I was in North East London last night at the invitation of Faiza Shaheen, who was scandalously sacked as the Labour candidate for her local constituency by the Labour Party in the weeks before the general election, having been previously supported in that role by Keir Starmer, in person.
Faiza and I have known each other for well over a decade, and she invited me to speak at the first of her new events in the constituency as part of her ongoing campaign to represent it in parliament. I was delighted to do so. Faiza stood as an independent in July, being just beaten into third place by the Labour candidate, but with the split vote allowing the Tory, Iain Duncan-Smith, to retain the seat.
The theme of the evening was austerity. We started with Faiza asking me questions, and then the audience did.
I think it fair to say three themes emerged.
The first was that people are already very angry with and disillusioned by Labour. There is obvious massive disquiet with the way in which Labour is managing itself, and the announcements it has already made about the economy and those within it, which reveal an obvious bias to those with wealth.
The second is that there is real confusion about the stories that Labour tells: people do not believe that nothing can be done to improve their locality and that there is no money left to do so. It took very little time to get many to appreciate that repairing a local bridge that has been closed would not be pouring money into a black hole but would instead be a dual benefit, not only restoring the bridge but also providing local employment that would, in turn, provide a local economic stimulus that would, then, in turn, result in tax paid to recover the cost of preparing the bridge. The need for such narratives is obvious. I will have to think about these.
Third, there was anger over economic issues, from the domicile rule to student loans, the two-child benefit cap, and more.
On a personal level, there was much feedback in the discussion afterwards, including a lot of appreciation for the YouTube work. This has clearly been the right thing to do and is where I am now cutting through. My thanks to those who commented if you happen to read this.
The event was recorded by Faiza's team. I hope to share some or all of that video in due course.
Was it worth doing? Yes, but very tiring when I am heavily orientated towards early morning starts to my day. It makes me think a tour would be very hard work.
I am wondering whether live-stream events might be a better way to manage that idea right now. I will have to give this more thought, but on that theme, Steve Keen and I are doing a joint live stream on his channel on 19 October at 6 pm.
My thanks to Faiza for this invitation.
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[…] the discussion that I took part in last night, one of the audience themes was the disappearance of the left-wing in politics. I suggested that […]
In a sense there now needs to be a National Mourning Movement to retrieve all those values of caring for people that political parties embedded in the 19th century and the major part of the 20th century. Clearly the most progressive of those parties the Labour Party is now dead in the water under the leadership of Free Gear Keir so trying to pretend that this individual is suddenly going to change his spots is completely delusional. So too is pretending a majority of Labour MP’s will have the morals and courage to remove him.
I found it really interesting just how buoyant reporters were finding things at the Tory Party conference the other day.
Why? Because they were delighting in Labour’s struggles with itself as well the struggles it has to deal with after the deliberate mess they left behind.
The ‘Stupid Party’?
When you are as proud of your work for the reasons I set above as the Tories seem to be, that does not look stupid to me; rather, it is deliberate.
It is deliberate because destruction in the name of reallocating resources to oneself afterwards – the Wests key economic process basically since the mid 1970’s (or America’s gift to the world) – is essentially what the Tories are all about. So, my view is that the Tories are far from stupid. I still think the word ‘evil’ is better for the Tories.
Is the Labour party stupid? Maybe – it was the Oxford Don (was it?) Wilson whose love of the ‘white heat of technology’ helped him to fail to see the rampant asset stripping of his nations industrial base because he saw spikes in ‘productivity’ which was only the dying output of it going up the chimney forever. Politicians following on did not get a grip of this daylight robbery afterwards either.
But Labour – who have presided over much of this in opposition – show no signs of having learnt anything, nor any sign that they have the courage to do anything about it. And did they believe in it at all in the first place?
Which is worse? Evil or stupid? What a choice. Which is no choice really.
Bonhoeffer, interestingly, thought that stupid was more dangerous – and we are currently favoured with a surfeit in our public affairs.
Bonhoeffer was frequently right.
But surely we can see that what is ‘stupid’ is obviously driven and bankrolled – used even- by something far more malignant?
Would stupidity be where it is now, without a sponsor of some sort?
I think not.
Interesting.
I commented on another post about members recapturing the Labour Party. It is often helpful to have an “emblematic event” that would reveal success; could re-adoption of Faiza Shaheen as a Labour candidate be that event?
Couldn’t happen under current management but that is the sort of thing we need to see if Labour is to rediscover its purpose.
