Sonia Sodha, The Observer's main leader writer, wrote a particularly irritating article in that newspaper yesterday. In it, she criticised those on the left who, she says, are splitting the Starmer vote, which she thinks is wholly unproductive, not least because she claims that three women Labour MPs might lose their seats as a result.
Sodha appears to be entirely blind to some political facts when she makes her comments.
Firstly, even though she acknowledges that many on the left think that there is almost nothing that can differentiate Kier Starmer's Labour Party from the Conservatives, excepting perhaps the scale of incompetence that they can display in the delivery of their common agendas, she still, somehow, believes that those who are anywhere on the left should be entirely happy that a party that used to represent the interest of people, rather than capital, is only now interested in serving the interest of wealth. Despite that she seems to think that its traditional support should still offer their loyalty to it. Quite why it is that she thinks brand loyalty is more important than political substance, she does not explain.
Secondly, she does not explain why she thinks that those who believe that people and the planet have higher priority than the promotion of wealth should willingly give up their political right to seek representation by those who share their opinion, and yet that is clearly what she thinks we should do to further Labour's cause. This is truly baffling.
Third, she also seems to think that those who are left of centre should support Labour Party candidates just because they are women, even though they will then obediently nod through legislation that will, undoubtedly, be detrimental to the best interest of this country. I can see no logic to this, whatsoever. I do not discriminate in this way, and I am not sure why she should expect me or anyone else to do so. I doubt she voted for Thatcher or May for this reason, so why ask that anyone do so for a woman Labour candidate?
So what might Sodha really be saying? I think that there are three message.
The first is that the left should shut up, and be obedient to whatever Labour defines their interests to be.
Second, she obviously wants the left to align their interests with those with wealth.
Third, she is clearly intent on denying the left the right to make a political choice, which is, of course, a belief at the very heart of the Starmer project, as is apparent from his contempt for Labour's membership.
I am inclined to take this article at face value. Sodha is, I am quite sure, very close to the Labour hierarchy. I have no doubt that she shares her contempt for people on the left with them.
As a result, let's understand that they have ceased in any way to represent the interests of people in this country.
In that case, let's also wonder about what comes next, because if this is the case then this might be the last election where the current party brands (as opposed to ideologies, where there is no difference) are on offer as the alternatives that we have to choose between. Next time, the people might have had enough of being treated with contempt.
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It is interesting that there was no opportunity to comment on this piece of journalistic garbage. The Guardian does allow comment on opinion posts, but not all of them, and it is fairly clear that comments are not permitted on pieces likely to result in argument.
Indeed. Or perhaps, argument where the view they support is on particularly thin ice.
You were both unkind and inaccurate with respect to Mrs Sodha, who plays an important role in LINOs propaganda effort.
Of course she is close to the LINO hierarchy and it is certain that she is all in favour of tokenistic action with respect to river-turds, high-priced-energy and in favour of NHS privatisation. Anything other than this would be to lurch into left-wing, nay maoist territory. I anticipate that Mrs Sodha will be well rewarded by LINO for services rendered.
I wasn’t irritated by the article, I was amused to see somebody pretending to be a journalist – when in fact they are a LINO shill. Now that’s unkind! Have a nice day y’all!
I sense someone who wants a job…
The most fundamental point to define your ideology as a politician is whether or not after all the state interventions over the years to defend the wealthy as well as the people you believe Thatcher’s lie that the government has no money of it’s own. If you know it to be a lie but defend it anyway because most voters ignorantly believe it then you are betraying the vast majority of voters if not all (global warming). If you believe the lie then you are ignorant and have no right to be a politician. The Labour Party currently fails on both and therefore a dud!
“I am inclined to take this article at face value. Sodha is, I am quite sure, very close to the Labour hierarchy. I have no doubt that she shares her contempt for people on the left with them.”
