It's hard to be an optimist this morning.
The EU says the Brexit problem lies with the UK, as if that is news.
We know there is no Irish solution around which the Cabinet will unite.
We know May might lose ministers this week.
We know that might trigger her downfall.
And we know Cameron and Clegg ensured that does not mean we have an election but might end up with someone like David Davis as PM.
In the meantime, Northern Ireland has still got no government and yet the DUP holds the UK to ransom.
And Scotland, rightly, frets.
Whilst the people of the UK see their well-being at risk of collapse.
Despite which the Tories apparently have a poll lead.
Nothing makes sense.
We are a DisUnited Kingdom.
The chance that this can be resolved without getting much worse look to be remote.
I'd love to be an optimist. But right now I am not.
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Right now, I’m still hoping Police investigations into VoteLeave cheating will go ahead.
Hoping exposing the whole fraud will turn the tide.
Hoping someone in Labour will lead the changes we need. It probably won’t be Corbyn.
He’d be a good union leader, a great campaigner for what he believes in, but not a PM.
Hoping and campaigning is all we can do.
Giving up and looking at reality is not an option for now.
For once, I too have my head in the sand.
Not much to be optimistic about, for sure, at least not on the political front. For me the increased Tory poll lead is indicative of the dysfunctional state we find ourselves in, as it suggests how ineffective Labour is in offering a credible alternative that resonates with the majority. In view of the government’s weaknesses, and allowing for the usual margins of error, the LP should routinely be at least 5-6 points ahead of the Tories. Clearly Corbyn’s strategy isn’t working on a national level and needs to be radically rethought before he contemplates pushing for a GE. But time is running out.
Yesterday an Anglo-American friend, having just returned from there, told me US society is so divided at all levels it’s like another Civil War. Seems to be the same here. ‘Brexit’ has created a suppurating wound that won’t heal for at least a generation, whichever party is in power. The $64,000 question is to what extent is this social division the result of the dark art of Steve Bannon and his paymasters. Brazil and Bavaria may be sinister indicators.
“In view of the government’s weaknesses, and allowing for the usual margins of error, the LP should routinely be at least 5-6 points ahead of the Tories.”
The Tories have a strong coalition of the the wealthy, those who aspire to wealth, pensioners, the socially conservative, buy to let landlords and people who are hoping that property prices will continue to increase. Turning millions of people into landlords/speculators has been the Tories greatest achievement. These are the stories you don’t hear about on the news. The person inheriting hundreds of thousands of pounds tax free. The couple taking in tens of thousands of pounds a year in housing benefit from their buy to let portfolio. Tory economics is working just fine for them.
The performance of the government doesn’t matter to millions of Tory voters. All they care about is their ability to milk the rigged property market paying as little tax as possible.
With added fuel added via Russias army on facebook and all other manner of devices including it appears now school children.
Still at least we are not in a hundred years war, with the black death and the great fire of London. It could be worse.
And all this is based on the outcome of David Cameron’s “consultative” EU referendum which overall could be regarded as a statistical dead heat. Moreover, in two of the four constituencies of the UK the result was the opposite of the overall vote.
Due diligence should have dictated extreme caution in the government’s dealing with such a situation rather than the thoughtless plunge into the unknown that we have now.
It’s beyond time that this nonsense is stopped and proper attention paid to the problems which underlaid the ‘leave’ vote.
To be fair to Cammers and Nickers our constitution was well-screwed before they tinkered with it. The 1919 German one was better. Presumably we’d want to avoid its “early snags” and get to the current position of a sizeable Green vote? Optimists are merely as deluded as pessimists. The glass is the wrong size to my engineering bent and someone is welching on buying the next round. Easy to say my feelings exactly. At least we are unlikely to have succumbed to a boiler-room scam on a personal basis!
Quite seriously the effort you put in here does help me feel a bit better – somewhere near the normal unhappiness Freud was prepared to grant us in 1936. The idea is not to pre-select defeat and not to fall for daft ‘chin up’ propaganda designed to inspire cannon-fodder (up chins are easily broken). I suspect the ‘data’ of the sad world out-there conceal something much worse. So I look for what the concealment might be, why others vote for what I see as moronic. Questions like ‘why on earth are people more likely to agree with Theresa May than me?’ abound. Finding myself at the bottom of his hole I am digging myself further in!
