Britain's Moral Decline
Peter Watt argues that John Major was onto something with his "Back to Basics" campaign, if only he had sold it properly it could have been a success.
6 Feb 2012, 10:30
Back to Basics with John Major
With the hindsight of nearly 19 years, I have come to the conclusion that John Major was in fact onto something with his much maligned ‘back to basics’ campaign. You will recall that his administration was struggling only year after winning an election. Black Wednesday (something our current PM will remember well) had rocked the Government to the core. Back to basics was an attempt to re-launch with a values based concentration on the issues that mattered most to voters like law and order, education and the importance of family. Of course at the time it all went horribly wrong as a succession of his Governmental colleagues proved that they hadn’t read the script. Financial and sexual scandals from within the ranks of his Government lead to mockery and charges of hypocrisy. And of course we now know that the then Prime Minister himself was also not immune from temptation.
But at its heart there was an attempt to ally his Government with the strong sense that many voters had of a Country that had lost its sense of morality. A sense that communities were becoming fractured. A sense that the duties we had to each other were being lost. And, a sense that many of the informal societal institutions that acted as social glue were being neglected. He may have been ridiculed for his imagery of warm beer and cricket and for his focus on ‘morality’ when so many of around him were bonking for Britain. But I think that in essence he was right. Subsequently, Tony Blair had his ‘moral purpose’ and Gordon Brown talked of his ‘moral compass’. More recently, analysis provided by Red Toryism and Blue Labour have influenced David Cameron and Ed Miliband’s respective values based approaches to their personal politics.
So clearly, most political leaders seem to feel that there is a need to address the issue of morality in some shape or form. They might couch this in terms of tradition and reassurance; of personal duty or perhaps of rights and responsibility. But they never seem to quite get it right somehow. I suspect that voters find being lectured on morality by politicians a little ironic. But that doesn’t mean that it is still not a wholly necessary part of any successful political appeal. Because there is undoubtedly a sense for many people that life is a just a bit more uncertain than it used to be. It’s not just the economic situation; in fact it predates the current crisis. I think that it stems from a sense of a world that seems to be changing ever quicker so that change becomes a constant. From a sense that people’s lives seem evermore remote from those around them and that there is less and less that can be seen as stable. Pubs are closing, Woolworths closed, our children seem to talk a different language and the internet is making face-to-face connections less and less necessary. And people just somehow seem to be less warm to one another, less friendly and often more hostile.
One of the enduring memories of last year’s riots was the clean-up at Clapham Junction. It was the spontaneous coming together of local people to reclaim their streets. Whilst the riots emphasized the fears of many that significant numbers of people were selfish and out of control, the clean-up was a welcome contrast. After all, we have all been intimidated by people who seem to think that they and their needs are somehow more important than anyone else’s. Or have been horrified by people’s inability to recognise someone else’s needs. For instance, every morning for the last four months there has been an increasingly pregnant woman who has been getting on my train every morning. She not only looked pregnant but was wearing a ‘Baby on Board’ badge just in case it wasn’t obvious enough. And every morning she would stand and fellow passengers would studiously pretend that she wasn’t there. Anything rather than give her a seat. I did however, as did one or two others, whilst giving the nearest passengers to her who should by rights have stood up our most disgusted looks.
And this low level sense of a growing lack of doing the right thing is something that many will recognise. And it is this which is a potentially rich seam for any politician to mine. If you can capture this, articulate it and thereby connect with people’s fears then you will be more successful electorally. But as John Major found to his cost it is easier to discuss in a strategy meeting than to successfully implement as a winning strategy. Big Society hasn’t yet connected morally or otherwise. Predator Capitalists or distinctions between good and bad capitalism hasn’t yet captured the public mood. Both though are attempts to tap into this potentially politically rich seam of public morality.
Because the truth is that politicians cannot afford to ignore people’s sense of morality. It gives a context to the way that they interpret the world. It is a key part of the prism through which they judge the statements and actions of politicians. It may well be that all attempts to connect morally by politicians are doomed to fail, but any politician who attempts to connect without an eye on votes sense of morality will surely fail sooner.
John Major’s ‘Back to Basics’ is now ridiculed. It doesn’t mean though that his broad thrust wasn’t right. It just means that it was very badly executed. David Cameron and Ed Miliband would be wise to take note.
Comments (9)
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I happened to see John Major on the Andrew Marr show over the weekend. He was there to talk about the Queen/Jubilee year etc.
06/02/2012 11:18He came over as a thoroughly decent fellow. I think he was given an unnecesarily rough ride when P.M.
The main problem with 'back to basics' is the word 'back'.
06/02/2012 11:21Like all politicians when they talk about morality, they are referring to some mythical golden age (warm beer, cycling nuns etc) when we knew what was right and wrong and, more importantly, we had better morality than now. This is a) historical nonsense b) bad politics because it insults everyone's morality now c) bad politics because it bases policy on a fallacy and d) bad politics because it doesn't go with the grain of structural change in society.
