At Redbridge, we’re noticing another vibe shift among ordinary voters.
Previous vibe shifts were characterised by a yawning gulf between the preoccupations of the political/media class and everyone else. The post-lockdown shift to care and compassion was one key example. Voters wanted the vulnerable in society to be well taken care of and, for the most part, this was not reflected in the preoccupations of politicians or the media.
When that shift was followed by the great news switch-off (written about here), the chasm only deepened.
Then the Voice referendum made that gap seem unbridgeable.
While the politically engaged pored over every Voice claim and counterclaim, ordinary people were bemused, confused, and then enraged: during a cost of living crisis, they felt their material concerns were completely obscured by what they saw as a culture war.
We saw the consequences of failing to bridge the interest gap at the Dunkley by-election. While the Coalition focused on the right-wing discourse of ‘dangerous foreigners’, and Labor wanted to talk Stage 3, Dunkley voters were more concerned about making ends meet - this week, not in four months’ time - as well as health, education, and housing. And in the absence of any clarity on these subjects, voters elected to essentially maintain the status quo.
Late last year, I was getting a bit worried. I wondered at the possible consequences of such wildly divergent focuses. But then, something started to change.
In one focus group comprising very young adults, a number of participants had watched the Four Corners episode about the supermarket duopoly. That made me sit up.
News avoidance has been particularly bad among young people and women of all ages. But recently, I’ve started to notice young people speaking more of current events. It’s not that they’re now subscribing to hard-copy newspapers and phoning in to Ray Hadley. But they’re definitely more engaged.
Meanwhile, across cohorts, people are coalescing around questioning wealth distribution in this country. Where, in the past, there were amorphous calls for bold structural reform to replace pointless “bandaid solutions” to big problems, now things are put in far more concrete terms.
There are unironic calls to “tax the rich”; to do something about runaway privatisation and what they see as the inevitable rorting and profiteering that takes place when business is incentivised to make a buck off government.
Whereas before, almost all participants across cohorts saw runaway house prices as almost an act of God, they are now far more willing to attribute them to a broken system that is propped up by self-interested politicians.
This is either because they view those politicians as getting tax revenue from the current set-up. Or, and perhaps more intriguingly, because some are now talking about how politicians are disproportionately property investors themselves.
What has not changed, is the firm consensus that our politicians are motivated by self-interest; but now, that belief has been sharpened by this link to politicians’ property interests.
Another critical feature of this vibe shift is who the emerging in-groups and out-groups seem to be - again, across cohorts.
Participants distinguish between those on very good salaries who do not enjoy intergenerational wealth, and the genuinely wealthy. They also distinguish between the former and big corporates or the political class.
There is a real hunger for social connection and social cohesion - and there has been for a while. But that’s now manifesting in participants making clear that they do not begrudge someone on a couple of hundred grand a year who was not born to rich parents earning a good wage. In fact, most really dislike anything that feels like punching sideways against such people because they are seen as part of the in-group.
And participants really don’t like anything they perceive as punching down, because that initial vibe shift of care and compassion has not dissipated. There is the sense of ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ that has stayed with people since the lockdowns. The vulnerable are now part of their in-group as well.
Participants do, however, have a major problem with those who have genuine economic and political power. In their view, this is a class that has well and truly rigged the system against them and the people they care about. They want serious reform of this system and they want it now.
And what’s also new, is that all of this is being reflected in The Discourse - it’s what all of us in politics and the media are now focusing on.
We’re all talking about housing, corporate price gouging, and taxing wealth. We’re all pondering Norway taxing its resources and using the revenue to subsidise higher education and social housing.
While Yanis Varoufakis discussed a lot of these subjects at the NPC, the Business Council is wondering how to put some distance between decision-makers and the popular will. I think they, too, sense a vibe shift, and that it may not be one that perfectly aligns with their interests.