General Election: Surviving the year of election politicking

How are we going to survive? The general election looks more than a pregnancy away and yet our politicians are already dumbing down their pitches to us. What state will we be in when it finally arrives?

The first PMQs of the year was awash with crude campaigning posing as serious inquiry. 

Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson started by attacking Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey, whose party threatens southern Blue Wall seats.

Reminding the House that Sir Ed was once a Post Office minister who failed to act on the Horizon IT scandal, he asked if he should “clear his desk, clear his diary and clear off”.

Labour’s Keir Starmer called the Prime Minister “Mr Nobody”. Mr Sunak said Sir Keir “chooses the criminal gangs over the British people every time”.

It was depressingly dense. Too stupid even for leaflets, and that’s saying something.

By the time we get to the polling booth, another ten months of this stuff might have turned off electors in droves.

In one way, of course, whatever politicians say is about the next election, because that’s what they’re always thinking about. It’s the pulse animating every word and deed.

But with Mr Sunak saying his “working assumption” is an election in the second half of the year, and November being the first post-conference season option, it’s more than just a background rhythm, it’s going to be in our face for virtually all of 2024. 

The first PMQs of 2024 was full of campaign rhetoric masquerading as serious inquiry (Image: Newsquest)
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The election certainly concentrates minds. 

It’s not only the ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office that’s to be thanked for overturning the wrongful convictions of hundreds of sub-postmasters.

Besides years of dogged graft by Mr Bates, his mistreated colleagues, journalists and MPs disgusted by the injustice involved, it’s also the proximity of the election at work.

If you’re an unpopular government accused of being unable to deliver, of presiding over a broken country where nothing works, if you’re perceived as elitists who let ordinary folk go hang, then getting a result on the Post Office scandal over the line is a Godsend.

Yes, the actors, TV writer and campaigners all deserve this moment. And yes, the politicians who are belatedly getting it done deserve a modicum of praise. But let’s not forget to tip our hats to the election that acted as a catalyst. 

If this had been the first year of a new government, what are the chances something else would have been prioritised instead and the Horizon scandal left to fade from view? 

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There’s another example of enforced commonsense at Holyrood at the moment too.

Although there’s no Scottish poll due until 2026, the SNP also finds itself going into the general election anxious to make a good impression and tidy up mistakes.

For months, it has been dragging its feet over a ban on XL Bully dogs in a peevish turf war with Westminster, griping about what the UK Government is doing instead of acting itself.

Community safety minister Siobhan Brown seems to have consulted, well, every man and his dog about the issue, taking her sweet time to show that things are different in Scotland.

But since Mr Sunak voiced his working assumption, this calculated dawdle has suddenly become an “urgent review” and a ban is now imminent. Again, hoorah for the election, which almost certainly prompted the UK Government to act on the issue in the first place. 

There ought to be similar alacrity on our end of the Horizon scandal. The Westminster legislation doesn’t extend to Scotland, but Holyrood can’t be seen to faff about.  

But while all this activity is welcome, it’s also infuriating and paradoxically off-putting.

Why should it take an election campaign to get things done like this? 

Why should people have to suffer injustice or live with the threat of dog attacks for most of the parliament and only see the government respond to their needs at the fag end of it in a naked appeal for votes? It’s not much of an advert for the system or those running it.

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So the year ahead will be a mixed blessing.

Politicians desperately want our attention. They’ll shout and they’ll sloganise and they’ll call each other silly names. Sometimes they’ll actually do something commendable. 

My advice is to pocket the bittersweet wins and demand they do ten times as much in the next parliament. Considering what they’re about to put us through, they owe us big time.