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Are you feeling just right-on or Right-wing today? Chances are, to judge by the latest survey of social trends, a bit bi-curious.
The snapshot in the latest annual British Social Attitudes survey gives a riveting insight into the swings and lurches of our attitudes.
And what a mixed picture it is: so much so that the Today programme could see it as a springboard for a debate on the new liberalism, while the Daily Mail portrayed it as a lurch to the Right.
On the liberal side, the normalisation of homosexuality and a relaxed view of the way in which couples organise their living arrangements has progressed in leaps and bounds.
This was made clear to me when a friend's son in my North-East home village, far away from the world of us metro-trendies, celebrated his civil partnership. The entire family and circle of friends attended and got cheerfully drunk together.
The striking thing was how normal this all seemed. Twenty years ago, it would have been a far more strained affair, with elderly relatives wondering whether it was right to attend and a lot of whispering and clucking.
In a country where we really do love to find fault with ourselves, some things are worth celebrating. The British Social Attitudes survey tells us what most of us feel — that we are, on the whole, more accepting of variety and less prone to sententiousness.
So many of the old “culture wars” now seem tired causes: to that extent, the progressives can and should claim some victories. It is all very well for Cameron and co to show us their accepting side about homosexuality and take the nastiness out of the debate on race. Yet if they were frank, they would have to concede that Conservatism alone would not have enforced these changes: a lot of the liberal attitudes that were mocked as political correctness gone mad are now simply regarded as good manners.
At the same time, the great central belief of the state as an agent of good has slipped away, leaving Labour in an ideologically insecure position.
One of Gordon Brown's weaknesses is that he projects an uncertainty about the state and private enterprise. He's neither unambiguously keen on individualist endeavours à la Tony Blair, nor did he use his power as Chancellor to rein in the wilder parts of banking enterprise, which left the UK so exposed to the financial crisis.
Now more people see themselves as Conservative than Labour for the first time in two decades. That is the bell that tolls loudly for the PM. One close ally (and leadership candidate) told me yesterday that he could still see a Labour victory ahead — and on the details of demography and electoral arithmetic, he might well be right.
But the undercurrents of social change do impact on parties and shape elections. That is why the Tories sensed that Margaret Thatcher had passed her time and committed matricide in 1990 — a brutal episode, but one vindicated by the result of 1992.
It is why the Labour Party felt instinctively that Tony Blair, bridging the traditions of the Left and the long years of Conservatism, was the right man for 1997. And it is why Conservatives opted for Dave and his open-necked consorts, over more conventional candidates for the Tory crown.
The problem which besets politicians trying to make sense of our pick-and-mix attitudes in 2010 is that a disposition which would have made you centre-Leftish even a few years ago — social liberalism, concern about opportunity and its barriers and a wariness of absolute freedom of the markets — would now sit happily on the centre-Right.
Where's the dividing line? As a bemused William Hurt anchorman puts it in my favourite scene in Broadcast News: “It's hard not to cross the line. They keep moving the little sucker, don't they?” They do indeed.
Confusion reigns — notably over the wealth gap. One party leader privately cites a “punitive egalitarianism” in the air in the wake of the bankers' excesses and says it makes him wary of using the word “market”.
At the same time, the percentage of people who believe the Government should reduce the gap between rich and poor has fallen from three quarters in 1975 to two fifths today.
So at the same time as we want the very wealthy to forfeit some of their bonuses, we declare that we don't like the Government intervening. We don't like the bankers; but neither do we trust their regulators or the agencies of the state.
Even Labour's hopeful new generation, such as David and Ed Miliband, seems to be preoccupied with trying to redefine a new relationship between the citizen and central power — though whether anyone is listening is another matter.
The great culture clashes of the past are now fought sotto voce. The recent marriage row is a case in point. The Conservatives did not, in the end, want to alienate liberal (and especially Lib-Dem) voters by pushing their own preference from tax relief to its logical conclusion and going for a big tax break for the married family.
At the same time, they are saddled with an inheritance tax relief on million-pound properties. It might lead us to think they are keener on the rich than the married.
