Jayne Dowle: Voters like me are let down by Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn having no ideas for the future

CAN there be a more depressing spectacle than sixtysomethings Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn gritting their teeth as they attempt to find common ground? It is not just about Brexit of course, it is to prevent a potentially catastrophic general election which would destroy them both.
Theresa May on the local election campaign trail in the North West last week.Theresa May on the local election campaign trail in the North West last week.
Theresa May on the local election campaign trail in the North West last week.

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage, a stripling at just 55, heads a Brexit Party campaign which relies on evoking a sentimental version of the UK, a rose-tinted vision of dominion which never really existed.

It surprises me to realise that Farage and I would have both grown up through the punk movement, CND, Greenham Common and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

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To hear him talk, as he did at a rally in Clacton, Essex, about the North Sea belonging to the British, I wonder if he’s from the same planet, never mind the same country. In case you missed it, here’s what he said: “Half of it should be ours. Not to be shared with the Dutch or the Danes or anybody else. It’s ours. It’s our birthright.”

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is campaigning in the local elections.Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is campaigning in the local elections.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is campaigning in the local elections.

Whatever happened to the idea of the gracious elder statesman (or woman)? Rather than providing inspiring leadership and a raft of powerful ideas and solutions, these leaders look backwards when they should, in fact, be promising a brighter future rather than forcing their antediluvian world-views in our faces.

As we face local elections, European elections and the hovering prospect of a general election buzzing like a particularly bothersome fly in the background, where are the ground-breaking concepts, the bold policies and the sheer political chutzpah to engage the electorate?

You might argue that this is where Farage comes in, but his Brexit Party is just a sideshow to the main event. Not that its surging popularity does not indeed prove its own point; in polarising their own parties to such an extent, both Labour and Conservative leaders have failed to understand the motivations of their traditional supporters and left the field wide open for Farage’s return.

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It’s a political trope oft-repeated that the Leave vote was not necessarily an expression of intent, but frustration at the established political order. It’s also a cliché oft-repeated that hindsight is a wonderful thing. If only the wider high command of both Conservative and Labour had had the foresight to anticipate 2019, they might have been able to avert the democratic disaster we find ourselves living through.

In their defence, both May, 62, and Corbyn, 69, have had little choice but to direct much of their energy towards maintaining uneasy accord within their own parliamentary parties and membership. With everything polarised through the yes/no demands of the EU referendum and its repercussions, there has been precious little time for either main party to work on meaningful policy ideas.

Think back to how Tony Blair’s New Labour spent those long years in Opposition, devising a blueprint which would sweep the party to victory in 1997.

Consider too how David Cameron saw that the country liked populism and, together with George Osborne, Michael Gove and other younger reforming Tories, came up with a quite extraordinary suite of ideas.

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From rewriting GCSEs to redrawing the planning permission system, these addressed the issues which bothered ordinary people. I’m sure I remember this correctly, but even people who had never voted Tory in their lives considered giving this new, improved version of Conservatism a go.

Fast forward nine years since Cameron came to power in coalition with the Lib Dems, and here we are. In more than four decades of political awareness, I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed such a resounding lack of inspiration and considered solutions.

Some may speak of a new order of things after the next general election, with a wide coalition of parties in government, none of whom would hold a resounding majority in Westminster. I think we all know how this kind of alliance would turn out. We need an alternative.

In the interests of survival, both major parties should do two things. The first is to listen to their younger colleagues and take on board sensible suggestions which might form the basis of deliverable policies. And the second is to focus on sorting out Brexit with expediency.

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Until they do, we’re trapped between Remain and Leave like flies in amber. This crude division is destroying a two-party system which has (more or less) served us well for centuries. And it is leaving these parties stuck with leaders nobody really wants.

Our political identities have been distorted through the harshest of prisms and risk being mangled further by extremist opportunists. In the meantime, our most sensible course of action, as voters, is to make no sudden movements and dig in for the long wait.