As Politico notes this morning:
A major media move to start the day as the New Statesman hires Bloomberg's Tim Ross as its new executive editor, politics. The vastly experienced Ross, who has been writing about British politics for two decades, will run the mag's political coverage as it looks to broaden its appeal way beyond the center-left, making the most of his background at the Telegraph, his insider books on the Tory election campaigns in 2015 and 2017, and more recently his time in charge of the U.K. politics desk at the chronicler of capitalism, Bloomberg.
I cannot help but think three things.
First, this looks like entryism.
Second, why does The New Statesman need to move to the right?
Third, why is it that the soft left has reconciled itself to perpetual Tory rule and now thinks its job is to merely try to make that fate appear just a little more acceptable by begging the odd favour from those who are imposing their ideological nightmares on us?
I am so bored by the accommodation of the right by those who should know better, and who keep telling me that my only job now is to work out policy the Tories might adopt. This is the thinking behind this move, I suspect.
That is not what I think is required. I think that what is required might be summarised in one word: Opposition.
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Sadly, I would put the choice of direction down to following the money. When one looks at the UK media landscape, it is dominated by “simplistic” publications, providing simple answers to complex problems.
Thus there is a market for GB News (if it was even mildly competent), but would Liberal News work? As all I see my neighbours reading is the Daily Mail, I think not.
We have now reached the stage that a GB News presenter (one ‘Neil Oliver’; where do they find them?), has apparently claimed that he would be prepared to catch Covid-19, for the sake of “freedom”. It appears his lofty measure of ‘freedom’ is defined by Churchill and World War II.
In the service of history and facts, here is how a World War is fought. The Government takes for itself Absolute Power in everything. Here is what follows (and even when the War ends is reluctantly, or not soon or easily given up): Conscription. Food rationing. Clothes rationing. Loss of personal freedom. Confiscation of property. Curfew. The total control of the economy: production, distribution, consumption. Total control of the Press. I could go on, but you may by now understand the ‘gist’ of how ‘free’ societies fight world wars.
We are now fighting a world viral pandemic that has killed circa 4m worldwide, and 130,000 in the UK. The virus, which unlike human enemies is not subject to rational choice, can only be fought by long established, well understood, successful public health measures; which includes quarantine and lockdown. This does not entail the destruction of liberty, nor the surrender of all the rights required to fight a world war; but the minimum rational measures for the fundamental protection of life, in order that people will be able to enjoy a life of freedom.
This is nothing like the severity of the abrogation of personal freedoms required to fight a world war; but it is all too much for neoliberal extemists – who are nothing more than the ‘snowflakes of liberity’.
Well said
The continued belief and faith in fake ‘left/right’ paradigm is unfortunately the biggest mote in our eyes. Concocted as it was to frame what has become known as the Overton Window
That window which has been inexorably panning to the ‘right’ for five decades , did suffer a hiccup by the accidental election of Corbyn – which let the ‘wrong ones in’ as Opposition.
It took a might of combined vilification , snobbery and plain blind eyeing, ignorance of the genuine social democratic policies to stop their messages being disseminated.
Any Opposition now would be as worthless as the ‘triangulating’ versions introduced under neocons in sheep’s clothing Democrats and NuLabInc of Clinton/Blair ; who then did as much if not more than their fellow alumni ‘right’ to turn the world into a noxious, murderous profiteering cess pit for their Forever Masters.
That Overton Widow ALSO has two other boundaries – ‘Top/Bottom’. They too are fake and designed to hide the real top as they are to ignore the real ‘bottom’.
That is why the China/Russia self defence and Economic Security Alliances are THE major threat to the centuries long hagemony.
When the raising of the poorest is the main priority – the invisible ‘’Top’ gets extra busy and starts the drum rattling, to build the animosity , so that the minions send their children to kill and die to maintain their status quo.
Of course the NS is abandoning its fake ‘left’ opinion forming as gas the MSM and freedom of speech and thought is daily more restricted. It like all media and education and entertainment is steering towards the daily vilification of these ‘threats’ and ‘enemies’ as the leaked plans of the integrity initiative documents have PROVED.
