There was an article in the Guardian this week that appeared to discuss the conditions for a revival of the fortunes of the Labour Party, although it was largely focused upon the opinions of Maurice Glasman, who has since 2011 been Lord Glasman, having been appointed to that position by Ed Miliband when he was leader of the Labour Party.
The article included this reference to and quotation from Glasman:
Maurice Glasman, the Labour peer and Blue Labour founder, told an event at Policy Exchange that the Conservative party had been destroyed and “the same fate will befall this government unless it moves into the space the Conservatives vacated”.
“Reform is a working-class insurrection against the progressive ruling class, and the only way to counter it is for the Labour government to lead the insurrection, to celebrate the collapse of the era of globalisation, to embrace the space of Brexit, the renewal of the Commonwealth, the restoration of vocation, the primacy of parliament, the integrity of our peace, the effectiveness of our armed forces, the protection of our borders.”
Glasman was an academic before he became a full-time member of the House of Lords. I feel sorry for anyone whom he taught. I have even greater sympathy for anyone who had to read whatever he might have written in that capacity. That is because he appears to specialise in uttering the gobbledegook some academics seem to believe distinguishes their thinking and writing from that of lesser mortals who might actually live in, experience, and even understand the real world.
Trying to decode this article, comment, I think Glasman is saying three things.
The first is that he believes in much of what the far-right has to say.
Second, he thinks Labour should emulate the far right.
Third, he thinks that as a result of Labour pretending to be Reform, its voters might be persuaded to vote for Labour instead, although why is not at all clear.
I have three questions for Labour.
Firstly, how can someone holding such opinions that are so far removed from whatever Labour once was be permitted to be a member of that party?
Secondly, what does it say about Labour's leadership that they have not sought to contradict this comment from someone who is subject to the Labour whip?
Third, how far does somebody need to go towards the extreme right before Labour might expel them, because that would appear to be very unclear.
As it stands, it seems that nothing of value from what Labour once represented now remains, and unless they react to this, it would appear as if they agree with that suggestion.
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Some typos:
“Trying to re-decode this article, comment, I think the glass one is saying three things.”
Could ‘glass one’ be Glasman (unlike you to do a play on words, though it sort of works as ‘glass one’ as in brittle or fragile)
Thanks
I have no idea who this Maurice Glasman person is. I guess I am now going to waste time going down rabbit holes to learn more about him.
When I read his quote, I did not pick up on all the things Richard decoded based on knowing the background of this person.
An insurrection needs to be lead but it needs to be lead against the water companies, the energy companies, Meta, Amazon and Rachel Reeves (or Mike Johnson & J.D. Vance in the USA).
Agreed
Bay Tampa Bay,
I could not find a reply button for your response further down the page. I hadn’t heard of Glasman, and I’m a Brit. I enjoy your perspective from west of the pond, and your water buffalo obsession. I’m here to be learn mostly, but I Richard is writing for me as well as much more knowledgeable and astute types (whose comments add to the lively and informative nature of the blog). I’m afraid Starmer has waded too deep in the poison not to be cupable, but he does look lost – I keep waiting for the camera angle to reveal the strings. Keep writing from the bay.
The second para quoted is just blather in the sense that what is stated will have zero impact on:
clean rivers (& the availability of water)
the cost of energy
good state education
a functional health service
a functional & fairly priced transport system
housing policy fit for purpose
Think of these as the 6 horsemen – failing to deliver on any/all will over time destroy a gov/party – example – the tories. I’d add, industrial policy reflective of the UK’s real position in the world. You can judge a person by the company he keeps. Glasman is well liked by the MAGA mob. As for LINO, dead. Leaving the open question: does the party break up before 2029? Or does it hang on & follow the Tories into the pit? Frankly, I could not care less. UK needs a new political party focused on the 6 horsemen problems (& they are not “issues” they are problems).
‘Working class’ insurrection.
