ForenSix Opposition - Politics in the Soon To Be Former UK in Autumn 2020

Remember when JB-M used to post pictures of his dinner in the same threads as all his death stats?

Another day ends

"But a Lib Dem bid to stop the evictions was defeated in the Lords 126 to 266, with most Labour peers abstaining."🤬

Tory peers vote down last-minute bid to block 'up to 55,000 evictions' https://t.co/tkI1dEcHMl

— Audrey (@AudreyAurus1) September 24, 2020

ugh

How should we understand Starmer's conference speech and behaviour over the Overseas Operations Bill, George Peacock argues that the strategy can only be understood as an application of his adviser Claire Ainsley's methodology. https://t.co/tgvSwJo9U2

— New Socialist (@NewSocialistUK) September 24, 2020

Welp that was depressing

she recommends the restoration of the insurance principle to welfare (with “a stronger contributory principle”), preventing excessive price rises for services and utilities, a points-based immigration system

*shudders*

that she's abhorrent and patently so full of shit and part One Nation Tory/Part UKIP it completely aligns with the current depressing direction of the PLP, whoopee even if the tories get defeated we get something like the Cameron govt but with some pretence of a soft-left underbelly.

"the British media having decided that he (unlike Miliband and Corbyn) “looks like a leader”."

not being Jewish and talking and looking like a reconstructed tory cunt sure helps

it's just weathervane focus-group blairism, dressed up in flimsy new clothes, isnt it?

it's much worse than that imo!

the weathervane is pointing to some worse places right now

This patrician voluntary sector missionary technocrat steez was the actual SS of Blairism too, that article is one of the wonkiest things I've ever forced myself to get thru

Started reading To Live and Think Like Pigs last night. Too timely, way too fucking timely

The repeated lesson here should be to stop looking hopefully to the electoral system and the Labour Party to save us

the funniest delusional melt shitposting I saw last night was someone suggesting Starmer could be playing a similar game to Cameron. As in he talked up a cuddly One Nation Tory party but enacted tough centre-right policies after they won the election. Starmer is doing it the opposite way and is a cunning trojan horse for lots of uplifting centre-left policies that he just can't talk about now.

Good piece, v good in mapping how a lot of left-policy will be binned but also how all of it is volatile to events, and covid will mark the rest of this parliament.

Same delusion, perhaps more understandably, preceded Blair's election. I probably succumbed a little at the time. The lesson should have been learnt from that, but there are suckers who need to keep telling themselves this, because they have nothing else in terms of politics.

I bet Ainley loves it when focus groups completely agree with her own ideas on a points based immigration system and undermining universal elements of the UK welfare system, but it is just a coincidence.

well precisely

evidence-based prejudice

The idea of introducing a points-based immigration system is such a strong draw for right-wing bloviators it has successfully survived the actual introduction of a points-based immigration system. I wonder if they bring back hanging you’ll still see people with placards saying ‘bring back hanging’.

It's an electoral tactic, Blair was elected on a nudge and wink to the left that he'd be more left-wing than he was letting on, and the reverse nudge-wink to the right. I didn't think anyone would be able to repeat that approach again but Starmer appears to be doing so.

Even Boris tried it to an extent, all those well-meaning idiots writing Times columns saying he'd be more liberal and One Nation in office so they didn't lose soft Tory votes to the LibDems.

I agree with the response (eg Calzino's) to the article.

What I feel about Starmer is that it's a waste of time talking earnestly about 'what is Starmerism?' or describing his 'strategy' at length. The strategy doesn't merit that much overthinking - it's just another round of Blairism, right-wing positions which are then praised for alienating the left, etc. The banality is total. I don't even get the impression that KS is as intelligent as Blair, let alone Brown.

Mp MP sends an email:

Keir Starmer gave his first speech as Leader of the Opposition on Tuesday, to bring the events of Labour Connected to a close.

Keir outlined his bold new vision for our Party, which under his leadership will seek to win back the swathes of people who felt left behind by us. Our priorities will be national security and protecting our country from further economic and social damage from Covid-19.

It was a confident, positive and powerful address, including commitments to properly fund public services, invest in creating high quality jobs, prioritise our planet, and work towards eradicating racial injustice.

My favourite line from his speech was this:

“My vision for Britain is simple. I want it to be the best country to grow up in and the best to grow old in.”

Yes, that was her favourite line.

the managerial class are always with us

until we lop their heads off

I just don't know if I could pick a favourite line myself

can you imagine being a grown adult who is sincerely enthused by this?

i guess the real meaning of representative democracy is that your representatives should be that little bit stupider than the people they represent

all those well-meaning idiots writing Times columns

Dunno if I'm overly sensitive towards this as a Citiezn of Nowhere but apart from the total vapidness of the sentiment it also gets me that they have to phrase it as wanting to be "the best" and not just "a great place for". Better living conditions not worth anything unless you get to lord it over yr neighbours who have it worse?