There will be no ‘Opposition’ of any worth, at least officially.
As I have said from the moment the GKH Starmer and Blairites Bastards Rode again & threatened to regain the reins with their fake ‘left’ honeyed words, which they had no intention of keeping. Defenestrating all who may provide real opposition.
Insofar as your rant represents the views of many of those who consider themselves to be genuinely on the left, it demonstrates perfectly why the left will never secure sufficient popular support to provide a credible alternative government.
Your alternative is Paul?
Labour is totally riven by factionalism. And it is beset within and without by variants of the anti-capitalist, anti-western left, the purveyors of identity politics and Green fantasists. There is a desperate need for Keir Starmer (or his successor) to set out in simple terms to the British public what social democracy means in this modern era. Joe Biden has managed to resurrect the traditional alliance of liberalism and progressivism in the US and his administation is pivoting determinedly away from neoliberalism. It should be a teachable moment for social democratic parties in Europe, but it seems they have very special educational needs.
Nothing will be achieved unless there is some form of alliance between Labour and the Lib Dems. That’s the only way it will be possible to get enough bums on the seats in the Commons.
Paul,
You completely ignore that there is no such thing as the ‘left’ as I state.
You don’t even deny my thesis!
It is a mere invention of the unseen ‘top’ that forever aims to keep the ‘bottom’ in subservience.
The only fight is against these overlords. It had always been.
The sop of ‘democracy’ in name only is just that, a sop.
We are never to be allowed proportional representation that would require a compromise by the duly elected to accommodate all voters. Not in America. Not in the U.K.
Biden was as much crowned as any make believe puppet in both countries since the 60’s when the last elected representative tried to usurp the forever backers and was publicly executed. As an example to all that follow, if they try to do the same.
Before anyone wants to accuse me of CT – this is not just my opinion. The greatest commentators from the heart of that world have said so and been ignored.
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/07/31/a-conversation-with-gore-vidal-on-the-e-word/
So please, don’t try and defend the status quo to me and keep harking back to the same controlled narrative. Save it for the MSM muggins, where such nonsense is plied daily.
I shan’t be making any further responses on this thread at this site. But do bring it elsewhere I am present if you want to dance.
@Dungroanin,
That seems par for the course. Shut down the debate here when you realise you’re on a hiding to nothing.
Paul
He offered to debate elsewhere and so I think your comment close to being unacceptable
Please play fair. You might disagree but this is just abusive
Richard
But the problem is I don’t know where this “elsewhere” is. And if I knew I’m not sure I’d want to enter what’s likely to be a little echo-chamber.
And when it comes to abuse, you seem to have a very selective tolerance. In my book the original comment to which I responded and the subsequent outburst which it provoked would fall in to that category.
I think Google will help you
As for judgement, I accept drawing the line is hard
I don’t always get it right, but you pushed against another commutator more than I thought appropriate
I think that commentator might also take note, s/he does push limits on occasion too
65% of households have owner/occupier status. Over 40% of these have no mortgage. They want constantly increasing house prices, no increases in taxation and an even lower inheritance tax.
The Tories secured almost 14 million votes at the last election. There is no doubt they have the lion’s share of the voters in these households. Labour and the Lib Dems, together, almost matched the Tories total. Around 2 million votes went to the SNP and the Greens.
That’s the nature of the political landscape.
Ironically, the teenage scribblers at The Economist appear, belatedly, to have discovered the malign impacts of excessive inequality:
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/07/31/why-have-some-places-suffered-more-covid-19-deaths-than-others
“anti-western left, the purveyors of identity politics”.
This is a contradiction. Feminism, queer politics and intersectionality all emerged in part because of people and events in the West. How is the left anti-western?
Tend to agree Dun groaner. The only reason I ( and quite a few other members) remain in the Labour Party is to press for PR which has 83% of local parties support. However it is depressing to see some Labour MPs and Mr ‘the filthy rich ‘ Mandelson trying to neuter the membership and it’s drive towards PR.
