Am I alone in remembering what optimism looks like?
In light of the dire performance of our new UK government, there must be millions of others in this country who also look back on that sentiment with nostalgia but with little hope that it might return at any time soon.
By nature, I am a mix of both a pessimist and optimist. I usually presume the projects that I am involved with will go wrong, firstly because that makes me work harder to make sure that they don't, and secondly because that protects me from disappointment if they do despite those efforts.
On the other hand, despite the evidence that suggests I might be wrong, I continue to presume that most people are generally good-intentioned and that our politicians might even want the best for us. I do now sometimes wonder for how long I can maintain this expectation.
We knew that the Tories were rotten to their core. Their protestations to the contrary were utterly unbelievable. Almost no one was deceived. The wish of vast numbers to be rid of them was fulfilled at the general election.
No one can suggest that I was enamoured with what Labour was offering before the election. Just read a few of my blogs written in the run-up to that event to remind yourself of just how bad I thought things might be. The only problem is, they are much worse than I ever imagined.
Incompetence is apparent almost everywhere in this government.
Any pretence that it is green and cares about climate change has already disappeared.
Ethics have been abandoned when it comes to Israel, to whom arms sales are continuing despite the obvious inappropriateness of that action.
Every commitment to undertake tax reform that might, even marginally, have reduced inequality in this country now appears to be in doubt as to delivery, but the least well-off are being punished, nonetheless.
The claim that there will be growth to fund change looks even more ridiculous now than it did in opposition.
Every day, it seems as if Rachel Reeves bows down even further in homage to the power she thinks financial markets have over her.
And there is not the slightest hint in this government's very busy but almost pointless legislative programme to suggest that the core problems of inequality, poor housing, economic hopelessness, educational underachievement, failing medical and social care and a collapsing justice system are being addressed.
I never expected much of Keir Starmer. But even I expected something to differentiate his government from the total shambles that preceded it. Right now, I am struggling to see that difference.
Of course, the mistake might be mine. Why should I have ever presumed that one neoliberal politician who was replacing another would really make a difference when the aim of both was simply to maintain the existing power structures within our society that so obviously favour a few and oppress most people?
My mistake was to, deep down, still believe that somewhere or other the Labour label might imply that some bias, however small, might still exist towards economic and social justice. But it doesn't. It is simply not there. There is nothing at all within this iteration of what is called a Labour Party but is not even remotely anything of the sort to suggest why it might be that change is likely.
The elevation of Morgan McSweeney, the person whose only role in life appears to be the elimination of anything remotely left of centre from the party, to be Starmer's chief of staff is proof of that.
And so, after 100 days in office, we are left hopeless, served by a government that is without purpose, comprehension or competence, and which is, because of its absence of courage, very obviously able to do harm.
No wonder my optimism has disappeared. There is no justification for it left. And that's very worrying given all the issues that we really do face.
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It’s going to be a bit of a slog isn’t it?
Labour’s period in power is going to possibly be the biggest nothing in politics for some time. Maybe we’ll get two nothings.
As we said before the election, the Tories looked to have already won, even in defeat.
This is Tim Snyder’s ‘Eternity politics’ – a period following on from the politics of no ideas where we stay rooted where we are and probably get worse, and where we will be encouraged to see solutions as problems.
Instead of dealing with our problems, our politicians have decided to use our doom as an opportunity to maintain the status quo and take as much for themselves as they can.
It’s all bad news, whichever way you look at it.
My guess is that most of your readers didn’t have high expectations of Starmer’s Labour, but I find it truly amazing how many apologists there seem to be for them.
The guardian in particular seem to be able to contort their reporting into any possible position to excuse Labour’s unending gaffs.
(Although I think Rafael Behr may be waking up)
On social media the Starmer supporters are seemingly prepared to accept any immorality or unethical behaviour because at least it’s better than the Tories were.
With so many years to prepare for their first 100 days in power you would at least hope they could hit the ground running but no Reeves had already tied herself in knots supporting a truly mad set of Tory economic rules, Starmer appears to have no guiding principles beliefs or political compass whatsoever and don’t even get me started on silly boy Streeting.
