic long since lost, social policy is all they’ve got left.
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