(Churchill’s phrase, of course, for his bouts of depression.) OK, I’m depressed. But just now that seems normal to me. In fact I can’t understand why anyone isn’t depressed these days. (That may just show how depressed I am.)
Here in the UK it surely shouldn’t be so. We’ve recently had what ought to have been an encouraging general election (for us Lefties), bucking what seemed to be a general European Right-wing trend at the time, and restoring the Labour party to government after fourteen and a half years. As a result there are some promising things on the political menu now, for us to dine on over the next five (or ten?) years.
But on the other hand, we’re all aware that Labour’s huge election victory was achieved on the back of a minority (just 33 per cent) of the popular vote, which nonetheless gave it 62 per cent majority in the House of Commons. That seems pretty flimsy, and so maybe not to be relied upon.
This could act to the detriment of Britain’s political system generally, further undermining the popular trust that the Tories had squandered so extraordinarily over the past five years: Brexit, Boris, Liz, ‘Partygate’ and all the rest. It certainly adds grist to the mill of Britain’s new main Right-wing party, ‘Reform’; which suffered more than most from Britain’s electoral system – 14% of the vote delivering minus one per cent of MPs – which will have exacerbated its burning resentment against the whole ‘democratic’ system. The Tories may be down and out for now; but that’s no guarantee that the Right won’t raise its bloody head again, via either Reform, if it lasts; or a ‘Reformed’ – in ‘Reform’s’ image – Conservative party. The present leadership contenders in the Tory party don’t seem to have a decent ‘one-nation’ and liberal candidate among them. And the global tendency just now – certainly in the USA and most of Europe – seems to favour what I would call at least ‘proto’ fascism.
That’s a description that could also be applied to the major tendencies and actors in the Middle East, Saharan Africa and central Asia; all of them terrifying to ‘woke’ liberal folk like me. Gaza, Lebanon and Ukraine are of course our main worries; all with extreme nationalism – and even blatant neo-Fascism – playing a major part. Obviously from our tiny (British) islands we can do nothing about these international horrors, apart from – possibly – denying Netanyahu some arms.
But there’s danger at home too. Yesterday the head of MI5 warned us all of the ‘sustained mayhem’ that Putin was currently fostering, by cyber warfare, in Britain and other ‘western’ countries (see https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8e15yr1gwo); together with threats from Iran, and (and this is fairly new, coming from an intelligence boss: see my Plots and Paranoia, 1989), from the ‘extreme Right’.
These are terrible times. So I’m depressed. Why aren’t you?
Porter’s Pensées 
I’m very sorry to read how you feel. I take it that it’s not just political, but obviously an online blog isn’t the right forum to ask or answer, and I only “know” you through the blog.
I hope there are people around you that you can talk to and that there are aspects of life outside politics that you can enjoy.
I wouldn’t presume to know the answer to how you’re feeling, but since you ask for a response, let me try, however irrelevant what follows may be.
I can remember in the eighties when cruise missiles and nuclear tensions dominated the headlines, feeling really, seriously depressed, even though I was active in the peace movement. Obviously, the world didn’t end, and some things even got better (end of the Cold War, end of apartheid). But in any case, from a political point of view, my feeling down didn’t help make the world any better. Maybe deep down my feelings had personal, rather than political roots.
Anyway, I think the Pankaj Mishra article I posted is really getting at the sense of disorientation that we in the West feel: this is what it is like to live in a world where the political tectonic plates are shifting. But I think his message is also that this story isn’t just about us; indeed, for all of my life people have suffered in ways I can’t imagine in other parts of the world. But again, some things do get better:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hans+rosling+statistics
I don’t know whether you read novels much; history can eat up the hours, I know. Have you read any William Boyd? His protagonists are hapless characters, smiled on and frowned on by fate. Such happiness as they find is private, personal and fragile. Success is always provisional; life is a cosmic joke, and the joke is on us. But once you accept that, the guilt lifts and the fleeting happiness is all the more precious. I’d recommend “Any Human Heart”.
Of course, that sort of humane tolerance is alien to the sort of political animal who used to dominate leftist committee meetings in the seventies and eighties; always on the lookout for class traitors, always trying to make you feel you could make a greater personal sacrifice for the cause. Well, I once stood on a picket line with one of these revolutionary warriors. As the police closed in, he buggered off. Turned out he had a job at a public school and didn’t want to jeopardise it. It was apparently all perfectly consistent with his principles because he was turning upper-class money to Marxist ends. You could despair, but I think Boyd would laugh.
I think it’s a bit early to judge the Labour government, I think the majority of Reform voters are sadly anti-migrant but not instinctively anti-democratic, and I’m sure it’s possible to swim against the current:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/09/pedro-sanchez-unveils-plans-to-make-it-easier-for-migrants-to-settle-in-spain
I hope you find some escape from all the bad news and can enjoy the usual consolations. Very best wishes.
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Many thanks. I went through the eighties too, in the Anti-Apartheid movement and CND; and I recognise a lot of what you say. What I’m lacking today however is the glimmer of HOPE that shone through all the fear that stalked then, which I simply can’t see now. But it could of course be personal too: old age, a pretty worn-out body, and exile.
I’ve been meaning to read William Boyd. I’ll start now. Thanks for the tip.
All the very best, Bernard.
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