It wasn’t always this way. I voted Conservative well into my thirties – the sort of Tory who liked things tidy, quiet, and properly costed. But over time, I did something dangerous. I developed a conscience. And I started paying attention. And what I saw wasn’t stability or sensible economics – it was cruelty disguised as policy and corruption passed off as competence. The old values I thought I was voting for had long since been sold off and asset-stripped. You’d have to be blind not to notice. Or work for The Spectator.
My sons – both planted firmly in the libertarian-left quadrant – found their own paths there, quicker than I did. One’s a sharp-tongued, high-earning computer programmer who treats debate like sport. The other, a thoughtful Liberal Arts graduate, is interviewing to be a teaching assistant. They both started in public school – not because we were wealthy or enamoured with the system, but because their mother, my ex-wife, taught at one. The privilege was incidental. Later, they moved into the state sector – and once you’ve seen both sides of that coin, it’s very hard to pretend it’s fair currency.
We all took the Political Compass quiz – that odd exercise in false binaries and loaded questions. “Military action is often the only answer” – to what, precisely? “People should keep to their own kind” – racially, socially, or are we talking badgers now? It’s not exactly subtle, but even a blunt instrument can reveal something. We all ended up huddled in the bottom-left quadrant – the one reserved for people who think society should function without grinding most people down.
The elder son, closest to the centre, still believes things should work – websites, logic, governments.
The younger, still weighing up his path, wants to teach, despite knowing first-hand what happens when education is managed like a cost centre.
And me (at the top)? I’m a retired bloke with a Hungarian moustache, a fine coffee setup, and a rapidly diminishing tolerance for idiocy masquerading as leadership.
I didn’t swing left because of some late-life rebellion. I did it because the mask slipped. Because I saw what power does when left unchecked. Because I realised that "personal responsibility" means very little when entire systems are built to punish the already exhausted. Because I raised sons who don’t parrot slogans – they question them.
And yet, even now, I’m politically homeless. Labour, instead of offering a vision, seem to be chasing Farage voters like desperate Tinder dates – parroting his lines with slightly better grammar. They’re not leading; they’re lurking. And I’m not here for watered-down xenophobia with a red rosette.
If you’ve lived through deregulation, austerity, Brexit and now this shambolic Reform-Lite Labourism – and still think the answer lies in another tax cut or a photo op in a hi-vis vest – then you’ve either stopped thinking or you never started. Maybe it’s time to retake the quiz. Or better still, develop a conscience.
1 comment:
Interesting....I left the same merchant navy training establishment as you not properly understanding the meaning of right and left other that in 'Eyees etc'. I left with an avowed intention to remember said establishment as it was, warts and all and it had plenty, as well as the good bits. The archaic structure of command and privilege was hideously dated even in the '60s and that, and the huge swing to containerisation, rendered it unfit for purpose.
I didn't go to sea...my penchant was, and still remained throughout my working life for small boats and this via studying sociology at college alighted me at the butt end of the working class scale at a small boatyard where I learned the practicalities of union existence and how it was the only reason that working practices were not stuck in the same era as the merchant navy school. I had always hated injustice, inequality as most people aside from those at the born to privilege end of the spectrum do. I suspect that the natural political path of a 'graduate' from the school would have been along the trajectory of one of our compatriots...although that is right wing in the extreme. I may sound critical of the establishment (naval) but it did give me a view of the 'other side' but also an ability to reason rather than the blind acceptance of a discipline that may have been necessary in a 19th century ship, or even army.
So - I find it hard to comprehend how anyone with an education and a sense of justice, a respect for equality and an empathy with the human race of all colours and denominations could arrive at a right wing destination?
My children, son in education placement, daughter a pharmaceutical scientist in the NHS system have arrived at a political place similar to mine - for which I'm grateful...I have a good friend from another part of my educational journey who has one out of three of his offspring at odds with the rest...difficult!
No huge point to make, just a comment on the different ways that we arrived at a similar understanding from a similar starting point...my father was a head teacher who purported to vote for whoever was offering the best option for education....interestingly (and sadly I can't ask the question) he went from reading the Telegraph to the Guardian in his years up to retirement.....he was someone who would have loved the internet as he had a constant thirst for information to satisfy an enquiring mind - if I have a bit of that in me I should credit the genetic/nurture combination to that.
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