A country that’s ‘more Gareth Southgate, less Michael Gove’ would be a winner

The culture secretary’s description of the relaxed, modern society she would like to build begins with cooling the temperature of our politics – and, in this, even Donald Trump appears to be on board, says Sean O’Grady

Gareth Southgate consoles Marc Guehi after the England football team is beaten in the Euro 2024 finals (Reuters)

I think I know what our new culture secretary, Lisa Nandy means when she says that the Labour government will be “more Gareth Southgate, less Michael Gove”.

She’s already said that she wants to end the culture wars that politicians such as Gove were constantly waging, setting out political “dividing lines” to embarrass the opposition and which had the effect of, well, dividing the country. Nandy is a much warmer, more sincere and altogether less slippery figure than Gove, and if the style of politics she epitomises is to prevail in the coming years, then that can only be a good thing.

As she indicates, in our multicultural society – a concept the Conservatives have become increasingly hostile to – inclusiveness is an essential ingredient in its success. Southgate and his team are a powerful symbol of that.

As Nandy puts it: “The contribution that Gareth Southgate has already made to football is enormous – on the pitch, off the pitch, but also to put together that incredible team of young footballers, drawn from every community across the country, who look and sound and feel like modern Britain.

“When kids were turning on their TV sets last night across England, every single one of them will have been able to see themselves reflected in that team. And in doing so he’s told an inclusive story about the country that we can be. It has felt very difficult for people to feel part of our national story, and it’s firmly my intention that this government will be different. The era of division needs to end.”

I’m reminded, in this context, of Southgate’s “open letter to England” from a couple of years ago, in which he declared: “I have a responsibility to the wider community to use my voice – and so do the players. It is their duty to continue to interact with the public on matters such as equality, inclusivity and racial injustice, while using the power of their voices to help put debates on the table, raise awareness and educate.”

My only quibble with Nandy, who is of mixed heritage herself, is that Gove wasn’t even the worst of the obsessive warriors who exhausted the nation with their unquenchable taste for conflict and helped crash the Conservatives at the general election. Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch were and are far more vicious in their wars against “wokery” than Gove could ever be.

Similar sentiments about cooling the temperature of politics have also been heard in America after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

Trump is now said to be working on a speech at the Republican convention on the unlikely theme of “bringing the nation together”. To be fair, we should wait and see what he comes up with – but there are too many reasons for pessimism about the way we do politics to hope that the kind of hopes now being expressed for an end to the era of division will come to pass.

For as long as there are bitter political arguments, for as long as there are economic and social grievances, and for as long as nationalism and race can drive human emotions, then there will always be politicians ready to amplify differences and create hate and paranoia. When these passions result in an act of political violence – still mercifully rare – all involved pause, reflect and try to learn the lessons.

But the effect is depressingly transient. We only have to think back to the aftermath of the murder of MP Jo Cox in 2016 to see how that shocking event forced people to re-evaluate their language, but then to slide back into their usual regrettable toxic habits.

Cox was attacked in the middle of the Brexit referendum campaigning, a time when all manner of demons were unleashed, and there was a truce for a few days. But after the result, when the time came to extricate ourselves from the European Union, the political air could not have been more sulphurous. From this perspective, we can see that the divisions and dislocations that Brexit triggered only finally subsided when the country had become so exhausted by them it voted to “get Brexit done” simply to end the pain.

Since then, as Nandy indicates, other, equally nasty debates have emerged, such as on migration, trans rights, what’s called “wokery” and the like – and if a consensus ever emerges on these, no doubt others will come to replace them. In due course, we may even rerun the Brexit arguments.

The instinct for a clash of ideas and a tendency towards violence of thought and deed may simply be a part of human nature. Politicians can’t do much about that – but every so often, as now, they can give it a rest. Just don’t expect it to last.