I’m working class – they did not bash it out of me at University for my BA(Hons) or MBA and my view is Glasman is talking shite
Reform’s ‘success’ is more to do with (1) a lack of choice (2) the failure of Labour to stick to its promises and the real big one – (3) the creation of an ‘underclass’ or ‘precariat’ that has been created that needs state help and is effectively no longer there (withdrawn by Tories and Labour – and anyone else who is neoliberal).
These people are angry and desperate to the point that they will swallow anything that Farage and his fellow scum put out and they are growing larger because you and I might swell their ranks.
And the glee that Glasman shows in telling people this is what gets me. He thinks its all wonderful, that the revolution has arrived!!
But look at Reform. Look at the money, look at the ex-Tories – it’s still the ridiculously wealthy in charge really. Reform are pure bullshit at the end of the day. And we have bullshit for politics because of corruption and cowardice.
Reform’s ‘success’ is more to do with the failure of both the Conservatives and Labour
MAGA’s success is 100% percent due to the failure of both the Democrats and Republicans to address the real concerns of the Midwest and Rustbelt with other financially displaced people tagging along.
Agreed
Well then we agree don’t we BayTampaBay –
‘(3) the creation of an ‘underclass’ or ‘precariat’ that has been created that needs state help and is effectively no longer there (withdrawn by Tories and Labour – and anyone else who is neoliberal).’
And what about the Lib Dems? The inherent weakness of the Greens in formulating anything but TINA?
It’s is politics that has failed – not just Labour or the Tories.
The link between the demos and the rulers has been short-circuited by corruption by the rich who also patronise Reform.
Tampa, have you watched the interview between Nicole Wallace and Scott Galloway? Well worth watching if you’re in the US. As hes says, the degree of grift by Trump and his cronies would make Putin blush – and lots more of course, particularly on what’s happening with young men in the US (also here to a lesser extent). There are two segments from the interview, bottom of the pile, here: https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house
Another one for tonight
@Pilgrim Slight Return
We agree 100%!!!
I just used your post to give my perspective on what is going on and went on in Yank Land via listening to Florida people in coffee shops and checkout lines spout their opinions.
As I in no way have the intellectual capability to converse and debate with you and other heavy hitters on this blog, I can offer a real perspective on how Trump voters, the ones I come in contact with, currently feel and react.
Providing a Floridian Yank Land opinion is really the only thing I good for with regards to positive contributions to this blog.
I wish this blog had a private message systems (many subscription based blogs have them) so anyone could ask me questions about Yank Land if they had any. Then again, I probably would not get any questions because I doubt anyone would be interested in my answers! LOL! LOL!
Back to Labour: I really do not understand Sir Keir, because try hard as I am trying hard, I do not see him as an evil rotten power hungry dude. I see him as a person who is sitting way above his paygrade and does not have a clue how to lead let alone govern. I believe Sir Keir is Managerial Technocrat. Managing and governing are NOT the same things or maybe I should say they are not the the same things in the USA.
But I don’t do subscriptions….
Well said, Pilgrim. Despair and rage among those most undermined by neoliberalism is being manipulated. And who is getting support from the state? Banks, big business …
As you rightly say, the article shows Labour’s move to the right, but not just Glassman. Chris Curtis’s call for “shock therapy” is equally alarming. As anyone who has read Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine will know, shock therapy is a neoliberal policy tool that has cause u told damage around the world
Glasman is a bit of an odd character, an outlier. A Trump champion and a personal friend of JD Vance. His natural home is Reform. However, the only hope for real change in the UK, is I’m afraid the Labour Party. It’s probably best that, in the words of Blair, it’s better he’s in the tent urinating out rather outside etc, etc but the senior players in govt need to grow a pair and push back against him
LBJ said that. Oily and glib Tony would never be so blunt.
Kevan Voce says “the only hope for real change in the UK, is I’m afraid the Labour Party”. I’m sorry to be pedantic again Kevan, but you’re talking about England, not the UK. The real change in the UK is likely to happen in the devolved nations, where support or Farage’s Reform company/party is much lower than in England. N Ireland is moving slowly but inexorably towards reunification and has a cast-iron get-out clause provided by the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement.
