There is one very clear message from this week's elections. It is that politically the UK is in a very confused state. This needs some discussion. A thread follows.....and was posted on Twitter minutes before this post was published here. It was as follows:
Scotland has a strong pro-independence majority at Holyrood. No one but a charlatan could deny it.
Wales has rewarded competent, even if slightly boring incumbency. Plaid Cymru did not make the cut through it hoped for. And yet Labour's win is so distinct it feels like an expression of independent Welsh thinking nonetheless.
Except that is that elsewhere - in Manchester, Liverpool and London, Labour also proved it can deliver and win repeated terms in office.
Unionism in Northern Ireland is in chaos, and without leadership at present.
The Tories won Hartlepool. The Red Wall is theirs for now. But they cannot win Cambridgeshire or the Isle of Wight.
The Greens did well.
Despite all that it is easy to see Johnson as dominant. That is what the media portrayed on Friday. But now? Really? What is actually happening?
This feels incredibly Gramscian to me. The Italian philosopher famously said that there is always a moment when the old is dying and the new is waiting to be born. I suspect we are in that moment now.
My suspicion is that much is dying. The UK is, for a start. Brexit is history. We all now know that. But its legacy is that the UK is dying. Without a common membership of a common union it has nothing left in common to hold it together. Scotland has just realised that first.
Labour is also dying. Again, Scotland is leading the process of change, but the reality is that Labour is built around materialist constructs of class war - and they do not resonate with most people any more. That consigns it to history in its current form.
The Liberal Democrats are dead. Centrism is rightly seen as indecision in a world where new direction n is required. The party has nothing left to say to anyone any more.
And the Tories are nearly dead too. The party I once knew - of MacLeod, Gilmour and Walker and their likes - who once dominated Tory thinking has long been a memory. Major was its last outpost.
What is not acknowledged is that the Tories now have no ideology at all. Neoliberal monetarism killed the one-nation Toryism, but that philosophy has also died now. Sunak's quantitative easing is evidence of that. But so too are freeports - a meaningless gesture passing as policy.
All the Tories have going for them now is populism. And that is built around Johnson, a character built for that role without a rival close to his ability in performing it within his party.
Johnson succeeds where Cameron and May did not. Remember that the Tories did not look good under them, and majorities were hard to find. But there is nothing to Johnson except the promotion of division and discord as cover for failure. That is what populism does.
Expect much more division and discord, is my prediction. But also do not expect anything close to building back better, or reconciliation of the nations, or levelling up. There is no intention to do any of those things. Nor to deliver better public services.
The public will notice all of that. It will be unavoidable. And so too is something else. And that is that Johnson is not going to hang around in Downing Street for a long time. Commitment is beyond Johnson. And his friends have already left Number 10. So too will he.
Will he make it to 2024? Maybe, but probably not, and by 2026? I can't see him as leader then. Who will succeed him? The Tories are as bereft of talent as Labour is. We have hollowed out politics. But what that means is that there is no one else to lead the division and discord.
What Johnson is doing is taking the Tories towards a dead end as surely as Starmer is taking Labour in that direction. Very different men can neither deliver managerialism or discord to a country anxious for direction, when none is on offer.
The reality is that both our leading parties are walking the political path to oblivion. Labour as it stands is structured for a fight that belongs to the early twentieth century. The Tories are intellectually bankrupt, seeking now only the refuge of the scoundrel.
What happens then? I except the answer is quite a lot.
We have to redefine the nations. There will be four - although quite what relationship Northern Ireland will have with Ireland is not clear. I see no chance for a Union any more.
Scotland will develop new parties. The SNP will not be a single entity after independence.
Wales will have a surviving Labour Party. Its own Methodist roots will ensure that. But Plaid will have a different left of centre vision. The right will have little to do in either country.
And in England? More Covid, no levelling up, cuts to public services (which are planned), more corruption, Johnson being under continual attack from the Tory media (which is already happening) and economic failings will account for Johnson.
The Tories will seek to find another populist. But whoever it might be will repel people. Only Johnson has the ability to make the repugnant views of populism acceptable in England. The Tories will be in deep trouble by then.
And Labour? They will be in as much trouble, unless they abandon their infighting. Whether that is possible is in doubt.
So what will happen? In England I do not know. I am genuinely unsure in ways I am not in the cases of Wales and Scotland. England needs electoral reform. It needs to tackle corruption. It needs new thinking. It has to create a new story of what it is.
Scotland and Wales know what they are. That is why they have hope. England has to find it. The peculiarly English first past the post system, the two party dominance and the failed ideologies of past eras that say nothing to us now all suggest this will not happen.
