As The Guardian has reported this morning:
Keir Starmer has sought to tighten his grip on his government with a wave of junior ministerial changes that has sidelined allies of the unions, raising questions over the future of Labour's workers' rights package.
There is nothing surprising about this. As they also note:
The reshuffle has been used by Downing Street to signal a tougher stance on immigration in an apparent bid to take on Reform UK, with Shabana Mahmood – a self-described social conservative rising star – now in charge of the Home Office, supported by Sarah Jones who returns to her former policing brief.
That said, the move does three things.
First, it consolidates Starmer's power. Given that he very obviously has no idea what to use that power to achieve, this is, in itself, worrying.
Secondly, Stamer's direction of travel is very obviously towards the right, and away from every single thing that Labour once stood for. Why the trade union movement wants to have anything more to do with Starmer's Labour Party baffles me. Surely the time has come when they should be looking to lend their support elsewhere.
Thirdly, and predictably, Starmer very obviously intends to increase the uncertainty, risk, and precariousness within the lives of working people. Is it surprising that they are looking elsewhere instead?
We are living in the most extraordinary political times. It already looks as if the Conservative Party is being consigned to history, forever. In the next parliament, it is likely that we will see Labour go the same way. For a century, we were able to take the domination of politics by these two parties as a fact; something is close to a certainty as we would ever get. That is no longer the case.
Their demise has been of their own creation, and in both cases, there is a similar reason. Their dedication to the folly of neoliberal economics is the common cause of their irrelevance to the people of this country. Even in a democracy as weak as ours, you cannot, eventually, ignore the will of the people forever. They have tried to do so.
The question now is, what is next? Many will, of course, think that Farage is the answer to that. I, of course, would hope otherwise. The fact is, we do not know. What that means is that, for all the stress and uncertainty, we are living in interesting political times. There is much to be achieved as a consequence, but none of that will be the result of the actions of Labour as it passes through its death throes, which we are, unfortunately, going to have to observe.
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I’m reading a novel about a coal mining district set in the last years of Victoria’s reign, published in 1937. Unions are in their infancy, strikes mean hunger and those trying to organise are trying to educate and to cool tempers, to avoid violence setting back the cause and being met with violent intervention by the government. To act in unison and strike is their only recourse, but the tension, petty squabbles, misinformation and starvation constantly threaten to undo things.
Then I put down my book and try to conquer my fear and worry by looking at our current woes through sane and sound lenses, your blog being one, and writing letters. I am full of trepidation. We do indeed live in interesting times. Thank you for helping me to keep my head steady. Fear and isolation are a bad mix. Thank you fellow readers also.
Talk about squandering your advantage.
I do hope the two largest components of the UK Uniparty are consigned, if not to the dustbin of history, then at least to the sidelines.
Hopefully Labour will be too scuppered to pursue Tony Blair & Palantir’s plans for a mandatory digital ID. For more on the architecture of this proposal, check what the plans for Gaza are:
Article: https://archive.is/FOLo0
The GREAT Trust slide deck: https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/f86dd56a-de7f-4943-af4a-84819111b727.pdf
Need a new party, with a good narrative and a list of policies that resonate with the voting public & which WILL have a positive impact. Fart-rage & Deform are a one trick pony – immigration. If that goes, thjey have nothing. That said: most National trash papers back fart-rage – & are happy & able to keep the “immigrnts” pot boiling. Eng;land is in a bad way. Hopefully, the Welsh and Scots will do the right thing next year: wipe out LINO, wipe out the tories & wipe out fart-rage.
Is my memory that bad that it recalls a Farage person with Boris pushing for Brexit? If that is so then he among many is responsible for the situation we find ourselves in with respect to the immigrants situation. I believe that before Brexit we had few people using boats to come to the UK. They could be sent back and information was shared as we were part of the EU.
Frustration leads to anger and people then look for a focus. Trumps did it and so has Farage but the rhetoric is only aimed at a specific group of the population. who will believe it. We are spending money on policing demos whilst crime seems to be on the rise. Yet 5 armed officers arrested a person from a plane in the UK because of his expressed views on a subject that was not in agreement with the “authorities” As I child my dad took me to Speakers corner to explain what was meant by free speech. Often heated arguments happenend between the speaker and the crowd.
As an old man I have no wish to see all those lives lost in fighting the second world war being wasted . Time to take stock of the people of the Uk and vote for none of the main political parties but look at the so called fringe parties who have a clear workable mandate for getting the country back on an even keel.
Yet 5 armed officers arrested a person from a plane in the UK because of his expressed views on a subject that was not in agreement with the “authorities”.