Wales too is showing a rapid increase in support for independence as the horrors of Reform gate-crashing their politics become more apparent. Scotland has a Holyrood election in 2026 for which the parties are already preparing. Farage may steal votes from Labour and Tories in Scotland (neither has a separate political party in Scotland; both are controlled by their Westminster parties), but stand little chance of stealing votes from SNP. Support for Independence runs higher than support for SNP in polls here, but pretty well all the polls run by English-based polling companies consistently invalidate their results by weighting outcomes as at the 2014 referendum. This ignores significant demographic changes in the interim and produces misleadingly understated results on support for independence.
Another clear victory for SNP in 2026 will give Scots an opportunity to force a plebiscite on independence. If this is successful (and it’s hard to see how we could make a bigger mess of running our own affairs) it presents an opportunity to govern Scotland on a fundamentally different basis from England. The blueprint for setting up a new state is already set out in Robin McAlpine’s book (‘How to Start a New Country’ with contributions by inter alia Richard Murphy). More importantly, it creates the opportunity to base the economy on MMT and Keynsian Economics, rather than the Neoliberal Economics that have wrought havoc in the UK and around the world. To make that change workable will require the re-education of both Scottish politicians and the Civil Service (so a potential job for Richard and Tim Rideout)?
There’s a definite feeling up here that Reform’s policies (insofar as any policies have been defined) do not accord with Scottish values, which are built around socialism, and that the time has come to make our own way in the world. Given the current upheavals in world economics/trade, it may not be the ideal time to go independent, but there is never a best time to do it and getting off SS Titanic-UK before it inevitably falls apart must be our first priority.
All correct, Ken.
I have a “devil’s advocate” question about Scottish Independence. I’m a lifelong Scots exile & half Welsh, not a drop of English blood though. I used to be a unionist when the UK was a decent state to live in (partly out of a fear of nationalist excesses) but if I had a vote there today, I’d want out of the Westminster mess, and I’d be looking for a Scots passport as a safety net.
My question is:
How do Scots in favour of independence, avoid the nastier aspects of nationalism? My understanding is that it does exist, along with racism, just as it does in NI, and Wales, and anyone familiar with Scots sectarianism as practiced in the football grounds and dockyards of my birthplace, knows that we Scots are not all nice cuddly progressives!
What’s the defence against the charge that Scottish nationalism might be just as racist and xenophobic as the English or German or Italian or Hungarian sort?
The charge will be made sooner or later so lets prepare ourselves?
How does it?
Because it does…..just look at how it actually works.
The answer? It wins widespread support.
Did you intend ‘I feel sorry for anyone whom he taught’?
I was a bit blurry before going out this morning
Not a good night’s sleep
I actualy turned down a radio interview on LBC, knowing that
I suspect such views are common on the Labour right wing, and that underlying them is a common mistake you could see repeated in any discussion of Labour Party politics, for example in The Guardian comments before the last election: that what matters is winning, and to do so you have to align with The Daily Mail, etc… What they mean by ‘countering’ Reform has nothing to do with what’s best for people, or our children, it’s what (they believe) can win the next election.
Agreed
I read that the other day, and hardened political cynic that I am, I felt quite sick listening to Glasman, scared even.
1. He clearly confesses to wanting Labour to be Tory. Why doesn’t he join the Tories? (Because they won’t be winning the 2029 election, in which case, why doesn’t he join Reform?)
2. I couldn’t make head nor tail of his aspirational gobbledegook for the UK.
So I got out my special interlinear politicofocal pince-nez and read it again.
“The progressive ruling class”
(ordinary decent people with consciences who get promoted on merit, and manage, against the odds, to make their bit of the world a better place.)
“Labour government to lead the insurrection”
(Labour, with the help of horny handed resignation recidivists like Lord Mandelson – this working class insurrection seems to rely on a lot of peers and City types – needs to race to the right of Farage blowing whatever populist dogwhistle attracts the most dogs/votes.)
“the collapse of the era of globalisation”
(We don’t run the world any more and those damn foreigners are getting uppity.)