I have no doubt of it. Although I haven’t read the article, I imagine the explicit explanation as to the contempt for the left, were one to be forthcoming, would centre around the brute electoral rejection of an actual left agenda when it was on offer in 2019. That what Corbyn offered is merely standard social-democratic policy in much of W Europe, and hardly some Marxist nostrum, doesn’t seem to matter much now to Labour in this, Europe’s first genuinely neoliberal state.
Underpinning that, I imagine Starmerites would say, is what they imagine to be England’s innately conservative polity, and what that polity is now willing to accept as an agenda. Clearly Starmer’s politics is structured for and is entirely about England, imagined as a nation where Thatcher, Friedman and Hayek simply won.
We’ll see what happens, but you may well be right where you end with “Next time, the people might have had enough of being treated with contempt.”, a fear echoed by another commentator I’ve been reading, Gary Stevenson, who says his view of Labour is that at best they’ll slow down the rate at which inequality increases, but – a la Blair/Brown – they’re not going fundamentally to reform anything. His view as to what will come of this as discontents foment? Open fascism.
I stopped voting Labour back in the late 80’s fot the very reason that they didnt represent me and I would not meekly follow ‘Red Dawn’ (Sic) as the least worst option
I had a similar reaction to reading it, it was the implied obligation of the left to vote Starmer, rather than as with the poplation in general, them having to earn it. It telling this message is coming out now as they must see it as a real threat. And there was me thinking I was just breathing in my own twitter bubble.
The axis of opposition is now clearly situated outside the boundaries of the established electoral field- as you illustrated in your Venn diagram. Independent voices from a variety of political standpoints indicate the gradual consolidation of a general recognition that the real power of working people- the actual source of all social wealth- needs to be organised and activated. As with early efforts to change the power structure towards democracy scattered oppositional independents need to become a genuine movement, built from the bottom up. Here in the North West my support has gone to the Social Justice Party situated on the East coast and with a rigorous democratic programme and structure. Other similar parties are emerging and gathering support. The voices of the many have to be amplified- historic lessons to be re-learned. Work to be done! Thanks Richard!
Not a lot shocks or surprises me about politics, one of the very few things that does is the constant realisation that for all that party strategists bang on about the importance of controlling the narrative they patiently have no idea of even the basics of building a narrative. There isn’t a story that doesn’t hinge on what happened/what happens next? but politicians and their advisers don’t look for consequences beyond the next election when in opposition or the next news cycle when in power. So it is that they are baffled by the idea that aggressively selling the brand while changing the product meets with consumer resistance and their bewilderment becomes anger at the consumer not reflection on how their product development was the result of confirmation biases within an echo chamber.
You forgot to mention that just before the 2019 election she wrote an article explaining why she was voting Green rather than Labour. You couldn’t make this up.
She y could have made her case for not voting Green etc if she had acknowledged its not solely a left – right thing, it’s who does and who doesnt understand how the economy works.
After 14 years of sound money which has crashed the NHS, public services and the economy, she might have asked herself whether a rethink might be called for
Exactly but neither the Guardian nor the Observer teams see fit to ask themselves this obvious question rendering themselves of no consequence just wafflers!
Wiki describes that current centrist movement of Labour Together, formerly an umbrella group but now a ‘think tank’ as the main group machinating for Blairism, identified three types of Labour voter before plumping for SKS as their flag bearer:-
Instrumentalists
Idealists
Idealogues
The instrumentalists would always be loyal, whatever set of policies was on offer. – the ‘win at any cost’.. “ends justify the means” party loyalists.
Their central argument is:-
“We can do nothing without power, so we need to do anything to gain power”
I’d describe them as militant centrists. They often despise the left and even centre left.
Instead of presenting a logical and structured case for Labour’s core values, and at least argue for a macroeconomic underpinning of post Keynesianism, instead of Blairite neoliberalism, the party had to change to become a Rorschach reflection of Thatcherism.
It is very lazy politics indeed.
Standing up for what you believe in ?
Naw.. too difficult. The right wing press will stop us.
The idealists and idealogues were both stalwarts in favour of Labour’s core values, with Corbyn’s social democratic policies being attractive.
