Of the many generation gaps that eat away at social cohesion, I may have stumbled across another one. It’s about honesty in politics.
On the recent Rest Is Politics tour of the UK, as I explained last week, we equipped our combined audience of 12,000 with the ability to vote on some of the issues we discussed. Amid the enormous buildup to this week’s budget, and chancellor Rachel Reeves’s hokey-cokey on possible income tax rises, we asked people whether they thought it was “really, really, really bad” if a party broke a manifesto promise on tax, as at one stage it looked like the government was planning to do.
Having been part of a government that worked hard to deliver on its manifesto promises, and then witnessed former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg suffer enormous political pain on breaking one of his, on tuition fees, I expected a large majority for Yes. Yet in theatres and convention centres up and down the country, the large majority indicated that they were, to quote the comedian Catherine Tate, “not bovvered” if politicians went back on their word.
I got the same message at a business dinner in the City, attended by bankers, hedge funders, asset managers and the like; a smaller audience, but this time not one hand was raised in favour of inflicting a moral as well as political judgement upon a broken promise.
And then, to an event organised by the charity Young Citizens UK, and the launch of The Big Democracy Lesson, aimed at providing schools with the tools they need to help children who will be able to vote at the next election understand the process in which they will be involved, and how best to make up their minds.
If this parliament runs its full course, the voting age having been lowered to 16, some children aged 13 today will be able to take part in the next general election. I’ve long favoured lowering the voting age, but equally long argued that it has to be accompanied by proper political education.
My role was to chair a panel of four teenagers, Shad and Lydia from Hull, Iman from Watford, and Tayus from Streatham via Lithuania. I asked them at one point what three things they most wanted politics to deliver for them, and I expected answers related to climate, housing, education, jobs, the cost of living. Sure, some of these were raised across the evening, but two of the four made “honesty” or “less lying” their number one call, and all four in different ways expressed their disquiet at the way politicians tend to project the world as they wish to see it, rather than the world as it is, how they avoid giving straight answers, and are too often tempted to lie or mislead when under pressure.
The audience for the event was fairly evenly split between school students, mainly at the front, and adults, hanging back so the young could have their say. So I asked them all the same question I had been asking on tour. Who thinks it is “really, really, really bad” if a party breaks a manifesto promise?
Towards the front, majority support for the proposition. Towards the back, so-called elders and betters in the main kept their hands down and shrugged their shoulders.
As the evening wore on, it struck me that this desire for truth and honesty among the young was less a question of youthful idealism, more a consequence of their awareness of being flooded with misinformation. They have never known a world without social media, AI is accelerating the misinformation flows, and they look to “grown-ups” to help them deal with the effects of that.
Instead, they see all too many politicians, Donald Trump the most high-profile but plenty more besides, who see misinformation as just one more weapon to exploit, rather than a problem for democracy that politicians should address.
We were presented with data suggesting that 92% of 12-year-olds struggle to tell fake news from real news. It is wrong to say, as many adults do, that young people are apathetic. I see the contrary every time I visit a school. They are interested but confused, and desperately trying to navigate a mess adults have created.
Politicians need to help them, by responding properly to their demand for honesty, and calling out better the liars and conmen who right now feel as if they have the upper hand.
Talking of which… as Nathan Gill adapts to prison life, and Nigel Farage and Richard Tice continue to pretend that they barely knew him, and suddenly start tweeting out their support for Ukraine, Reform UK are not the only populist right wing party whose links to Vladimir Putin’s Russia need proper examination.
As part of my German homework, I set about translating a paper produced by Germany’s hard right Alternative für Deutschland, which claimed it would make €66bn of cuts if it had responsibility for the federal budget.
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And what is right up there in its list of spending cut priorities? “Stopping arms deliveries to Ukraine (-€8.7bn).” That is quite something, given that the current government commitment to Ukraine is €8.3bn. How happy will the Kremlin be, that their friends in the AfD are planning to cut Germany’s entire commitment to Ukraine, with a bit more on top?
This at a time when Poland is warning that Russia is already at war with its EU neighbours, several of whom have been on the receiving end of election-interfering, drone-infiltrating hybrid warfare, the UK is exposing hostile Russian activity in our waters, and Trump is yet again toeing Putin’s line in his attempts to impose a capitulation peace deal on Volodymr Zelensky.
Not only would the AfD cut military supplies to Ukraine, their fantasy figures include a further €10.7bn in cuts to what they call “excessive defence spending.” This has the feel of a total surrender policy to me.
What else? Abolition of the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (-€7.8bn) and further cuts to foreign aid. Reduction of payments to the EU (-€18bn) and cuts to the Climate and Transformation Fund (-€36.7bn). So effectively out of Europe, and out of any commitment to address climate change.
It really is time for the whole of Europe to wake up to just how dangerous and extreme the AfD is, and for us in Britain to recognise that there is both a shared ideology, and shared campaign tactics, with the MAGA crowd in the US, far right parties across Europe, and Nigel Farage’s Reform party here.
The Ashes represent one of the greatest sporting contests on earth, which is why some 60,000 Brits have booked flights to take in one or all of the five Test Matches. They include my friend Rick, who flew out on Friday, armed with his tickets for days 3-5 of the first Test in Perth.
By the time he arrived, the match was over, won by the Aussies in two days. He will get his money back, but the pain will take time to heal.
Talking of great sporting contests, few can match Scotland’s 4-2 win over Denmark to qualify for the World Cup. I confess to something close to delirium as the third and fourth goals went in. So now we await the draw.
Please, please, please, let Scotland be drawn in a group whose games take place in Mexico or, even better, Canada, home to some of the best bagpipe players in the world.
