How the electoral duopoly works in practice.

A review of last night’s Sunak vs. Starmer debate.

By Alan Story

My son Jasper is an economist. Ask him “WHAT IS A DUOPOLY?” and he will give an answer very similar to the one that Chat GBT gave me after just after the Keir Starmer vs. Rishi Sunak debate – the first one of a number --- concluded on TV last night.  

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A duopoly is a type of market structure characterised by the presence of only two dominant firms or companies that control the majority of market share for a specific product or service.

In a duopoly, these two firms often compete with each other while also collaborating to maintain their market power, leading to a delicate balance between cooperation and competition.

Due to the limited number of significant players in the market, a duopoly can result in various strategic behaviours such as price-fixing, collusion, or intense competition…

The presence of a duopoly can have significant implications for consumers, as it may limit choices, reduce innovation, and potentially lead to higher prices compared to more competitive market structures...

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This description of how a duopoly works under capitalism is also a pretty accurate description of how our broken electoral system and its two-party monopoly operates.  

A TERRIFIC DEAL FOR THE “DUOPOLISTS”  

The bottom line? A terrific deal for the “duopolists”, Labour and the Tories.  As for the rest us, well, got a few hours?

In brief it means:

++ Labour and the Tories are the only parties to have won UK general elections in the past 100 years. I hoped you are not too brain-washed to think it is because they have the best ideas. The same duopoly exists in Canada and United States. No party except its own “big two” has triumphed in Canada since the country was formed in 1867.  South of the border in the land of the Stars and Stripes, no party except the Democrats and the Republicans has won the presidency or controlled its Congress since the 1850s when America was a land of slavery and when Donald Trump would tell us that it was REALLY GREAT.  All three countries use the archaic and undemocratic first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system.

++ A poll out this week predicts Labour will win 44% of the overall vote on 4 July, but swoop more than 65% of the seats in Parliament. In 2019, the Tories got 44% of the overall vote and won 56% of the seats. No wonder both parties like essentially the same FPTP electoral system used in the election of --- wait for it ---1885

++ Earlier this week, the Electoral Reform Society told us that “ incredibly, 247 seats [ of 650 seats] have been held by the same party for 50 years or more” and “of these, a shocking 111 seats have been held by the same party for 100 years or more.” Yes, from way back in the GREAT days in the UK when women could not vote.

We saw this duopoly at work in Tuesday’s ITV debate. With an air of total certainty and arrogance, Sunak said near the start of the debate that, on 5 July, only he or Starmer would be the Prime Minister. He repeated the same statement later on.

Both times he said it in the same tone of voice as someone would say: “I am 100% certain the sun will rise tomorrow.”

In other words, the results of our electoral duopoly are supposedly a fact of nature. Can you imagine a football commentator pronouncing that only one of two football teams, Arsenal and Manchester City, will be able to win the premiership next year? Our electoral system is simply rigged.        

Matt Phypers / GET PR DONE!

BUT MORE THAN MERE PROCESS IS AT STAKE 

On many issues, the two parties take essentially the same point of view. While Starmer and the news media repeatedly say this election is about a “choice”, that choice is within an ideological preference dictated by a Daily Mail-ish frame of reference. And much more than the type of voting system we use explains this.

With Nigel Farage re-joining the electoral sweepstakes as leader again of the Reform  Party, Sunak will be tilting even further right in his policy pronouncements in coming weeks. As for Starmer, one of his main campaign objectives is winning back ex-Labour voters, such as the fabled “Red Wallers”.

And while there are now literally millions of “left of Labour” voters, there is no serious and credible mass socialist party for which to vote. (What about George Galloway’s so-called “Workers Party”? you may ask. I said “serious and credible”; read THE LEFT LANE’s three-part series of February 2024 on his outfit.)

So yes, the two party leaders scrapped and snarled at each other last night. But on so many important issues, they are cut from the same small-c and big-C conservative cloth.

THE TWO PARTIES ARE IN COLLISION WITH THE OTHER.

Starmer and Sunak are --- and were again last night – in cahoots with one another. I don’t mean that in a conspiratorial sense. Rather, they are ideological soul mates.

Here are a few examples of burning issues that were NOT raised last night:   

++ Starmer did not say to Sunak: “Stop privatising the NHS” (Why? Because if Labour form the next government, Starmer and Wes Streeting, his shadow health secretary, have their own “privatise the NHS” agenda.)  