People are just as moral today as they were 50 years ago, as you point out with your example of the riots clean up.
We are much less tolerant of violence and much more tolerant of diversity (sexual, racial etc).
I don't want morality to go 'back' and I don't want it to be more 'basic' either.
So I am afraid that while Major was a much-under-rated politician and (initially at least) a very liberal conservative, the whole 'back to basics' slogan and campaign was bad politics and politically wrong.
There is also of course the ongoing historical debate over whether Back to Basics was meant to be a moral crusade at all. Some argue not, but that it got turned into one by the Lobby thanks to a mishandled press briefing by Major's then press officer, Tim Collins (later an MP.)
I'm broadly in agreement with what Charlie Beckett says here, but it's not always right to say that people don't want to 'go back.' During the last election campaign, Labour had to scrap an ad campaign featuring David Cameron as Gene Hunt astride his Audi Quattro with the caption 'Don't Let Him Take Britain Back to 80s.' They found their focus groups were telling them that (a) they were better off in the 1980s, and would quite like to go back there if they could, and (b) they thought Gene Hunt was quite cool.
06/02/2012 11:38Charlie and Paul, I agree with you both pretty much. Back to Basics was a moral campaign (even if it became one in error Paul) and it is on the need for a moral dimension in politics that I think John Major was right on this rather than the specifics of that campaign.
06/02/2012 11:47The sad thing is, I would say "back to basics" describes exactly what the Government *should* be doing right now - and nothing to do with morality. Rather, it should be rethinking and redefining its role, which has suffered from extensive and expensive mission creep in recent decades, and focussing on things which are actually necessary.
We need national defence, law enforcement, courts, prisons. We need people trained and equipped to deal with fires and road accidents - though it's a shame we don't have more volunteers, like the US has (71% of their firefighters being volunteers). Do we need DFID, though, begging countries to accept aid they don't even want? A Dome? Patients waiting longer for treatment of actual ailments because resources have gone on cosmetic or fertility procedures instead? Paying someone five figures to encourage him to generate four figures worth of electricity for his own use? Paid advertising nagging us all to eat an arbitrary number of pieces of fruit - then paying trading standards to fine companies which repeat that advice?
Morality - well, a regime doing that lot really isn't in a position to be taken seriously when it preaches at others. I'd like it to stop stealing and lying to us; if I choose to have an affair, what business is it of some politician even if they aren't doing it themselves?
06/02/2012 15:56I think that Charlie pinpointed one of the main reasons that "Back to Basics" was a good idea let down with its construction - in esscence it harked back to a Britain that didn't really exist, while trying to talk to a Britain that no longer exists. This is even more true now.
I'm sure that Tim Collins wasn't the only person to misrepresent "Back to Basic's", after all wasn't Peter Lilley's infamous "Single Mothers" speech also delivered at roughly the same time?
06/02/2012 20:22Lets see:
Anthony Eden: Lied about his health .. He should have resigned as PM as it affected his judgement.
Profumo: Nuff said.
Stonehouse: faked his own suicide.
Lloyd George: sold peerages . Randy old goat.
Going back further:
Gladstone : prostitutes
Castelreagh/Canning : duel when PM
Moral standards have been in decline since the 18th cemtury
07/02/2012 10:47Well i don't want to get into some sort of sociologists debate.
07/02/2012 15:41But i was born in the fifties and my lifetime experience tells me the society i grew up in was far more moral than the equivalent society today.
It seems to me that in the past, there was less diversity in society which made it very much easier for people to decide which 'tribe' they belonged in and thereby owe it some form of allegiance through accepted behaviour patterns.
Since now there is so much diversity in the world many people find it much more difficult to fall into a communal model that has enough cohesion to support their loyalty. That is amply illustrated by those who have immigrated to the UK and do, for the time being, hold on to their cultural connections (the Muslim communities in particular seems to do this quite well) because it's more natural based on the societies from which they have arrive. They have a sense of belonging and a strong cultural identity.
A stable and predictable community to belong to gives one a set of morals to go with it. People are, in general, quite keen to have a herd to belong to. The problem with the modern UK society is that these herds are becoming increasingly fractured and with immigration geographic communities are becoming diluted in many parts of the country, with people left feeling adrift and disconnected from their neighbours who are 'different' from them.
Immigration has had many benefits over the years for the wider economy, but it certainly can be seen as a large contributory factor to the breakdown in society as we once knew it. You could say that people get their morals from local peer pressure. If that local peer pressure has dozens of differing moral underpinnings resulting from differing ethnic cultures, it's not surprising that people - especially city dwellers - feel like 'society' has fallen apart.
08/02/2012 01:05