But it has to. And I am sure it will. England changes. It always has. Its politics are bankrupt. That's the only conclusion on English politics from this week. But, from out of this bankruptcy, as Gramsci said, the new will be born. The sooner the better.
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BBC Radio Scotland has just opened its Sunday morning news programme with Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, who just lost the election. This was the opening interview; not the victors. The interview was a soft-ball opportunity to Ross to open a new campaign against independence, presenting a loser as if he had won the election. He argued that the SNP campaigned against independence during the election, and is betraying the election by calling on an independence referendum. The absurdity of this comic position is that the electorate did not know what they were voting for; in spite of the fact that it was Ross who turned the whole election into a campaign based on the argument: vote Conservative to stop IndyRef2. Ross and the Conservatives lost. The pro-independence majority is the highest ever, and it appears the total vote in the election was a majority pro-independence (to be confirmed). Were these obvious false arguments by Ross challenged by the BBC interview? No.
This is how politics is required to be conducted in Scotland. How the SNP manage even to survive is remarkable.
What happens then? I except the answer is quite a lot.
Do you mean expect rather than except?
Not sure – because I can’t see it right now
“Scotland has a strong pro-independence majority at Holyrood. No one but a charlatan could deny it.”
At the risk of being accused of being “a charlatan”, I might just say this is assuming all votes for the SNP are votes for full independence. Some may be votes for “Devo Max” which is a step short of that.
There is the fundamental question of what full independence actually means. If my information from north of the border is correct there is still a widespread feeling that the pound is as much a Scottish currency as an English one and that there is no reason why this shouldn’t be shared, euro style, with the English afterwards.
I really don’t think this is a viable option. Nor is using the euro. I’ve listened to Nicola Sturgeon just now on Andrew Marr, and always she is very evasive on what will need to be done afterwards. Other SNP spokespeople have claimed that Scotland will be able to borrow just like everyone else after independence. Not without its own central bank and its own currency it won’t.
Therefore, I really don’t agree we can say that a vote for the SNP is vote for full independence just yet. The Scottish people do need to know what it means, and, at the moment it hasn’t been adequately explained. Once it is, we English should stay out of it and leave the decision to the Scots, but it is fair enough to demand that Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP does that first.
You ignore that many votes for Labour are also Yes votes
Seldom mentioned- if at all – but there’s also a modest quantity of Conservatives who favour independence but cannot abide the SNP.
As a card-carrying member (and sometimes activist) of the SNP since 1990, I can assure people that there is no way Nicola can be anything BUT ‘evasive’ when she speaks to the MSM about future plans.
The MSM, with the exception of the newspaper The National, is 100% anti-independence. Most of them virulently so. They are looking for ANYTHING they can extract from what she or anyone else from the SNP says, to twist, turn and use as ammunition against independence.
Look at what they did with Alex Salmond’s off-the-cuff remark about ‘once in a generation opportunity’ during the 2014. Anyone would think, from how the media played that one, that it wasn’t so much Alex drumming up enthusiasm for the indy vote, but God speaking to Moses on a tablet of stone.
Haters and knee-jerk Republicans aside, what keeps most people from voting for independence is fear. Fear that any stability they still have is threatened by any ‘big change.’ Three-hundred-plus years of unionist gaslighting has had its effect, unfortunately. Too wee, too poor, too stupid …that’s still the way some people think about Scotland and independence.
Changing currency is a big scream scream issue for so many of these folk. In fact, the fear campaign regarding a separate currency has already started, if you look at what’s being played across social media. The MSM will play this terror to perfection …you’ll lose your pensions, your savings, your investments, your money will be worthless, your businesses will fail, no other country will want to know, you won’t be able to trade with England, yadda yadda. Unionists took this tack before, in 2014, and it worked. Make no mistake, they are poised to do it again.
The big issue in 2014 wasn’t ‘should Scotland have its own currency?’ but ‘would Scotland be “allowed” to use the pound?’ Alex Salmond maintained it would, which would provide transitional stability …and this was furiously denied by the likes of Alastair Darling and Co. “No, we won’t LET you use the pound.”
That issue was headline stuff in ALL the media at the time. It wasn’t until the closing days of the campaign that Alastair Darling finally admitted during a TV debate that “Yes, of course Scotland can use the pound.” He had been lying through his teeth, to scare people into voting No. He knew the idea of not being able to use the pound, would scare the hell out of people.
The actual campaign for independence itself hasn’t actually started yet. What this has been, thus far, is a battle to get another referendum.
