For those who only read today's posts when arriving here, might I draw attention to yesterday's post on the Tories? According to my stats this only got around 1,000 reads here yesterday but on Twitter the story was somewhat different:
A reach of 304,000 in a day is pretty good. More than 600 people followed me on Twitter as a result. The thread also got republished on both West Country Bylines and East Anglian Bylines, acting independently. Of the replies, the vast majority were pretty favourable.
I don't often re-promote something that I have written - but this one seems worth a look if you ignore what I have to say on a Sunday - which is, I find, the best day for putting out long Twitter threads, which is how this one started life.
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It’s good to see you expanding your readership and very positive and well deserved.
The Tories though are going to be ready to do anything to stay in power – that is my concern at the moment.
Well done with the twitter thing (which along with Facebook I avoid). If I may offer a dissenting view:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/17/tory-party-boris-johnson-polls-britain
Where I part company with the artice is that it missed a significant development: energy prices, where the gov response is wholly inadequate – sadly Liebore have no clue as to what to do (or indeed how to make electoral capital out of it by offering an alternative). High energy prices are bolted in for the next two years (Both ACER and Centrica have that view). Same day article (on this very subject): https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/jan/17/uk-households-facing-fuel-stress-will-treble-to-63m-thinktank
Whilst this looks bad, it is only 10% of the population in poverty/fuel poverty &, speculating, many don’t vote toryscum anyway. 125,000 died due to uneccessary austerity, circa 200,000 due to the Wuhan virus/Covid and many (as per the 1st article) will still vote toryscum. People don’t even care about Ingerlands increasingly shitty land (again Liebore wholly incapable of capitalising on this reality): (my sister used to work for the EA – & took early retirement – mostly in disgust at what was happening)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/17/cutting-red-tape-rivers-polluted-england-water-regulators
Corrupt governement, mountains of dead due to gov inaction/incompetance, rapidly rising energy prices and a polluted land due to money grabbing corporates & all of this 100% due to toryscum policies. Thus I do not share your optimism. Mendacious Fatberg will go, the toryscum will make some adjustments to stay in power , but nothing short of a revolution will change the situation. I hope I am wrong, but as it stands, I don’t think so. Met some Flemish neighbours yesterday – they asked me what the hell is going on in the UK – I was unable to provide an answer.
I was working on a plan for a second book yesterday – Avoiding Revolution
I have no idea if it will see the light of day
Mike
Come on!
You know the answer.
It’s lying at scale. If it’s not the Tory friendly MSM, its now the internet – go looking for anything Alt Right and see what you get – if you can stand it. It’s agnotology Mike – look it up, and then tell your Flemish friends because the will be next if they are not subject to it already.
The process is:
1). Reduce services – make them purposefully less responsive – Ayn Rand’s ‘And Atlas Shrugged’ ethos right there.
2) Spread fear, create enemies
3) Reduce faith in society by making it look as though markets have all the answers (look at healthcare).
4) Influence people by doing the above to turn in on themselves, their prejudices etc., thus isolating them from any collective effort or core for change (atomisation or disaggregation of popular dissent into competing factions instead of a more cohesive agreement of how to tackle the bigger problems).
It’s mass distraction. Read Tim Snyder’s ‘ Road to Unfreedom’ too – it’s all been done before but now with the internet it is turbo charged. It’s divide and conquer and spread confusion. Facts? What are they? They can have no currency in a world like this.
And the other half of it is a lack of genuine alternative or shall we say a lack of imagination from the opposition because they too feel obliged to use the populist language of the public they are trying to win over.
Okay I’ve bought;
“Road to Unfreedom” I’m not expecting it to cheer me up.
Knowing your enemy defines your future strategy:
1. Press for improvements in services, and for extra funding. Reject the idea that this is unaffordable. Copy other countries that can afford it.
2. Point out that the market has limits. It created the financial collapse and was rescued by states. Markets are monopolistic, benefit rentiers, and requires strong regulation and fiscal policy to function.
3. Above all markets cannot be trusted to deliver public services. Look at Healthcare in America; The Housing market; Transport; Social Care; Army and Police. Or to Self regulate.
4. The Solution is accountable state run public services and for regulated markets where markets are delivering.
5. Reject individualism and those out to shrink the state and insert the market where it doesn’t belong.
6. Understand the world works on the positive effects of industrialisation , technology, bureaucracy and social discipline. But these productive forces have to be socially controlled not given over to market forces.
7. Refute the propagandists for neo-liberalism. Freedom is for all not just the rich.
There can be no freedom without economic freedom.
8. The media needs to be better regulated.
David
Well I’m sorry about that but you’ll derive some satisfaction from knowing a bit more about how it all works and what we are in the midst of.
Hannah Arendt and her ‘banality of evil’ paradigm shows us that in all societies there are those who have a natural disposition to enabling fascism. They’re like unexploded ordnance littering society.
However, there are those who know it and exploit it as a means of subverting common purpose for change. And that is what is going on in my view. And they are the people we need to bring to book – the ‘special advisors’ , ‘strategist’s , ‘pollsters’, ‘Cambridge Analytica’s’ of this world.
On balance I am in favour of Johnson staying and, if if possible, fighting the next election. He’s a bar room brawler and, given the hopeless factionalism within the Tories that you explain superbly, that style of political scrapping has a real chance of victory. That apart, I see no advantage in removing this moron from number ten. His amorality, combined with intellectual vacuity makes him a one speed act, utterly incapable of change. That will ensure a steady stream of gaffes and outrages that can only damage the ‘Tory brand’ further. What’s not to like about that! If the alternative was a return to a Theresa May style of politics, then there would be an advantage for the country as a whole and Tory light would be the preferable option, but that is not what’s on the table. All of the likely contenders are from the ideological right of the Tories and all of them have more political judgement than Johnson. That may well help the Tories. It won’t help the country. Better a right wing buffoon than any of them.
I think it was Clive who pointed out that around half of the Party membership want no change and that’s an important underlining of its political position, anti woke, pro culture war and profoundly anti humanitarian. Johnson’s vacuity also makes him easy to manipulate, because he has proven his consistency in bending to the changes of wind direction from the hard right core of the backbenchers. Then there are the wealthy Party donors who continue to pour funds into the Tory coffers. They are not deterred by corruption, incompetence or lack of ethics! Then there is the financial services sector, which Johnson left out entirely from his “oven ready deal”. As a consequence, the sector is being forced to restructure and thousands of jobs are moving to Europe. Nonetheless, press coverage is minimal and the sector itself remains silent outside of largely internal literature.
Thus, it is a grave error to underestimate the pivotal role of the Tory Party and the unswerving commitment of the elite. In due course, Johnson will be brushed aside, but that is politically irrelevant. The prospects are grim for another style of government in England, not least with an Opposition largely uncritical about all the aspects of policy that matter and with Starmer being a sort of Theresa character in trousers averse to precise policy responses to every national problem currently on the agenda.
For these reasons, I think the best we can hope for is a Tory Party as the largest party, constrained by the need to placate a partner from the Tory light sector. I know that didn’t pan out well with the deeply reactionary Coalition Government, but I think it’s the best hope for now and I think that objective of denting the Tory majority is best served by Johnson staying where he is. I really don’t like Real Politik. It’s invariably depressing.
Prof John Curtice does, I note, thinnk it very unlikely that the Tories will now recover their lost votes
Agreed,
The Tories will be even less likely to recover those votes when the voters realise that the Covid disruptions were acting as a cover for Brexit disruptions and Tory incompetence.
The Covid disruptions will pass with time. The Tory-made crises will not.
Cost of living crisis will finish them off