Sure, the histories will say that the Conservative Party entered power in 2010 and, almost certainly, left it in 2024.
But between 2010 and 2015, the Conservatives had to share power with the Liberal Democrats.
If only the Conservatives had enjoyed a bigger majority than 80 seats, the government would have more achievements to its name.
The Conservatives have taken to warning of two decades of socialist imperium under Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.
Meekness infects the immediate political ambitions of the Conservative Party, too.
Squint a little and the letters “UwU” resemble someone with large, cartoonish eyes and a serene smile. The cutesy emoticon is a staple of a certain corner of the internet, in which grown-ups speak to each other in an infantile tone (“I’m just a smol bean”) and adopt feigned helplessness.
What is grating enough online is much worse coming from a g7 government. The Conservatives, who have spent 14 years running Britain, increasingly subscribe to a narrative that they were a mere bit-part player, rather than its main actor. Gazing upon a dying Conservative administration in 1993, Lord Lamont, who had recently been sacked as chancellor, accused Sir John Major’s government of being “in office but not in power”. What was once an attack has now become the party’s principal defence: the Conservatives may have been in office, but they were never in power. Call it UwU Conservatism.
Buck-passing starts with the historiography of the Tories’ many years in government. Sure, the histories will say that the Conservative Party entered power in 2010 and, almost certainly, left it in 2024. But between 2010 and 2015, the Conservatives had to share power with the Liberal Democrats. A brief interlude with a 12-seat majority was interrupted by the Brexit referendum in 2016. After a botched election, Theresa May struggled on with a hung parliament. True, Boris Johnson won a mighty majority of 80 seats in 2019 but a pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine stymied what he could do with it. That the errors of each era—undermining public services via austerity, leaving the European Union or putting Mr Johnson in charge during a time of national emergency—were Conservative-made is ignored. UwU.
Helplessness has now become an electoral strategy. Some polls suggest that Labour could end up with a majority bigger than any in the modern era. Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, has worried aloud about the threat of a Labour “supermajority”. “It doesn’t do the country any good to have that kind of size majority,” he chided. Party elders joined in. “It would be parliamentary democracy in its weakest form since the 1930s,” warned Lord Hague, a former party leader turned columnist. Pwease halp.
Talk of a “supermajority” is constitutional nonsense. No magic thresholds exist in the British system. In some countries, a two-thirds majority bestows a host of constitution-shredding powers upon the holder. In Britain a majority of one carries as much legal force as one of 180. Whining about a supermajority provides the perfect cover for the Conservatives’ lack of achievements in the past five years. If only the Conservatives had enjoyed a bigger majority than 80 seats, the government would have more achievements to its name. The majority was just too smol.
If the Conservatives are puny in their own minds, then Labour is mighty. The Conservatives have taken to warning of two decades of socialist imperium under Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. Fears that a government will go wild with executive power, gerrymandering the voting system and stacking the House of Lords, are as much projection as anything else. The Conservatives repeatedly tried to drag authority to the centre. Brexit-related legislation, for example, was littered with “Henry VIII” powers, designed to allow government ministers to hack away laws at will. But they have gone largely unused by the Conservatives. A new government may be more ruthless. If Labour does decide to run amok, the Tories will be partly to blame.
Even the lightest legislation proved too heavy for a smol government. A proposed ban on foie gras never became law. Limits on plastic wet wipes also went nowhere. When asked about his legacy, Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, alighted on his plan to ban smoking for anyone born after January 1st 2009. Yet the smoking bill is not law because Mr Sunak himself abruptly halted its progress by calling an election he will surely lose. “That’s the type of leadership that I bring,” he said, altogether too accurately. This lack of legislative legacy is, naturally, someone else’s fault. “Blairite legislation has tied the hands of the government,” complained Miriam Cates, a backbench Tory MP. Less UwU, more (>_<).
Meekness infects the immediate political ambitions of the Conservative Party, too. It is petrified about Nigel Farage and Reform UK hoovering up voters to its right, yet seems to assume that winning voters to its left is impossible. The election result would have to turn out only slightly worse than the most damning polls for Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, to be the one facing Sir Keir during Prime Minister’s Questions. But when it comes to liberal Britain—or indeed anyone who is not a pensioner in a town on England’s eastern seaboard—the Conservatives have all but given up.
UwU Conservatism has many weaknesses. Mr Sunak’s early departure from a D-Day anniversary memorial in France earlier this month played badly enough. But journalists at itv, a broadcaster, made it worse by showing Mr Sunak moaning that the event “ran over” when apologising for being late for his interview with them. Idle chit-chat before an interview would usually be off-limits for an all-powerful prime minister. But for one on the way out, it is fair game. In politics, smol beans get trod on.
C’maahn I’m a little guy, I’m just a little guy
Pretending to be puny is the government’s only defence. A government that pledged to cut taxes and cut immigration has done the opposite. Austerity hollowed out the state, rather than slimming it. The Conservative Party’s one definitive achievement—leaving the EU—was a bad idea, badly executed and is, understandably, barely mentioned in the campaign. Rather than stand by this record, the Tories ask for pity. Big government is rarely a good idea, but smol government is much worse. UwU.
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© 2023, The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. From The Economist, published under licence. The original content can be found on www.economist.com
