The UK election is showing that at last the population is not tied so much to dogma as to ideas.  Hoorah for that!  It in some ways reflects the more radical responses from the American and French elections wher Trump and Macron are no establishment figures.

Theresa May in UK is carefully picking her way through, firstly establishing the ‘dominant idea’ that ‘strong and stable’ leadership are key to the now non-political fact that UK is leaving the EU.  She may be completely the wrong person to actually lead the UK but the ‘dominant idea’ will prevail because she simply sticks to the simple ‘strong and stable’ rhetoric time and time again.  The average man in the street has no idea what Brexit entails, he/she has only the vaguest veiw of why they voted as they did, many of them would change their minds (both ways) if they had been better informed.

In sticking to her message Mrs May is also cleverly avoiding the thorney issues of public services particularly the NHS and Social Care.  The traditional socialist voter has been brainwashed into the ‘Strong and Stable’ camp to the complete dimishing of other key policies especially the health/social care agenda.

May is also hijacking traditional labour policies in order to apease those teetering on the brink of leaving a lifetime in labour.  She assumes a landslide victory and everyone seems to agree.  If and when she gets what we wants, we can be sure that the Brexit negotiations will be tough and unpredictable, and that the NHS/Social Care issues will not have gone away.  Strong majority and stable Tory government will then revert to its usual mode of ancient v modern arguments and quite likely water down the ‘leftist’ workers rights proposals in the Conservative manifesto.

The consequent mood in parliament will therefore be much more radical with the internal strife or perhaps innovative thinking in the Tory ranks being as bitter as ever but the ground will shift toward the centre.  The left will be all but eliminated and no doubt we shall see a resurgence of the centre left by either the Lib-dems or maybe even a new grouping.

The Scots in the meantime have also fallen for the ‘strong and stable’ mantra and will, I have no doubt, return more Tories to the fold.

Let’s hope that Mrs May really is ‘Strong and Stable’ in government but let’s hope that she is more flexible and imaginative as well.