I have already discussed the chaos being created by Trump this morning. He is destroying politics as we know it in pursuit of what I can only presume to be his own personal gain, aided and abetted by those he will enrich on the way.
That is what corruption looks like. It is alienating, corrosive, dispiriting and ultimately completely destructive in the sense that this will destroy belief in the whole political process and the sense of community that goes with it.
It would be good to think that this is a phenomenon that is currently curious to the USA. But it is not. That same destruction is happening here in the UK, even if it is manifested in different ways. Starmer is as intent on ignoring what people want - and on delivering what suits his purpose and that of his sponsors - almost as much as Trump is.
Take some examples over the last day or two of what Starmer and his government are doing. He is pushing an oilfield:
This is despite the news that January was the hottest on record and that the rate of climate change is clearly growing:
He also wants nuclear power in people's backyards but cannot answer any question about what will be done with the waste:
Meanwhile. he wants to appease Trump because of his naive desire for a trade deal with the tyrant, and he won't call Trump out on Gaza because he shares his Zionism.
Here in the UK, the obsession with growth is already backfiring. Many reports suggest that the Office for Budget Responsibility can't see signs of it, and Reeves will have to frame her budget within that context, despite which Labour's narrative is not changing - making them look utterly out of touch with reality.
And the failure to address real issues, from high interest rates (which the Bank of England will not really address today) or the stench at Thames Water, go unaddressed.
Meanwhile, in the background, almost unnoticed, the reality that 25% of people live in poverty and that there are still 7 million people on NHS waiting lists goes on, with nothing being done about it because to do so would offend markets, the neoliberal view, the food industry, the power of pharmaceutical companies and the embedded interests of the City of London.
Is it any surprise then that people, and especially young people, in this country are alienated from Starmer and what he is doing? Why not be alienated?
As is noted in the Guardian this morning:
Prof Linda Woodhead, a co-author of Gen Z, Explained: The Art of Living in a Digital Age, [has suggested that] her research had found 40% of those surveyed in the UK and the US did believe the political system needed major reform, and 15% felt it was entirely broken. Their disillusionment was rooted in what they saw as the failure of the political establishment to tackle existential crises such as climate breakdown.
When faced with Starmer and his complete denial of the realities that we face and his indifference to finding any solution to any known problem, why shouldn't they feel that? Don't you?
So, a poll:
Do you think the UK political system:
- Is in need of massive reform? (69%, 423 Votes)
- Has failed? (25%, 155 Votes)
- Is failing? (5%, 30 Votes)
- Is something I am not interested in (1%, 4 Votes)
- Is working? (0%, 3 Votes)
Total Voters: 615
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Your Spling has faild
Where?
I missed it once. I might do so again.
Has faild? (19%, 23 Votes)
Sorry – am out now and can’t edit it.
In the poll “Has faild”
Sorry
“He also wants nuclear power in people’s backyards.”
Given changes to the AMOC and the possibility of the Uk “enjoying” a climate similar to erm… Newfoundland, (what happens to the westerly winds) there is little wrong with hedging ones bets ref – energy. In the case of the nukes, Starmer (advised by lobbyists for Rolls Royce?) seems to favour small modular reactors that deliver both elec & heat. Great idea. Politicians should always lead from the front. London clay is highly stable, the HoC is in need of both heat and elec – so – tunnel under the HoC install the SMR and use it to show case the UK’s 1st urban SMR.
For the avoidance of doubt: I’m deadly serious. If the politicos want to foist this stuff on UK serfs – then lead from the front.
Jimi Hendrix addressed the crowd at Woodstock festival in 1969 and explained the infernal logic of the war machine thus: ”It’s because they’re not in love, man.” Over 50 years later the war machine grinds inexorably on – the war against people and against nature promulgated by our leaders who seem to get nearly everything wrong. Whenever a decision is to be made they choose the wrong path. Why? What does motivate them? Not love of their fellow humans or nature, that’s for sure.
I voted for “Failed” because I feel reform sounds too much like tinkering. I would favour a complete re-imagining. It would be along the lines of:
set path to MP, eg parish council, >> local council, >> county council, >>MP
competence established before any public office (exam, relevant experience)
constituency party list set by local party,
No second jobs for MPs – time limit of 5 years to take up certain roles after office
Possibly no more then 2 terms per MP ?
No whipping.
No lobbying
No individual party donations above £5k
Truly independant standards committee
Recall options for MPs extended, including auto if party swapped.
There are plenty more
I disagree on two terms
I too disagree on two-term limit; but would add: no limits to fines, and power to impose custodial sentences, for violating election law.
I also voted failed, but I differ from Sean in my list.