All police officers at the airport are armed – so whoever is arrested at an airport will be arrested by an armed officer.
But – the person in question – a 57-year-old-man – harassed an 18-year-old teenager on social media for quite some time (also when they were a minor), threatened this teenager with physical violence and also physically attacked the said teenager when they were filming some gathering this arrested person was part of.
How much this 57-year-old man is not ‘in agreement with authorities’ showed the detail that Cabinet ministers (alongside with all Labour, Tory and Reform establishment) were criticizing the police for this arrest and were saying that laws need changing, while they are all quite at the sight of blind people or pensioners arrested for…holding placards against the genocide.
“May you live in interesting times”, supposedly an ancient Chinese curse!
These political uncertainties do hold threats to our democracy and economic wellbeing but I’m more immediately scared by the Russophobia being demonstrated by Starmer and other European leaders. They seem incapable of understanding Russian viewpoints and intentions and the realities of the current situation. Ian Proud, a former British Diplomat, spells this out here;
https://open.substack.com/pub/thepeacemonger/p/coalition-of-the-unwilling-gets-stuck?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=2liooq
Our futures will be dramatically challenged if they carry on this way
Why is A.Pessimist hiding their identity?They appear to be an apologist for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
I saw reasoned argument. You may not like it, but it was not what you claimed. Your position is not reasoned.
I wonder David, did you read Ian Proud’s essay? My concern is that stupid reactions and decisions by our “leaders” will result in very bad outcomes for ordinary people in Europe, Ukraine, Russia and beyond. I believe that out of ignorant groupthink they are playing with fire.
As to the pseudonym, it has turned out to be very apt since I first started reading Richard’s blog a good few years ago. Anonimity could also turn out to be wise, who knows, expressing a belief in MMT might soon be declared a terrorist offence!
Here in the Netherlands we have a female politician Dilan Yesilgöz who started her journey in the far-left Socialistic Party (SP) but suddenly bevsme the leader of the far-right VVD (Ex PM Rutte’s party).
Starmer is this type of politician, zero convictions, zero backbone and so power-driven they would take an entire party/country through hell if it meant staying in power.
80+/- Labour MPs can, if they choose, support a challenge to Starmer.
But whether enough MPs can be found to support a replacement from the left of Genghis Khan, who would support PR, ah, there’s the rub. Replacing Starmerism inside the current Labour Party seems impossible.
As in every area of politics in the party, as in Government, Starmer takes his HGV with NO reverse gear, down a one way street to oblivion, no reverse gear, no room to turn, just doubling down on every failed policy, and ideology and keep going, following the Trump/Israel/neoliberal donor roadmap.
And all his MPs sit on their hands, never dealing with the main problem.
Here is an interesting time. A day ago Ian Murray MP was sacked as Scottish Secretary. He was replaced by Douglas Alexander MP soon after; one of these permanent politicians constantly that hangs around in order to be recycled, and a ‘safe pair of hands’ because he is one of these politicians who knows how to peddle disaster as success, without ‘batting an eye’. You know the kind; the smooth operator everybody has had quite enough seeing peddling us failure as success. The kind whose special skill is to answer not the question he is asked; but the question he wants to answer. He did it over an independence referendum this morning; virtually the first time this tired retread has been interviewed in his new job: the kind of politician the electorate generally is frankly, desperate to see gone.
Meanwhile, Starmer has been bounced into finding a job in Government, in some corner for Ian Murray MP, the man he has just sacked. Clearly Scottish Labour and Parliamentary MPS were “not having” the sacking. Douglas Alexander carried the Murray fiasco off on BBC Radio Scotland: “nothing to see here”.
So, I an Murray is sacked one day, and found a job in government, the next. Should we expect angela Rayner back in Government by Monday?
I have already accepted that we are in for a rough time with Reform and the Labour could very well be toast but it will just be one party passing on the baton of ‘No New Ideas’ to the next party – after all, Reform is just another rich person’s project like the other two have become.
I’m not sure that the Tory party is finished though. This country has a love affair with the past, I can see them cohabiting with Reform if it suits them both and it get’s Labour out of the way. And a change of leadership can always re-invigorate them. Beware Jenrick – the acceptable face of the unacceptable.
What will be worse however, is Labour. Will we see any self examination amongst the Blairites? Will Peter Mandelson have a quiet moment of reflection with himself? I doubt it.
Politics in this country has been theatre for sometime. Which is just what the rich who really rule want.
Sadly “Continuity Trickledown Economic Parties” appears to be the name of the game in the UK at the moment thanks to a hard of thinking electorate. No point getting upset about it just shut down the emotional hatches and try wherever you can to point out the nonsense of believing in trickledown.
