Blame it if you want on global warming, like the fire in La Palma, the 45 degrees in Figueres, the dry reservoirs and the lack of snow for skiing at Christmas. But the truth is that the tectonic plates have moved, and a new infernal circle has appeared in the kitchens of the Earth. To the nine that Dante reserved for the unbaptized, the miserly, the gluttonous, the angry and lazy, the lustful, the heretic, the fraudster, the violent and the traitor, a new one must be added for the British Conservatives as punishment for the decade and a half of austerity they have subjected the country to, the terrible management of the economy, the Machiavellian antics of Boris Johnson, the uselessness of Theresa May and Liz Tru ss, and Brexit.
The Tories have plunged into the political hell that awaits them with the results of three by-elections, of which they have lost two (Selby in Yorkshire and Frome in Somerset) in landslides, despite being their traditional strongholds, and have won the third (Uxbridge, in the London metropolitan area, Johnson’s former seat) by the hair, with a very small majority, and thanks to only one local issue: opposition to a polluting vehicle tax nts
Should the voting trend be repeated in the general election at the end of next year, or at least until January 2025, the Conservatives would not go to purgatory but to hell, their party of MPs would be reduced to a hundred and a half with luck, a rout similar to that of their Canadian colleagues in 1993. A lousy sign from their perspective has been the tactical vote between Labor and Liberal s to get them out of the way.
But the fact that some go to hell does not automatically mean that others go to heaven (Saint Peter is very scrupulous about who he lets in and who he doesn’t), and for Labour, the day also has a bittersweet balance. Triumph for victory in an agricultural and rural district of Yorkshire that voted to leave the European Union in 2016, the equivalent of a medieval castle inhabited by the Tories, but frustration and disappointment at having been unable to conquer Uxbridge. With inflation of 8% (the highest in the G-7) and a full-blown cost of living crisis, for the voters of that neighborhood of the capital, Mayor Sadiq Khan’s eagerness to expand to the suburbs the zone where the most polluting vehicles must pay the equivalent of fourteen euros a day to circulate, a serious problem for elderly people with old cars, and ruin for small traders with vans that cannot change.
Given the impact of the issue, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will be tempted to make the growing resistance to decarbonisation by 2050 and the promotion of green energy one of the key points of his electoral programme. Labor is already in a bit of a retreat, wondering if they shouldn’t “listen to the voters” and go a little more slowly, and leave Khan’s environmental tax (who insists that “clean air is everyone’s right, a matter of social justice”) for later. The opposition is in a compromise. If he retreats, he would offend the most convinced environmentalists, and the votes he would win on the one hand could be lost to the left and among young people.
Voters may have already excommunicated the Tories, but Labor leader Keir Starmer has yet to receive their blessing. His tactic is to risk nothing, promise nothing because there is no money, and let the opponent wear himself down before delivering the final blow, just like Muhammad Ali did. The most revolutionary part of his program is to apply VAT to private schools. Nothing about raising taxes on the big fortunes, or nationalizing railways, electricity and gas and water companies, or considering returning to the single market, reforming the electoral system or extending subsidies to poor families. No wonder the left is not impressed.
However, everything suggests that the electoral alignment in the country has changed, and the coalition that Johnson forged (traditional Tories from the south of England and Eurosceptic ex-Labour and social conservatives) has disappeared. Brexit is not on the voters’ agenda, who see its drawbacks but consider it a done deal. A terrible omen for the current Government. Dant can now prepare to retouch his D ivinaComedy and add an inferno.