“Embrace the space of Brexit”
(I think he’s referring to empty supermarket shelves and rising prices.)
“The renewal of the Commonwealth”
(He wants the Commonwealth’s resources, but not their opinions or their people.)
“The restoration of vocation”
(Take joy and pride in working for billionaire slave drivers, or broken public services, and stop agitating about woke rubbish like pay and conditions.)
“The primacy of parliament”
(You may be a Cabinet Minister but you will do what Morgan McSweeney tells you to do. Any MP who thinks for themself will lose the whip. Says the unelected LORD Glasman.)
“The integrity of our peace”
(We condemn Russian war crimes and facilitate Israeli ones.)
“the effectiveness of our armed forces”
(Even WITHOUT a 1st Sea Lord.)
“The protection of our borders”
(Always finish with a loud blast on McSweeney’s racist dogwhistle in case anyone has started to think for themselves what incoherent vacuous garbage this all is.)
I think I get it now.
That nails it – absolutely brilliant stuff! Many thanks RobertJ.
The Labour Party has been travelling in that direction for many years, probably since 1983 when the new leader, Neil Kinnock, hired a T.V producer by the name of Peter Mandelson. Along with the newly elected Blair and Brown, they succeeded in eliminating most of the old guard, along with the Militant Left, and paved the way for their success in 1997. Apart from a brief flirtation with Corbyn, who was successfully destroyed by the M.S.M, and his own party, they have continued to ape Conservative Party policies, and now Reform, to the extent nowadays they are almost indistinguishable. The Party of the people has long gone, and I doubt will ever return.
Reform may be ‘of’ the working class in that it has garnered substantial support from that group.
It is not ‘by’ the working class as it’s less are very much not from that group.
It is also not ‘for’ the working class as its policies would harm that class significantly.
Labour should be ‘for’ the working class and needs to be ‘of’ the working class to have the numbers. It is only ever likely to be partly ‘by’ the working class due to who studies PPE and pursues a career in politics, but it should aim to include some who have known economic hardship.
Aside from showing there is a point where far left views should be jettisoned from the party earlier, you could also interpret that they do not think their views are extreme. One feature of the far right (and far left) is that they often think they are relatively centrist and it’s other people that are extremists. I think a key part is to push understanding the range of ideologies to try to rectify people’s skewed reference points that then leads to assumptions of a balanced viewpoint whereby extreme bias is present.
Maybe council, mayoral and parliamentary candidates could do a different type of internship?
Sev weeks meeting clients in a foodbank (plus humping food about), home visits delivering parcels, sev weeks with a housing and/or benefits advice charity again meeting clients, not sitting in a manager’s office, sev weeks with a refugee support charity, again on front line, not back room. They’d need supervision to prevent them driving clients to suicide.
At the end of each placement they could face an assessment (by the clients) to see what they had learned.
Repeat after 5 years in office.
At least they couldn’t claim ignorance. It amazes me how naively ignorant so many politicians are, especially those who CLAIM to know about such things.
Oh – good for journalists too.
🙂
Err what planet does he live on. Glasman spouts this when, people can’t afford to live, and are sofa surfing. Most of people’s money expended on shelter. There is no relationship to reality here.
His best idea seems to be to blow air into the dead corpse of a revisioned Edwardian Imperial Britain.
Forgetting Neo classical economics failed us then and what followed were horrific world wars across the globe.
How about meeting basic needs? A safe affordable comfortable home, instead of letting people suffer and turn to Reform as the answer.
According to Wikipedia he has a PhD on market economics from the European University Institute in Florence, and is currently a Senior Lecturer in Political Theory at London Metropolitan University. His recent claim to fame – if you can call it that – was that he was the only member of the Labour Party invited to Trump’s second inauguration. I won’t bother repeating any more, except that apparently he had plans to debate Farage on a weekly basis on a GB News programme (Blue Labour versus Reform).
