I watched a reasonable amount of the news last night.
It kept being said that seven prime ministers in 10 years is unacceptable. Questions were asked. But no one that I saw made the obvious point. Everyone of these people was or is a neoliberal.
And the reality is neoliberalism has failed. Of course, no prime minister can deliver a failed idea. That is impossible. But until that point is made in, and accepted by, the media we are going nowhere.
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The ideologues couldn’t possibly blame their ideology, it pays too well.
What’s NOT in the news today, is what depresses me.
1. No suggestion of any party election process to choose the next STP/LINO leader or suggestion that such a process might be desirable (the last Labour coronation was Brown after Blair, the last Tory one was Sunak after Truss. Those are not encouraging precedents for stable government).
2. No policy debate. (We did have a signficant policy debate prior to Starmer becoming LINO leader, but it was based almost entirely around his lies – 10 Pledges).
3. No variations on the necessity of more failed neoliberal macro-economics.
4. No discussion of the foreign policy mess we are in (USA, Israel, EU), especially our complicity in war crimes.
5. No challenge to “musn’t spook the bond markets” (see 3).
6. No challenge to the inevitability of austerity (see 3).
7. No challenge to the tyranny of “debt/deficit” arguments (see 3).
8. No concern that possible future PMs seem as immune to rigorous questioning and challenge, as Fa***e is, on his £5m bung.
9. The reviews of Starmer’s rise and fall completely gloss over the Labour Together Fraud (mainly because the Fraud continues virtually uninterrupted, and is now imposing Burnham, with Darren Jones as backstop).
10. Starmer won big in 2024 on a tactical anti-Tory vote. Burnham arguably won big in Makerfield on a tactical anti-Reform vote. To suceed, a PM needs popular informed party and public enthusiasm for a well argued policy platform. If they avoid that, they will fail, because the status quo IS failure.
Two things that are going out of fashion fast – policy debates, and elections.
KTTT! (Keep Taking The Tablets)
Rather than watch the news yesterday – as it became a monotonous loop, I tuned into Peston last night.
The chap from Compass gave me hope but good grief – the reform lady!?
What really frustrates me watching this is how Peston interrupts before whoever is speaking finishes. It’s like I’ve got to get my opinion in first. Perhaps we should allow people to express their view – life experience rather than attachment to ideas? But it’s so self defeating.
Like I say, at least the Neal Lawson? From Compass offered some light to the conversation.
– I now await to be shot down on here by wiser minds! 🙂
Neoliberalism” isn’t really any sort of definition anymore, if it ever was. What definition can put Starmer and Truss in the same category, apart from “White European”?
Neoliberalism does.
That is why it is useful.