News of Yemen was across my screen as I read ‘this complaint’ – horrible stuff we are ignoring, Think Rotherham (sexual violence cover up) – but realise over the whole country our cops and other social services hide the paucity of responses with satisfaction surveys and rubber-stamped ‘kwality’. We don’t even gather data from this area on any scientific basis – goop-driven managerialism is all we get. The real situation is much worse, a matter easily revealed by honest data gathering we are denied by the “optimists on crack” running the show. You can glimpse what I mean looking at cops surveying the population of people they never deal with to get a satisfaction level – wouldn’t you think we should be surveying people in contact with or needing them? It’s worse of course. We have systems that produce “choice” between Trump and Clinton, and have no clue what this “data” tells us? We might get May v Corbyn if our lad survives long enough. Corbo gets my vote in the hope he shuts down the system and lets our kids build a distributed electronic system with proportional representation so good any Parliament will not be a reclusive London club for old farts. “Representation” would be much wider than in the current farce and aimed at bringing representation to the people in new ways, breaking such traditions as only lawyers becoming judges and university holds on knowledge. This is a challenge to the meaning of money (and its crass links to privilege). MPs could have a team working on real local issues rather than abstract economics none of them understand.
A crumb of comfort is the doubling of the Green vote – 18.5% in the Bavarian elections on Sunday and the extreme right party AfD only coming in at fourth place – 11%. True UK opinion polls show the Tories ahead for now but their long term future is bleak as younger age groups are shunning them in droves, especially BEM voters.
Agreed
On the contrary, most of your statements are grounds for huge optimism.
As you say, “…the Tories appear to have a poll lead.” – but 2017 showed us comprehensively how little that matters – especially in the context of the legally enforced media arrangements prior to a general election whenever that comes. Polls are political instruments as much as they are barometers – those with Tory leads are always given more prominence – basing anything at all on them, especially your general outlook and emotional state – is a very bad idea.
The extreme-Centrists in the Labour Party are loosing influence day-by-day. The prospect of a truly progressive government gaining power in the UK – or hopefully by then England – in the next 5 years are higher than at any time since Galtieri decided to take the Falklands.
Oh and for Marie Thomas – Corbyn will make a marvellous PM. He has been on the right side of the argument for every-single aspect of UK foreign policy for the last 30 years – that alone leaves him head-and-shoulderes above all his parochial detractors.
“Parochial detractors”? Define and describe.
When he first came to the big stage, looking green and rather amateurish, I liked his message. A breath of air.
A true Socialist, I have no doubt. A communicator, always helpful when you want to win an election.
As time went on, I saw another side. A lack of listening, a certain rigidity, and I was not sure he had a grip on political-economic matters. Did he have good advisers? Was he listening to them? Did he see the wood for the trees? I had my doubts.
It may just be style over substance, but I wonder whether his lack of headway in the polls is not partly due to the fact that too many have their doubts.
Anyway, Corbyn needs to unite in order to win. He’s not there yet. And he’s not the only socialist in the Labour Party who could lead.
I’m sorry for what might seem a rather dismissive tone, but as irrational and incoherent as things seem there are reasons for everything.
The Tory poll lead may suggest only that it is the Tories who talking tough to Europe as they are the Government after all and people expect their leaders not to be walk overs. So what?
And Labour has not exactly been clear on what it wants to do – it’s waiting game goes on but who is to say its poll position might not rise when it says what it is going to do?
The DUP are desperate nationalists who are trying to protect their future jobs. What do we expect? Something noble? From them? Not a chance.
As for people seeing their well being collapse – it already has since 2010. This has already happened and the EU has got the blame, hence the referendum vote.
We also know that whoever might replace May will come from the same libertarian anti-state demolition derby that is the modern Tory Party – a new face but the same malign intent which is to destroy our society to make it easier for the rich to plunder. Does it really matter if May goes? I have come to think that it does not. How often has she spoken of addressing burning injustices that her party have created only to make them worse? The Tories are all the same – out of touch, inhuman free-market fantasists who get into Government only to destroy it with no intention of ruling for all.
