Phoney Business

I met a good friend a few nights ago and asked him what he thinks about the political scene. His is normally a very informed opinion, rubbing shoulders as he does with the movers and shakers of London politics. He has been surprised how much new freedom he has with the contractors he needs to deploy on big council projects.
‘People who wouldn’t have discussed business seriously at all before are now offering me as much as I want!’ he told me. ‘It’s not the public sector that’s making me the big offers, it’s the private companies because they’re quick off the mark. They know they have to adapt or die and so they’re doing it, while government has to sit around and hold meetings before they can make a decision.’
‘That’s why planned economies fail,’ I said. ‘The free market does work, but it only works if you have swift circulation of money. You can’t have survival-of-the-fittest competition if all your consumers are beggar-poor. That’s why Thatcher failed, too. She was obsessed with reducing the circulation, cutting the money supply, and then she couldn’t understand why everyone else in Europe was overtaking us, like we were a Vintage Model T in Formula One race. Well, now the banks have cut off the money supply entirely, and everyone can see it’s not good for business.’
‘These new Tories, though,’ he said, ‘they’re different. I had a meeting with them the other day and I was surprised. To me, Tories have always meant Margaret Thatcher and her old Fascists,’ he said. ‘But these ones are a different breed. They’re educated. And a lot of them are gay.’
‘William Haig’s front bench was almost entirely gay,’ I said. ‘Although they weren’t ‘out’, of course.’
‘Well these new Tories are and they impressed me,’ he said. ‘They’re going to win. Trust me on this. The next election’s got to be in the next twelve months. What can Brown do between now and then?’
‘A year’s a long time,’ I said. ‘A year ago everyone thought he was finished. Who’d have guessed he’d look so much better now? He’s playing the old Thatcher strategy: we got you into this mess, and we’re the only ones who can get you out of it.’
‘I still say the Tories’re going to win,’ he said. ‘And when they do, they’ll hold a second term.’
‘We’ll see,’ I said. ‘As I’ve mentioned before, elections aren’t won on poll leads, they’re won on swing, and this is still a big swing for them to pull off. Besides, it doesn’t matter how we vote, or how anyone votes...’
‘I know, it’ll be down to the key marginals,’ he said.
‘And they’re all in the West Midlands,’I said.
‘The BNP’s going to win, then, if that’s the case,’ he said. ‘Besides, it’ll be a good time for Fascists. It was in the last Great Depression.’
‘You know,’ I said, ‘I look around at the world from the top deck of the bus and it’s a very revealing picture. If there’s an economic disaster, where is it? Nothing’s different. Everyone’s still driving around in their gas-guzzling, four-by-fours, just like they ever did. Pull up to the bumper, baby! You wouldn’t think there was anything wrong. I saw a man the other night, all on his own, in his giant People Carrier, a long jam of equally vast cars ahead of him but he was happy. He had an animatronic toy chihuahua dancing about on his dashboard, wiggling its ears. The ears were tiny tweeters. It was attached by a cable to his iPod. This was a singing, dancing robot dog! Where is this Great Depression with executive toys like that about?’
‘You see,’ I went on, ‘this is the Phoney War. This’s like the Autumn of 1939. Everyone knew war had been declared, but nothing had happened. So they all went on about their business. There was a bit of news in the papers about some of our boys going out to France, getting holed up near some place called Dunkerque. Well, that would discourage Fritz. No reason to worry. And this went on for a while, but then, come 1940, it was: “Jesus! Christ! They’re dropping bombs on us!” And then they remembered they were in a war. We haven’t reached that point yet, but it’s coming. If the Tories win, they’ll come in during the Phoney War. They will then be sitting on the Treasury Bench when the Blitz arrives. That second term won’t look so easy after that. But whoever it is, whether it’s Brown pulling off a narrow-squeak victory, or Cameron, they’ll both come off as weak as Chamberlaine in the face of the blast. I don’t see any sign of a new Churchill, either.’