I have no doubt whatsoever that an independent currency is on the cards for Scotland. The issue isn’t WHETHER, it’s WHEN the plan to implement it will get revealed. Of course a new currency won’t be a disaster for people, but will empower them like nothing before. You know this, and many of us know this. But the huge number of people who are terrified to take that ‘chance’ still exist–and the unionists know it. We’ve got to convince these frightened folk otherwise, or they will vote NO again.
Scotland tends to cling to ‘the devil you know.’ (A phrase I detest, but hear a lot.) People who are looking ahead, envisioning a much better Scotland, need to keep this in mind at all times. Nicola knows what she’s doing, and knows what she’s truly up against. Not just the media, and the likes of Andrew Marr, but the fear factor in so many Scottish voters that unionists are only too eager to exploit.
It’s stunning, really, how much the SNP has been able to accomplish in the teeth of so many powerful entities determined to stop them. Even now, with the likes of Douglas Ross portraying last Thursday’s result as a victory for Tories, the unionists won’t give up or tell the truth. To listen to Ross and Co, you’d never guess that the SNP got 64 seats and ALL the other unionist parties together only got 57. In a system that uses proportional representation, even. That’s a victory in itself. But add in the Greens, who picked up 8 seats, that’s Indy parties 72 seats, and unionist parties 57.
And yet, this result is being played in much of the mainstream media–including the supposedly neutral BBC–as a ‘defeat’ for independence.
Of course Nicola Sturgeon is going to speak cautiously to hostile interviewers at this stage. No smart general reveals their battle plans to the enemy ahead of time.
Thanks Jan
You are obviously confused, Scottish bank notes( Scots pound) are to all intent and purpose a foreign and separate currency. To print the Scots Pound, Scottish banks are required to deposit Sterling with the BOE. They like NI bank notes are the only asset backed currency in the UK. The question isn’t whether we move to a separate currency, it’s whether we change its name. Although we’ve had some helpful suggestions from our English cousins, the groat, the haggis and various other disparaging and ignorant suggestions, most of us prefer and will no doubt retain the ‘ Pound ‘. Just as a point of interest, a central bank is not an immediate priority as the Treasury or Exchequer acting as the Central bank is perfectly acceptable in world banking circles.
The question is whether or not initially we peg our currency ( whatever it’s called ) to Sterling.
Surely you’d be wanting a fiat currency though, one your as yet hypothetical CB can create to order as needed?
Having read Mirowski’s ‘Never Let a Serious Crisis Go To Waste’ and about to go into ‘The Road from Mont Pelerin’ (yes – I’m a sucker for punishment aren’t I?) I can agree with your post above albeit with one caveat: just watch out for the Neo-liberal angle.
Mirowski identifies a consistent duality in the Neo-libs attitudes to the State – the sort of ambivalence that enables Neoliberalism to be so hard to pin down in the first place.
On one hand we know that Neo-liberals abhor the State, are quick to condemn it for failure and interference. But also, Neo-liberals look to the State that they have captured to protect private property and to protect markets from interference (by de-regulating and ensuring that any regulation is either non-existent or rather toothless – look at how the U.S. even wrote into law the non-regulation of derivatives).
Now lets just flip to the Tory party. What I see through the chumocracy etc., is a market for self enrichment through contracts and so-called ‘procurement’; Government welfare for the rich (reciprocated with funding for the Tory party) and meagre handouts for everyone else. That’s the market we are in now – selling the UK off to the rich – whether English or Russian or whatever.
The point I’m making is that although I agree with your premise about things dying, other things will endure.
And one of those ‘things’ that will endure is Neo-liberalism.
It’s a crafty and slippery philosophy folks – promoting freedom whilst enabling slavery and enormous power to the rich.
One day I hope that we will wake up and persecute it out of existence.
We need to be vigilant – Neo-liberalism is to politics and economics what Covid has been to human life. It’s phenomenally clever at attaching itself to existing political philosophies. And like Covid, it needs to eradicated rather than tolerated.
The Mont Pelerin book is good
Sorry for the length yet again started and rambled.
I have oft referred to the Gramscian analyses.
He spent plenty of time in prison for his views.
That some generations later we are still transitioning from the Old Empire as it declines and sinks but like the Black Knight still demands a fight and privilege (see where we are heading in Myanmar – the new Syria?) the pretence of multiparty democracy is OVER, at the centres of the Old Empire.
As I just posted on a previous blog just now, the reality is that the MSM is so monopolistically editorially controlled by a handful of organisations. The strings are so easily visible there is no attempt to hide or excuse anymore (see the lobbying and contracts being handed out like sweets to the lucky few) ;
It is not just propaganda and character assassination – it is the withholding of the Oxygen of publicity that also matters (cf Alba).
What more needs to be said about the current Labour leadership for people to understand the betrayal?