When you think just how much could have been done so far, how the travel of government could already be set with hopes high for all but it is just a shambolic fecking car crash already.
I am funning out of years to ever see a decent government in this country again and the planet is running out of time.
Depressing doesn’t do it justice.
I have always been pretty optimistic – one of the reasons I like this blog….it was full of solutions….but I have to confess I find it hard not to despair. I hoped against hope that Labour would come good as labour supporting friends believed, though didn’t vote for them. Sadly they are worse than I could have imagined. When I look around me and see the ever increasing wealth of some – I live in Cambridge – somehow signified by the bloated vehicles that are filling the streets and are lined up outside the private schools near where I work, I feel sickened, knowing what the lives of so many are like, and the state of the planet. I also know many people who’ve retreated from the news because they find it so overwhelmingly depressing and feel powerless to make a difference. I know others who are doing good things but so much is sticking plasters and, like you I think the answers can only be political, but….
Going back to another post about holding meetings, I would greatly favour “in person” if only to be connected with like minded/similarly interested people – maybe some kind of positive and productive network would ensue for those of us not professionally involved.
I should do one in Cambridge….
As another Cambridge resident, I approve this suggestion.
On the idea of in-person meetings to meet like minded people, would it be poossible for us to set up local in-person meetings to take part collectively in one of Richard’s online meetings? That way we get the best of both worlds?
Can we wait until the new year? I hope to be clear of other projects to think about this then.
Completely agree with the idea of dinner in person meetings. Would be great to get a network of forward thinking people together who are solution focused.
Am sure with many complimentary skills and networks we could make a positive difference.
Count me in
In your words Richard – ‘much to agree with’.
The crisis they are already in, has come soon than many of us expected – but its going to get far worse – they dont have the room that Osborne did to embark on years more austerity.
So they have to u-urn and embrace some of the Murphy recipe for public investment and growth or face a total collapse of health housing and social care etc
A crisis is an opportunity – but as you say Richard very difficult to be optimistic.
The political vacuum Starmer has caused is so dangerous, he must see it surely? Look at the Tory conference. Instead of licking its wounds and going off and being introspective, the British Right cannot believe its luck and is drifting more extreme, if that were possible, emboldened by Starmer’s haplessness.
The following is what you get if you don’t understand the importance of social intelligence:-
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-starmer-reshuffle-cabinet-mcsweeney-latest-news-b2625451.html
Was it Vaclav Havel that said “Optimism is thinking things will turn out well, Hope is believing something is worth fighting for”?
After 100 days there are still no plans to actually do anything positive. Loads of statements, threats.
Ms Reeves has hit the poorest pensioners but back tracked on increasing tax on venture funds owners because they may leave. Honestly.
As you say, why has there been no media comment about hang on there’s a black hole of £22bn and you have just pulled £22bn from nowhere to fund carbon capture!!!
The science of carbon capture is iffy to say the least.
As for the funds that Labour have received from the City, health companies etc why the silence?
Because the media, City realise that they have achieved Labour Capture, The silence really is golden for them.
Starmer appears utterly out of his depth. If he or his new chief of staff do not understand that the public are cynically annoyed about accepting “gifts” then expect both of them to be lame ducks.
The UK is now on track for a proper recession due to the continuation of austerity.
Five more years of misery in prospect I am afraid.
Absolutely spot on Labour has been “captured” by those who really don’t have much empathy for the non-rich but go to great lengths to feign that they do. This lack of empathy is lack of social intelligence because societies that have the opposite fare better because its members pull together!
“The claim that there will be growth to fund change looks even more ridiculous now than it did in opposition.”
This is the stupidest statement ever uttered.
How can a private developer build 100 houses if the government will not invest in water treatment to service these houses? A private consortium is not interested in building and running a private “Water Works” or at least not now.
How can a private developer build 100 houses if the government will not invest whatever it takes to add the necessary free school places?
How can a private developer build 100 houses if the government will not invest whatever it takes to build a bridge necessary for residents of these house to get to work? A private consortium is not interested in building a bridge (or any transportation infrastructure) or at least not now.