(The idealogues grouping seem to have been categorised as returners after leaving the party over Iraq and other Blairite policies.)
No way were most of the people in these groups going to accede to a Thatcherite pale horse.
Why would you ?
The Observer SKS puff piece simply parrots the militant centrist line without offering any rationale for supporting a party that has moved significantly away from it’s core values and either abandoned or diluted the policy framework that represented democratic socialism.
It offers no reasons why Labour is now unable to argue for left and centre left policies and values.
After all it was not until late 2020 that SKS actually reversed his ten pledges.
Suggesting that managerialism, so more of the same but from slightly nicer neoliberals, (probably an oxymoron) is a substitute for genuine alternative is nothing more than a typical militant centrist con trick.
It’s remarkable that Labour are on the verge of power in the absence of any widespread public enthusiasm for them. Sodha can’t point to any because that would be risible. Calling the general derision “foolish and self-indulgent” – and associating it with the left – is as much as she can do.
We know that the media is wholly complicit in selling the fake choices – I don’t blame Sonia or anyone of the multitude of propagandists in whichever camp of the fake ‘left-right’ they have chosen to make their careers and salaries in. They after all want the same privileges and financial security as all their fellow ‘ruling class’. All wanting to be millionaires working for billionaires, who call the shots.
They are a minority of the population. They went to the same schools and universities and had the same aspirations… Sonia included.
I guess referencing the great assessment of the decades when Chomsky was dropping truths on power and the liberal media is the best way to understand her perplexing . To paraphrase one going back to 96 (talking to A Marr) , ‘if she believed something different, she wouldn’t be employed where she is’.
I still haven’t fully identified the timing of the election – it’s not just the delayed fake change of government illusion of democracy, not just the installation of Labour to be in charge when the NHS is fully privatised into an insurance paying US model run by US companies and hedge funds – thus relieving the Tories of the historical guilt.
Or the failed war. The daily more demented nato and unelected EU heads.
I guess it’s also to divert from the extermination of Palestinians, which this morning saw tented refugees bombed and incinerated !
Has Sonia or the media mates anything to say of that of the threats against the ICJ? The Law based order rejection by the Rules based juntas?
It is nauseating mass murder and perhaps worse we are being led to further escalations across the world.
War is what the MIC managers want. To fill their boots like they did with Covid. That is what possibly comes next unless we raise our eye from navel gazing to the dust clouds of approaching Change.
The idle talk of conscription might just be a bit of priming of that!
It could be one of the jingoistic first hundred days of Starmztroopers government actions. Are we to be ordered to stop that inevitable change?
I’ll stop there! The Observer and Guardian long ago lost any respect I had for it and the majority of its opinion purveyors. Sonia is just another.
There’s simply no grip with either the Guardian or Observer, no root and branch analysis in economic matters.
I think the article is a good indicator of how Labour will govern. For the Tories to keep their dishonest project in power, they had to fight culture wars against fabricated enemies, e.g. the forces of Woke. Labour are already stirring up a culture war against a straw man ‘Corbynite left’.
I read the article with disdain, that same old arrogant self serving ‘we know best attitude’ where they treat the voter as only valuable for putting a cross next to Labour during a election or in the case of Labour Party members only good for door knocking and leaflet posting to get the vote out. It is no different to those who now influence the Labour party, people such as Peter Mandleson who said “If the Left want to block Starmer, they should leave the Labour party.” And so they did, membership has dropped by over 250,000. Yet these same people believe they must continue to support and vote Labour. What they are probably now realising there is a significant number of people on the Left who are professing they will no longer vote for a party who’s policies no longer align with their own values of social democracy and that is feeding through to the leadership. It is these people of the ‘left’ who have in the past provided cover for Labour policies advocating on the doorsteps and with friends and family Labours progressive policies and have provided some notion that the Labour Party espoused ‘left’ wing social policies. I believe when people realise Labour are unable to provide the answers to the political and economic issues facing ordinary people they will be reduced to a shell of a political party at the next election. What comes next will be hard to predict. But for Labour you reap what you sow.