After forty years actively supporting Labour I can’t imagine a situation where I would feel at home there again. Purges have worked, any members left of centre have been expelled, or alienated to the point of resignation; and any left of centre MPs have been similarly excluded, and will either resign, as Duffield has, or try to maintain a futile oppositon from the back benches. What cannot happen soon is that the party management will change its personnel or its direction.
Until we have effective proportional representation, most of us LP rejects will campaign on single issues like Palestine, and support blogs like this one, and find a way to consolidate our political views with others, not just in this country but online across the world. The alienation we feel is shared by others in the US, and throughout Europe.
Recognising the malign influence of the US on international and national politics is essential for understanding the root causes of much conflict, and the undermining of our democracy through corporate bribery.
We rightly fret about fascism. Oligarchy is another term we should start using about the trends away from our demcratic expectation.
Faiza Shaheen was and is a wonderfully qualified lady to be an MP well connected with her community because of all her work.
The practice of regular local authority instituted community meetings has been decimated because of 14 years of austerity and Covid. The picture across the country is disparate but mostly poor. My metropolitan local authority in 2010 was staging regular quarterly meetings across 16 local areas. Now effectively zip. Closure of about 800 libraries does not help. Furthermore, mainstream media is now well evolved towards Chomsky’s sense of ‘Manufacturing Consent’.
So actually encouraging and holding more community meetings is now incredibly important; where people can learn how to be better informed, especially what are the reliable sources of information but also what is really going on!
Richard, I know you seem incredibly busy and your Youtubes are much needed. But where you can manage any other community meetings invitations I’d encourage you to at least consider. People, communities, coming together – perhaps ultimately evolving into something like the Transition Towns paradigm – is now needed more than ever. We need to arose a sense of citizenship.
They are immensely time consuming though…and tiring
I have to also say that they reach a mainly more elderly audience
“They reach a mainly more elderly audience”…
Agreed, although there’s also a limit to elderly turning out on dark nights.
Yes, they ARE tiring. I think you need to work out what you do best, and are best suited for. To reach a large & younger demographic, the videos (YouTube & TikTok) and radio slots (esp the ones other than BBCR4 – the lower brow the better) are the way to go, plus publicised networked streamed events with co-belligerants, when you want something more high profile and meatier. KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) – and given the factional distractions from friends on the left, and destructive attacks from vested interests on the right, there needs to be a clear short term goal. As I said before, what’s the main idea you want to destroy? Who are the main audience you want to go for? When you’ve reached them, what do you want THEM to do? What/who are the key distractions, biases, temptations, obstacles that might derail you? What are you good at? What are your limitations/weaknesses? You will need to think it all through again in 6 months because, “events dear boy, events”.
I think you are cutting through on “we CAN afford it”, on “taxes don’t finance spending” and “austerity is killing us, we don’t need more”. But I think hardly anyone out here knows about your Taxing Wealth work, and that £90bn of untaxed wealth you found in your back office that Rachel Reeves won’t talk about. Make sure the Mile End Rd omnibus is regularly serviced!
You ask very good questions
I gave noted them
Richard,
“…They are immensely time consuming though…and tiring. I have to also say that they reach a mainly more elderly audience”
For an ‘early bird’ evening commitments are going to be (bloody) hard work. We need a clone. Several probably.*
Reaching a mainly elderly audience is perhaps reaching an audience that thinks AND does actually vote.
Whether it’s worth your time to do evening meetings is questionable, and I doubt it. There might be spin-offs in social media, but you can’t measure that sort of follow-up.
I have been invited to do a talk on MMT and Scottish independence to a local ‘Yes’ group but I don’t have the confidence and grounding to do it. I’d love for you to do it, but there’s only one of you and you have bigger (by far) fish to fry.
You summarise the problem
I was shattered last night
It may well be true that most of the attendees at your public events appear to be elderly, but we vote. And we try to impress on our children and our grandchildren the values you express so clearly in your blog. And many of us do use social media to multiply your reach. I have no doubt that the demands on your time are inhuman, but thank you for every time you exert yourself to make the effort to participate. I would dearly love to listen to you at an event near me, in Midlothian, but I pledge to make the effort if you come anywhere near close!
Thanks
Ways and Means……
The lack of agency seems to be the biggest question.
The Labour party is not really much of an option, given its apparent preference for a centre right location when in government.
Does Faiza accept the MMT view of the world?
Yes
Could be a very valuable ally. Someone standing for parliament who would argue the MMT view of the world.