A Labour government will need to be robust, honest and busy. Its challenges are too numerous to list (24 per cent satisfaction in the NHS anyone?), but it must provide evidence that change is possible and happening. Hope is an elusive quality but just generating some is half the battle. There’s a tendency in the British psyche to accept decline as natural, that yesterday was always better. We’re a tough crowd. During the financial crisis of 2008, Britain’s other great modern satirist, Nigel Blackwell of the band Half Man Half Biscuit, released the song National Shite Day, a six-minute excoriation of just how awful life can seem here. It’s our default setting in hard times, and it’s always hard times for someone somewhere.
Published on March 28, 2024
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