It is impossible to have any type of growth without proper government investment.
I haven’t experienced optimism since the Scottish independence referendum was lost in 2014…
Even here, the threads seem to me to suggest there has been a gross over-investment in the Labour Party. Apart from voting out the Conservatives that was never, ever going to work. There is also a gross over-investment in the hope that Political Parties can be trusted. They can’t. Ever. Trust only what they do, and never trust a Party promise. They will not keep it, unless there is a pay-off for the Party (and that is not determined by keeping promises. You need only look at how often Manifesto promises are casually discarded). You can’t trust Party. It is only by fixing on issues, and targeting issues in a political way that will ever do anything. On threads here, I confess I am slightly depressed by the marked difference of interest in blogs/threads that give most opportunity to vent outrage; but Richard’s more serious work on hard issues, pass almost unnoticed; when the outcome of these threads needs to be taken up with MPs.
I have said this before, it isn’t popular I know; but it is how I see it. I admit have never courted popularity (it is wrong too often and offers only the prospect of regret for the indulgence). My apologies, but there it is.
“I am slightly depressed by the marked difference of interest in blogs/threads that give most opportunity to vent outrage; but Richard’s more serious work on hard issues, pass almost unnoticed”
I notice that to
The same is happening on YouTube
“but Richard’s more serious work on hard issues, pass almost unnoticed”
Speaking for myself, Richard’s more serious work can be difficult to understand if you are not willing to do much research. Threads on this blog that discuss “problems” faced everyday in life, do not need much research or subject expertise as personal experience will suffice. I think this is true of almost every blog out there and the comment sections of “news” articles.
““but Richard’s more serious work on hard issues, pass almost unnoticed”
I do not think the work passes unnoticed. Many consumers of this blog lurk and fully read each article but may not feel they have the expertise to comment as there are many “heavy hitters” posting on the more serious threads.
It’s up to readers, contributors to Richard’s blog to start spreading the word to our friends, family and so.
The only chance of optimism we had was with a Corbynite Labour government.
Alas that hope was neutralised with some heavy lifting by the current treacherous Labour ministers , and mass media including so called ‘left’ and the controlled cultural and academia institutions ‘worthies’.
Even so it took a hell of an effort to stop him! And he is still going with exactly the same behaviour he always had , honest – whereas many are disappointed with the wormtongue Blairism reinvention! I have no sympathy for these too blinkered to see and too brainwashed to hear. Let them lay in their beds now and prepare to mourn their dead coming back in body bags if at all.
Professor Geoffrey Hinton, joint winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics (for his work on AI) is profoundly pessimistic, not least about his own ground-breaking work. In an interview with the New York Times he said this: “It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things” (Sky News report).
The problem he identifies is a universal one; made worse by modern digital science and technology. Far worse. I have never thought Left and Right was the major issue (but rather the ground on which the weak and easily led – are all too easily, depressingly easily – led astray). The problem is not just in the technology, but it helps the bad actors. And in my view we are overwhelmed with bad actors, in business, in the financial sector, in politics. What I do not understand is why we simply do not recognise the scale of the problem, or just how present and pernicious it is in British life. The answer I have for Hinton? You can’t prevent them, the way we conduct our affairs. We are helping, not hindering bad actors.
I wish I could answer how we deal with this.
Unfortunately I think the Labour Government lacks not just the imagination but also the expertise to salvage the UK economy. A big part of the problem is that they are too easily impressed by people in the finance industry who come up with nuggets of wisdom like “if you tax rich people more, the rich people will leave.”
Unfortunately, the closest thing the Labour cabinet has to financial services expertise is Rachel Reeves and before anyone starts trotting out her credentials at the Bank of England and HBOS, then I’m going to start by pointing out that she spent only five years at the BoE, probably in quite junior roles. She then claims she was offered a job at Goldman Sachs which might have given her the knowledge and experience to take on these closeted interests now but she turned it down to work in a regional office of HBOS in Leeds. Incidentally HBOS had to be bailed out by Lloyds in the financial crisis but you never hear Reeves’ name mentioned in that debacle, probably because she was so far removed from the senior management. When it comes to tax, she seems pretty clueless to be honest. The Business Secretary is some public sector lawyer with no experience of managing a business and the Work and Pensions Secretary is a Labour Party lifer with no experience of employing anyone or even having been a member of a trade union.