An excellent point Peter. Labour obsessively pursue Tory voters and swing voters and tell left wing voters and party members they can like it and lump it…or as Mandelson said, **** off left wing twats.
So they have, and are now getting behind left wing candidates for the GE.
And are then told they are sabotaging a party that told them to sod off, and have to vote labour no matter what because under FPTP they will split the vote. So recognising that FPTP does this, is labour prepared to replace it with PR? NO. Is labour getting together with the greens etc to plan a tactical voting campaign? NO.
So what is Sidha complaining about?
I know that this is very basic. I always understood LINO to be an item of flooring – what is it now, please?
Labour in name only
The voting options have been poor for a long time now. The tories went anti-state in the 70’s and Labour in 1995. This is where that led. , leaving the only UK voting options about who not to vote for rather than anything positive. That option is pretty much a bust now. Scotland had, for those that wanted independence, an SNP that increasingly evidently since 2014 had become a fake post-referendum independence party, yet they remained their support through an ever weakening continuation of an independence hope over reality position until fairly recently. But that’ll likely end for them soon now too. So with the UK wide least worst option differences now being so minuscule, and since they just lie anyway, there’s not much to vote for or against. But then like the joke goes, if voting changed anything they’d make it illegal.
Reply to Ian at 3:28 pm
Labour have been on the road to neoliberalism since the 1976 Labour conference, the leadership of Callaghan and Healey having sold out to US presssure. Part of Callaghan’s address to the confernce –
“We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession, and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting Government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and that in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. Higher inflation followed by higher unemployment”. I have to confess, as a relative newcomer to MMT and economics I get the gist of all this, but some parts I’m still working through.
Once it was agreed that government deficits were immoral, all Thatcher had to do was get voted in and start the process of selling off state assets to please the US Treasury. Kinnock never challenged this and continued to follow Washington’s lead. All roads then lead to Blair/Mandelson and now Starmer.
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=33825
how to vote in Ely?
https://x.com/carolvorders/status/1795024656920989920
Hi Andrew
Ignore that site. Its founders are only interested in maintaining the status quo. Their aim to make sure you vote for their preferred candidates, not what is best.
Regards
I am nit sure how you reach that conclusion
Sonia Sodha’s threefold argument seems to paraphrase Owen Jones article when he announced his leaving the Labour Party and why he is campaigning for alternative independents. She then attempts to debunk these arguments but fails as miserably as will Starmer and Reeves will when they come to power.
I hope the alternative vote gains some momentum as it is clearly worrying LINO.
The obviously loathes Owen
Sonia’s article was, I think, the worst article I have ever seen from The Observer (with the exception of anything by Nick Cohen, who occupies his own circle of hell). It’s a real shame about Sonia, because she was intelligent and reasonably radical when I worked with her at IPPR in the 2000s. I wonder when she lost it completely? And why?
Good questions
“those on the left who, she says, are splitting the Starmer vote”
It was in 2019 that those on the right of the Labour party did everything they could to undermine Corbyn.
☑️Margaret Hodge prevented Labour winning https://tinyurl.com/mub7b53b
☑️Labour Staffer ADMITS Bringing Down Corbyn https://youtu.be/nIzHq_BeknI
☑️Anti-Corbyn officials worked to lose General Election http://tinyurl.com/2p8ua2d4
☑️Mandelson undermined Corbyn https://tinyurl.com/mvpmrpjw
Labour are the real conservatives, says Keir Starmer
https://tinyurl.com/2wjj4z5r
Joke of the week:-
“I’m a socialist and progressive who will always put country first”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/27/starmer-im-a-socialist-and-progressive-who-will-always-put-country-first
As I said on Twitter, if he’s a socialist I am a teapot
I am a lifelong socialist. I used to sell Socialist Worker on the streets of Coventry in the 70s. I went on demos and supported any socialist movement, often against the Labour hierarchy at the time. But I remember the devastating result of failing to support the one party that has principles in 1979. If you don’t support Starmer, then you are allowing the Tories back into life. The Tories will regroup; they will organise afresh. Starmer may well win well this time, but he will always have the media against him.
