I hear a lot of discussion about the next election: when it will be, how certain a Labour victory is, how large the majority. One question I don’t hear so much is how much difference the result will make either way.

I don’t mean to be cynical. Politicians are not all the same, by a long chalk. But Mr Starmer has achieved his extraordinary feat of transforming Labour’s electoral standing over four years by being, well, conservative. By giving swing voters what they want, by making minimal spending commitments, by shadowing Mr Sunak’s policies too closely to give the billionaire vigilantes of the press anything to attack him over.

This is not a comment about Mr Starmer himself, so much as the position he finds himself in. Between our democratic process and our undemocratic press, and what the Conservative party has reduced itself to, Starmer’s Labour is to a large extent what is possible here and now.

I find myself sceptical in general these days about the difference any individual makes to the grand sweep of history. Even such a ‘strong man’ as Mr Putin. The invasion of Ukraine has changed the world, and yet Mr Putin’s attitude to Ukraine and the West is so widely shared in Russia, that had he never come to power, that hardly means Russia would have sat quietly there for ever.

And if that is the case for warlike world leaders, how limited is my own influence? For those of us who would rather like to change the world, this is perhaps a depressing thought. How much difference can my direct debit, my placard or my renunciation of meat ever make? With the world in such a fearful state, wouldn’t it be good to be able to change it?

Perhaps a combination of humility and faithfulness is what is called for here. To realise we can make a big difference in our immediate circle, a smaller difference in the wider world, do what we can in both and leave it at that.

Would it be too much of a stretch to wonder if that is part of what Jesus teaches us when he says, ‘Give to the Emperor what is the Emperor’s and to God what is God’s’? Don’t stop those sacrifices you make, the campaigns, the kindnesses, the contributions. These things are giving to God what is God’s, your faint light, your pinch of salt. But when you have done what you can, unshoulder the burden of all the things you can’t possibly change and leave them with the Emperor. Who by worrying can add one hour to the life of their neighbour?

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This article was published in the December 2023/January 2024 edition of Reform

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