COVID, inflation, and internal drama – both Democrats and Tories faced the same stark issues before losing
While the UK and US elections appear on the face of it worlds apart, a closer look shows both losing governments had almost exactly the same problems.
On the face of it, there are few similarities between the UK election and the US election.
One produced a left-of-centre government intent on tax rises; the other a right-of-centre administration hell-bent on big tax cuts.
One produced a cautious, rather dull lawyer as leader; the other, a political showman turned astute political operator.
One a dour pragmatist, the other a brash populist.
But look closer and the similarities are stark. Both existing governments were dealing with almost exactly the same problems.
Firstly, the hangover from a once-in-a-100-years catastrophe that blew budgets, found health systems wanting, killed enormous numbers of people and rocked the confidence of the people.
COVID was a disaster for governments the world over. It wasn’t enough to say “we got the vaccines out there”. Too many people had already died.
It wasn’t enough either to say we spent billions helping people and businesses out. Millions of jobs were gone, massive spending continued, interest rates fell and inflation soared.
And secondly, look at the politics in both countries. Both ruling parties became consumed in their own way by utter madness.
In the UK, the Tories turned inward, obsessed about illegal immigration and how to deal with it and ran through four prime ministers in about three years.
In the US, the Democrats – also obsessing about illegal immigration and how to deal with it – crammed their leadership madness into about 10 minutes.
Eighty-one-year-old Joe Biden, who had suggested he’d only do one term, decided he would run again only for it all to fall apart in that debate in June. Cue utter panic.
By the end of July, he’d gone. By early August, Kamala Harris had replaced him – and to anyone paying attention, it was clear it was all doomed.
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One hundred days is not enough to even introduce yourself to the American people, let alone persuade them to like you enough to vote for you.
Peak Harris lasted about one heady week in August. Peak Trump is set for eight years.
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So, COVID, inflation, and ruling parties and politicians absorbed by their own self-importance. The same story in both countries.
Left, right or centre, it doesn’t matter. If that is the backdrop to the vote, you’ve had it.
And on both sides of the Atlantic, so it proved.