Failure to get PR adopted at conference will see pro PR members leave in droves which is of course just what Mandy and co want….so don’t hold your breath.
Where Starmer stands on this is anyone’s guess, a bit like he is on everything else?
Anyway a massive chunk of Labour members are pressing for PR, not to mention secondarily rejoin The Customs union and Single market, or dare I say rejoin the EU! We live in hope, not that Starmer gives us any, nor methinks does he care about those who hold progressive views – err… those that the party used to attract!
Rant over, and thanks Richard for fighting for the PR cause – it is timely that the Labour Party adopt PR, there won’t be a PR coalition without this, this is the moment.
Regards p
What about the 33% who did not vote?
The government seems intent on engineering an ‘elected’ one party state – following Orban, Erdogan, Bolsonaro Trump, Modi, by ruthlessly exploiting the lack of any checks on corruption or lying by the executive in our rickety constitution, promoting dog whistle racist culture wars, running the pandemic as a political and public relations campaign, undermining, controlling, neutralising or privatising such quasi- independent institutions as parliament, the BBC, Channel 4, the NHS,the National Trust, the Judiciary,independent academics, criminalising journalists, demonstrators etc , suppressing voting rights, gerrymandering boundaries etcc .
Labour doesnt seem to comprehend the enormity of what’s being done. The internal factionalism seems a self destructive indulgence.
It is difficult to disagree with Nesrine Malik:
‘Instead of blaming and waiting, Labour needs to mount an independent offensive to build its own majority by providing solutions to the problems caused by slashed benefits and extractive overlords. It needs to make its case on its own terms, not just as the obviously nicer alternative to Johnson’s evil sheriff.’
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/02/political-class-fault-british-politics-guy-who-did-this
Totally agree. Watch the first 10 minutes or so of this https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0008c79/rise-of-the-nazis-series-1-2-the-first-six-months-in-power
and see the parallels – seriously chilling. Is it just to remain in power for ever more enabling the rich to get richer and the rest of us to return to peasant status? Are we to become a second China without the economic success? or ?
I agree with Alan above. This is about money as much as it is about politics and money has captured politics. The rich are in charge.
That is why the Right is doing so well. They are being funded well.
There is always a tendency however for people to over-state the case. At the moment we are being fed this bullshit about entering a new epoch of politics and that this move to the Right is ‘natural’.
Well its not – it’s contrived , engineered by huge vested interests.
Events like Covid and BREXIT however severely test this new world order. That is because this neo-Right is not actually based on intellect, morality or ethics. The only capability or capacity on display here is the self preservation of wealth as a reaction to 2008 and latterly to the climate crisis and crisis in raw materials. This is about self -defence of the rich and entitled (their mindset – not mine).
All it is a demonstration of the raw power of money to foster lies and untruths – Fascism has met capitalism and decided to work together. This isn’t even politics. It’s tactical.
What this has done is reify (make evident) that our democracy was always a bit of a sham really – we’ve tolerated Liz Windsor and her runts for years and a house of lords – a privy council even. Why?
Come on now – What did we expect? Huh? There was a time in this society were having money was seen as rather ‘vulgar’ by the class that had most of it.
Well it’s not now. And the more the merrier it seems.
As for the opposition on £80K plus a year – they have grown used to that nice little earner. They’re not going to want to lose that are they by actually opposing Boris and his Government are they? Too risky to their way of life I’m afraid – and how many of them could get better paying jobs in the real world if they lost their seats?
My view: we all know what the answers are – its DIY regime change. The question is what are we prepared to sacrifice to enable that? How far are some of us prepared to go? And should we go there at all?
But most of all, where would the money come from to fight back. Because its going to take money – lots of money.
And isn’t everything about money after all these days?
Yes – I agree with the parallels of how the Nazi’s got into power – but also the Soviet communists too (as Tim Snyder points out in his 2010 book ‘Bloodlands’ – Fascism and Soviet communism are very similar in method).