1. Competence established before any public office (exam, relevant experience)
– Disagree, Any exam system will be rigged to maintain the existing hierarchy and prevent outsiders getting in.
Competence can only be inferred by the voters choosing to vote for the candidate, or Not.
2. Constituency party list set by local party,
Again any party list system will be rigged by the existing party hierarchy, see how effectively the Labour right wing chucked the left out.
IMO much better to have No party Lists, but a requirement to raise a petition signed by a percentage (say 4%) of registered voters for the candidate to stand, with each signatory contributing to the costs of standing.
3a. No second jobs for MPs
Totally agree being an MP is a full time job, any and all other income must be publicly visible at the time.
3b. Time limit of 5 years to take up certain roles after office
Agreed, the revolving doors must be stopped, but if we are to ban someone from taking up an occupation, we must pay compensation, I suggest 2 years as a maximum because policy will have moved on, and their insider knowledge will be less valuable.
4. Possibly no more then 2 terms per MP ?
Disagree – How many times an MP gets re-elected is a matter for their electorate.
5. No whipping.
I like it in principle, but all the time politics is dominated by 2 or three big parties it is going to happen, better to break the big party stranglehold.
6. No lobbying.
I don’t see how you would stop it, and if you did, it would prevent us voters from lobbying our MP’s about local issues.
7. No individual party donations above £5k
Agree, not just parties, but individual MP’s as well and donations only permitted by individuals who are resident for tax and registed to vote.
8. Truly independent standards committee,
Truly independent of what / who, how do they get selected / elected?
9. Recall options for MPs extended, including auto if party swapped.
IMO the voters should be able to call a bye election, without having to give a reason, based on a petition signed by enough voters, (that’s a very big number such that it is clear that the existing MP has no chance of getting re-elected).
“Competence can only be inferred by the voters choosing to vote for the candidate, or Not.” seems a little optimistic. I would go as far as to say it has comprehensively been disproved; you only have to look at some of the clowns who have been elected in recent years,
As for the objection that the syllabus could be manipulated to perpetuate the status quo, I think that could be avoided by requiring input from a broad range of interests. Certainly a cross-party committee, but also perhaps relevant professional bodies such as the Royal Statistical Society.
Why not, instead of having parties, where unrepresentative party members pre-select the candidates who can stand, have a pyramid system? Start with groups of neighbours, no more than 100, meeting during the course of a day to decide who among them they trust to make decisions on their behalf. Then up to a hundred local local representatives meet for a day to choose the trusted person. Finally, in a third round of up to a hundred of those trusted people meet for a day to choose the MP. The advantages of this is that you end up with people who have been closely vetted at each stage and who are genuinely local and genuinely represent their local area. Another advantage of this system is that it sieves out the narcissists and charlatans, because the electors have actually met the elected person. Also, it avoids party representatives who adopt positions purely on the basis of whether they appeal to a particular voter base. BTW, to get 650 MPs, with the current number of UK electors, each voting group at each stage of the voting pyramid would need to be approximately 42…
Why not constituency primaries?
The top two seem related, “has failed… so… needs massive reform”. I don’t think the failure is recent, but is more intense than for many years (housing costs, privatised utilities and cuts to council funding being key factors, in my view). I don’t think, for instance, that corruption, politicians ignoring voters, lying to win and so on are new. Similarly, poverty and inequality are not new, and neither is failure to tackle these (1945-75 weren’t great for most, and whilst maybe better on average, averages obscure how bad they were for many). Looking at footage from the 70s, the UK looked far from having just enjoyed its best 30 years in history. I’ve made clear before that I don’t believe that representative electoral systems do what their name suggests, and that transferring away one’s power is dangerous, one of the consequences being inequality and concomitant inescapable poverty. One need only look at what politicians are willing to write on X to get a flavour of the contempt they have for the electorate. The next elected govt will be little different from this one, and the one after that and so on. I no longer expect any positive action from govt, and hoping for anything different from it seems to me misplaced. The massive change required, in my view, would need the direct, full involvement (not placatory consultation) of many more people – politics is too important to leave it up to so few. Decisions need to be contextualised, made by those affected (as opposed to bring dictated by one person in London who will likely be long gone by the time the undoubtedly disastrous effects are felt). The good decisions of Westminster (e.g. NHS), were dragged out of its kicking and screaming resistance, and have been under systematic attack ever since. In my view, the massive change needed would not include the survival of a palace so steeped in malice and cruelty.