++ Sunak did not challenge Starmer by saying: “Hey, Keir, why doesn’t Labour do something about child poverty?” (Because Labour endorses the Tory’s 2017 two-child benefit cap, which, if removed, would lift 250,000 children across the UK out of poverty, according to the End Child Poverty Coalition.)

++ Starmer did not ask Sunak: “why doesn’t the UK government challenge Israel’s outrageous policy of genocide in Gaza which has resulted in the death of more than 40,000 Palestinians? “ (Because Starmer and Sunak have marched in lock-step with Joe Biden on the Gaza issue for months. Tellingly, host Julie Etchingham and two politicians skipped through the world’s leading crisis of today in less than 90 seconds and the latter two were not at all tetchy with one another on this issue as they were about almost every other one. Why would they be? Both are complicit by their virtual silence.)

++ And of course Sunak never questioned Starmer with the words: “Mr. PM-in-waiting. Have you ever thought of being a democrat and acting on a decision of your own party at its September 2022 conference in Liverpool that the introduction of proportional representation (PR) voting should be included in Labour’s manifesto at the next general election?” (Because that would end their cosy duopoly and who, except most voters, wants that. PR is hardly a radical or obscure idea; more than 90 countries use it for their elections. )

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Minutes after the debate was over, this image was flashed across social media.

Who knows? In fact, who cares?

I don’t know how you feel about last night’s debate; use the comment s box below. I know how I feel. Neither Sunak nor Starmer was speaking for me.

This so-called “debate” was what they call, stateside, a “dog and pony show”… meaning a flashy and hyped-up but shallow and shifty side show.

It was a nocturnal “Prime Minister’s Questions” on steroids between the current PM and a man who wants to be the next PM. I will sit out the next ones.

CHECK THIS OUT 

1) Meanwhile on the Gaza beat ….

Tuesday 4 June was another day of lies by Biden and Netanyahu.   

Aljazerra was reporting late on 3 June:  

“Six-week ceasefire plan

The latest US-proposed deal begins with a six-week complete ceasefire that would see Israeli forces withdraw from all populated areas of Gaza, where famine has already taken hold in parts of the north.

Although Israel’s war cabinet has convened to discuss the proposal, it remains unclear whether they are on board.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu views the plan as “partial”, a government spokesman said earlier on Monday….

Netanyahu, in a separate statement issued by his office, said that “claims that we have agreed to a ceasefire without our conditions being met are incorrect”.

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INSIDE STORY, the often-excellent AJ programme , explained the politics and subtle aspects of this cynically- formulated plan on 3 June.

REMEMBER:

2)  Speaking of wars and weaponry ….  

The need to put an end to the arms trade is now more important than ever. And not only the flow of weaponry to and from Israel.

The very active activist group “CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE ARMS TRADE” (CAAT) is this year celebrating --- if that is the proper word --- its 50th anniversary. CATT “was founded in 1974 in the wake of a war in the Middle East involving Israel. So, some things haven’t changed…” it notes.

On Wednesday 19 June at 6:30 in London it will be holding a talk titled “Campaign Against Arms Trade at 50: Resistance to the arms trade”. It will be given by Dr. Sam Perlo-Freeman, CATT’s research director.

The talk sounds very topical as Sam’s focus is on UK arms exports and the “political influence of the arms industry on UK government policy.”

For more details and how to get free tickets for this 19 June event, click here.    

3) My first --- and very safe --- election prediction.

The Greens will not do very well in the Sheffield Central constituency after they made a totals balls-up of the nomination of their candidate (who was chosen in September 2022) and selected a replacement candidate last week.   

THE LEFT LANE story of “The Sad Saga of Sheffield Green Alison Teal” published a week ago was the second–most read piece here since TLL began in January 2020. Here is a brief follow-up piece on the protest outside the Sheff GP meet of 29 May.  

 4) We need some lighter news.

And who better to give it to us than “our one and only” Laura K?

Here is my nomination (again) for “the top parodist of 2024” on the subject: “Nigel Farage miraculously survives brutal milkshake attack: We nearly lost a legend today. “ Read it here and do think about becoming a paid subscriber to Laura’s fine and very regular columns.

She does need the money. She will never get a job in the mainstream media writing this kind of irreverent copy.

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Edited by Alan Story, The Left Lane is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:  http://theleftlane2024.substack.com/subscribe

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