Infighting in the Labour Party and a divided left has handed successive election victories to the Tories for generations. For as long as I have been politically sentient, I have strongly believed that perfection should not be the enemy of good – getting the Tories out should always be the number one priority. In that regard, the polls are looking great: Labour is expected to absolutely clean up at the next election and with a bit of luck, Sunak will keep digging the Tories further into a hole and they won’t even be the official opposition. 

However, I am finding it hard to get excited about a Labour victory, if I’m honest. What is there to get excited about when their only commitment is to yet more neoliberal populism?

I have been to an event where the Shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves was speaking. After about ten minutes, I deduced that she was economically clueless, transphobic and unwilling to face basic questioning from what was a fairly tame crowd. I’m not a fan. Still, not wanting to let perfection be the enemy of good, as before, I have carried on supporting the Labour Party and fighting against the “oh politicians, they’re all the same” argument. 

My patience is wearing a bit thin now, though. Reeves has now started comparing herself to Thatcher. To be fair there are some immediate similarities: populist, champions of a flawed ideology, anti LGBTQIA+, anti-trade union… the list goes on. 

Let’s be clear – Thatcher’s flawed efforts to reduce inflation and ideologically motivated attacks on trade unions absolutely destroyed British industry. Mines, shipyards, factories – gone. Her policies took the jobs and purpose away from entire communities almost overnight. Communities that were then forced to take government handouts to be able to survive and demonised for doing so. She asset-stripped the country. By 1979, the population of Britain collectively owned two-thirds of housing and all of the energy sector, the railways, ferries, national airlines, the telecoms network, the postal service; the factories that produced trains, cars, trucks, buses, defence aircraft; the plants that made steel; the coal, oil and gas under the ground, and so much more. Her policies have directly led to the current cost-of-living crisis, housing crisis, collapse in bus services, sky-high rail fares – as all of these have happened thanks to the prioritisation of private profit rather than quality public service.

These public assets were not a divine gift, they were all nationalised after the war by a Labour government that inherited an economic situation far worse than the one that Starmer and Reeves will. They made the ideological choice to stop prioritising private profit. 

Reeves might fancy herself as the next Thatcher, but there is one key difference between 2024 and 1979: Thatcher had assets to sell to fund her ideology. She could generate quick cash injections to cover up the fact that we could no longer produce our way out of recession, but what has Reeves got left to sell off? The only thing left that the population collectively owns (most) of is the NHS…

The part of Thatcher’s legacy that I find particularly terrifying is just how widespread the lie that Government finances must be run like that of a household has become. She portrayed herself as “the thrifty housewife” that was running Britain on a shoestring to get national debt down. This idea was further weaponised by the Cameron-Osborne government, who used austerity to slash public spending and pour public money into the hands of the private sector, in the name of debt reduction. Labour look set to continue peddling this lie. Keynesian economics tells us that governments can only spend their way out of recession: borrow and invest when times are bad and earn it back when times are good.

To say that British society is built on tradition is a gross understatement. We are positively obsessed with it. I find it all sickening at the best of times: heaven forfend we close a street outside a school to stop children being run over, but did someone say Royal Wedding? Well then, get those cones out and the emergency chairs, we’re having a street party, like in the good old days! Some traditions can be quite fun, though: cheese rolling, welly throwing and bog snorkelling spring to mind.

But amongst all the fetishisation of aristocracy and the slightly silly village fete activities there is one incredibly important pillar of community and society that has traversed thousands of years. The Pub. A place for communities to come together, for a hearty meal, a good dance and for world-changing ideas to be dreamt up at the table and (probably) swiftly forgotten by the next morning. Headlines have come and gone proclaiming the latest existential threat to this bastion of civilisation: the drink drive limit, off licences, letting children in, the indoor smoking ban, Tim Martin, lockdowns aplenty and despite some of these threats being more credible than others, it has tragically been reported that around two pubs are closing their doors every day. However, there is a plague threatening the very fabric of what pubs we still have left…
For the greater good of society we took a break from pints, pies and pickled eggs and pretty much
everything else during the pandemic and we learnt to keep our distance from one another, queuing a few
paces apart and often in long snaking lines around supermarkets and such, and this was indeed necessary in the pub at one point, but it must stop now. Bars are long (or wide, depending on your perspective) and normally staffed by a handful of people who have the freedom to roam from point to point (or pint to pint, if you will) to reach the taps, bottles and glasses they need. What on God’s green Earth, then, possesses people to stand in a single file queue? Bar etiquette is an art form in itself, get your elbows out, get in, eye contact with the bartender, give a nod or a knowing smile, not too enthusiastic though, maybe a little laugh and joke with your fellow thirsty revellers to show how casual and fun you are (even though really they’re your sworn enemy, all that stands between you and your pint and pork scratchings): it is all a crucial part of the pub experience, and we all have a duty not to let it die, keep the good tradition alive.

For heaven’s sake, please, stop queuing.