Just this to add to close – which I think says it all (from Wikipedia):
“Speaking at the Postliberalism Conference in December 2024, Glasman celebrated the victory of Donald Trump, which he said was “world historical”, and described it as “a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, interfaith, working-class coalition against progressives – that’s the enormity of what we’re talking about. Kamala Harris was for they/them, President Trump is for you. That’s all you really need to know about the American election”.[32] Morgan Jones and David Klemperer, co-editors of Renewal, said that by choosing to align with the MAGA movement, Glasman sided with forces which threaten social democracy, and which today represent its primary antagonist.[33]”
Deep far-right, then
Or an idiot in veryday parlance
As well as a sell-out, a charlatan and a fraid by retaining the Labour whip
Glasman is not just any old Labour Party member. He has his very own ginger group, Blue Labour, based on a term he coined in 2009. He is a political theorist academically. The fact he was personally invited to Trump’s second inauguration in January says a lot about his political associates. Sadly under Starmer’s increasingly rightward Labour, he’s becoming mainstream among its leadership if not with the membership.
Labour is no longer a left wing party. It is a right wing party. Judge it by its actions not by what it says. Lord Glasman, and others, are not expelled because they represent mainstream views, or at least the views of those in power in the Labour party. Instead of being expelled they have successfully removed almost all of those with traditional Labour values.
I do not believe that many people are rebelling against progressive policies, by which I mean fairness, especially economic fairness, justice, public services and so forth. I do think they are rebelling against their wishes being repeatedly ignored, for example on failure of government to address housing (along with fairness, justice public services and the rest). Yes many people are somewhat socially conservative, though there is also a great deal of tolerance too, but that should not be mistaken as embracing right wing, neoliberal values.
If the Labour party is not to be destroyed, by Reform, at the next election then they need to shift substantially to the left. I hope this might happen. Before the election my long standing Labour party friend told me they were having to be right leaning in order to win the election (I disagreed) and would veer left after the election. If so this would have been a dishonest strategy. But I didn’t believe it then and I have been proved right. So I doubt a left wing shift will happen.
Alternatively we need a new left wing party. Sadly I see no sign of that either.
I hear a lot of talk that Reform’s recent success is not significant, that it is only local and by-elections, which wouldn’t be reflected in a general election. I think it is foolish to discount Reform in this way; just look across the Atlantic.
Unless progressive Labour MP’s, and I’m sure there are still many, have the courage to stand up to their leadership, then Labour will be destroyed. And unless Labour supporters wake up and smell the coffee they will find they have a Reform government after the next election.
As a former LP member I’m truly saddened by the direction they are continuing to take, there seems to be nothing of real value to enjoy. The Conservative party had Cummings, who I think was the beginning of the end for them. Morgan McSweeny is very likely to bring the same end result for Labour. Starmer has become famous for his U turns but it’s McSweeny driving the vehicle. Remember the 10 promises offered during the election campaign, all gone now. They have not brought the promised transparency and they have opened the door widely to reform.
The best way to get expelled from the Labour Party is to be a supporter of Palestine and thus by their definition antisemitic.
Anything else appears to be acceptable.
Starmer was a fairly vocal member of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East from 2015 until 2019. For some unknown reason, after McSweeney selected Starmer to be Leader Sir Keir deserted the Palestinian cause and in 2020 joined Labour Friends of Israel. I’m sure it’s a complete coincidence that Sir Trevor Chinn, a prominent Jewish leader, donated loadsa money to Starmer’s campaign. And Gary Lubner, a Jewish ex-South African policeman during apartheid and ex-CEO of Autoglass, has donated millions to the Labour front bench.
Coincidence, obvs.
🙂
Blue Labour, tame academic Jonathan Rutherford. He wrote Starmer’s first speech as Labour leader. He was also a founder of Labour Together, Trevor Chinn and McSweeney’s “baby”. He features in the Morning Star’s review of “Get In” by Maguire and Pogrund. Five free articles per month:
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/who-are-blue-labour-really
Rutherford also developed “everyday economics” with Reeves.
Glasman wrote “Blue Labour”, extolling the virtues of conservative social values (pro-worker, anti-woke) for the traditional Labour voter, in response to Phillip Blond (ResPublica, academic theologian), who had written ” Red Tory: How Left and Right Have Broken Britain and How We Can Fix It”.