Normally, these criticisms will come from the right. I’m bringing them from the left because what has happened in the modern Labour Party is that people like Rachel Reeves, Jonathan Reynolds and Liz Kendall live in awe of the finance industry, only understand economics in theory from their school days and are gullible enough to believe it when they’re told rich people will leave if they have to pay more tax. The reality is that rich people will leave if they don’t start paying more tax anyway because they won’t want to live in a failed state. The tax rate in Kazakhstan is really low, but you don’t see rich people queuing up to live there.
Also, taxes can be attached to assets. We can cap water bills and tax the water companies. We can tax buy to let landlords and impose rent controls so that they cannot pass the cost on (we can even force buy to let landlords to the brink and then buy their properties at low cost for social housing if we want to). Every private equity fund involved in infrastructure in the UK is easy to tax. We can block every ship registered in the BVI who cannot prove that they have been docked in the BVI in the last year from docking here. Doing away with nondom status is a lot easier than wealth managers like to claim too. It just takes a bit of understanding of how business works in this country to know how to tell all the plutocrats who got fat on the last government that the party is over and the rest of us want our money back.
Much to agree with
Old Morgan mc was crap as a post office minister too in the good old days of Gordon brown
Find myself agreeing with you Richard but I don’t know what the answer is, it isn’t Corbyn imo
Events may hopefully bring down this Horrendous Labour Government if the most vulnerable in society start dying from the cold weather the British public may get angry enough to bring down Sneer Starmer and the clowns called this Administration
Nothing that Labour has done, or hasn’t done, in its tenure so far has come as a surprise. To me at least.
I left the Labour Party in late 2019 when it was clear Starmer was meeting and only going to continue meeting my expectations.
The war of attrition on the Labour left (and I mean anyone remotely left of centre) started as soon as Corbyn was elected leader of the opposition. The tactics employed clearly illustrated what the Labour factions supporting Starmer were capable of. And raised questions about the driving forces behind them.
It was clear then, just as it is clear now, that the factions (Progress, Labour First, Labour Together) have no interest in Labour tradition or Labour values let alone serving in the interests of the common person.
The lengths they stooped to in order to remove socialists from the party show that they cannot be trusted in power.
Deception. Vexacious complaints to suspend candidates and even entire CLPs. Ignoring conference decisions. Undermining the disciplinary process. Diverting campaign funds. Vote rigging. Changing rules retrospectively. Briefing the media against socialist candidates and MPs.
Starmer and most of his front bench have colluded to help derail democracy. It doesn’t matter now whether this Government succeeds or fails. They have already achieved what they set out to do. The main stream media just has to emphasise that this is what a left wing Government looks like.
We are going to see a lot more ‘incompetence’ that favours the well off and influential. Be prepared to see through a lot more spin.
I wish I could be more positive, but I don’t see any real alternative to STP breaking through. Reform is just another neoliberal party with added fascism and The Green Party will be undermined in much the same way should they start capturing more voters.
Our democratic system needs reform. And our press needs properly regulating.
I wanted to make a comparison with post-war Labour so dug up the Manifesto, written mostly I undertand by Lord Young of Dartington.
The mainstay seems to be a narrivite on how and why the governmnet should support the people as opposed to big business which is what the Tories wanted.
As people here have said the UK seems to have a single party system based on failed social and economic principles.
http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1945/1945-labour-manifesto.shtml
It’s a great document
Richard,
“…that our politicians might even want the best for us….”
I used to believe that too.
I even believe that of Margaret Thatcher, (whom I despise) but she was subverted in her intent by malign forces and couldn’t see it. She was pretty stupid when all is said and done. What she said and what happened bore no relation.
I no longer believe that the majority of politicians are of benign intent.
That is sad because I know I and misjudging some of them. But how many`/