One thing that's often missed when discussing why Sweden hasn't followed suit with the rest of Europe on lockdown is the legal dimension. The Swedish constitution does not allow for a state of emergency to be declared in peacetime, and it is unclear therefore whether general restrictions of movement could be done legally. Leaving aside the question of what effect this has had on the progression of the epidemic, it is illustrative of the enormity of the restrictions which other countries have put in place in an attempt to contain the spread of coronavirus. Perhaps even more significantly, the pandemic has led to quite fundamental shifts in what is considered the private and what is considered considered the public sphere, in what aspects of life are considered to belong purely to the domain of individual choice and which of common good.
The chief reason for this is simple. Disease control measures are not primarily about levels of exposure and the risk posed to the individual, they are about preventing viral transmission. Face masks are the most obvious example of this: they are supposed to prevent the wearer transmitting the virus, not protect the wearer themselves. The point here is that it if this is the justification, it is no good to talk about individuals being willing or unwilling to take certain risks: the costs of those risks aren't born by the person taking them.
Almost all disease control measures have at least part of this rationale built in to them: whether you are allowed to go to a large gathering isn't just about preventing you from getting infected, it's about the impact that would have on viral circulation in the general population.
This is exacerbated by the stress the pandemic puts on health care systems. The fear of hospital wards being overrun or other treatments being put on hold (as happened in the UK, most notably with cancer treatments) provides further impetus for 'risky' behaviour to be regarded as a public question, not a personal one. Think, for example, about the fact that the slogan "protect the NHS" was a core component of the mantra used to justify lockdown in the UK.
This all may well be a perfectly necessary and rational response to the situation, and will hopefully by a temporary one. But it does represent a gigantic shift in what counts as the domain of the individual and what counts as the business of wider society, in a way that under other circumstances would be quite unnerving. What you wear, where you go, who you meet up with etc etc are now all viewed as legitimate questions of public discussion, not individual choice. Indeed, even the government's new drive to promote healthy eating is framed partly in terms of personal obligation: the healthier we are, the less likely we are to overrun the healthcare system.
Such changes in the relationship of the individual to the state and wider society could surely have profound spill over effects on politics and ideology more generally. This change has gone surprisingly under the radar thus far. Many people are perhaps rightly worried about undermining what are seen as essential measures for controlling the spread of covid. Moreover, those who do talk about these changes tend to be either cranks who peddle conspiracy theories or people who make a virtue of refusing to take responsibility for others. And I don't want to claim that this necessarily represents a kind of creeping authoritarianism: perhaps these shifts in attitudes will be temporary. But the impacts could be substantial, and they are probably worth keeping an eye on.
Why do some Conservatives think they are marginalised, despite being in power?
Chris Grey notes a trope amongst right wing pundits that has been bothering me for a while. "What is fascinating is this persistent sense of victimhood. Conservatives have been in power in the UK for 10 years, have achieved Brexit, have the support of much of the media, and... [y]et, still, they claim to be marginalised." I'm sure nobody needs me to hash out yet another attempt to knock this idea down: others have already done so. What I don't think has been asked enough is why this idea is sustainable. How do some Conservatives think themselves to be marginalised when they have all this power?
One answer is simply that they are being disingenuous. No doubt some pundits are: it's pretty hard to think, as Darren Grimes claims he does, that you are being 'sidelined by [the] mainstream media' when you keep appearing on TV. Another answer is that this is ideological: that the modern right thrives on conspiratorial thinking. There is probably some truth to both of these ideas. But I don't think this is all that is going on. Even if we allowed for the existence of some straight forward charlatans, their ideas wouldn't have much mass appeal if they didn't speak to some aspect of lived experience. This is where effective propaganda tends to start.
Part of what is going on, I'd suggest, is the prevalence of progressive attitudes in certain parts of mass culture, specifically advertising and entertainment. This is firstly about economics. Brands tend to focus a disproportionate amount of their advertising effort on younger people. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, this is because they are newer consumers with less existing brand loyalty, so there is more of a prize for capturing them as loyal customers. Secondly, they play a larger role in influencing the behaviour of consumers more generally: young adults tend to set trends, and tend to influence the consumption patterns of their parents more than the other way round. Associating your brand with youthfulness is pretty much universally appealing; middle age and elderliness less so.