With a further clearance of the newish grassroots MP’s being the plan and the dispersement of the largest political party membership being the obvious prime goal, along with the need to stop the old red walls , built from Jarrow, reassembling.
I’d say Starmer, Phillips, Mandy and Tony were high fiving and fist pumping with the result in Hartlepool – bet they were careful that no accidental non straight face would appear live on screen this time.
When such extreme double standards are blatantly accepted by the MSM and AltSM – which is as I say fully controlled and voters have no choice but to believe it – for many the only contact is through these ciphers who they see and hear more than family, friends or neighbours (who also parrot the same brainwashing).
So what’s left?
The GJ’s in France will not go away and it will lead to another new republic no doubt. – I am heartened that their Hobsons choice of their last election Macron (otherwise you get Le Pen!), is about to be blown out of the water with the trusted and well known Barnier appearing to be ready to enter the fray.
A plan that will ensure continuity of the EU project as Merkel retires.
I hope.
We really need to get these unsullied, ungroomed new MP’s born out of locality and grassroots to fight for the soul of the Labour Party just as the other lot did to wrest back control from the brief old Labour Phoenix. No talk of accommodation by them ever was there? With their sniping from day 1.
I think it’s time – the likes of Clive Lewis – who will never be allowed to upset the apple cart from the front benches or will be expelled from, just like Rayner today – it’s time, to regenerate, have a new Jarrow; stop the wars and put the morbid declined petty empire to rest – it’s over for my generation.
It’s all about the next lot now, these new teenagers to become the beating freethinking grassroots and for us to provide the education to bypass the propaganda and lack of oxygen and deliver the Gramscian prophecy finally.
“We have hollowed out politics”
Do you mean that in the sense that we, as an electorate, have had a hand in hollowing out the institutions? Or is it just an observation of where we are at present: an insidious and deliberate destruction against our wishes?
What we can be sure of, is that two party systems are not much better than the one party systems so derided by the so-called developed world. We have little more than lipstick on an autocratic pig at the moment in England.
I think politicians hollowed them out
Richard
always worth reading –as well as your blog on vision
I’m in the middle of Tim Jackson’s new book ” Post Growth ” & I came across this
” Economics today has a bad rap But it’s useful to understand that our modern theory has its roots in social activism. ” Mill/ Bentham utilitarianism —” greatest happiness for the greatest number”
Could a form of this be a rallying cry for the left– an alternative to ” for the many not the few ”
The minority united will never be defeated —-health, housing, quality jobs, equality, a proper purpose in life. ? desperate times, indeed.
You say “The Italian philosopher (Gramsci) famously said that there is always a moment when the old is dying and the new is waiting to be born”. I suppose Yeats’s “Things fall apart – the centre cannot hold etc” expresses the same idea. Unfortunately, Yeats was a bit of a fascist, and his rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem was probably inspired by Mussolini. My Italian genes make me suspicious of saviours leading nations from chaos. Benito rescued Italy from post WW1 chaos – and inspired Herr Hitler. We might not like what emerges from Grmasci’s “new waiting to be born”.
Why not try imagining that good outcomes are possible?
If not you are part of the problem
I see that Angus McNeil MP (SNP), has written this on Twitter on the UK National Debt: “the UK has borrowed for 63 years of the last 75 years. The UK has thus not paid its way and has only paid back 1.7% of that”.
I think Mr McNeil now needs to ensure this is all explained to the FM, and ensure that Wilson and the Growth Commission are quickly sidelined; sooner rather than later. The SNP need to talk to Common Weal and people with a wider and deeper understanding of money, capital and buiness, as a matter of urgency.
The data came from me
Sturgeon said the expected Scotland to use sterling for several years on Marr this morning
So no independence then
Hmm. No. The British State has managed to retain the status quo. That’s all we have got out of these elections; exactly the same as last time. Including a pro independence majority in the Scottish Parliament. People voted for no change, the status quo has prevailed, and there is no reason to swap Boris Johnstone out until the next GE.
I predicted that if Alex Salmond got voted into the Scottish Parliament, they’d have to swiftly replace Boris – they’d need someone with much more political savvy and a saner head on their shoulders to go against Salmond – and this could have only benefitted the English Parliament too. I noted that they’d already set Boris up for a fall with some idiotic scandal about overspending on decoration (I mean really? Out of all the things Boris has done in his political career, that was chosen as scandalous?!) – watch that minor blip fade away as though it never happened now.
Everything will continue as before. The status quo is maintained.