It might be a good idea to resign ourselves (or strongly consider it) to the fact that we are about to enter into a period of more turmoil and mis-rule.
The only guiding principle for those of us who come out of the other end is to remember the words of Milan Kundera:
‘The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting’.
So that’s my message: endure – what ever comes out of this time but also remember and use that as a basis for something new.
My family is attending an anti-BREXIT rally in London next weekend. And we shall attend more. I would heartily recommend that progressive folk gets themselves out and be heard. We find it makes things bearable.
“The DUP are desperate nationalists who are trying to protect their future jobs. What do we expect? Something noble? From them? Not a chance.”
Irrational fanatics is a better description PSR. They want nothing to do with the EU, like all the other Europhobes in the UK, yet can’t accept that one of the benefits of being in the EU, or even just the EEA, is a frictionless border between NI and Eire. Out of the SM and CU = a hard border. They are like people who want to go swimming but not get wet.
Which is why we all need to write to our MPs to tell them to tell our fool of a PM to tell the DUP to GET LOST!
Anyway, I’ll be on The People’s Vote too on Saturday.
I am afraid I am in Wales – taking a break…..Welshpool and Llanfair railway Saturday afternoon….
“The DUP are desperate nationalists…”
Eh? The very definition of a D.UNIONIST.Party is that they manifest to join or maintain a union with another state. Or to be included within an existing union.
Or was your comment an indication of your views on Northern Ireland as the construct of Westminster’s long held “divide and conquer” policy? In any case, just because they are bigoted, religious zealots and misogynistic throwbacks to a darker age, we must not throw inaccurate descriptions around.
The only “nationalists” in Westminster are the ONLY party who has constantly and consistently attempted to inject some sense and a measure of restraint into this mess of England’s making!
I have to question that
I think they are nationalists – for a nation that simply does not exist
Gordon
I’m not sure what you actually mean in your post.
I would define the DUP as Nationalists who use the concept of the Union to enable their nationalism. They constantly like to differentiate themselves from the rest of the Island.
I agree that the Northern Irish concept seems to be a British idea and it is none too clever for that. That’s why I advocate England letting go.
The way in which the DUP has backed one of the nastiest Tory parties for personal gain in recent memory will not be forgotten. Nor do the English Government tolerate people who are over playing their hand as the DUP are. I think that they are hastening their own oblivion and absorption into Eire to be honest and I’d be glad to see the cynicism removed from this part of the Emerald Isle for good.
And BTW – plenty of countries have their own long list of bigots, zealots, misogynists and psycho-hose beasts.
I mean, look at the UK. Or the U.S.! These degenerates are not just confined to the Northern tip of Eire by any means.
Yes, it’s difficult to be optimistic with these lunatics in charge, and an apparent poll lead for them despite it all.
My response is to write a very stiff email to my MP (a Leave supporting Tory) raising, politely, but very firmly, the following points.
1) Why aren’t the police prosecuting the various Leave campaigns for their fraudulent activities during the referendum campaign. I shall be asking why, for a country that likes to trumpet it’s respect for the rule of law, the Leave fraudsters are being allowed to get away with something that has such massive implications for this country’s future?
2) If we’re going to leave the EU, why is the only reasonable way to do this, the offer by the EU of a Norway style membership of the EEA, not being followed by the government, since it is the only way of leaving the EU whilst avoiding severe economic damage and solving the NI border problem?
I’ll point out that no British PM should be kowtowing to the extremists in the DUP. I shall demand that she tells them that the result of the referendum will be respected, and that Britain is staying in the CM and CU. I’ll also point out that, given the opinion poll results discussed above, the Tory party has nothing to fear from another GE if the DUP and ERG decide to bring one about. In other words, May should call their bluff.
If you open up that can then the 8-12 page booklet mailing sent to 20 million households just before the referendum period by the Government might also be considered as an election expense for the remain campaign. . . awkward
Except the law said it was not
Do we believe in the rule of law?
