We’re constantly being told by Britain’s extremely normal media class that those voters who can’t so much as see a black face or an inflatable boat on TV without starting to feel a bit frightened and racist must be treated with respect. They have, we are told, legitimate concerns. Here are some other concerns that I believe, from my metropolitan liberal bubble, to be more legitimate.
1. In the run-up to the 2024 general election, someone close to Keir Starmer released chief of staff Sue Gray’s dossier of urgent crises facing an incoming government. One of the issues on “Sue’s shitlist”, as it inevitably became known, was the risk of a university going under because of a higher education finance system that is somehow, against all the laws of logic and mathematics, managing to fail graduates, institutions and the taxpayer at the same time. (Vice-chancellors, thankfully, seem to be doing just fine.)
In the two years since, the main steps the government has taken in this area have been to tighten visa rules for the international students on whom many universities have relied to subsidise home students, and to occasionally let an outrider ponder whether the north of England might be better off with fewer universities anyway. Given that higher education is one of Britain’s main export industries, I am legitimately concerned about this.
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2. In certain bits of London – not even necessarily the nicest parts – you can now pay more than eight quid for a pint. I am legitimately concerned about that, too.
3. In 2011, officials in Barnet calculated what would happen if councils’ funding remained flat but their care liabilities kept rising in the manner that demographics suggested they would. The resulting “graph of doom”, which became a meme in policy circles, showed a moment in the future when effectively all council funding would be spent on adult social care.
That moment is now in the past. The problem has not been addressed. I am legitimately concerned that successive governments have lacked the balls to explain to the public the realities of a situation ministers all understood perfectly well – that older people who were on the right side of the house price boom need to use some more of their windfall to support a system that may one day be supporting them – and the result is adult social care is still terrible and underfunded, but now local government is too.
4. In the 17 years to 2008, UK GDP per capita grew by around 45%. In the 17 years after 2008, UK GDP per capita grew by around 8%. That is quite legitimately concerning, too.
5. Don’t worry, though, because over the same period average house prices have increased by more than 60%. Yippee doo.
6. In my own house, there’s a bit of my floor that’s definitely sinking, and I don’t know if it’s just heavy bookshelves or wear and tear or something to do with that leak, but whatever it is, I am concerned.
7. While I am being legitimately concerned about things successive governments have failed to explain, the business case for High Speed 2 has very little to do with speed. (Really, no one needs to go between London and Birmingham that fast.) It does, however, have quite a lot to do with the fact that, by getting fast trains out of the way of slow ones, you massively increase capacity on the network, because you can now run more fast trains without them banging into slow ones. This is necessary because the existing rail network is, in effect, full. That in turn explains why tickets on many routes are now so ludicrously expensive.
HS2 has been badly managed. It has spent too much on the wrong things – such as, for example, disguising its own presence wherever possible. But it was never a vanity project. I am legitimately concerned that no one seems to understand this.
8. Polls suggest that Andy Burnham is on course to win the Makerfield by-election – just. But it’s unnervingly close for comfort, and even more unnerving is the fact that it was the second poll to show Rupert Lowe’s Restore – a party so far to the right they make Reform look almost cuddly – in high single digits.
This may be enough to stop Nigel Farage’s party from winning. But it also goes some way to explain his recent pivot into even less acceptable territory. The long-term implications of this, too, are a matter about which I remain legitimately concerned.
9. As are the details of the £5 million gift the Reform UK leader received from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne in the run-up to the 2024 election. It is concerning, but was it entirely legitimate? It would just be nice if we heard a little more about these kinds of legitimate concerns, too.
