I liked this, because I agree with it:
"I've got a big problem with Starmer.. I think its becoming like American politics, you can have a choice between a right wing govt that reinforces the establishment & protects vested interests, or you can have a govt that does that but slightly less"
Steve Coogan on KS. Damning pic.twitter.com/xZtqYl60Pp
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) October 24, 2023
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Yes. For those that recognise there needs to be significant change in the UK, there is no party that is worth voting for – maybe the Greens – just.
The rest are trash, re-treads of the worst sort, offering the same failed policies or no policies (Tory2).
But no political vacuum lasts for ever – & I have concerns with respect to what might fill it.
So do I
Thank you, both.
I don’t know if Richard and readers pay attention to who’s being selected to fight seats for the first time, but they are even worse. I don’t know about the Liberals, but the Tory and Labour newcomers, with the exception of Labour’s Miatta Fahnbbulleh, are quite pieces of work.
With regard to what fills the vacuum, recent results on the continent and Farage’s recent musings about the Tory leadership are not encouraging.
It will continue until selfish and feeble minded voters realise they are destroying their own prosperity and security.
I’m sure some are selfish & feeble minded, but many (millions) will be struggling so hard just to survive that they won’t have time to listen to what passes for current political discourse (ha!!).
But, if there was offer of change that had a believeable narrative attached then many would go for it.
& at that point, things could get real nasty.
No Mike you are wrong. I had an argument with a relative this very evening about Starmer boxing himself in on government spending where I was told that understanding how the UK’s monetary system works wasn’t that relevant to the economics of the country! This is a person who spends as much leisure time as possible listening to music yet still wanted to pontificate to me!
Sweden, Italy, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Belgium, Holland, Finland and New Zealand have moved to the right. France looks like it may follow. In Poland PiS are still getting over 35% of the vote. Definitely something big driving this.
Mr Scofield, thank you for your response. There was in the FT on Saturday (21st oct) one of the most disturbing articles that I have read in some time (mainly because it started to confirm some thoughts I held in the background, as it were). My business partner sent it to me.
“The end of reading & the rise of simplism” by Simon Kuper.
It provides some answers/pointers to the points you make. Frankly, I found it terrifying in its implications for democracy (which requires some level of informed debate and consent).
I may get to that article for a post here…
I would put money on the Tory’s moving way right of anything we’ve seen in this country. Starmer could stop this by showing the electorate that there really is another way but he shows no sign of doing this.
By moving to the right, Starmer is not giving the more moderate Tories anywhere to take their party. The only thing it can do is move even further to the right.
Apologies in advance: what follows is totally O/T, but potentially of significant importance to the future of the UK as currently constituted. Today BBC R4 re-ran a recent programme about the shocking environmental damage to Lough Neagh in N Ireland. It is a truly staggering litany of political incompetence, greed, corruption, and sheer stupidity which has resulted in massive pollution of the lough, the mass destruction of nature and the poisoning of much of NI’s drinking water. It also lays bare the wrecking tactics of the DUP in the suspension of democratic politics in NI. You can hear it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001rq4z
It lasts about 27 minutes and makes for pretty depressing listening, but what caught my ear was at around 25:19: there’s brief mention of the Irish (Dublin) Government making payments towards NI matters like bridge construction in Belfast, funding of NI student nurses and students on Erasmus exchanges. But what if it were to make a bid to buy Lough Neagh from its English aristocratic owner and finance a recovery plan to restore it to health before its too late? That alone would be enough to significantly shift public opinion further towards unification – Ireland can save Lough Neagh but the combined forces of Unionism and Westminster can’t/won’t and, although some of the UK’s media would rage about Dublin interference, Stormont and Westminster’s ineffectiveness and incompetence couldn’t be hidden from the UK public.
I’ve long thought that the end of the UK would begin in NI, with Scotland and Wales following on as the edifice collapses. Watch this space!