I am actually more concerned that Labour has gone back to spin-economics. This is depressing as historical truth is anti-tory on debt and deficit. One Tory I shared loads of cricket with told me he voted for them because Labour came in, spent up and the good old boys had to come back to fix everything up. I would know this as an economist, he said. This was a guy with a third from Oxford, so I forgave him calling me an economist and demonstrated the “good old boys” were the major debt and deficit producers either side of 2008. This is easy enough to count up, but his degree was in history and he found my numbers unconvincing. I lent him one of Richard’s older books. He came back saying he’d been wrong on these matters all his life but would still vote Tory, There must, he said, be other reasons he voted for the Tories. That’s depressing.
His name wasn’t George, was it?
Steve – my understanding is Tories who add George to their name at 13 all struggle to lift a bat on their own.
In an age of growing complexity, people – maybe the majority – will find it more reassuring to vote for conservative political parties rather than for progressives who are articulating the necessity for change via radical yet logical (viz. MMT) solutions. I don’t see any short-term solution for this sociological tendency that has always played into the hands of fascists: Problem-Reaction-Solution. In times of uncertainty authoritarian messages resonate with voters.
However, hopefully there’s an age factor at work whereby younger voters will be less seduced by right-wing rhetoric. Available stats and surveys suggest it is so. Without having seen the voter profiles in the Bavarian election, the results would seem to confirm this with the Greens more than doubling their 2013 result, finishing with 17.5 percent, well ahead of the AfD – who get most of the publicity . So there is hope for the longer term providing the corporate-fuelled Conservative agenda doesn’t in the meantime inflict a level of socio-economic-environmental damage that will prove irreparable.
“There must, he said, be other reasons he voted for the Tories.”
Reason counts for much less in how people vote than is understood. Usually it doesn’t matter, nothing in conventional politics even attempts to scratch below the surface, and all may seem (relatively) benign, mature, civilised and rational. A simple narrative of material personal interests prevailing over all is often persuasive, and within fairly narrow limits will work well; especially when political parties are actually fighting over an often congested an ill-defined and very narrow middle ground that is in effective terms trivial differences in rsults at wafer thin margins of significance (which is made to look a great deal more divided than it is by political parties whose vested interest is to dramatise differences whether or not it is material, or is in their limited powers to change it): or political ‘spin’ effectively exploits or deceives the public into believing that the narrative and reality really are the same, at least for a lengthy period of time.
In times of genuine political stress, tension and division (as now with Brexit) what is well hidden from public view (and conspired to be kept hidden by almost everyone) rises closer to the surface. This does not mean people fully understand their own motivations; they may not. Much of what motivates people is unconscious and unknown even to the individual concerned.
states are dying of parasitism
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-13/oliver-bullough-on-moneyland-tax-evasion-and-offshore-wealth/10359142
dmf –
“states are dying of parasitism”
I misread that. I honestly thought you said “States are dying of patriotism“… which sounded a little profound and not a million miles from the truth 🙂
The Tories own Brexit and I am beginning to believe there is a significant section that cares not about the union at all – as long as England is preserved and is apart from Europe then Scotland and Northern Ireland are a worthwhile sacrifice. Very sad. However, if the Tories own Brexit, then the current Labour is complicit in delivering it. Its policy is unclear and its leadership team of Corbyn and McDonnell are (despite their assurances to the contrary) entirely comfortable with any outcome that delivers Brexit and makes the Tories fall.
The pair of them are Marmite. They may have invigorated people under 40 who have barely or never voted in the past. But for many over that age – apart from the die-hard Socialist Worker readers or sympathisers with the Militant crowd that I watched from close up in the mid-to-early 80s – they are beyond the pale. I watched Corbyn just now in the chamber and I thought he was lamentable. Whatever his domestic policies are, I think people do not trust his foreign affairs outlook and I cannot see him ever gaining a majority in the House. The Tories are 4% up and they should be five times that down – the reasons are Labour’s failure to properly oppose Brexit and having a leader that is not trusted by a highly significant proportion of the electorate.
You were right in a previous post Richard the country’s moved substantially from an informed democracy to an idiocracy and Parliament accordingly packed with low calibre politicians.
To those who are pushing the EEA / EFTA “solution”… to paraphrase Groucho, “No club I would be prepared to join would accept me as a member”!
Think again!