I had a short discussion recently about voting systems, and I’ve decided that d’hondt is actually a pretty good one for PR – it is fairly simple, with its partial FPTP section on the constituency so you get to vote for a person, then just a party on a regional vote (with candidates already declared, on their lists). We have the Single Transferrable Vote (STV) system for council elections, it makes tactical voting near impossible, but it is also really difficult to vote in – you have to rank each candidate, even if you loathe them, not something easily done. In Ireland they use STV in their GEs, and though STV is lauded as very proportionate, the last GE didn’t really reflect that. It turns out that the biggest parties, with the most candidates, get the most seats for a smaller proportion of the vote. A bit like FPTP, really.
Having thought about it, my conclusion is that it’s not the voting system per se that determines fairness, but the presence of only a small number of very large parties that makes ANY system unfair. Consider: if each constituency had a large number of smaller local parties, then there would be more competition, the parties would each have local issues in their policies and so be more representative, and the mix in parliament would be greater – even under FPTP. So – is it the electoral rules on how a party may be formed, limitations on size – and stricter rules on funding – that need to change? Rules on how a government is formed may need to change also – that it should be proportionate to the make up of the parliament, and voted on by parliament, instead of belonging to one party.
Perhaps the focus should be on changing political party structures, not the voting system itself, to really advance electoral reform?
I am by no means as pessimistic as you ….
Contrary
STV used to be the favourite of the Electoral Reform Society.
It does give more choice than what we have. So, for example, if you are Labour and prefer a Left winger, you can rank them ahead of the more ‘centrist’ candidate. Or if really want a Green but, with FPTP are afraid voting for them as will let in a party you dislike, STV lets you do so and transfers your vote if they are bottom of the poll. Having a chance might might encourage people to vote for new or small parties and not second choices.
In a one member constituency the outcome is almost certain in maybe four out of five cases. Labour isn’t likely to win in Surrey. As one of your choices is likely to be elected, it may encourage voting.
You would have more chance of selecting someone who is elected on the list as it would cover a bigger area. But the party determines who is in the top places on the list. They might not be the one who prefer.
My choice would be STV
Ian, I’m slightly confused by what you are saying, so I may have misunderstood something. In STV, you vote for candidates – the list system is for d’hondt where the party chooses rankings.
The reality is, with STV, people don’t vote properly with it – you have to rank ALL the candidates, and it really goes against the grain for people to put a mark against a candidate from a party they’ve always voted against. It makes voting uncomfortable and few do it properly (‘vote til you boak’ was the best campaign to try and get people to do it – which shows how unpleasant an experience it is). And if a big party puts up five candidates, say, and 3 smaller parties put up one each, for only one seat, the big party will win most likely. So, it’s only as fair as the fairness in party distribution. STV won’t ever be an ideal system either just for the fact that people don’t enjoy voting using it. It you leave blanks in your paper, your voting slip is binned after that point, so the proportional part is only proportional for the votes that rank the candidate at all – if everyone only ranks ‘1’, say, then it just turns into FPTP anyway. STV won’t resolve any electoral issues you have – it works reasonably well for councils because there are a higher proportion of independents and smaller parties standing, I think.
D’hondt gives a better proportional vote without traumatising voters and needing a computer to work out who won. People have been calling for electoral reform for a while, and nothing is ever done about it, most people seem to not care in fact – so, instead of flogging a dead horse, I’m suggesting: why not explore other ways in which improvements can be made that might be easier to sell to the electorate, one that might spark interest?
The average voter hardly understands the system we have now. If brexit has shown one thing, it is that the average voters understanding of the political and electoral system is .. limited.
We just had the election for a mayor this time around, the supplementary voting choice. It’s even printed what you can do, should do, and shouldn’t do. Yet people still put 2 crosses on the main vote, or two crosses on the second vote, and render their vote void.
England has an electorate that is ignorant about elections! And ignorant about politics!
Many voters in Hartlepool blamed their labour council for things that the national govt was responsible for!
I don’t see any tory govt changing that ignorance for knowledge any time soon.
Contrary
The Australians ( for the Senate) and Irish seem to manage it. OTOH the New Zealanders turned it down for the system used in Scotland.
STV is a multi member system for a region, rather than a constituency. The Scottish system is FPTP for constituencies with its known drawbacks. The list is for a region and the advantage of STV is that the elector can choose the order of candidates for their party, rather than the party.
The voter chooses to rank candidates as far as they wish. They don’t have to rank other parties but it does give a choice when if their preferred party gets nowhere, they can at least influence the election of the most horrible choices. In fact very few get elected on the 5th or 6th preference. But most people will feel they elected someone they opted for, if only a second or third preference. Living in Somerset with a not very active MP who got 62% of the vote last time, that is something to be desired.