Not O/T
Alaska was bought, after all
Indeed, as were Louisiana, Florida, California and large tracts of Nevada, Utah, New Mexico Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming and Texas. Trump even thought about buying Greenland in 2019! Given the importance of the Irish in American culture and politics, maybe the USA could be persuaded to put in a bid for N Ireland? I suspect Westminster would be relieved to see it gone and it must be worth a bob or two, which will certainly get the Tories interested. Starmer and Reeves would salivate at the prospect of extra wealth without risking their hallowed fiscal rules. It might even provide an alternative locus for nuclear submarines and their munitions which are currently sited on the edge of Scotland’s most populous region. I don’t know how the folks of NI would feel about that, but it would be a winner in Scotland!
I think it more likely there will be a United Ireland than an Independent Scotland in the next 30yrs. Geographically it just makes sense.
Thanks for highlighting this atrocity.
I have lived in Northern Ireland since 1996 and have watched the unchecked increasingly ugly destruction of the environment and ringfenced land theft here all aided abetted by local corrupt DUP councillors and their local loyalist paramilitary family members or associates and protected by a Unionist junta which effectively ruled an autocratic Stormont from 2009.
The PSNI are under orders to turn a blind eye to these paramilitaries by those higher up in the British state and it is beyond coping with if you become a loyalist target or try to confront local corruption. Hence the mass exodus of the educated young in Unionist areas.
Totally agree with everything on this post.
All I will add though is this is what you get when you do not tax wealth sufficiently enough. Their money spills over into the political system and perverts it and makes it unaccountable and unresponsive to the majority.
And that is how the status quo is maintained; democracy becomes a wealth management tool.
This – or something like it needs to be said to over and over to voters – especially the turkeys.
Agreed
https://labourhub.org.uk/2023/10/25/one-war-crime-does-not-justify-another/
Starmer has got a lot more problems than Steve Coogan.
Thanks for this jenw. I totally agree with John McDonnell – how I wish he led the Labour Party!
His fiscal rule was as severe as Rachel Reeves’
It was why we fell out
Could McDonnell be persuaded to change his mind now, though?
I have just read that Reeves has had a book published with huge chunks of it lifted from wikipedia.
Didn’t know that about JM’s economic policy. I was just indulging in nostalgia for the time that Labour had left wing politics at it’s heart.
It seems to me simpler to view all of Britain’s political parties as “charlatan” parties with the possible exception of the Green Party that is now making the effort to understand that the ability of the UK government to create money from thin air is enshrined in the country’s legislation. In consequence of this enshrinement the political parties “ought” to be figuring out how this capability should be used for the nation’s advantage.
..the ability of the UK government to create money from thin air….Richard Murphy’s Funding The Future podcast on ‘redirecting’ ISA funds to enable Government Spending is very interesting & highly recommended. I may have not heard clearly, but the existing ISA tax subsidy loss/cost of £60Bn a year may provide access to £90 Bn a year of new ISA savings, for Government to invest in socially production employment activities. This would make all ISA’s basically NS&I funds ?
You have got the gist of it.
There is more here https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/The-QuEST-for-a-Green-New-Deal.pdf
I would never buy The Telegraph but just read this very depressing, nightmarish, “abandon all hope” article about the UK economy, on Yahoo, by Sam Ashworth-Hayes. https://uk.yahoo.com/style-britain-quietly-inching-towards-fate-050000451.html
It’s theme is that only by drastically reducing state health and welfare provision can we avoid absolute decline as a country. I hope this viewpoint doesn’t gain traction in the media and that more articles about MMT will appear in the mainstream as a counter-weight. It’s a relief to turn to these pages to read that there are solutions. I’m sure I read somewhere that Biden’s government are starting to acknowledge the validity of MMT, I hope that’s true and that this might eventually filter through into UK policy.
I think Stephanie Kelton is still working on them
Although I fear the people we elect I am more concerned about those who elect them! Democracy and our educational system have both failed to produce a progressive society.
In terms of Starmer I think we need to get real here. Business runs the country, not the Government – just look at how a ‘spooked’ market can act to bring down politicians. He has to behave like he supports business or he won’t be the PM so he needs to sit tight and not rock the boat. I think everyone is dreaming if they think we’re going to get a responsible fair economy and distribution of wealth when the power is fully in the hands of business.
Oh dear…how wrong you are
Tell me how far you think business would get without government?
Next Tuesday, maybe?
Here’s a Bill Mitchell quote that seems very apt:-
“The government has not given way to the free market – it has just been reconfigured to become an agent of capital.”
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=61261