“I’m a figure without flair, pale as ale, and in awe with the law. I am chosen not for who I am, but for who I am not. In a land of English tongues, I’ve won their votes—but not their hearts. Who am I?”
Worry not if the answer is not clear, as one cannot know if the answer is Biden or Sir Keir. This coincidence might be funny, but we, as a nation, have good reason to fear.
On the 6th of November, 2024, Former President and Republican candidate Donald Trump won in Wisconsin, confirming his government position for the next four years: The 47th American president and ‘leader of the free world’. Or, as an alternative and equally accurate diagnosis, the Democrats failed the job interview in spectacular fashion.
The why and the how will be subjected to intense internal debate for years to come. Was it the fact that they lied about Biden’s mental sharpness for years, the last-minute change in candidate, or their stance on Gaza? Maybe all of the above?
As an act of goodwill, let me save Labour, the Democrats, and the Tories the trouble and tell them exactly where they all went wrong: ‘It’s not the economy, stupid’. Or at least not the one studied by economists.
The real economic performance under Biden has been strong. Unemployment is low, output per person is 30% above European colleagues, and inflation plummeted almost as fast as it shot up: from around 9.1% in June 2022 to 2.4% this September. And yet Republicans were not convinced. An explanation for this discrepancy is offered by a 2013 study, a time when trust in the news was much higher amongst Republicans, which found that ‘Economists' opinions seem to be more distant from those of the US population on those topics where economists agree the most among themselves’. The public perception of the economy today is shaped by narratives and social media, not economic data and most definitely not by academic discussions. Worryingly for the Brits, Trump and Reform outperformed Sunak’s silliness and Starmer’s silence in the ‘attention economy’.
Joseph Robinette Biden was chosen because he was not Trump. Four years later, the best reason most could find to vote for Kamala was that… she was not Trump. Despite the Inflation Reduction Act positively affecting red states, the Democrats did not win the attention economy and did not strike a chord with the American people. Meanwhile, Trump diagnosed real issues with the country: communities ‘left behind’ as losers from free trade, the either real or perceived (depending on who you ask) problems affecting young men, and a feeling that the political class is out of touch with their daily struggles. His remedy is an expensive placebo, but Kamala failed to market an equally enticing solution. We are now left with a president who will do all of the good things, stop all of the bad things, and Make America Great Again (whatever that means for the person hearing it).
The lesson for Britain is clear: parties cannot brush away socio-political instability and label a growing section of its population as “stupid”, “bigots”, and “racists”. One need not be a political strategist to know that this pushes voters away and breaks trust. It should not surprise us, then, that Reform got 14% of the popular vote before it even started professionalising its operation to ‘attract middle of the road voters’. The fight for voters is fierce, but our parties are an incoherent, incongruent, and inconsistent mess.
The Tories have a new leader who refused to lay out policies in her victory speech, instead promising to return the party to ‘first principles’. This is 'Politician' for “I don’t know where we are going”. Meanwhile, Labour’s path to power relied only on silence: wise campaigning, but as we learned in the US, bad long-term politics. Starmer can’t be hard to pin down: he needs a strong media and political presence that dialogues with the electorate. Moderate parties should adopt media tactics from the ‘far-right’. A catchy slogan like ‘MAGA’ accompanied by well-thought-out policies that address the concerns of disillusioned voters is needed more than ever. Luckily for Labour, there are off-the-shelf policy solutions to tackle today’s economic problems. from immigration and regional inequality to economic growth, globalisation and technical unemployment, all laid out in an aptly named red book: ‘Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems’. While the writers did not win the Pulitzer, they did win the Nobel Prize in Economics.
If we want to fight off the likely rise of populism in Britain, we need parties to use the best tools available to win in the attention economy and reward voters with real, zeitgeist-relevant economic policy at the other end. The anti-immigration riots may have died out, but their spark is still alive, waiting to resurface with a new inflammatory event. It would be a massive mistake to leave their discontent unaddressed.