Is He Sniffing the Winds?

A reflection on the last decade in Western democracies:

In the USA, the Trump revolution that has all but killed the old GOP.
A lower-key and, to date, less obvious change in the Democrat Party, as old-time commies like Bernie Sanders have seen their far left hopes soar with the arrival of the likes of AOC and Zohran Mandami.
Brexit in 2016.
A British Tory government that, after the agonistes of Theresa May, saw Boris Johnson grasp the nettle, campaign on getting Brexit done, win a landslide – and then piss it all away to the WEF beliefs he never gave up in his heart.
The slow collapse of the last centrist hope in France, as the supporters of Macron realise that the forces of LePenn cannot be denied for much longer.
The growth of the AfD party in Germany, forcing its opponents to sacrifice every “principle” they ever had to join together and keep the AfD from power, a tactic that – like Macron in France – has simply seen them grow more powerful.
Similar stories in the rest of the EU, where even leftist parties have slowly yielded to reality on 1980’s lefty hatefests like nuclear power (Sweden, Denmark, Finland) and immigration (all of them now – even Germany).
The destruction of the Tories in a landslide loss to Labour in 2024, simply because their voters stayed home while Labour got 34 per cent of the vote – and completely misinterpreted what it meant.
The latest, catastrophic loss of power to the new Reform Party – itself born out of Brexit, with its favourite son, Nigel Farage, at the helm – in the most recent local council elections. (As of May 13, Reform have won 1,453 seats, increasing from two – a 72550 per cent improvement.)

As a result I was more than a little intrigued by this recent post from DPF over at Kiwiblog, Why a grand coalition is a terrible idea.

He dismisses it for the simple reason that such things never work, and he lists the various failures in such efforts: Germany (38 per cent for the two main parties); Austria, 38 per cent; Netherlands, 40 per cent; Ireland 34 per cent.

It’s a good point, but I’m reminded of the fact that in Anglo history, there is at least one example of a grand coalition that did not lead to the destruction of the two main parties, and this in the midst of an economic catastrophe: the Slump of the early 1930s.

It’s often forgotten that there was a British Labour-Tory coalition in the early 1930s, so there is precedent for all of this. All it takes is desperation for political power and fear of alternatives.

The joke at the moment across the Western democracies is that you’re often seeing coalitions in all but name via the so-called “uni-party” where parties simply exchange power but maintain the same overall policies.

That’s what driving the Reform movement in Britain at the moment, and AfD in Germany, and smaller versions in a number of the EU nations. People have had a gutsful of their votes changing nothing in their lives.

Which does make me wonder about DPF’s post. Has his sensitive antennae detected something in the Wellington winds?

This article was originally published by No Minister.