Most damning article:
https://bylinetimes.com/2025/04/01/blue-labour-on-maga-square-maurice-glasmans-journey-to-trumpism/
An article written for “Crucible, the Christian Journal of Social Ethics” was reprinted here:
https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/uncategorised/blue-labour-and-post-liberalism
I think your three points of decoding sum up the whole takeover of the Labour Party I was brought up on as my daily diet (father), and the Christianity I was taught at my Anglican confirmation (mother).
There’s a nasty, even evil, clique in our politics. Rather than working to educate and convert, it is content to reinforce biases and stop creative political thought – all for power that they really don’t know what to do with. It sickens me, physically.
When I first met Rutherford I thought there might be some substance to him.
The last time I did he was advising Reeves. The meeting was with her, in her office, and the scales fell from my eyes….
They seek and hold power simply to uphold and maintain the status quo.
The will do nothing which will affect the current balance of social and political forces that currently hold in this country.
Reform PLC are running in the same lane. Over the years, Nigel Farage was given media exposure – by the BBC in particular – which far outweighed the support he could claim in the electorate, while the main agents for neoliberalism, the Tories, gradually expended themselves in its anti- worker, pro-markets, pro-rich elites project. The same fate now stares New New Labour in the face thanks to Blair and Mandelson, both true “Sons of Thatcher”.
Reform will simply continue to turn the screw unless real progressives organise and stop them.
@Karl Greenall
You say “Reform will simply continue to turn the screw unless real progressives organise and stop them.”
I couldn’t agree more. Thanks. I posted on here recently à post about Starmer’s Faux-Labour/Likud-Labour clique, in which I said, amongst other things, that in seeking to outflank Refotm on the Right, they failed to realise there was only a precipice to the Right of Reform,
I went on that the real way to retain electoral support was to move back WAY to the Left of the current Overton Window to the Social Democratic centre, where the disillusioned (remember Richard’s Chichester batista, utterly oppressed by a 43% tax rate, with no hope, and no-one to speak for him?), the.voiceless, the voteless and the NOTA majority lie.
I also referred to the comparison between Liz Kendall’s (quite the most off-puttinglly strident, unpleasant member of Starmer’s Cabinet of Keystone Kops 4th-raters) suggestion Labour should appeal to floating Tory voters in her Leadership campaign, where Jeremy Corbyn stressed unabashed central Labour/Social Democratic values, with the result that Kendall ended up with a 4.5% vote and Corbyn a 59% plus vote.
Jeremy Corbyn then went on to run a 2017 campaign that saw him fail to become PM by less than 4,000 votes, which forced May to hand the DUP a bung to stay in power
Corbyn’s campaign was focused on those central Labour/Social Democratic values, clearly aimed at the voiceless, the NOTA and non-voters, and above all the young – who can forget Corbyn addressing a packed Glastonbury Festival, and being serenaded by an “Oh Jeremy Corbun” chant, as the young responded with enthusiastic support?
But under “Moron” (isn’t he just?) Morgan McSweeney the Liz Kendall approach continues, with Liz Kendall results- in the local elections for Durham County Council Faux-Labour/Likud-Labour lost 38 seats, and are down to 4, as well as to something like 4.5% of the vote. In County Durham, I ask you!
It’s the future for Starmer’s current clique – not decimation, wrongly used to mean wipe-our, when it actually means 1 tenth, a brutal Roman military punishment, when a failing army was broken up into units of 10, and the man who drew the short straw was beaten to death by the other 9.
No, wipe-out – as in Durham County Council, where your 42 seats drop down to 4. The equivalent in the UK, according to one poll, would be Faux-Labour/Likud-Labour with only 41 seats, unless it changes both focus and method and vision, all of which it currently lacks, as it flounders around in Starmer’s authoritarian mess of an organisation.
To the question is there any value left in Labour, my answer is none, zilch,, and it deserves to wither on the vine.