The Nazi’s were willing to break the law to come to power on the back of discontent in the German people because of Germany’s interwar economic problems. I understand that Hitler even spent time in prison in the 1920s to this end.
And once in power, they were happy to deconstruct the German law and reconstruct it in their image (for example making Jews stateless and not subject to recognisable law or rights). The Nazis were also happy to invade states that had essentially been previously stripped of their Governments by the Soviets (Poland, Belarus, Latvia) and fill the void of national law with their own (for example, authorising the killing of Jews on sight without question and punishing those who helped Jews. Germans who refused to shoot Jewish or Polish women and children were allowed to do so. Poles, Latvians and Ukrainians co-opted into Nazi genocide would be shot if they did not shoot. Another example of the sort law and rule making that can be generated).
Thus our Tories are happy to make EU citizens almost non-persons, the same with asylum seekers and are even prepared it seems to break marine law and leave boat people to drown in the name being popular. A popularity born out of austerity and the false narrative that it is incomers who are draining the coffers – not years of underfunding and broken promises. Look at how Johnson has played with our cod-democracy – even May did so under another Tory made law – the Fixed Term Parliament Act.
The other thing that occurs to me about the Tories and the neo-Right is the audacity on display. Such audacity can only ever come about because it is backed by money. Backed by so much money, can you ever lose? Sure – the leadership might change – but the drivers behind Tory hegemony will not – I assure you.
You have to give it to the neo-Right – they know how to throw a party. Consider this chilling response from the Bush Jnr regime in 2002 – often quoted in movies and books elsewhere and I take mine from Mirowski in ‘Never Let a Serious Crisis Go To Waste’ (2013) p. 242:
‘The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality”. I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off:. “We’re an empire now and when we act we create our own reality . And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously as you will – we’ll act again , creating other new realities, which you can study too and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors……..and you, all of you, will be left just to study what we do”.
This is basically a statement about the use of power. And the neo-Right has no problems with it. The last time I saw such a new reality being created in this country by the Left was before my time, in 1946 by Clem Attlee. I’ve not heard anything from the Left in my view since. I’ve seen no real efforts to create a different reality. Just an effort to go along with the Right and then say ‘Oh, the Tories wouldn’t go that far or do that’. Well, they have – a lot of what they’ve done since 2010 has its basis in what New Labour did with the NHS and Education.
But you’ve got to hand it to the Tories and to the Nazis (and the Soviet cod-communists). They went ahead and created something – their own reality. And both/all are/were horrendous conditions under which to live.
Give me Clem Attlee’s reality any day of the week. Do you think the third rate wankers in today’s Labour party even comprehend that desire?
And what about the nice but rather dim people of the Green party who know everything there is to know about the environment but still don’t understand MMT?
Why are our so called progressive parties addled by coyness when trying to set out an alternative reality?
The changed leadership of the New Statesman just confirms the right wing domination of UK main media.
I agree with most of the sentiments in the above responses apart from those of Paul Hunt. There seems to be a general wish for more democracy (PR) and a general frustration with the lack of an effective main opposition under the present leader, Starmer.
Another aspect of the same issue is described in today’s article on the Labour Party in The Independent newspaper which describes the changed direction of “Momentum”, a left wing group within the Party. In my view, this will help Starmer in his continued concentration on getting rid of left wing opposition to his insignificant and general right wing approaches (hardly policies) as Paul Hunt above seems to prefer.
An effective opposition party which has a Democratic Welfare State vision needs a Manifesto which specifically expresses its overall aims, policies and strategies on all such aspects as nationalisation of energy and transport, free education for all at all levels, national health in its widest sense, etc.
As Richard says, there is a money tree but I would add, it needs to exist to create a nation of healthy, ethically aware, well educated citizens
supported by a well maintained infrastructure. Ignorance, inequality and need are some of the instruments of the right wing, wherever you live.
I would like to see a strong opposition party which creates hope with a strong welfare state response. Sack Starmer and replace him with someone with the personal commitment to something like the Manifesto I have described. This cannot happen if the Left is split and simply spends most effort on analysing what is wrong. Explain what needs to happen.