READING the Sunday papers has always been one of the highlights of my week. I love nothing better than heading to a café, ordering copious amounts of coffee, scanning the front pages– yes, actual hard copies - and delving into stories that catch my eye. Normally I’m like a kid in a sweet shop as I turn down the corners of the pages and work through a reading schedule that can sometimes last the whole day.
Yesterday was different, however. As I did my initial read through, Boris Johnson’s smug coupon kept popping up as the papers reported the furore that greeted the former Foreign Secretary on his return from holiday after he wrote a crass but very carefully calibrated article comparing Muslim women who wear the burka to letterboxes and bank robbers.
Pages and pages were devoted to analysis of the fall-out from Johnson’s piece (a dog whistle to populist right-wing elements in the Tory party rather than a genuine exploration of religious dress), the secret plots already apparently under way to oust Theresa May and crown Boris/Davis/Rees-Mogg, the outrage from Muslim leaders (who are, predictably, always male), the accusations of Islamophobia, not to mention the increase in verbal and physical attacks on Muslim women whether they wear the burka or not.
Elsewhere in Sunday’s editions it was all about Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s failure to shake off allegations of antisemitism as he refuses to sign his party up to the mainstream and widely-supported definition of the term.
I grew increasingly disheartened as I ploughed on, frustrated and astounded that the UK’s two main parties would continue to allow themselves to be torn apart by issues of religious and racial identity when there are so many more pressing problems to sort out, not least the fact that the country is about to fall out of the EU and into steep economic decline. Shouldn’t voters in a modern Western democracy be able to take it as a given that those vying to lead the country are not racists and/or anti-Semites? Why have both Labour and the Conservatives allowed their zoomer elements to take over?
I gave up after half an hour and threw my pile of papers in the recycling bin, too depressed to read on, in the full knowledge that logging on to social media’s echo chambers of righteous anger, offence and grievance on both sides would only compound the feeling.
Walking home, I felt a rush of nostalgia for the politics of the 1990s, those heady days when it genuinely felt like things could only get better.
Think about it. This was a time of hope when the Berlin wall had just toppled and 9/11 was still to happen. The world, it seemed, had turned a corner.
The Tories under John Major may have been a hypocritical and by this point ridiculous spent force – remember Back to Basics? - but surely no one could accuse them of being as perniciously unfit to govern as the current lot.
Labour, meanwhile, had come through its own battles and was rebuilding under John Smith. His premiership wasn’t to be, of course, but when Tony Blair took Smith’s place he managed the rather miraculous feat of creating a consensus based on a more modern, progressive, centrist agenda that could appeal to just about everyone.
It’s not a fashionable thing to say while Blair remains such a figure of contempt following his disastrous handling of the Iraq war, but those early years of the New Labour government really were filled with action, not least on important issues such as devolution, the NHS, child poverty and peace in Northern Ireland. It was also a time of long-overdue social progress, where the bonds on gender, sexuality and race began to loosen, a more diverse range of voices started to be heard and the debate was strident but dignified. Social media was yet to be invented, so today’s offence-driven, wearisome debates around identity politics had not yet turned us off.
When you compare the divided Britain of today, the angry, increasingly bitter country whose descent into populism risks undoing some of the progress mentioned above, it’s no wonder some of us are pining for the past.
Nostalgia plays tricks on the mind, of course. Indeed, it can be a dangerous trap, one that makes us grumpy, condescending and unable to enjoy the here and now.
The 1990s spanned the most formative, intense and best-remembered years my youth, from 14 to 24, and I don’t doubt that’s one of the reasons I’m more inclined to look back to that time with fondness. We’re also more likely to recall the good things, whereas the media is filled with bad news. Twenty five years from now, Millennials may go all dewy-eyed when they think back to the golden years just before Brexit.
So, is the world getting better or worse? I honestly don’t know. How do you compare the dramatic fall in extreme poverty in developing countries over the last 25 years with the fact that Boris Johnson might become our next prime minister? Lord only knows.
One thing I do know is that in the current chaos I’d have Tony Blair back in a heartbeat.
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