But either system is better than the one we have. Let’s agree on that.
The debate has become an issue about ‘mandates’. In fact this is a red herring; a confused argument about the rules of elections and referendums. The real issue is the electoral systems. Holyrood has a proportional representation system, but one chosen by Westminster (d’Hondt over STV because it served Westminster parties – preserving Party contol over candidates elected, rather than electors). Westminster maintains an FPTP system that is not only an anachronism, but is so much a post-code lottery, and so politically alienating it is destroying the will of the electorate to vote. Turnouts are in long-term significant decline in England. The Conservatives are delighted. Alienation serves their purpose; the destruction of democracy. In the recent Hartlepool by-election the turnout was 42.7%. Almost 60% of the electorate did not vote. The conservative “victory” was based on the support of only 22% of the electorate. FPTP is no longer a viable democratic system. It can provide victories for government supported by very, very few people. We are moving inexorably toward that outcome. On the same basis, Boris Johnson’s 80-seat majority in 2019 was won by the Conservatives with only just under 30% of the total electorate’s support in the UK. Perhaps in ten years, on current trends the Conservatives will do the same with less than 20% support of the people. Parliamentary Democracy in England is slowly dying.
How serious this is requires much more attention. Here is an excerpt from the Guardian website today, titled ‘Government to change English voting system after Labour mayoral victories’ that confirms what is happening – the destruction of democracy in England:
“Ministers are pressing ahead with changes to electoral law that could make it easier for Conservatives to win future mayoral elections, as Labour claimed 10 of the 13 posts being contested across England.
The UK home secretary, Priti Patel, has already unveiled plans to switch all future English mayoral elections from the existing supplementary vote system — in which the public ranks their two favourite candidates — to the first past the post system used in elections to the House of Commons.
Prof Tony Travers, of the London School of Economics, said analysis of Thursday’s polls suggested this change could open a potential route to victory for the Tories in cities such as London.
‘It’s likely that first past the post would make it somewhat easier for the Conservatives to win if they could come up with a really good candidate,’ he said”.
Democracy is slowly being destroyed. The Conservatives are delighted if you do not vote. The fewer people who vote, the greater the Conservative political stranglehold on power. We can also see another sinister development. Almost all the extra financial support the Conservatives are providing to Northern constituencies (the so-called, risible ‘build back better’) is going to Conservative constituencies, typically in the ‘Red Wall’. The offer is simultaneously a silent threat: if you want any help, vote Conservative.
See BBC website, Peter Barnes (3rd March, 2021):
“There are 45 towns named but as some cover multiple constituencies, I’ve counted 56 constituencies that benefit. Forty-seven are Conservative constituencies — including 14 gained from Labour at the 2019 election plus quite a few more recent Conservative gains, while nine are Labour constituencies. Fifty-three of the constituencies voted “leave” at the EU referendum. Three voted ‘remain’.”
Democracy in England is quietly being destroyed.
Agreed
Wow – and look at this too:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/10/queens-speech-photo-id-future-elections-social-care
Right under our noses the Tories are trying to cement themselves in for 1000 Year Tory Reich. I wonder how much these cards will cost?
Voter fraud?! Another case of agnotological tactics.
It’s political party fraud (breaking electoral rules) that we should be wary of and something we have evidence of already.
Agreed
This underlines the absolute critical importance of getting out the vote. What happened to the Labour voters in Hartlepool? Most of them didn’t vote for the Conservative: they just stayed at home. At least two seats on my local council (typical electorate of 5000) were decided by about 50 votes. That includes one seat where the turnout was about 33%(!) but most of the others were in the 40%s. Just getting another 1% of the registered voters to bother turning up could make all the difference.
The shameless lies, corruption, hypocrisy and incompetence of this government takes the breath away, but people don’t seem to care. I bloody well hope they care by the time of the next general election.
Absolutely right. There is nothing that today’s Tories will not do to ensure that they retain power for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately the bulk of the British public neither know nor care and the opposition parties seem to be doing little about it either.
Today’s Tories still implementing the Trump playbook, word for word. Deeply anti-democratic
Fraction of the population that are even vaguely bothered……..? Stealth / clever 🙁
As per George Monbiot and Rob Hopkins – you are all calling for a new “narrative”. Nobody is selling a new story with any vision or passion – other than perhaps the Greens. The next GE will either see them start to lift off – as per Germany – or be smothered by the incumbents.
A Progressive Alliance committed to PR will be the only way out of this mess in 2024. Best we all start working on it now………….
