Here’s a wacky thought for both major parties: End the parade of prohibitions
Labour and the Tories have decided that electoral success lies in more rules, heavier burdens and tighter strictures. But what if they’re wrong, asks Eliot Wilson
Whether the impending general election results in a large or a small Labour victory, or even some other outcome altogether, almost everyone can agree glumly that it will not be an uplifting campaign. Even the Labour Party seems to lack enthusiasm for the process of seizing power, as if it is an ordeal to be undergone in order to achieve its ambition.
It is easy to see why. The polls may show 61 per cent of voters disapproving of the prime minister’s performance, but more than half of those surveyed also dislike Sir Keir Starmer. There is a palpable sense of choosing between the lesser of two evils, a heavy burden of exhaustion and a singular absence of optimism anywhere.
Partly this derives from the domestic and international circumstances. Although the UK economy is becoming gradually more active, and inflation has fallen considerably, growth remains deeply pallid and the Bank of England offers only 50/50 odds on avoiding a recession. Abroad, the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza grind on bloodily and the situation in the Red Sea remains tense.
What are the two major parties bringing to this cloudy sky, to let in a chink of sunshine? Prohibition. The prime minister has promised to phase out the legal sale of tobacco products, the government has launched a consultation on cracking down on vapes and a bill is before the House of Lords to increase regulation on pedicabs. Across the floor, the Labour Party – which enthusiastically endorses the government’s stance on smoking and vaping – promises a “national supervised toothbrushing programme for three-to-five-year-olds” and wants to impose severe restrictions on the advertising of so-called “junk food”.
The minor parties provide no relief. The Liberal Democrats, who must surely be close to falling foul of the Trade Descriptions Act, itch to impose a “windfall tax” on energy suppliers (profit! bad!) and will create more categories of hate crime, the SNP thinks society’s ills are in part ascribable to insufficiently strict diversity and inclusion frameworks, and Reform UK sees its role as policing the content and tenor of school lessons.
The atmosphere is stifling, claustrophobic, intellectually and ideologically cramped. Ministers and those who would supplant them crave control but will not commit to spending, aware, presumably, that there is no money. They seem agreed, however, that the solution lies in more: more rules, heavier burdens, tighter strictures.
It is a retina-scorching irony that this mood has taken hold at a time when confidence and trust in politics and politicians are at historically low levels. This is encapsulated by public opinion on the wretched and futile Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill: nearly three-quarters of respondents think migrants arriving in small boats should immediately be removed from the United Kingdom – that “will of the people” to which ministers so often refer – but 60 per cent think that the bill will make no difference to the number of people attempting to cross the Channel.
Where are the voices raised in support of freedom, liberty of action and the right simply to be left alone? It is a counterintuitive interpretation of the past 15 years that government should do more rather than less, politicians and disliked and distrusted, and the unfolding saga if the Covid-19 public inquiry gives no grounds to think ministers or officials have the competence or focus to manage our affairs more diligently.
There seems a simple alternative, which is not, I think, as radical as milquetoasts fear.
The government should stop regarding every profitable enterprise like a cartoon castaway looks at a giant ham, as nothing more than the object of the next binge.
The government should just take a step back. Do less. Stop telling us what, how much and when to eat. Stop micromanaging recruitment and retention. Stop regarding every profitable enterprise like a cartoon castaway looks at a giant ham, as nothing more than the object of the next binge. Stop weaving together more and more regulations like a sheet of kevlar.
God knows, we have seen the outer edges of the state’s competence. There are basic functions of statehood which are still not being carried out properly. Focus on those, focus on simple foundations. Rest less heavily on the electorate and let us feel more free and able to breathe. Conservatives and Labour have lost any instinct for liberty. Let us hope at least one of them gets it back, and quickly.
Eliot Wilson is co founder of Pivot Point