As someone born in 1951, the 60s and 70s were dirty, still derelict in some places, but largely socially communal. The big legislation that changed lives happened in that period (gay legality, divorce law reform, equal pay, end of death penalty), pushed to some extent by working class MPs, often to complete opposition by the Tories. It was the Golden Decades if you include the NHS, proper social security (not ‘benefits’), housing for all; the last decade was the start of countering misogyny and racism. The contrast with the arrival of neoliberalism in the mid 70s, supercharged by Thatcher and all her successors, is profound in my view.
I note the legislative changes were from prior unjust laws (and made unwillingly), and were the result of campaigning – so achieved outside of Westminster (Westminster’s involvement was trivial, it was needed by default since it’s the legislator). What the prior laws show is that Westminster was an enemy, for instance, of women, gay people, racialised minorities, and supportive of murder. And, as you say, Westminster historically denied funding for healthcare, and welfare (and as soon as they did fund them, they attacked them). And Westminster enacted Neoliberalism, which required legislation, took force – TINA – including laws to prevent local authorities and govt itself providing alternatives to privatised “provision”. The gender pay gap was 7 percent in 2024 (40 years on), and has largely reduced at lower pay scales, so it’s predominantly narrowed due to overall wage suppression, as Westminster has interfered in the private affairs of employer-employee relations (e.g. union-busting). I see no justification in maintaining a system that can enact unjust laws. And that Westminster created the NHS is not a testament to itself, it is simply due to the fact that only Westminster can do something like that because it decides funding and law. The improvements between 45-75 were hard fought for and won, the opponents of those changes resided in Westminster (otherwise, no fight to be had). Gratitude, then, in my view, is owed to those outside of Westminster who pushed hard enough that it acted.
Also an interesting article by Rafael Behr on the guardian website. I tend to agree that in terms of ideology Starmer doesn’t offer any. He my have one, but he suppresses it in favour of pragmatism. For a mid level manager this will be appropriate way of working. For us, it is a total disaster. It is hard for us to conceive what exactly he is doing or what he plans to do. This for a politician is a death sentence and we may well be looking at the last ever labour prime minster. Labour have no way else to go.
Starmer needs to go! Do you want a small nuclear reactor in your neighbourhood? Of course you don’t! No more voting for Labour if the party doesn’t get rid of him quick!
We don’t even know these things work
Well proven actually – they are what has powered nuke subs since the 1960s. & R-R has been lobbying hard for these things to be deployed as mini-power stations.
Theory is Ok – but the practise? &……..
– what to do with the waste and – how do you decommission an SMR are questions yet to be answered.
Thank you.
Further to Mike’s reference to Rolls Royce lobbying, I observed from around 2010.
The nuclear subs PWR Pressurised Water Reactors (think very small Hinkley Pointless C) use more highly enriched uranium than civil reactors… not good for proliferation and waste disposal. The reason that they moved from small reactors 250 to 500MW were for economies of scale. All the balance of plant ie steam generation plant benefits from scaling. The Rolls Royce plant is 270MW so little scaling benefit, even with mass production.
It has been decisively shown that a high renewables generation system does not benefit from base load nuclear, we need quick reacting infill. PWRs as in France can go up and down but this is because they have a large fleet :
Viz Paul Dorfmann’s quote from an EDF nuke manager, ramping possible 9 times/ reactor/year?
EDF France have a large fleet ~58 stations so can flex a lot during the year, theoretically 58×9=522 times. France also has a huge hydro fleet of 20GW that helps with the daily flexing that UK does not have.
With UKs small fleet 2 to 4 or 6 reactors (each station has 2 reactors) then flexing (if designed in ?? but at the moment not regulated by UK authorities) will be insignificant as it cannot be done daily, perhaps weekly with the maximum talked about build out of 3 stations. eg 2 x 9=18 to 6 x 9= 54 times/year
If I may & in response to Mr Dalglish’s excellent post – Spain.
It has some nukes. It also has a fair bit of gas, a fair bit of must run gas-powered industrial CHP – and… a pile of wind & PV plus a lot of run-of-stream-hydro (use it or lose it). We analysed Spain – per half hour over a year in 2020 (comparing it to 2019). Most entertaining. About April, the Spanish switch off around 1GW of their nukes (2 reactors?) cos in the summer it is solar and wind a-go-go & they cannot reduce nuke output.
In the case of the UK, and joined up thinking, I will be interested to see how NESO (National Electricity System Operator?) fits must-run nukes with solar and wind on low load/sunny & windy days in the summer. MP pulls up chair, opens pop-corn and beer and puts feet up to enjoy the show.
I apologise for using the word UK and the phrase “joined-up-thinking” in the same sentence.
PS Honest Government Ad | Nuclear (Australia)
satire from Juicemedia :))
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBqVVBUdW84
Starmer is a glove puppet.
