Loose change
Change! The single word summary of the Labour Party manifesto presented to voters at the last general election. There was certainly a change to the Party’s fortunes, increasing its number of seats in the Commons from 202 in 2019 to 411. This seeming landslide victory would appear to be an overwhelming endorsement on behalf of the electorate. However not quite so overwhelming in terms of the percentage share of votes cast. This change, of over more than 100 percent in the number of MPs, was achieved through an increase of just 1.6 percent in votes received.
After fourteen years of various Conservative administrations, the official opposition had barely stirred the electorate’s enthusiasm. Rather the falling away of the Tory vote opened the way to the government front benches. A significant element in Tory decline was the increasing popularity of Reform UK. Not a political party, but a limited company. Ironically appropriate as an aspiring administrator of a capitalist society.
The new Labour government found that not only had the Conservatives left the treasury chest empty of money, but had filled it with IOUs. Not that this was a novel situation. The new Tory government in 2010 inherited the same predicament after 13 years of Labour. Government expenditure almost constantly increases. Demands and expectations of the electorate are many and varied, encouraged by the competing political parties seeking votes. Oppositions can afford to sound generous, governments become austere.
The role of governments
It is for government to manage and administer capitalist society. Its fundamental function is to optimise profit making. The contradiction lies in the division between the small minority of wealth holders, the capitalists, and the vast majority, the wealth creators, the workers. While wealth holders recognise the need to maintain workers, otherwise there is no wealth creation, this maintenance is drawn from the wealth accumulated. Therefore, the more that goes to that maintenance, as wages/salaries, pensions, benefits, healthcare, etc, the less the wealth held.
Governments have to try and balance maximising profit while sustaining a stable, productive society. Any government action or crisis upsetting that balance impacts on the financial markets, threatening national bankruptcy. No matter how popular a government is in terms of electoral support, its options for action are constrained by the market. The market trumps the ballot box.
A common complaint amongst the electorate is that governments do not listen to them. Voters subject to the machinations of capitalist economies more often than not find their aspirations are not going to be met. Reasonable, even modest wishes for economic security and stability, decent housing, efficient healthcare, good education and a generally comfortable lifestyle, are frustrated. Instead, there is widespread discontent and frustration, often coalescing into cynicism.
Politicians are seen as remote and unsympathetic, concerned only with their own advancement. Daily experience does little or nothing to dispel such notions. Rather there is only a sense of powerlessness, which periodic voting does nothing to assuage. Indeed, the main political parties seem so similar that replacing one with another makes little significant difference. ‘They’re all the same’ is a commonplace. And the fact is they have to be because, despite minor differences, overall they must deal with an economic system that remains dominant, capitalism.
This does not mean the appearance of the political situation cannot change. The grip of the two main post-Second World War parties, Conservative and Labour, has been significantly loosened. An inkling of this change occurred in 2010 when the outgoing Labour government was replaced by the Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition.
Giving Reform a go
The 2016 Brexit referendum saw cross-party alliances on either side of the argument. And also the sowing of the seeds of a rising populist movement that scored a remarkable success in the 2026 local government elections. Media vox pops in places where Reform UK have displaced en masse whole swathes of councillors, replacing long-established Labour fiefdoms, often appeared to feature change by weariness rather than enthusiasm. The prevailing response seemed to be giving Reform a go, largely on the grounds that they couldn’t be any worse than the ‘present lot’. This is not to say there aren’t those who are enthusiastic, though not of course racist, as they will insist. Having effectively, in 2024, seriously weakened the Conservative Party at national level, at local level they have now humbled the presiding government.
The prime minister came under threat – still in office at time of writing – with his supporters in parliament and the cabinet demanding loyalty. This is a little rich considering the pernicious use of accusations of anti-semitism to bring down Labour’s previous leader and purge his supporters. It is the very nature of capitalism to be competitive and combative. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that it spawns politics which reflect this. Because none of the parties can challenge capitalism, they must fight each other.
Cost of living crisis, illegal immigration, benefits culture etcetera become raw material from which to manufacture political advantage. That they are issues in the first place shows how capitalism simply does not, cannot, meet people’s needs. That Reform UK is a limited company seems fitting as their scope for giving people what they require is limited. Their councillors will quickly find that 80 percent of their council’s funds is already legally spoken for; social care and special educational needs. Are they really going to start turning old people out of care homes to fend for themselves? Will parents enjoy seeing their special-needs children flounder unsupported in already overworked and underfunded schools?
Yes, change is needed
The desire for change is perfectly reasonable. The problem for the electorate is that the many present difficulties people encounter daily cannot be voted away. Neither is there a party or leader to be elected who can do it for them.
The Prime Minister may well be dismissed, but then there will just be another one, equally unable to make any significant difference. Whether a populist ultra-conservative demagogue or a reasonable, left-of-centre sympathiser, the problems won’t go away.
If people really want change they will have to accept responsibility for playing their individual parts in the collective action to bring it about. Capitalism cannot be reformed into being benign; better trying to train a tiger to become vegan. Society can be organised so that everyone’s needs are met. We have the technology to make this practical. The rub is that the technology must be wrested from the grasp of capitalism, along with all means and methods of production.
The democratic process is fundamental to bringing this radical change about. But it will require so much more than just putting an X against a name every four or five years. The first big change must be in how people think about constructing a better future for all.
D. A.