Returning from Bangladesh in time for the 2015 General Election, apart from the evident absence of a continuous threat of political mayhem, endangering life, limb, and commerce, there is a palpably familiar air in the United Kingdom. In a word, uncertainty.
With two major parties lunging at each other’s throats, with large, and growing numbers of political fragments snapping around them, the citizens may well ask themselves how, through a fog of media induced confusion of threats and drama, can they sensibly take a view which can most probably offer the leadership required to plan and deliver a prospect of a better sustainable world in which to live in the future United Kingdom.
The difference, of course, is that the sun still seems to be rising on a thriving future for the lands that, once before were a centre of world economic development in Bangladesh, at the heart of which lies one of the world’s earliest and most prosperous centres of trade. But, in Britain, there seems to be a real prospect that the sun may, finally, be threatening to set on the last vestiges of “the empire, upon which the sun never sets.” Ironically, perhaps, an empire of which these lands of Bangladesh were, undoubtedly, a foundation stone.
The usual kind of opening skirmishes characterise the onset of the eighth week before election day on May 7.
Accusations of taking of illegal donations for election funds have already erupted, and school yard standard of parliamentary abuse about who could, would, and should participate in televised debates assail the eyes and ears in what should probably be properly referred to as the “Views Media.” Intelligent, objective coverage of political issues, already in short supply, may be regarded as a seriously endangered species!
With so many weeks to go before polling day, such abuse seems already in the gutter; how much lower can it go? But it all makes apparent drama and conflict upon which the media thrives! From whether the Labour leader has two kitchens in his modest London home, to whether the present prime minister has been too close to such criminals as his former press adviser and unprosecuted bankers still evidently misappropriating funds in undeserved bonuses, spice the stories.
However, this election is being fought a scarce 200 years after the famous Battle of Waterloo, that might be said to have consolidated the international supremacy of the British Empire since the Battle of Plassey. An empire in the making, that would thrive for another century, and then commence the decline to Little Britain, this may yet come to be regarded as the last election to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and its place as a leading member of the European Union, and of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
With high opinion polling for parties who wish to pull in such polarised directions, of exit from the European Union, and the fragmentation of the United Kingdom, this could well prove to be an election that will go down in history.
Elections since the end of World War 2, that brought the British Empire to its end, have, by and large, been fought on domestic issues, from “The Pound in Your Pocket,” to the provision of citizen health and welfare at all stages of life.
The last five years, however, has seen the most inequitable reverse of economic security for most voters in modern times, with the poorest estimated, over the past five years, to have become over 50% poorer, and the wealthiest over 60% wealthier. The very evident decline in the ability of the world famous National Health Service now appears, possibly, to have reached a terminal stage, and this, certainly, looks set to be a major issue in the election campaign. Even in the dying weeks of this government, massive privatisation contracts have been announced for the NHS.
Strangely, the possibility of Britain making its final exit from any international alliance, in which it has always dominated, and even the stark reality of the breakup of the Union, something roundly defeated by involved voters a mere six months ago, seem not to be debatable at the present stage of the campaign, representing, “elephants in the room,” visible to few. However, the fairly inevitable consequence of what all pollsters presently predict to be the “tartan wash” of Scottish politics, seems, slowly, to be emerging as an issue to occupy most voters’ attention, more as a possible effect on the make up of the next UK government than on the virtual certainty that independence will be, rapidly, back on the agenda, leading inevitably, to that fragmentation.
The “No more Tories” appeal of last September’s referendum in Scotland, which threatened, then, to precipitate the breakup of the British Union, was then resisted on practical grounds. The subsequent performance of the London-based coalition government, however, has confirmed sceptics in the suspicion that the Tories, in fact, sought, “No more Scotland,” where Conservatism has never truly flourished, and, instead, provided the foundations of almost all Labour Party governments in the UK parliament. Excluding Scotland from that parliament would probably give the Conservatives an almost continuous majority.
Parliament, of course, has yet to be prorogued; that will take place at the end of March. The only real effect of this is that, until the election is “called”... since legislation in 2010 set a firm future timetable for elections to “prevent opportunist manipulation of the date, giving an apparent advantage to incumbent governments” ... the date has been known, constituency campaigns may not commence use of funds they will be required to account for in declaration of expenditures within the legal limit for such local activity. Posters, therefore, have not begun to sprout from hedgerows and in front gardens, as committed voters declare their allegiances.
It seems, to most UK citizens, therefore, something of a “phoney war,” with the background grumble of the sounds of conflict evident in the media, but no real evidence of activity on the ground.
This will certainly change as soon as the election is called. The telephones will ring off the hook with telephone banks of canvassers disturbing the peace of bewildered householders; letter boxes will be stuffed with leaflets, personal messages from candidates, and newspapers claiming the objectivity of such print to urge support for one candidate or another.
As usual, such activity will, doubtless, lead to confusion, and probably assault the defences of indifference. Scratch most potential voters and the polls, and experience tells us that the likelihood of actually voting on the day will still be at a low level.
For commentators, who can see past the immediacy of such issues as the future of the National Health Service, in the management of which neither of the major parties have a track record to excite credibility, or the likelihood of massive profiteering by privatised utility suppliers being tackled, or the conspicuous abuse of position by those seeking votes being curtailed -- the prospect of such seismic change as the fragmentation and international isolation of the nation that once ruled a third of the world through an empire in which, somewhere every day, the sun always shone, there is a growing depression.
Anyone who had stood upon the beach at Cox’s Bazar, and watched the sun dip slowly below the horizon, having, momentarily, perhaps, been photographed cupping the red orb in their hand, may just appreciate the sense of the inevitable loss of a light that once burnt so brightly, that appears to threaten this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island.
Well might the great eighteenth century English poet, Percy Bushe Shelley’s immortal words resound throughout Britain, not to mention the political halls of USA, Russia and China, especially, “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.”