A starting point has to be electoral reform and the implementation of a proportional representation voting system.
But, how can that be achieved when it appears that Starmer (or perhaps those pulling the strings in the background) is against it?
Everything else that needs doing is, in my view, dependant on moving to PR.
Craig
Keep the pressure up. This parliament is not over yet. Many Labour MPs will want to survive it. They won’t without Pr.
Regular messages to our current MP (who is Labour) then – enough to keep it on their radar but not too many that they switch off.
Craig
P.S. To be fair, our MP has the makings of a good constituency MP so I actually hope that they do survive in 2029.
as someone who recently cancelled his party membership – Gaza and the proscription of Palestine Action being the straw which broke the camel’s back – I’m asking the same question, Unless Jeremy Corbyn can be persuaded formally to retire his political ambitions, I’m not sure this new party will cross over into a powerful enough mainstream force. Similarly, Polanski’s takeover of Green politics.
But it is clear the Tories will somehow throw in their lot with Farage in some sort of Conservative-Reform alliance (with Farage as putative PM), and under FPTP, which Starmer will doggedly hold onto, the dangers of a fragmented Left are evident. Furthermore, soft Remainer-type Tories (of which there are millions) need to be enlisted to any anti-Farage front, as do politically homeless Scots and Welsh who came back to Labour and are dismayed by its rightward turn.
I feel only the intemperate nature of Farage’s army offers a means of attacking it. Farage is much cuter than Trump in that he cannot be so easily goaded into saying the unsayable, but nevertheless, we somehow need to turn his brand into something that decent people don’t want to be associated with. Then we need a nakedly Stop Farage type coalition of the Left which is respectable enough to attract support among soft-Tory waverers as well as economically left working-class people. Above all, this alternative must eschew as far as possible what Dan Evans calls the ‘language of the PMC’ (‘eschew’ being a typical PMC word, natch!). It must be based around tangible offers – most especially on housing – and not abstract nouns, and it must directly face down anti-immigrants rhetoric, as Gary Stevenson does, to his credit.
What is PMC?
PMC: the Professional & Managerial Class acronym for the professional managerial class.!! 😉
I had forgotten that.
The Professional and Managerial Class:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/03/keir-starmer-son-toolmaker-but-different-class-problem-for-labour
I believe it’s Political and Management Class from Aurelien
“Professional Managerial Class”
https://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/daniel.j.evans/
I’m afraid these opportunistic politicians will not go quietly. We cannot know what their real motives have been in converting Labour from a centrist socialist party into what used to be the Tory party. I could never vote for a Tory, so I’m without a real political home. Many Labour supporters have gone to Reform, swayed by populism.
Over the coming months, I can see a great divide continuing where people will identify themselves as left or right, although many will do it without weighing up what their best option is. It could be a 50/50 split, rendering the country almost ungovernable. The right will have the money, hence the power and use it via the media and bribery to ensure that the left get nowhere near power. This is roughly the de facto position now. However, democracy can overturn the right and take the power from them via the ballot box.
It could be a hard battle and the left need to organise for it. As someone once remarked: power to the people!
May I inject a note of optimism. The birth of a new Left Party has attracted over a million signatures . That is remarkable. Of course, it will be attacked mercilessly by the right wing media. Corbyn suffered a ruthless political assassination. However, his enemies wont be able to use antisemitism as a weapon again. He has been found not guilty twice. There is little sympathy anyway for Zionist Israel. His colleague has an excellent personality and is very articulate. When Corbyn was leader of the Labour Party his 2017 Manifesto was extremely popular. For me it took us partially to the post war consensus . I benefitted hugely from those policies. Through childhood ,as a teenager and a
young worker Life l was so much better than today. Of course, my parents who lived through the brutal 1930s constantly told me how lucky I was . There are millions of voters who remember when we had full employment, working class kids went to university and didn’t have to borrow money to go. People in their mid twenties bought a home . I was one of 5 children. All of us had a house before the age of 30. Young peoples lives today are much worse. My children were born in the early sixties. They too had experience of that consensus. What I am trying to say is there is a large constituency in the country that would welcome those days returning. The Right will describe a Left Party of being Trotskyist. Corbyn was said to be hell bent on the destruction of Western capitalism. All nonsense. I believe the new party whatever its name must promise security and hope There is time to devise a powerful campaign. What we have now is fear. Since 1979 our country has been misgoverned by the Right. They are totally responsible for the parlous condition we are in. Why on earth would anyone trust another Right Wing regime?