the blair version literally depended entirely on the presence of a flow of tappable wealth from an financial and property sector, such as vanished for the foreseeable in 2008

this sector was to go unchallenged to ensure it always remained friendly and amenable to being (very lightly and technocratically) tapped for social projects, on the assumption that the wealth would always increase and continue to flow -- this assumption was comprehensivele wrong (also bad stupid and dangerous)

the technocratic presumption surrounding blairite foreign policy was equally deluded and is (equally) no longer available to the sensible centre-left: you can only exploit the end of the cold war once and blair comprehensivly blew this -- humane quasi-internationalist US-led imperialist intervention now persuades no one at all outside the unreconstructed punditariat (in fact England-centred US-piggyback imperialist intervention has switching ruthlessly into its place, with look what happened when we tried to be kind and helpful! the pervasive flavour now justifying this switch)

No you're absolutely right. xp

the spice will always increase and continue to flow

Gyac, yes I actually meant deluded rather than well-meaning but don't underestimate the capacity for self-deception among yr typical liberal Tory voter. It's the same with all those Cameron policy initiatives that seemed vaguely cuddly on the surface even as they were pushing ahead with austerity, that were aimed at the poor, or people who were particularly bothered about poverty, they were aimed at people who were inclined to vote Tory and didn't like to think of themselves as *not* caring about the poor.

the blair version literally depended entirely on the presence of a flow of tappable wealth from an financial and property sector, such as vanished for the foreseeable in 2008

That flow was coming back by 2012, but the will to tap it was no longer there. Whether it will survive covid is a different matter, but both financial and property markets seem artificially high at the moment.

Meanwhile this looks like an absolute disaster in the making even before you consider the talk of forcing students to stay in their accommodation for Christmas.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-54292728

I entirely agree with Daniel RF.

You can generally look at a banality and think 'well, true, no-one can really disagree with that'.

Like 'I want what's best for Britain', 'I want our people to aspire - and to succeed', 'I want us to be stronger - but also fairer' - OK, if meaningless.

But this particular banality manages the unusual feat of stinking as soon as you look at it, by introducing a false idea of 'competition with the rest of the world' into the idea of wanting a better society.

i was going to post last night that the university situation has gone south even faster than i guessed it would

Not every town in the UK is especially welcoming of its student population at the best of times let alone when halls and campuses are acting as rona incubators that can't help but spill out into the wider community.

It doesn't seem even remotely possible to run a covid-friendly university campus and it's astonishing that no one appears to have thought this through.

i worried about the local/students tensions the other week, seems bound to go off at some point. this is the kind of shitshow that ought to affect Boris's base but hey nothing matters

i'm guessing there's a strong resentment abt being economically dependent at a transient sub-community with the unresolved conflict easily pushed into a contradictory hostility

(shrewsbury never a student town in this sense so i don't have a good born-and-raised feel for how the locals i grew up with wd have responded)

Wonder about the possibility of a rent strike in Glasgow (and perhaps other) unis as a response to an appalling state of affairs.

just doing a checklist of recent Starmer endorsements: Jeremy Clarkson, The Taxpayers Alliance, Maurice Glasman (a true conservative he says) and not forgetting Nigel Farage "heartily agreeing" with his BLM statement. And I think it is at least five of his ten pledges he has either reneged on or gives the impresses they've already been kicked into the long grass. How is a party activist supposed to even campaign for this guy on the doorsteps, perhaps either: yeah don't worry he's racist + tory af, or in BAME constituencies don't worry about the lip service to fascists and the absolute dearth of transformative policies - he's just playing out an electoral strategy.

peeling landlords and other minor bosses and cops away from claire ainsley's way-too-vague conception of the "new working class" seems like potentially productive praxis activism

(the idea that class warfare doesn't play these days is simply and also vastly false: A. bcz huge amounts of rightwing punditwork is disengenously tweaked class warfare, but B. bcz ppl at the sharp end of it exactly know who their very present enemy is)

I read "doesn't play" as "we will do everything in our power to make sure it doesn't play"

Farage used to make a point of praising Corbyn as well, it was a favoured shit stirring tactic of his.

Lab: we will be fiscally responsible.

Tories:

Sloping down if anything... blue = chosen, green = civil service recommendation pic.twitter.com/jD0jbJxNBY

— Chris Hanretty is staying home (@chrishanretty) September 24, 2020

Wonder about the possibility of a rent strike in Glasgow (and perhaps other) unis as a response to an appalling state of affairs.

You pay upfront - which is why some people have been shouting at the Unis on the suspicion that they wouldn't do anything until the money came in - when in fact they won't do anything at all.

Also this question-contains-the-answer from the BBC article.

"She's signed an agreement and paid a lot of money to stay there and what for? Now she is essentially imprisoned?"

it really is shameful, good job shame doesn't exist now

"You pay upfront - which is why some people have been shouting at the Unis on the suspicion that they wouldn't do anything until the money came in - when in fact they won't do anything at all."

Is this for the term or the year? Also I don't know if you can cancel the tenancy agreement or anything like that? Just a horrendous situation.

traditionally students pay a term at a time up front but i don't think the contract is easy to evade once you're in anyway

batten down the hatches lads it's gonna be a rough *checks notes* rest of our lives

#BlueLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/gwgxzDRIBd

— Cllr, Rev'd Gary Gray (@CllrGaryGray) September 25, 2020

Labour councillors being total dogshit, what a surprise.

Screaming at how the students at Parker House are dealing with the entire building having to go into lockdown and self-isolate after a covid outbreak pic.twitter.com/yPszI8xqvG

— Jordan (@livie_jordan) September 24, 2020

Boring Dystopia at its best