Broadly speaking, there are two types of television drama: procedural drama and soap opera. The former specialize in a predictable structure with independent storylines, often set in a courtroom or police station, and usually revolving around different cases or crimes.
Networks and advertisers love serial dramas because they're great for audience retention (especially before the days of streaming and digital recording). Missing an episode of NCIS is no big deal. Conversely, serial dramas give them room to build story and develop characters over multiple episodes, or even seasons.
The defining factor in my madness – having watched hundreds of hours of the BBC's first election night coverage since February 1970 last year – was that it was more of a procedural than a soap opera. Think about it: 2001 was about public services, 2005 was Iraq, 2010 was austerity, 2017 was against Brexit, 2019 is Brexit and Boris Johnson.
Meanwhile, the 2024 election campaign has been characterised by Conservative missteps, Labour's lead in the opinion polls and the issue of taxation. There has been little time to discuss two central features of 2019: Brexit is “settled” and Johnson is not even standing for a Conservative seat.
So it was something of a throwback when Johnson endorsed several candidates on Twitter/X and, according to The Daily Telegraph, put his name on a piece of mailing aimed at stemming the tide of votes for Reform UK. For me, at least, it was a reminder that it wasn't so long ago that Johnson, in the famous (and at the time completely accurate) words of Tim Shipman of the Sunday Times, “shriveled like a giant toad in British politics”.
Conservative MPs eventually ousted Johnson from power, as the cumulative damage caused by the Partygate revelations and the Chris Pincher scandal proved to be the final straw, but he left his successor with a healthy majority in the House of Commons and a reasonably cohesive voting coalition.
If the Conservatives were as desperate to win power in 2022 as they were in 2005, they would have chosen to succeed Johnson someone with a passion for public spending and no character flaws. Instead, they chose the exact opposite in Liz Truss, who delivered unfunded tax cuts accompanied by a bond market crisis, and Rishi Sunak, whose rhetorical focus on tax cuts rather than reducing NHS waiting lists has not done much good.
Public exhaustion over Brexit and distaste for Jeremy Corbyn were the two big advantages the Conservative Party enjoyed in the 2019 election. But on finances, Johnson was the most left-leaning of the five Conservative prime ministers since 2010. Of course, he was more responsible for Brexit than anyone else, but he also supported higher spending and a net zero NHS.
He may not have had any interest at all in public service reform or policy detail, but that was another thing he told the public. Despite this blueprint, the Conservatives went into this election with very poor proposals for public services and a focus on cutting National Insurance.
This is British politics as procedural drama. If you missed the 2019 election episode (as you seem to have missed this Downing Street maneuver), it doesn't really matter. It'll still be relevant in 2024. By the time the credits roll, you may not have realised that the Conservatives had in fact found their electoral sweet spot, then abandoned it.
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