Sarah Ingham: ‘Gaslight’ is no a blueprint for Government

Dr Sarah Ingham is the author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.

Based on a play by Patrick Hamiliton, the film Gaslight was released in 1944.

Gaslighting has become part of everyday speech, today defined as “the practice of psychologically manipulating someone into questioning their own sanity, memory, or powers of reasoning.”

Nominated for the best picture Academy Award, Gaslight is a gothic tale of a husband psychologically torturing his wife. Gaslighting Britain seems to be part of the government’s programme.  Despite the chaos engulfing the Starmer regime, Labour insists that it is we, the people, who are getting everything upside-down, back to front and inside-out.

Parachuting Lord Mandelson into diplomacy’s plum job and Matthew Doyle’s peerage justified Kemi Badenoch’s accusation that Labour is  stuffed with “paedophile apologists.”  But these two instances of the PM’s poor judgement are apparently down to the “vetting process”, not No.10 being ‘too grand to Google’.

Similarly, Monday’s lurch into an about-turn over local council elections is due to  “fresh legal advice”.  Rather than owning the Stalinesque attempt to deny democracy to millions, ministers imply it’s all lawyers’ fault for dud guidance, while the PM blames local councils.

Ingrid Bergman won the Best Actress Oscar for Gaslight. It seems apt. Thanks to the government; women are questioning their powers of reason.  In the toxic fall-out from Epstein/Mandelson, every minister echoed Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, who declared “the real focus should be on Epstein’s victims.”

Voters surely begin to doubt their sanity when they contrast Labour’s clucks of concern over some victims of sexual predation with its long, deafening silence over others far closer to home – the grooming gangs’ casualties.   Indeed, current Deputy Leader Lucy Powell accused Tim Montgomerie (formerly of this parish) of “blowing that little trumpet” and getting out “the dog whistle” when he raised the subject. PM Starmer branded those who called for a public inquiry as “jumping on a bandwagon of the far right.”

This attitude at the top of the government, along with it creating a “toxic environment for survivors”,  contradicts its claims of being pro-victim. Forced into a half-hearted inquiry, Labour’s reluctance is highlighted by the can-do of Rupert Lowe, backed by £768,833 of Crowdfunded support.

If Chancellor Reeves had a pound for every time Labour’s Violence Against Women and Girls strategy was invoked since Petey’s friend, the ghost of Little St James, returned to haunt both sides of the Atlantic, a sizeable dent could be made in the National Debt.

BTW, whatever happened to “growth”? Labour constantly sends up chaff about interest rate cuts. Decisions about the rate were outsourced to the Bank of England decades ago. Or is our memory failing us?

Reeves crowed about Wednesday’s inflation figure of 3 per cent, ignoring this week’s less welcome news that unemployment has hit a five year high of 5.2 per cent, Voters are expected to believe that mass youth joblessness has nothing to do with her policy choices.

For nepo-babe Stephen Kinnock to bang on about the “appalling economic inheritance” confronting Labour is a disservice to reality. Inflation was at 2 per cent in July 2024. All those Labour MPs who demanded longer lockdowns clearly thought the £450 billion invoice would never arrive. Do they also believe in Father Christmas?

It should be unnecessary to point out an election manifesto is a programme for government.  Had either Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak broadly stuck to the plan mandated by voters in 2019, while adjusting for the changed circumstances wrought by the pandemic, the Conservative Party’s fortunes might look very different today. Instead, the blueprint was torn up by Truss and tinkered with by Sunak, who went off on voter-repellent tangents, including more maths.

Despite trying to brainwash the country over “14 years of chaos”, the government is keen to emulate its predecessor’s example.

Is it gaslighting itself?

Rather than focusing on its July 2024 mandate, it goes off-piste in pursuit of pet projects no-one voted for, including local council reorganisation, assisted dying and the Chagos giveaway. But in connection with British Overseas Territories, its manifesto specifically stated: “Labour will aways defend their sovereignty and right to self-determination.”

Dumping an abusive relationship is apparently the best protection from being gaslit.

Voters, over to you.