So this is what people mean when they say “Uniparty”. They mean supposed rivals reading from the same corporate script. They mean political parties behaving more like a cartel than separate democratic entities. They mean parties abandoning even the pretense of competition in order to hunt in a pack. That’s what I see in the political class’s haughty refusal to stand in Clacton – an act of sinister collectivism that grates against every principle of democracy.
The chattering classes are having a good old laugh at Nigel Farage
The chattering classes are having a good old laugh at Nigel Farage. His triggering of a by-election in his own constituency of Clacton has descended into “farce”, they crow.
One by one the parties said they wouldn’t stand in this “stunt” by the sea. Labour, the Lib Dems, the Tories, the Greens – all of them, in a tinny chorus of groupthink, washed their hands of the Clacton contest. It looks like it will be Nige vs Count Binface, to the childish glee of every Radio 4 comedian and Remoaner on the internet.
Well, I’m not laughing. I think the parties are behaving abominably. Their choreographed retreat smacks of moral cowardice. This is a collective abdication of the first duty of a party, which is to contest elections, to disseminate ideas, to try to win the hearts of voters. The parties think they’re getting one over on Farage but in truth they are grossly insulting the good people of Clacton, whose views and votes they clearly couldn’t give a toss about. They are cruelly depriving these working-class seasiders of choice. It is obscene.