At best it’s the plant in Luke’s Gospel Ch 13 verse 8 that the master wants rooted out for non-productiviy, to which the gardener replies “’Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and put on manure on it.”
And by golly won’t it need a lot of manure to neutralise its own s***t?
A year is all it has before it deservedly becomes a Monty Python parrot.
Thank you Anne, I only became aware of Blue Labour the other day due to an article in a mainstream paper, where Rutherford said they were working out of a right wing think tank – I thought What? Thank you for the summary and links.
@ Karl Greenall
I forgot to strongly endorse your point about the need for progressives to come together and organise a Progressive Alliance ahead of the next GE, to head off Reform’s vacuous populism.
Agreed – essential. And that too only has a year’s grace, because I can’t see this government going full term to 2029. Progressives need to be ready for an earlier GE, to head off the threat from Reform.
Let’s not fall into the USA disaster of a complacent Democrat establishment that failed to stop Genocide Joe’s rule, and replace him with a candidate capable of beating Trump.
This was not Kamala Harris, as long as she continued to be Carnage Kamala, rabid Zionist supporter of the Gaza genocide. Only as President might she have won, and only if she had de1alt with the Gaza genocide.
And there where surely better candidates available, who would have beaten Trump, and saved the USA and the world from the developing crisis and disaster that he is creating?
We’re in the same situation regarding a Progressive Alliance.
Thank you, and well said.
Yes, its all very depressing, especially as the first polls since the locals show Reform going over 30%, now around 10% ahead of Labour.
Meanwhile, Tice has decided that the first big battle for Reform councils will be to stop the green economy.
Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, said the party will use “every lever” available to block renewable projects in areas where it has power
https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/reform-vow-to-block-solar-farms-here-are-the-projects-they-could-target-3675383
Deeply depressing
If those huge solar projects meant free electricity for the locals, ie: a thought-through “community energy” approach then Tice would be floundering around at the bottom of a barrel of expensive crude oil looking for votes.
This needs a blog and video, I think…
In rural areas that will mean blocking wind/solar farms. (“Net zero anti-growth madness” – which means really -protect fossil fuel profits)
In urban areas, that will be “liveable neighbourhoods”, traffic calming, cycle and bus lanes (“green anti-motorist wokery” – which means really – protect fossil fuel and car manufacturer profits).
In reality – it is chasing easy ready-made votes with cheap illogical populism.
It doesn’t benefit the Reform voters, but it sure does protect Reform donors.
It also polls well.
All noted
Thank you
There may be more on this, next week
With regard to alternatives to Tory, LINO, LD, Green, Reform, what are people seeing on their parliamentary ballots at present that might be considered left of centre?
Ive noticed:
TUSC (never seems to get anywhere)
Workers Party
SWP
In some areas – “independent” meaning either Corbynite or pro Palestine (as opposed to RW Independent) – where the demographics were right they did well.
Greens do well if they have a local base (similar to LDs) eg: Brighton and Bristol.
Leaving detailed policies aside, I don’t yet see ANY credible alternative that might have popular appeal to a range of progressive voters concerned about climate change, economic inequality, housing, health, disability and social care, Israel/Palestine and global economic injustice, nor even the beginnings of an effective progressive alliance or a slate of policies that might bring a coalition together.
We have had FPTP and STP for so long, we seem to be allergic to the idea of progressive coalition, we are stuck in ideological “all or nothing” bunkers. There’s a cost attached to PR, or even a FPTP minority government, and we have to work out in advance how we play that game. Last time (2017) MPs refused to use the opportunity of a hung parliament on several occasions when the votes were there. We are paying the price now. I wish Corbyn had made more of those opportunities.
[…] It has ceased to exist, having been overwhelmed by the far-right in all its noxious Tory, Reform, and even Labour, […]
You are, of course, correct Ken. I meant under the present constitutional arrangement. I’m not member of Labour (I’m a traffic light and member of Compass). Ideally I’d like a Lab/Lig/Green coalition to keep Starmer honest. Good luck to the Scottish and Republicans, high time they were granted independence.