Many people will be voting in the UK this week in widespread local elections that will, unfortunately, be passing my community by. These elections will provide a significant indication of the current state of political play. But what is it that is being tested?
Conventionally UK elections are seen as a test of right v left (of a sort) politics. I do, however, have a growing sense that this may not be appropriate framing. I offer three alternatives.
One that is linked to the right v left narrative, but which is more obvious to many now is that of individualism v collectivism. Forty years of neoliberal individualism is running out of road. Healthcare, education, law and order, social care and more are all failing because the collective responsibility we have to each other is being sacrificed. But not only is it being sacrificed to individualism, it is being so to particular interests. In other words, the conflict is between collectivism and clientelism. When the options available are collective benefit or no benefit at all whilst watching others take advantage of the state, which is what is happening, the neoliberal narrative is failing. Collectivism suddenly appears a lot more attractive.
Second, this is a choice between corruption and decency. This is not the same as the previous argument: the corruption is personal within politics. Whether it is failure to comply with or uphold the law, or whether it's about watching porn in parliament, or about being deeply misogynistic, or whether its about cronyism, or being an agent for Russia, the argument comes to much the same thing, which is a total absence of any morality. That is what the Tories have to offer, and it stinks.
Third, there is inability. You could link this to the previous two and say this is about a failure of individualism linked to a lack of morality, but there is more to this than that. Even if individualism was an appropriate policy, and it was moral, we have a government that seems entirely unable what to do to deliver on policy promises. There is no idea how to create coherent policy beyond the failure of the underlying principles themselves, bankrupt as they also happen to be.
Put this together and we have a failed government. It's not just corrupt, it is directionless, and it is not delivering. There is no answer that the government can supply to these suggestions. In that case it has failed.
There are of course policy discussions at theoretical and practical levels to be had, but the simple fact is that the choice this week is not between left or right. It is between issues more apparent than that to most people.
Politics is getting raw. It needs to. And the choice has to be ABC - Anything But Conservative.
The politics of this week is about beating their corruption, political, moral and personal.
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It is clear that the most vital issue = climate crisis and a failed neoliberal industrial/consumption growth at all cost policy is being ignored by pundits. These issues such as increasing insulation rather than more road building, planning laws of the highest ecological standards at local level can be brought in y councils, is not being addressed. Sadly, Greens who seem to be the only ones who understand are squeezed by first past the post. However, your point about individualism v collectivism is valid, can the public see what personal greed at the expense of public good is doing?
What Nadine Dorries seems to have done on Twitter recently is the latest in a long line of lying that starts at the top with Boris.
Rather than getting into debates about ‘collective versus individual’ themes with voting punters ( and I agree with you entirely BTW) what we should be highlighting is the lying and dishonesty that the Tories do.
I think that we can then ask people how they can trust a Government who are a bunch of inveterate liars.
Because that’s what they are: Liars.
We need to quote Thatcher and what privatisation of the utilities supposedly promised and compare it to now.
We need to keep pointing out the deliberate running down of the NHS and other services in order to create an excuse so that rich people can invest their money and earn money from peoples needs and illnesses.
And the BIG lie that supports all these other lies?
That the Government does not have the money to do anything other than what it is doing now.
That is what we need to focus on.
PSR, could you bring me up to date with Dorries lie please? Not being on Twitter, and since she makes me sick anyway, I’m not sure what crap it is she’s come out with. I’ve heard she was claiming to suffer from dyslexia, to excuse yet another moronic statement. Is that the lie? Or is it something else?
Thanks.
You can read it on Richard’s Twitter feed SOTD.
But as I see it, she put up a picture of Starmer eating a curry with Frank Dobson, suggesting that the picture was taken during lockdown when in fact Dobson died in 2019 long before Covid arrived here. The meal they shared of which there is a picture could go back to 2015!!
Silly?
Nasty?
Underhand?
Wrong?
Desperate?