With this reshuffle Starmer has done what I feared he would, but hoped he would not. He has doubled down on the policy of trying to outdo Reform and circled the wagons against his critics within the PLP instead of trying to listen to what they have to say. That is a recipe for disaster and dividing the Labour party when it needs to make a United Front against Reform. My Labour party membership has been on the verge of the bin for some time now, but I am glad that i have not yet binned it because I will at least get a vote in the deputy leadership election. This will provide the chance for people to challenge the direction of travel of the current leadership. There is going to have to be a battle for the soul of the party at a time when the Labour party could actually be a force for good. Tragic.
There is talk here of a potential Tory/Reform coalition after the next election. My worst nightmare is that the numbers might be such that the only viable option is a Reform/labour coalition which the current Labour leadership would accept ” for the good of the country”. I would be really glad if someone were to tell me I was being paranoid.
That would be a nightmare…..
I commented under yesterday’s heading of ‘Observing the mess’, that a contract is about to be signed to train British troops. Word has it that the leading contender is a part of the Israeli military equipment supplier Elbit.
The proposed – imminent – contract could be about electronic and photographic surveillance. Who knows, it could be about bringing Mossad methods to the British Army and paying informers everywhere.
MPs who are proud of being ‘Friends of Israel’ may be pleased. Perhaps it is what some senior British Military commanders want, but is this what the majority of British people want?
I heard a recording of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ this morning: Imagine there’s no heaven – It’s easy if you try- No hell below us- Above us only sky- Imagine all the people- Living for today… Aha-ah…- – Imagine there’s no countries- It isn’t hard to do- Nothing to kill or die for- And no religion, too- Imagine all the people- Living life in peace… Yo-oo…- – Imagine no possessions- I wonder if you can- No need for greed or hunger- A brotherhood of man- Imagine all the people- Sharing all the world… Yo-oo…- – You may say I’m a dreamer- But I’m not the only one- I hope someday you’ll join us- And the world will live as one.
If only
Interesting times. Steve Keen writes:
I’ve already been invited to speak on this topic at @jeremycorbyn’s Peace & Justice Project Annual Conference 2025, on September 21st
Replying to:
Wow. @ZackPolanski is booked into an MMT workshop & @georgegalloway is being tutored by @ProfSteveKeen! Over to you, @zarahsultana & @jeremycorbyn.
Source: https://x.com/ProfSteveKeen/status/1964709987415949732
Zack and I are meeting soon.
An interesting poll would be whether people think that the Greens should stand alone, or join with the new Crobyn/Sultana party.
Having just arrived back in Frankfurt today my wife and I had an afternoon of swapping thoughts and views about what is happening in both the UK and Germany. Specifically the rise of the Reforn and the AfD and the chances of them achieving power in the near future. Non of us has a crystal ball but it seems pretty clear to us that Germany’s PR voting system will prevent the Afd achieving an overall majority but that the absence of PR in the UK could easily result in Reform becoming the next government. I fear for family
One of my sons, tonight, talked of his releif that he has an Irish pasport.
Ah yes, the luck of the Irish
Having had a break this weekend, just dipped into this thread which lifted my spirits by the intelligence and commentary, as usual.
Of course, I knew it wouldnt last – just popped up on my feed that Pat McFadden is the now the head of the DWP and Kendall moved to Sciences. God help us.
McFadden at the DWP is a big worry – apparently The Manchurian Candidate claims McFadden will sort welfare. As if what they are pushing through isnt punishing enough. McFadden was waffling on about digital ID last week how the UK is behind the curve.
LINO – a never ending gallery of the groutesque.
Much to agree with
Apparently GB News wrote yesterday that Darren Jones had been appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lanchester, a village of 5000 halfway between Durham and Consett. I bet he’s no idea where it is.
Just to lighten and amuse.
The pieces you write provide the rest of us with a range of lenses to get a clearer view of what’s going on.
One other filter, not shared by all, is a memory of what was, going back to the 1950’s and growing up through Miner’s strikes, listening to the radio by candlelight.
I feel angry at what might have been but for the pig-headedness of those in power over recent decades.
Those, now in their teens and twenties will have to read history books to appreciate what might have been and many will be easy pray to those who will nominate identifiable targets on whom to blame their penury.
The class that has had the power to tilt the playing field in their favour will not be blamed but rather lauded for having the “skills” to extract the wealth that at one time was held in common.
Currently, the rich can isolate themselves from the poor. And just so long as the poor are provided with just enough bread and a circus in the corner of the room, they’ll be safe…..but that will eventually break down.
So, as long as you keep pumping out these lenses and enough people can tell others that it (neoliberalism) doesn’t have to be this way, hope lives on.
Thanks