Without a fat fingered gold ringed corporate hand stuck up his posterior he and the rest of the ‘ten percenters’ in parliament that Colonel Smithers talks about would be not be able stand up straight on their own and talk and walk the most outrageous twaddle that they do.
In the name of authentic democracy alone, the system needs root and branch reform.
It feels like Starmer’s Government is just a less chaotic version of Trump.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/feb/06/civil-servants-will-need-to-work-efficiently-or-face-redundancy-under-new-rules
This Government, and especially Starmer , Reeves, and Streeting seem to only know how to deprive civil servants / NHS staff of the means to do a decent job and then beat them up. We need to get rid of them and fast.
In fairness to Starmer he has been looking at Russia, its military and the success of “punishment beatings to improve morale” & drawn his own conclusions as any fully-paid-up member of the professional-managerial-caste would do.
All that said, depths have been scraped when mad-Enoch (I have used the original Phonecian form of B – beth – a house with two rooms – m ) – makes Starmer look competent at PMQs with her barmy questions.
On a related note – to tory & LINO politicos – when Farage steps up to ask a question @ PMQs – the best response is dead-silence – then jeer at the end – doing so whilst he is trying to speak just allows the moron to grandstand.
It’s predictable – each morning there will be another stupidly destructive announcement by the Labour govt. Today’s was the removal of planning constraints on nuclear power, in a plan to scatter mini nuclear stations across England and Wales.
And Starmer said he would countenance no opposition from his MP’s.
You couldnt make it up – except that you dont have to – you can predict it.
At least ten years ago I went to a fringe meeting at a Labour annual conference in Brighton , fronted by ex ministers promoting SMRs – and I think Rolls Royce, saying this was the next big thing, and ten years later they are still saying it while there is still no commerical SMR operating anywhere in the world.
If it’s so marvellous – let Rolls Royce and partners pay for it themselves – which they will never do. Nuclear is uninsureable, technically unfeasible , and leaves 100’s of years legacy of dangerous waste.
So not only is Starmer parading his autocratic leadership instinct – but waving his scientific illiteracy, and displaying his debt to his paymasters.
So yes of course Richard – the answer to your poll is yes to ‘it is failing’ – and ‘is in need of radical reform’.
But it won’t be reformed.
The US system is based upon written rules – which we don’t have. Ideally, if we had some rules – against money in politics for example , it would help. But Trump/Musk are showing how vulnerable democracy can be .
We are in such a dark place.
Our leaders don’t lead, our famous cant be seen, our speakers don’t speak, our population are oppressed, we are drowning in the rich. We have to fight without being led, shouting or forming a crowd. Civil Disobedience is outlawed, there is no way out for us or the planet. What and where now?
The problem is we don’t have politicians any more, or at least none that are allowed anywhere near positions of power or influence. What we have, to borrow a phrase from The West Wing, are Professional Political Operatives.
I’m old enough to remember when politicians were (in the main) people of substance with some hinterland behind them. They came in to politics to change things and often with vision (and yes to protect their own class interest). You might not agree – I didn’t agree with Michael
Heseltine for example but I respected him as a politician.
All now hollowed out by neoliberalism and the rise of the student politics – SPAD / NGO / Think Tank (sic) – parachuted candidate conveyor. Politics is no longer a verb, it is nothing more than public relations. Which has left us with the PMC and Single Transferrable Party and the unholy mess we find ourselves in.
Thank you.
I note your reference to the West Wing.
Readers and you may be horrified to learn that the spads and wannabes, especially Labour ones, are obsessed by that series and often replicate what they watch. It seems odd, unhealthy even, for adults, but they are young and have little or no hinterland.
It’s not just in the UK. I detected amongst MEP assistants and lobbyists in Brussels, too.
Completely agree, in the original post I had a line describing The West Wing as PMC porn but deleted it for brevity
Think you healthcare won’t suffer under Starmer who shills for the rich? Think again:-
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/06/private-equity-healthcare
It should be obvious that Private Equity should not be allowed to bid for any health or social care contract. Their overriding objective is to make a profit – it is incompatible with care giving.
Wiltshire and BANES community services contract has just been given to private equity HCRG. https://lowdownnhs.info/commissioning/private-equity-owned-company-gains-billion-contract-for-community-services/.
Private equity is also heavily involved in GP practices now.
The profile of the staff gradually shifts to less qualified eg Physican Associates instead of GPs.
If the aim, in a representative democracy, is for us to elect people whom we trust to make decisions on our behalf, then the party political, first past the post electoral system that we have has clearly failed to fulfill that essential criterion. We can do much better than this. What we have now is a system that produces dull gaming rather than wisdom.