The greens have a Green New Deal
The GND is one positive around which a progressive/green alliance can form, but IMO other things need to change in a positive direction:
– Labour is currently too big to seek allies, or if they do, will seek to dominate them. The Labour party needs to die for a new force to emerge
– the “austerity” message of the green agenda. People associate it with giving things up – cars, foreign holidays, meat. The new jobs and smaller energy bills of the GND don’t have the same fun factor. Where can that come from?
– on a similar theme, the progressive/green alliance needs charismatic/human leaders. Of course saving the planet is serious stuff, but people don’t vote for it. I was reading a YouGov poll yesterday about the popularity of politicians. Ed Balls was the highest ranked at 31% who might (possibly) be termed progressive and is popular for being on TV not for politics. FFS Pritti Patel was 6 pts above Keir Starmer who was equal to Theresa May. Only 46% knew who Caroline Lucas is and only 18% approve. Can progressives find someone who can deliver a serious message with a light touch? Tough ask. (Two rare bright spots in that poll were Gove on only 15% approval and Jeremy Corbyn topping popularity with millennials)
Chris Grey as ever offering an incisive analysis. Labour need to start looking forward and recognise the UK as it is and will be, rather than harking back to nostalgia for the past, be that the New Labour period or a now mythical industrial Northern working class.
https://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2021/05/labour-and-post-brexit-politics.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FrznWQ+%28The+Brexit+Blog%29
“Wales has rewarded competent, even if slightly boring incumbency.”
I think you fail to understand who Mark Drakeford is. We have here, a red jumper wearing, allotment dwelling, kind and principled politician with a radical (read social democratic) manifesto. Remind you of anyone??
🙂
Here is a proposal for the ‘new’ that is at the ‘front-line’ of people who need help. I do not expect this to appy to England, because the commitment to ‘markets’, no matter the consequences, is too deeply held.
Provident Financial has announced it is to stop doorstep lending after 140 years. Presumably it will sell on its book. Here I think there should be a new subsidiary of the Scottish National Investment Bank to take over the Provident Financial book. Why? In order first, to ensure debts are not simply continually sold on until they end in the hands of loan sharks. Second to place a realistic ceiling on rates charged, and the terms; altering terms that may prove impossible. Third to play a co-ordinating role with a range of services, both Government and (for example only) Citizens Advice, as well as social services to help people plan their way out of difficulty without losing their home, or require to use food banks. This should also help to build back contacts and services with people, families and even communities that are detached from help and alienated. We must design usable, practical, immediately available services to break dangerous cycles of want or poor judgement that serve only to destroy people, families and communities.
What we also need is a new model of access to credit for those on low pay…..I wrote about this when appraising the Provy in about 2004 for the Child Poverty Action Group
The Green New Deal has to be part of a new narrative, potentially from a progressive alliance of some kind. Its does need to be presented with a much more positive story to appeal on the doorstep, emphasising the jobs created and improvements to people’s quality of life.
An argument that does seem to be missing is the pushing back of power and resources to cities and regions both to rebuild public services and to recreate jobs and industries in ways that are context specific. Labour’s successes in the recent elections reflect where there has been strong local leadership and initiatives. Neither Labour nor the Tories are very keen on this at the moment, both being instinctively centralist and reinforcing that sense of a remote Westminster making all the decisions. Hartlepool voted Tory perhaps because at least that way they getting a chance of dipping into the centrally controlled pork barrel.
“Hartlepool voted Tory perhaps because at least that way they getting a chance of dipping into the centrally controlled pork barrel.”
Yes, up to a point. The real point is that the Conservatives “won” Hartlepool with only 22% support of the total electorate. 57% of the electorate did not vote. The electorate in Hartlepool are not Conservative, they have given up after forty years of neoliberalism. They are alientated. Conservatives want small turnouts. Pork barrel politics (vote conservative and thrive or don’t and be forgotten), and ID Cards are part of a plan. The Conservatives can already produce an 80-seat majority on 30% of the electorate, with declining turnouts. They want to accelerate it. The conservative rely totally on low turnouts (increasingly by rigging the system), and FPTP. Without that they would be dead in the water. With FPTP and low turnouts (assisted by legislation), by 2030 the Conservatives may be looking for 100+ majorities, on perhaps a 20% turnout. They do not even have to persuade anybody of anything. Keep their core, and dissuade everybody else from voting.Does anyone care? No, hardly anyone in the media has noticed how the Conservatives won Hartlepool because nobody voted.
That is why Scotland is such a problem for the Conservatives; it is a lot harder to win there, and even rig the system. People notice what is going on.
Richard you say: ‘What is not acknowledged is that the Tories now have no ideology at all’
Surely they have a very clear ideology. It was formed in preparation for their 2010 victory and has been stealthily implemented ever since. They cannot campaign on it because it would expose their true, repugnant nature. It is to undo every element of social progress that was introduced by Attlee in 1945 and subsequently by Harold Wilson and Gordon Brown. Period.