Labour is also treading on eggshells here. Very few of its next-generation players will argue, as Jack Straw did, that marriage is irrelevant to family outcomes. “There's a feeling that we have underplayed marriage and the family structure,” says one young Cabinet minister. So the new orthodoxy is that marriage is largely the best forum for raising children but not that the Government intends to redress the tax balance away from the disincentive to marry. Confused? You're right to be.
What we have lost, in our new tolerance, is a sharpness of view and the grit of conviction. The only big discrepancy between the main parties at the next election is on the speed at which the deficit should be reduced. This is hugely important: but it is not the only fruit in a debate about the country's future.
To the many upsides of a more liberal Britain, we must register the disadvantage that there are more compromises than certainties. Welcome to the benign but indecisive era of the New Woolliness.
Reader views (7)
The vast majority of the British People aren't going to vote BNP thank god. But, most are fed up with seeing supposedly British members of the cabinet treating them as dirt if they even dare to suggest that they want to hold on to their heritage, culture and customs. The BNP has tapped into this. Yes, there is a leaning to the right developing. It cuts across class, background and the old left/right argument. The British people are fair minded and they don't like being told by naive Labour politicians that they should not behave in a certain way for risk of causing offense. Labour is finished in the same way the Tories were in 1997. If Labour were truly patriotic and democratic they would accept this. There's the rub - they don't and can't because of their current ideological obsession with multiculturalism and so called equal rights issues. No one is listening to them anymore. So do the decent British thing and call an election. If Brown had any humility he'd go now. I don't think he really understands the real anger out here.
- David S., Burgess Hill UK, 28/01/2010 11:15
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What the survey failed to get right though is the reasons behind the massive swing to conservatism and right wing views. This is a country that has been failed by it's own people for decades. The focus on 'multiculturalism', 'political correctness', 'diversity', and 'human 'uman' rights' has been too hard a focus for most people's taste. It has led to massive population disgruntlement. Nowadays, teachers can't discipline kids because the kids have more rights than them, criminals have more rights than victims, bogus asylum seekers/illegal immigrants/foreign criminals barely ever get deported thanks to 'human rights' loopholes, human-rights bandwagons/lawyers and un-elected left-wing extremist supreme court judges. 'Enough is enough' is the common echo within the public mainstream voice. This country is being ruined thanks to Liberalism.
A shift to traditional values, to tough love, to family institutions and good moral upbringings is what is craved here. Both the very old, die-hard labour supporters and the young, naive students often think it's 'cool' to strive towards liberalism, confusing progressive values and tolerant natures with hard-left marxist-fascism which the labour government is keen for us to adopt. Unfortunately our politicians, our media (think bbc in particular), our police, and our judges are all more or less fully infiltrated by the leftist liberal crowd who refuse to let go.
The people need a voice.
- Angelica, London, U.K, 27/01/2010 22:07
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"take the nastiness out of the debate on race."
This comes from the Left, who abuse anyone who dares to have a dissenting view.
- Anon, London, 27/01/2010 20:04
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I think it's fairly straightforward; people want to live in a country where the culture and customs with which they grew up, which shaped their personality, are maintained rather than dismissed as being unsympathetic to newer arrivals to these shores, where the rule of law penalises the guilty and protects the innocent, where public servants serve the public and where people are obliged to be responsible for their own actions rather than assuming there is always someone else to blame.
- St, London, 27/01/2010 12:32
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It was less-reported that the same survey showed that only 10% of people wanted spending and tax cuts (the vast majority want to maintain the status quo).
Also, arguments about how the desire for redistributing from rich to poor has waned miss the point that perhaps people feel a lot of the things Labour has done (minimum wage, Sure Start, child tax credits) are about enough... it isn't the same as saying that they want to reverse them.
- Liam, London, 27/01/2010 11:18
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Wow! A Standard editorial that I find myself agreeing with. It does seem that a sense of absolute right and wrong has been lost. I think we're the poorer for it as well. Of course some things have improved, but mostly overly liberal attitudes have stopped us denouncing or disincentivising behaviours that damage society as a whole. The idea of personal freedom has trumped the needs of society and the idea of consideration for others. The Tories hinted at the need for more personal responsibility and less entitlement, but that has been seen as unpalatable to the electorate. What does that say about us?
- Mark, London, 27/01/2010 11:12
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It is called Libertarianism.
- Get Shorty, Bognor, 27/01/2010 11:12
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