What we have now is a system that produces dull gaming rather than wise decisions. We can do much better than that. If the aim, in a representative democracy, is for us to elect people whom we trust to make decisions on our behalf, then the party political, first past the post electoral system that we have has clearly failed to fulfill that essential criterion.
All this posturing over Starmer on Richard’s blog is lovely, but who are we supposed to vote for? Which party? Without a clear direction, we’ll end up with the Conservatives or Reform. In my opinion, we need a single-issue political reform party that, once elected and the necessary laws are passed, makes its final act calling another election.
That would be good
It could be a coalition
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a party that’s internally democratic, doesn’t automatically shill for the rich by trying to claim the government has no money of its own, and isn’t daft by pretending the Bank of England should use a quango to determine how much money is created?
Mini-Community Nuclear Power Stations, Rosenbank oil field likely to be given the go-ahead. State of UK democracy:-
“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!”
I argue all the time with Labour centrists and to the right of them too .
I’m an old trade unionist from the industrial left , Dennis Skinner is my all time favourite MP .
The argument tends to run along these lines .
Labour Centrist ” your just a protestor , we win elections , you don’t , remember 1983 , 2017 and 2019 .
Me , ” But when you’ve won power you’ve simply followed the Thatcher consensus ” , what’s the point of you ? .
Labour Centrist ” you can’t do anything without power so what’s the point of you ?
And on it goes , nothing changes , it’s true that the left can’t win power but it’s also true that nothing much changes under Labour either , the rich get richer , the poor , poorer .
Nothing will change under Starmer either , I never believed it would for one minute .
I only voted Labour to keep Reform out of my local constituency because it was rumoured to be a close thing .
It won’t be in 2029 , Reform will walk it and they will walk every seat in the Red Wall where I live .
I won’t be voting Labour in 2029 that’s for sure but I bet when Reform do win my local seat the Labour centrists I argue with will blame it on me .
Self awareness isn’t something the Labour Centrist is capable of , take Peter Mandelson for instance , no let’s not …….
The problem with keeping repeating the “system isn’t working” mantra is that voters will believe it and increasingly look to Reform and Farage. Is that what we want, because if we’re not careful that is what we will get?
Unless, that is, another party realises it is time to change. We have to live in hope.
I voted “failed” because the system has shown itself to be unable to deal with not just the demise of politics in the age of lies, it has also be unable to create an environment which allows the general population to thrive while the rich, corporations and the finance industry (read The finance Curse) has ripped the floor from under people’s feet.
One of the main issues to me is because the UK is one of the most centralised governments in the western world. I lived in Switzerland for decades. Their system has three political levels, each of which gets an automatic cut of taxes and thus has power. This power is (almost always) used to the benefit of the local community, the canton or the country as a whole. In addition there is a tenet in the Federal Council of concordance, meaning nomatter which party a member comes from they have to act as a unified council in the interests of all citizens. It works remarkably well.
As for the SMRs – has anyone else wondered about how the security of these proposed systems would be managed? Not to put a fine point on the issue, but a “small, dirty” bomb would creat a major problem – no?
Scotland’s original blot on the landscape, Dounreay Nuclear Power Station in Caithness, has just had its estimated clean-up cost revised from £2.8bn to £8bn. Timescale for completion is estimated at a suspiciously round 100 years. I read somewhere that the local council would be likely to approve the cleared site for ‘brownfield’ use in 240 years! Dounreay is just a little testing station capable of only supplying enough power for ‘a small town’.
Let’s not even think about the cost of decommissioning Scotland’s two ‘real’ and crumbling power stations at Hunterston and Torness, who’s design life has been extended a few years by the ‘everything should be ok, probably’ school of engineering.
The real reason for ‘commercial’ nuclear power is for a steady supply of enriched uranium for weapon production.
Its not rocket science.
https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/how-much-will-extra-decades-of-work-at-dounreay-cost-346451/
“Why not constituency primaries?”
Because constituencies are way too large for people to be able to know the people that they are voting for. As now, they would end up voting for labels as a not very good proxy and still unelected, self-selecting, unrepresentative groups of people (as now) would preselect the candidates from whom voters could choose. That’s why I suggest the pyramid structure (see above and sorry I did not see a reply button your comment in order to thread this).
But what of political parties.
1, The pyramid structure would be so granular and the criterion of choosing someone whom the small group trusted to make decisions on its behalf that parties would be unnecessary and even inappropriate.
2. All parties could be come thinktanks and all thinktanks would have transparent funding limits. Those who then had an ideological motivation could join a thinktank and collaborate in producing policy papers to be presented to MPs.
Ends.