Pilgrim Slight Return said some truths that those of the so-called Red Wall need to understand viz:
“On one hand we know that Neo-liberals abhor the State, are quick to condemn it for failure and interference. But also, Neo-liberals look to the State that they have captured to protect private property and to protect markets from interference (by de-regulating and ensuring that any regulation is either non-existent or rather toothless)
“What I see ….. is a market for self enrichment through contracts and so-called ‘procurement’; Government welfare for the rich (reciprocated with funding for the Tory party) and meagre handouts for everyone else.
“Neo-liberalism (is) a crafty and slippery philosophy….promoting freedom whilst enabling slavery and enormous power to the rich.”
You cannot have a democracy if people aren’t capable of a basic level of common sense. If they are going to fall for anything, democracy will only lead a people down the abyss of their own self-inflicted ruin.
The average Brit, sadly, has been foolish enough to fall for exactly this masquerade. He or she now believes that hate and xenophobia are worth more than functioning social systems and public goods, that turning a blind eye to corruption and folly are just fine – because the conservatives are “really” British, macho, tough, aggressive, hostile, indifferent, while the Labour Party is effeminate, warm, open, modern, and kind, and those are all things which are weak, suspicious, and despised. That clinging to a fictionalized, romanticizing identity as Brits, rulers of the seas, masters of the world, buccanneering swashbucklers matters more than having a modern society in the 21st century. That hating Europeans and minorities and anyone remotely different is somehow going to solve the problem…of voting time and again for a government…which has driven Brits themselves into the most stunning collapse of living standards in modern history. And Brits show no signs of waking up from their comas of stupidity anytime soon. The conservatives seem able to get away with anything. No level of corruption or sleaze or incompetence or malfeasance seems to matter to Brits at all anymore. None.
The British working class began to flip conservative in 2007, and is now ultra conservative. because the conservatives have convinced them that demonizing and scapegoating everyone else – foreigners, immigrants, all those hated “metropolitan elites,” Europeans – for the lack of a functioning society matters more than having a functioning society.
The problem isn’t the Labour Party, and it’s not politics at all. It’s people. Most Brits have become violent, selfish, backwards idiots. They don’t care about anything, will accept any level of indignity, any collapse in living standards – as long as they gets to wave the Union Jack, shake a fist at the world, and sing Brittannia Uber Alles.
Most Brits are failing their democracy – their democracy isn’t failing them. They are taking their own society to self-destruction. Americans, coming to their senses, voted, finally, for Joe Biden. But those Brits aren’t coming to their senses. They seem to have had the sense beaten out of them. The conservatives will be in power until the end of this decade – that’s a generation. And by then, what will Britain be? A little forgotten island, of fools, drunk on egotism, shouting at the world, shaking their fists in desperate, stupid, impotent rage. “We’re number one!! You fools!! Bow!!”
I think that’s far too pessimistic. Certainly the last 4-6 years have exposed a significant proportion of the population who lapped up the idea that their problems were caused by the EU and foreigners. Somewhere between xenophobia and racism, but thats not the majority of the population. Unfortunately it is pretty concentrated in areas that Labour have historically regarded as their core vote. Its a nostalgic idea of ‘working class’ but what does that even mean today when you can be a poor, unemployed graduate driving a delivery van struggling to afford a roof over your head.
Chris Grey in his blog, Ian Dunt likewise and John Curtice the election guru all make similar points, that Labour’s progressive core vote is skewed towards cities, younger, better educated and socially more liberal. The traditional ‘class’ model does not work as it used to. Those old heavy industries are not coming back. By seeming to pander to the ‘Hartlepool’ (sorry to stereotype) voter, not challenging some of the prejudices, and seemingly going along uncomplainingly with Brexit, Labour alienates people whose core values really are progressive. In England they are losing them to Greens and LibDems – Scotland and Wales are of course a different story.
Labour need to build on where they are today and their strengths, and that probably includes a progressive alliance. Only then can they get back into power and address the real underlying causes of the undoubted problems that the Hartlepools of the UK suffer from.
David Rabrouk is surely right to direct attention to the people, not the Labour Party. Sadly his optimistic observation that Americans came to their senses in finally voting for Joe Biden, may be premature. The Republicans have now ousted Liz Cheney for criticising Trump. Evidently they are already preparing to support his 2024 come-back candidacy. God help us!
Regrettably I think you are horribly correct. What happened ? Accidental or orchestrated? by the MSM ? On behalf of ?