I suspect that many readers here might have already seen this polling result, published yesterday:
Every time I think the Tories can do no worse, they do. But then, that only reflects what actually happened this week.
If (and that is a maybe ‘if') this was reflected on a polling day Labour would get well over 500 seats. The Tories would have 24, behind the LibDems and maybe the SNP. The former would be the official Opposition with 48 seats.
I sincerely hope that this does not happen. Such a Labour majority, dedicated to austerity, would be as disastrous for this country now as a National government was in the 1930s.
However looked at though, it seems that we live in unprecedented times.
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What’s so appalling is that after the Tory austerity Starmer in believing in the maxed out government credit card has utterly failed to ask himself where the money to operate such a credit card came from in the first place. This isn’t a very smart person is it?
I think the Tories will always poll more than the predictions, as many are embarrassed to admit who they want.
I am surprised that the left has not been able to organise themselves into an acceptable alternative; why are the unions still supporting Labour who share few values, why are many independents still just that, and what has happened to the likes of TUSC and similar organisations?
“The left has clearly undergone fundamental change. It no longer offers a genuine alternative to the existing order of things, whether reformist or revolutionary” — he Death of the Left: Why We Must Begin from the Beginning Again, Simon Winlow and Steve Hall (2022) https://amzn.eu/d/eztL1A3
The rise in Reform really worries me. They are getting to the level where even with FPTP they could win seats. They already get disproportionate media time compared to the Greens who have a much bigger local base and an elected MP.
Sadly true: and reflects the awful state of MSM, more interested in ratings than real news, so more likely to put up ranting bigots than people doing worthwhile grassroots work.
It seems that “to inform, educate and entertain” has been replaced by “to shock, outrage and titillate”.
Looks like Labour have an unassailable lead, even if things level off a bit by the time of the election. What a shame their time in government is promising to be so thoroughly wasted! With an expected majority like that they could propose and enact the most progressive policies – in fact, everything this country so desperately needs. Instead, they will satisfy themselves with minor tweaks? Let’s be clear about this – it’s not what they’re proposing to do or not do that has got the Labour party this poll lead – it’s because the Tories are so widely reviled. Starmer could stand down to be replaced by a Jeremy Corbyn who promises terrible things like giving NHS staff a pay rise and free broadband for all, and Labour would still win a resounding victory. So why are the Labour Party so wary of giving hope that things could change for the better? I just don’t believe it’s all down to fear of the right wing media. They appear to have no real ambition, drive, zeal for anything other than getting elected.
“They appear to have no real ambition, drive, zeal for anything other than getting elected.”
No intellectual or moral ambition! Pretty much like a plastic trinket that happens to also fall out of a cornflake packet as you’re filling your cereal bowl!
I can offer no succour.
This morning I heard that one of the ‘candidates’ (or perhaps avatars for wealth) in the Welsh (Labour) Government’s leadership ‘contest’ had been given £200K by a private donor who had been caught and fined for polluting the environment.
Was anyone else listening or making any connections about this?
It struck me as evidence of the ongoing coup by wealth to steal and dominate our democracy.
Where the hell is the electoral commission on this?
How many of us are aware of just how corrupting this is?
It is so corrupting that technically for me at least it renders democracy invalid and should not be allowed to be and suggests that it should be overcome by any means possible.
Why? Because all that matters now is money-wealth. The only valid opinion or support of politics now is based on your wealth and personal interest in that wealth – not your intellect, humanity, learning, experience etc. And no body cares how you got wealthy either. No one will care who you ripped off or are ripping off to get it.
Getting it, having it, is all that matters.
Which means that the rest of us are nothing more than economic units to be exploited. Not persons with needs to be met.
One thing though is that admire the audacity of it all which I think is Carl Schmitt’s basic idea behind fascism is sound. If only so-called liberals and the Left could be so audacious now.
Imagine waking up after voting for a real opposition to the sound of the HMRC closing all the loop holes in his Taxing Wealth Report or even printing money into the economy and taxing it appropriately?
But then again, they sort of tried to didn’t they – under Corbyn – and look at how his own party snuffed him out because of Blairism – the Labour party’s version of Thatcherism.
This American style democracy is worse for Britain because as leading Neo-liberals have even noted, the English class-system and its inherent ‘oh-dearism’ towards the poor will just be exacerbated.
Over in Russia – where there is a more honest form of government (which like the the Nazis, at least avoid democratic pretence and will kill you if you challenge them) polling stations are being set on fire and there is plan for voters to turn up en masse to voting stations and NOT VOTE – just stand outside.
And I thought………………what a jolly good idea.
I mean, what else can we do? This is corruption in plain sight.
I ask you, how can any of this private political funding be to the benefit ordinary people?
Polanyi highlighted that the essence of the changes from feudalism to an industrial economy was that relationships became progressively transactional, hence individualistic, and this was an immensely painful transition, with many of us still feeling that pain.
It has been several decades since plutocracy fully captured what was always a weak model for representative demomcracy in the UK, let alone in the USA and EU.
The entrenchment of that is well exemplified by people like Hester, but also any number of Russian oligarchs in the last twenty years, and corporate interests since the 60s and Galbraith’s ” New Industrial State” – possibly even Burnham’s 1941 polemic on the takeover of managerialism. We cannot say we have not been warned.
How you manage and restrain the anti democratic power of these dominant money, corporate and oligopolistic interests I do not know, we certainly have put no serious controls over this corruption of democracy in place in the last 40 years, and probably the opposite.
The subservience of LINO under SKS’ leadership to plutocracy and neoliberal business interests is more than depressing. It has the feeling of finality that the October 1976 abandonment of the Keynesian consensus by Labour had then.. It will sign off the Blair project.
There are very few in politics, anywhere globally, articulating a sense of common purpose, shared society and collective responsibilities that balance outright individualism, and until we have a simple, decent, underpinning morality within poltiical economy – we are stuffed.
I don’t live in the UK – but I don’t think left-leaning people there should vote Labour. Labour will obviously win anyway, just because lots of people that don’t really follow politics at all feel a change of government is overdue, and Tory voters are so disenchanted. The optimal vote will be for one of the smaller parties – to at least send the message that the duopoly is failing, and that environmental and constitutional issues do demand attention.
I am inclined to agree
Exactly Geof. Labour’ s electoral strategy has been to chase after the votes of Tory and swing voters. Genuine progressives can like it or lump it. So as you say, if you want genuine progressive policies like PR, redistributive taxation, labour’s not for you. It’s the greens for me.
Geof Cox
Don’t know if you are a U.K. subject living abroad? The 15 year limit on voting for those resident abroad has been rescinded. Check the Electoral Commission website.
A couple of obvious concerns if these results are even remotely accurate:
The high number of people saying they intend to vote Reform, and a potential Labour landslide being used as evidence to support the narrative that the British people want a govt of “sound finance”, ie continued austerity and neoliberalism.
How can you believe in “sound finance” when you believe the government operates on a credit card but haven’t got a clue where in a rationally coherent way the money as a medium of exchange is created to allow that credit card to operate! This phrase is just a meaningless “sound bite” for airheads!
I have several friends and acquaintances who are diehard Labour supporters; and all they seem capable of saying – when I try to put to them that Reeves’ statements are economic nonsense and/or that Labour is the Tory Continuity Party of austerity – is “Well, we need to get the Tories out and Labour in; and then they’ll be in a position to make things better.” With minimal substance, concrete policies etc. Or a “wait for the manifesto” deflection.
And these are the folk who are mobilised to knock on doors and convince voters to trust Sir Keir and Co.
I am baffled by my friends saying similar things.
They tell me I am catastrophising.
I know I am not..