But he is not even remotely left of centre
Richard, I have thought for a long time that the terms right/left are now behind us. We must think anew. They were OK for the French Assembly in the last century, but not any more. Policy determines where the needle sits. I want SureStart back; is it a socialist position? perhaps. Or will it enable bourgeois mothers to park their children in safe areas while they make money.
All mothers need a safe place whilst they can work under current rules. I do not accept your claim.
So when labour win this election they should set about reforming our outdated and unrepresentative FPTP voting system ASAP, shouldn’t they? And the logical consequence of that is that they would also then be prepared to govern in coalition with other parties as is common in countries where there is some form of PR, e.g the current German government which is a three party coalition.
But does anyone here believe for a second labour will do any such thing?
And as for the anti left media, what action is labour prepared to take against it? Implement Leveson 2? No. Bring in laws against foreign ownership of newspapers which would affect Murdoch? No.
So labour needs to stop whining about left wing voters refusing to support them, or how they can’t do anything ‘left wing’ due to the biased media.
I really, really do not want the Tories back, ever. But I would even countenance that if it resulted in Labour realising that its current position is wrong and unacceptable.
An excellent piece, as always Richard and thank you to everyone for your very illuminating comments.
Can someone please explain to me, what the economic rationale is for Starmer’s jaw dropping comments on Sky news tonight in an interview with Beth Rigby (she sees right through him, doesn’t she?) where he stated that ‘we cannot afford to tax the rich.’
I’m sorry, what?! When Beth Rigby pressed Starmer on this, he simply repeated it. That is £5.6 BILLION that could be used to support social care. Even the IFS and OCD are bemused by this.
To my ears, his going off on a bizarre dead cat tangent about seeing his mother in a high dependency unit as a teenager and not answering why he feels he CANNOT AFFORD to tax (whereas previously the rationale was he didn’t want to), merely underlines the utter contempt Starmer has for the disabled, elderly and carers of this country (as they are clearly not hard working Brits).
As so many here have said, LINO has nothing but contempt for the Left and seeks only to further the neoliberal alliance with the very richest. After all, he’s seen that Sunak creamed in £163 million last year, I’m sure Starmer and his cabinet-to-be are rubbing their hands in anticipation. Is that it? Is that the rationale? Starmer can’t afford to lose the opportunity to get his grubby mitts on all that lovely, lovely rich people’s money?
See my blog this morning
This is utterly ludicrous
Oops! That was Freudian – OCD! :o) ONS I meant, obviously!
I don’t wish to put off anyone voting Green, but in Scotia, this party has sabotaged the SNP. They behave like De Valera in Ireland, who wanted an agrarian society with added milkmaids.
The Greens in Scotland are not the same as in England and Wales and there are major policy differences
just who is Sonia Sodha?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sodha
She is on the advisory panel of the think tank the Social Market Foundation https://www.smf.co.uk/people/ along with Bim Afolami MP, Stephen Kinnock MP, Chris Leslie, Alison McGovern MP and John Rentoul so a Tory and four Blairites. Lot’s of articles about reforming the NHS through efficiency savings on here.
Her breathtaking hypocrisy didn’t go unnoticed on Twitter:
https://x.com/AaronBastani/status/179467683648159351
The last has been deleted
I do not know why
Me either. I checked the link was correct, but then it didn’t seem to work,
It was a quote from Aron Bastani, saying that Sodha, like many of the Guardian commentariat, was more than happy to split the Left vote when Cornyn was leader but now to do so under Starmer is “foolish” and “indulgent”.
True
She and I had differences on this issue, some time ago
I find it very sad that at the age of 77 I find myself for the very first time voting against something (this awful excuse for a Government) rather than for something. I would vote differently under PR knowing that my vote was for something and would count.