The problem is that once the suggestion is made on line, the damage is done – just like someone accused Richard of being racist because of his comments about BVi this morning. It’s not on really.
Completely right, PSR.
Boris recently said that he was going to supply the Ukraine with anti-ship missiles as part of our support of their armed forces. The reality is that the Royal Navy’s only anti-ship missile (I am not including the much smaller anti-boat weapons carried by helicopters) goes out of service next year. This means the the navy’s surface fleet will not be able to conduct one of it’s primary functions. Stocks of the missile in question (Harpoon) are so low that only a few of the surface fleet now carry them.
The question is, then, what is it Boris was going to send to the Ukraine and how can they use them?
Is this just a new bit of Bullshit Boris, or is he lying or being badly advised? Probably a bit of all three. So in the context of this post just this one subject has a full spread of what our government has to offer. Incompetence, half-arsed policies and downright deceit.
By way of reference.
https://www.navylookout.com/can-the-uk-supply-anti-ship-missiles-to-ukraine/
Having read the article, which indicates that ‘world beating’ mighty Blighty has bugger all anti-ship capability anyway, I’m inclined to say Johnson just came out with this rubbish to gain headlines in the right wing press, and bolster his pathetic ego.
He hadn’t a clue what he was talking about, and of course he couldn’t care less that he didn’t anyway. As long as it got a mention in the DM and Telegraph for a day. So as usual, incompetence and dishonesty from Johnson.
And anyhow, given the sinking of the Moskva by the Ukranians themselves, it looks as though they have far greater anti ship capabilities than the UK anyway.
OMG! How much lower can he go?
A snake’s belly would be positively stratospheric in comparison !
Our body politic has been brought low by this joker and his comical crew. The problem is though, that this is no laughing matter. Twelve years of disastrous policy choices, from Osborne’s austerity, to the criminal deceits of a hard-right Tory Brexit are now playing out with force, with much, much worse to come.
We in Somerset have an election for the new unitary County Council. The district councils will continue in tandem for a year. The unitary authority seems to have been recommended by our Conservative C C. After it was approved the district councils organised a poll as to whether we have one council or two -one in the east and one in the west, based on the two district councils in each. The Minister, me Jenrick disapproved. It went ahead -about a sixth voted but they voted two to one in favour of two councils. Mr. Jenrick over rode it.
A friend of mine is the Lib Dem councillor both at district and county levels. He reports a number of usually Tory voters saying “Boris is doing his best” or ‘It’s been a difficult time”. But the more prosperous are saying ‘I can’t vote for him”.
I have delivered leaflets and may do some telling. It’s a small contribution but I feel I am doing something. We live in hope.
We have to
As a fellow Somerset resident by far the most sensible way in every respect is to vote Green. There have been Lib Dem led councils in Somerset CC for many years and they were little better than the Conservatives. We need radical change and in many parts of Somerset the Greens stand a very good chance of getting elected.
Reference your first point, Edmund Burke sometimes referred to as the founding father of modern conservatism (note modern rather than contemporary, the two are galloping apart at a rate of knots in my view) deplored liberal individualism seeing it as the “ethics of vanity” making people profoundly selfish. De Tocqueville went further, he believed that it encouraged a “what’s in it for me”? attitude forgetting the essentially social nature of their own selves and their reliance on others for the goods and services that they cannot provide for themselves. As an aside, it’s also interesting to note that Samuel Johnson thought Burke a dishonest politician so hey ho! Make what you will of that.
You can read it on Richard’s Twitter feed SOTD.
But as I see it, she put up a picture of Starmer eating a curry with Frank Dobson, suggesting that the picture was taken during lockdown when in fact Dobson died in 2019 long before Covid arrived here. The meal they shared of which there is a picture could go back to 2015!!
Thanks PSR. So, a blatant lie. Just like the equally dishonest DM, she tries to draw an entirely false equivalence between Johnson’s behaviour and Starmer’s. There isn’t Dorries, you worthless idiot.