Silly Season
We’re fast approaching silly season, that time of year when the politicians all go on their jolly hollybobs and forget about their parliamentary duties until the new year. This time round, however, silly season will stretch beyond the New Year’s chimes. With Donald Trump’s inauguration in January incoming, we are about to enter a silly quadrennium the likes of which have not been seen since its inception in 1861. This period, if anything like Trump’s first four years in office, will be more about bluster than bills, and more about rhetoric and revenue than revolution. This is not to say that there is nothing to worry about; rhetoric without factual basis is a genuinely dangerous beast. We have seen the damage of populist narratives routinely over decades and centuries - from Putin and Assad more recently, to Hitler and Mao long ago.
As a population, we must be wary during silly season as this is the time when information politicians seek to bury is released … so the ‘fun’ for commentators really does not stop. Indeed there is little “fun” in seeing the world turn to fire and ash as political opponents protest to high heaven that they couldn’t possibly be the arsonist. There is also very little entertainment to be had over politicians seeking to avoid and obfuscate the great challenges of our time for pettier problems such as migration and race hatred.
We’ve seen this populist rhetoric in Britain in recent weeks, with political commentators and newspapers yet again deploying immigration statistics to scapegoat vulnerable populations.
Media outlets interrogating Labour’s immigration plan five minutes into their period in office does little to help matters. Under the YouTube video are thoughtlessly acerbic comments purporting that Starmer should have done more in his period of four and a bit months in office. I believe he has done a fair amount in this time, but as with any role in politics there is always more you can do depending on the audiences you ask. Everyone is their own home secretary, after all.
Columnists at GB News and The Daily Telegraph are having conniptions at the thought of something somehow bettering society for those with less disposable income than their billionaire backers. Of course, there are still problems for Labour to address, and we shouldn’t ignore that they have a mountain to climb before they reach the dizzying heights of New Labour’s triumphs. Labour’s comms strategy in particular needs a lot of work. Love them or loathe them, no one can deny that Reform UK’s message of less migration is one that is short, snappy and significant to a public that knows bleak economic forecasts will be with us for years, if not decades to come.
This messaging, however corrupt it may be in failing to offer a solution to the problems it berates, works! Negative campaigning is much easier than positive campaigning and can lead to huge gains; we only need to look at Brexit to understand that reality. Offering hope of change though is powerful too. The UK General election was barely 6 months ago. However shallow Labour’s victory at this election was, it proved that people did indeed respond to the message of change that Keir Starmer was offering. We need to remind ourselves that whilst alarmist headlines - e.g. ‘Boris’s rallying cry as Starmer sets up Whitehall EU Surrender Squad’ - dominate the media, the prevailing opinion among voters is still to lean towards Labour. In 7 of the past 10 polls (as of mid-December), we see that Labour is leading, and yet with the vitriol we see spewed by the media on a daily basis, you’d think that they were Britain’s foremost kitten slaughterers.
This is what silly season is made of, and this is a defining base that the media instils in our journalism at all times. Silly season isn’t just an era. It’s a popular pastime for these so-called journalists. I am under no illusions that being a comment writer is akin to being a propagandist at times for your favoured viewpoints, however, there is opinion defined by fact and then there is baseless interjection. In the lead up to Trump taking control in January, let’s be mindful that populist politicians can and will say anything to get people to rally around them, and let’s be smarter and wiser to combat it.
Image: Flickr/Trump White House (Shealah Craighead)
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Great commentary Eliot, 👌. As we leave the last 14 years of an echo chamber government and of not being governed its not surprising that people have now got alot to say about this new government. Its such a shock to people that governments can be active and positive for the general good ,they cant quite believe it.