<
https://theconversation.com/grieving-and-unheard-the-british-public-has-voted-for-change-in-weariness-more-than-in-hope-233990>
"In every election campaign, there is a contrast between the incessantly
reinforced narratives of political leaders and the media, and the popular mood
that simmers below the surface.
In 2024, this gap came to define the election. Much of what really mattered to
voters lay in what was deeply felt, yet was only present as a nagging, niggling
sense of complaint from the sidelines of the formal political arena.
Difficult to define, the concept of “political mood” refers to thoughts and
feelings that emerge in response to our experience of being in the world.
People do not decide to adopt a political mood; the mood adopts them. It is a
feeling of being caught up in something that is both overwhelming and
undefined.
How can the mood of the 2024 UK election best be described? This was an
election in which what remained unsaid weighed more heavily than what was
spoken. In the years leading up to the vote, the public services that people
had come to depend upon were left to fall apart. A gradual mood of shocked loss
emerged along the way, and voters sought big solutions.
From the loss of access to GPs and dentists to the absence of textbooks in
their children’s schools, to the reliance of working families on food banks to
feed their kids, this was the first electorate in generations to be voting
with an expectation that their lives would be materially worse than their
parents’.
As they pleaded for people’s votes, politicians seemed unable to fully grasp
the psychic consequences of this loss. In the case of the Tories, this was
because they were widely regarded as being responsible for presiding with moral
indifference over the wreckage of the UK’s social infrastructure. Labour
politicians, meanwhile, bound by a self-imposed fiscal dogma, resisted any
demand for radical regeneration as if it were an act of economic heresy. Never
in living memory has there been an election in which voters were offered so
little to look forward to."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
