Another election? Mr Caine is taking the Michael | David Mitchell

This week I was all geared up to slag off Rachel Reeves and now, thanks to Michael Caine, I can’t. I hope you’re happy, Michael. Is that what you wanted? To close down any centrist criticism of the government? Because that’s what you’ve done.

Let me explain. Michael Caine, a great film star and an astute, relatable and popular public figure, has expressed his support for that petition for another general election. You know, the one that was set up a week or so ago by a pub owner from the Midlands and then got bigged up by Elon Musk. It accuses the government of having gone back on promises it made during the election campaign and, at the time of writing, it’s got 2.8m signatures, one of them, presumably, Michael Caine’s.

Keir Starmer’s response when asked about it was that it “isn’t how our system works” and he is right. Michael Caine knows he’s right. Michael Caine is 91. He’s seen a fair few elections go against his wishes over the years and he understands, and has previously accepted, what then happens: the people he doesn’t approve of get to have a proper go at governing for, barring parliamentary accidents, four or five years. Then we all get to vote again. He’ll remember when Churchill was voted out in favour of Attlee at the end of the war – I expect there were a few collywobbles about the taxing and spending that ensued back then but there wasn’t another election until 1950.

What is different this time? Broken manifesto promises? Don’t make me laugh – they all do that. A manifesto is not a contract. The Tories spent the whole campaign screaming that Labour would raise taxes – they could not have made it clearer that no electoral promise is binding. Everyone who voted Labour was repeatedly informed of that fact. This prediction having now, to a certain extent, come to pass is no justification for ushering in a new system where each government has four months in which to institute utopia or it’s out on its ear.

And let’s be clear: the government has not raised the taxes it specifically promised not to. No doubt it’s been spendier and taxier than it implied, but much of its vast mandate was based on improving public services and that requires money. Not to do that would also have been a broken promise.

So what was Caine thinking? Is it the irascibility of age that has made him less patient than he used to be when the lefties get in? I think the reason is more worrying. I think it’s a product of polarisation in politics, of tribalism, of the demonisation of anyone who disagrees. Caine has previously said that he usually votes Conservative and that he supported Brexit, though he once told the Guardian he’d voted Labour on a couple of occasions. So he’s not far right – he’s not Reform. He was a fan of Thatcher but he probably thought Neil Kinnock had the right to exist. Yet, in the current climate, supporting the attempted removal of a government that so recently won a landslide victory feels like a reasonable thing for a Tory like him to do.

In truth, it’s a really extreme position and the huge support it seems to have quickly garnered is sinister. The involvement of Elon Musk, a foreign billionaire in control of an extremely influential social media platform, should send a shiver down any British patriot’s spine. Musk is pointing millions of people towards this petition, and legitimising the notion that it’s appropriate to remove a government for such a flimsy reason. It has the potential to be hugely destabilising, but that flatters the vanity of narcissistic “disruptors” such as Musk. And he may be the least of its advocates. The petition has clothed itself in democratic colours by calling for an election, but in reality it undermines democracy because, taken to its logical conclusion, its approach makes democracy unworkable. That’s what Russia and China want to happen; we would be naive to assume they haven’t lent the petition their covert support.

Under such circumstances, I too feel drawn to a more tribal position. When malign online forces are undermining a new progressive government’s very right to exist, and getting support from mainstream figures such as Caine, it feels irresponsible to say anything negative about the chancellor of the exchequer. Currently that’s incredibly frustrating.

Am I supposed to pretend that I’m OK with the fact that she lied on her CV, saying she’d been an economist at Halifax Bank of Scotland when in fact she’d worked in the retail arm? That I think it’s normal for the book she published to contain sections lifted from blogs, Wikipedia and the Guardian? Well, I don’t. And I’m also bewildered as to why she told a magazine that she’d worked for the Bank of England for a decade when in fact it was six years. Why exaggerate? Six years sounds fine!

I would never do any of that and I do not consider myself to be unusually honest. I have sought prominence and applause far more assiduously than the betterment of the world. But I don’t tell lies like that and I’m not thrilled about being governed by someone who does. I think it’s a really bad sign about a person’s character. I know this furore has been exploited for maximum impact by the Tories but the accusations are still true.

Maybe all politicians lie to roughly this extent but, if so, that’s less of an excuse for Reeves than it is an indictment of the west’s entire political culture and the best explanation I can think of for why people resort to the likes of Donald Trump. He may be a liar, but he’s an honest liar – he practically says he’s a liar. Whereas Reeves, in her whole dour and unshowy demeanour, proclaims herself to be deeply serious, prudent and honourable. A lie from her therefore feels doubly dishonest.

But thanks to Michael Caine, I don’t have the luxury of this sort of criticism. I can only desperately hope that Reeves remains chancellor for as long as Starmer wants. Whatever her flaws, if she doesn’t, the implications for British democracy are frightening.