Greggs sausage rolls, XL bullies, “cheeky” Tesco runs and a holibob to Magaluf: welcome to Keir Starmer’s miserable meal-deal Britain. This summer’s collective swoon over “Britishcore” — a wry celebration of the groaningly mundane aspects of British culture, which reached its nadir last week with a Guardian listicle — perfectly captures the cynicism which has come to define the early days of the new Labour Government. Gone is the hope of Tony Blair’s Cool Britannia; gloom is in, and our country’s leadership is as cheerful as a wet weekend.
Despite Starmer’s insistence at Labour conference that “the politics of hope is ours”, the pervading mood was one of trepidation. During his speech, he emphasised the hard times ahead, defensively dismissing protest as “mere glitter on a shirt”, in a sly reference to a stage invader who last year lobbed sparkles at him during the same event. But might that glittery shirt represent some of the dash, some of the razzle-dazzle, that Starmer’s government and the nation at large so sorely lack?
Earlier this month, a “trends specialist” for TikTok described “an explosion of British pop culture on the global stage”. Sparked by the success of Charli XCX, the Oasis reunion and the popularity of B&M-frequenting microinfluencers, Britishcore is an improbable international fetish for comfortable mediocrity, an opportunity for the terminally online to cleave to a vanishing sense of community through grunting about the dwindling size of Freddos. And there is an in-built sense of nostalgia, of reassurance in joking about the same bands, biscuits and television shows — Balamory is another New Labour-era revenant — that were around during a time of genuine prosperity and hope.
The critical trigger of Britishcore was Brat, Charli XCX’s year-defining hyperpop album, which did away with the aspirational, romantic affectations of American pop (see Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter) in favour of sulkily Estuary-accented lyrics about “sweat marks on my clothes”. The UK charts have long loved grit — Mike Skinner was on about “sex, drugs and on the dole” 22 years ago — but now American influencers, from the land of gloss and polish, want a slice of the stale Victoria sponge. Unlikely as it seems, Yanks are yearning for the Morrison’s salad bar, the delights of Home Bargains and the opportunity to wear the shirt of an underperforming provincial football team. It should be considered depressing that the cultural thrust of our hobbled kingdom is now relying on exporting ironic “icons” of shitness; if all we can offer is steak bakes and songs about chlamydia, let the tanks roll in.
If Britishcore rests on a principle of charming shitness — the vibe equivalent of a cheese-and-pineapple hedgehog at a children’s birthday party — then our politics at least has one of those qualities down pat. Shunning the cheeriness of freshly minted New Labour, Starmer and his Cabinet have spent their first months in power driving home the message that we are approaching an abyss. We’re told that every pillar of the state — policing, prisons, healthcare, education — is in terrible disrepair. Instead of signalling optimism and soft power, the message of Britishcore and its contingent Labour government is misery; a nation in unstoppable decline.
A case in point: this year’s Labour Party conference was infected by a glum keep-cautious-and-carry-on attitude, with both Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves using their speeches to emphasise the “broken” state of the country. Rayner’s opening speech was the clearest indication yet that this was no 1997: rather than centring on a hopeful vision of the future, it bitterly clung to Conservative crimes with dig after dig at “the lies, division, scapegoating, and the unfunded tax cuts”.
But most telling of all were Rayner’s “jokes”, prompting ripples of forced laughter. They included, most memorably, a jab at Kemi Badenoch for falling foul of the actor David Tennant over gender legislation, a gag which I am willing to assume was written by a large-language model trained on insipid BBC-core jokes: “It was bad enough when they wanted to deal with Farage. Now she’s doing side deals with the Daleks.”
Meanwhile, at the Reform UK conference in Birmingham, not even a frisson of fascism was enough to lift the mood: Ann Widdecombe, another Nineties throwback, launched into a diatribe about setting up heavily euphemistic “secure reception centres” for migrants. Elsewhere, Ant Middleton, SAS: Who Dares Wins hardman and convicted policeman-batterer, warned of (threatened?) “civil unrest” if the British identity continues to be “trampled all over”.
On every side of the spectrum, the message seems to be the same: this is going to hurt. This is probably why the tide is now turning on Britishcore. There was a collective yak last week at the Guardian’s 100 examples of naff “Britishness”, suggesting that the Dave channel vision of “witty banter” has finally been recognised for the cringe onanism it is.
And yet, as a cultural moment, Britishcore deserves more than just ridicule. It should be seen as an attempt to gather around something at a time of unprecedented disunity, following a summer that grumbled along with thwarted footballing glories and finally boiled over with racist riots. The Radio X-ification of pub patter shows that, in an era of division and decline, we yearn for a simple and unthreatening vision of nationhood — one in which mimicking catchphrases from Eastenders or repeating viral X Factor auditions is a sufficient stand-in for wit or identity. At a time when the Tory leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick is trying to start an attention-seeking culture war by claiming that unchecked migration is putting the “very idea of England at risk”, simultaneous online discourses around national identity — at least, British identity — seem to want us to believe that it’s all just about misery and chips.
Of course, we cannot be expected, as a nation, to unite around agreement over the correct strength of tea. But the babble of UK-banter discourse on social media shows that there is still an impulse to commune over collective identity. The question for the future will be what that identity is going to look like. For now, we must watch spectres of the Nineties return, zombified, to the national conversation — the same jokes, the same bands, even some of the same MPs, but none of that critical sense of hope or humour. Turning this around will be Starmer’s great challenge.
Disclaimer
Some of the posts we share are controversial and we do not necessarily agree with them in the whole extend. Sometimes we agree with the content or part of it but we do not agree with the narration or language. Nevertheless we find them somehow interesting, valuable and/or informative or we share them, because we strongly believe in freedom of speech, free press and journalism. We strongly encourage you to have a critical approach to all the content, do your own research and analysis to build your own opinion.
We would be glad to have your feedback.
Source: UnHerd Read the original article here: https://unherd.com/