This means large brands will tend to focus a disproportionate amount of effort marketing themselves to younger consumers, who tend to hold more progressive attitudes. In the last general election, for example, Burger King ran adverts parodying Vote Leave (a picture of a burger on buses with the caption 'Another Whopper on a the side of a bus!') and KFC also used anti-Tory sentiment as a brand boosting exercise. More recently, a number of brands have expressed solidarity with the BLM protests, including, notably, Yorkshire Tea and PG Tips, brands hardly known for their young consumer demographic. This is no new thing: this echoes how many brands responded to the youth movements of the late '60s, as shown in this famous Coca Cola ad from 1971 (right).
It's also the case that leading figures in pop culture, like actors, comedians, musicians, tend to be more progressive. I don't claim any great insight into why this is the case, but the trend does seem undeniable. This too, is no new thing: think how many American musicians were associated, loosely or more closely, with the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam war. Academia does also skew somewhat leftwards, but this is a much less constant phenomenon, and probably has a lot to do with the right's mobilisation of anti-intellectual sentiment and the gradual increased prominence of US GOP-style anti-scientific thinking in the conservative mainstream (a number of leading figures in Vote Leave have dabbled in climate change skepticism, e.g Daniel Hannan, Douglas Carswell).
Finally, social media usage tends to skew towards younger (and generally more progressive) users. While this is most true of Snapchat and Instagram, crucially, it is true too of Twitter, which is the social media site most closely associated with political expression (figures shown below for 2019).
This skew within particular areas of popular culture might go some way to explaining why Conservatives claim to be marginalised. This is not to say they are correct in doing so: associations of brands and pop icons don't translate into power in the way that dominance of the tabloid press or holding parliamentary majorities and controlling the executive do. But it can root an angst, however irrational, in a major part of lived experience.
One answer is simply that they are being disingenuous. No doubt some pundits are: it's pretty hard to think, as Darren Grimes claims he does, that you are being 'sidelined by [the] mainstream media' when you keep appearing on TV. Another answer is that this is ideological: that the modern right thrives on conspiratorial thinking. There is probably some truth to both of these ideas. But I don't think this is all that is going on. Even if we allowed for the existence of some straight forward charlatans, their ideas wouldn't have much mass appeal if they didn't speak to some aspect of lived experience. This is where effective propaganda tends to start.
Part of what is going on, I'd suggest, is the prevalence of progressive attitudes in certain parts of mass culture, specifically advertising and entertainment. This is firstly about economics. Brands tend to focus a disproportionate amount of their advertising effort on younger people. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, this is because they are newer consumers with less existing brand loyalty, so there is more of a prize for capturing them as loyal customers. Secondly, they play a larger role in influencing the behaviour of consumers more generally: young adults tend to set trends, and tend to influence the consumption patterns of their parents more than the other way round. Associating your brand with youthfulness is pretty much universally appealing; middle age and elderliness less so.
This means large brands will tend to focus a disproportionate amount of effort marketing themselves to younger consumers, who tend to hold more progressive attitudes. In the last general election, for example, Burger King ran adverts parodying Vote Leave (a picture of a burger on buses with the caption 'Another Whopper on a the side of a bus!') and KFC also used anti-Tory sentiment as a brand boosting exercise. More recently, a number of brands have expressed solidarity with the BLM protests, including, notably, Yorkshire Tea and PG Tips, brands hardly known for their young consumer demographic. This is no new thing: this echoes how many brands responded to the youth movements of the late '60s, as shown in this famous Coca Cola ad from 1971 (right).
It's also the case that leading figures in pop culture, like actors, comedians, musicians, tend to be more progressive. I don't claim any great insight into why this is the case, but the trend does seem undeniable. This too, is no new thing: think how many American musicians were associated, loosely or more closely, with the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam war. Academia does also skew somewhat leftwards, but this is a much less constant phenomenon, and probably has a lot to do with the right's mobilisation of anti-intellectual sentiment and the gradual increased prominence of US GOP-style anti-scientific thinking in the conservative mainstream (a number of leading figures in Vote Leave have dabbled in climate change skepticism, e.g Daniel Hannan, Douglas Carswell).
Finally, social media usage tends to skew towards younger (and generally more progressive) users. While this is most true of Snapchat and Instagram, crucially, it is true too of Twitter, which is the social media site most closely associated with political expression (figures shown below for 2019).
This skew within particular areas of popular culture might go some way to explaining why Conservatives claim to be marginalised. This is not to say they are correct in doing so: associations of brands and pop icons don't translate into power in the way that dominance of the tabloid press or holding parliamentary majorities and controlling the executive do. But it can root an angst, however irrational, in a major part of lived experience.
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