Opposition is easy

Well, it’s all change again. Overnight, the resignation (pushed?) of the Home Secretary has delighted the opposition and sent the government into panic. There is nothing which quite exemplifies the opposite of edifying as the sight of Labour’s dogs, snapping at the heels of Amber Rudd, spitting and snarling and sensing blood as they respond to the silent whistle of their master – grievance. We may be witnessing the death of the Conservative Party here; they have nothing to offer but independence.

And this is a big problem for politics generally. Ordinary people really should not be absorbed in the minutiae of governance in the same way government should not meddle in the minutiae of individual lives. Where your product is perfection, then micromanagement of every part of the process is essential. Where your product is in managing the unmanageable – human society – the less visible you are the better. Planned economies are failed economies, planned societies likewise.

I’m not saying you should have no interest in politics, but that interest should be directed at what the administration are doing to keep as far out of your lives as possible, concentrating on the bigger picture. If you look to others to determine your remuneration, your rent, the price you pay for your groceries and your overall spiritual well-being you really would be better off joining a cult. And this is why the Tories are dead in the water.

Nobody wants to hear the cold hard truth that the person who is most responsible for how your life turns out is you. Yes, it would be good if the streets were policed and people followed the rules. And it would be great if everybody had access to an education unfettered by faddish ideals and religious influences. And wouldn’t it be nice if we all earned enough to do what we want, within reason?

What the left - as typified by Corbyn’s crew - offers is to fix all the problems without any viable means of paying for it; they will rob those who produce to pacify those who don’t. And they can offer to do this because those who produce are generally too busy doing what they should be doing. Economies are not created by centralised committees but by the collective will of individual people making their own small decisions. This is what effective people do, all the time, often unaware that they are doing so.

In any economy there are winners and losers, but in strong, market economies the losers are still better off than the majority in planned, socialist economies. Yet this message is lost when you pander to the base instincts of the herd. We want more of this! We want less of that! Help me! Hurt them! And we demand that the person who did exactly what we might have done, no matter what we believed in, under the prevailing circumstances must pay with her career!

Is this really the best we can do?

Labour is the party of eternal opposition. Even in power it really knows only how to oppose. And you can always appeal to the disgruntled to form a mob and harry that which offends you. Want to know why there aren’t counter protests to support President Trump’s July visit when there are thousands ready and willing to go blue in the face screaming out hatred? It’s because being unhappy is easy. Being dissatisfied is a piece of piss. Exploiting people’s natural propensity to dissatisfaction is the lowest form of politics. But it may be all we have left.