"we'll change the things that need changing and that's all we'll change": the paSUKification of post-brexit politics 2021

I feel all the ire she has got boils down to a private school educated Oxford alumni from a very priviliged background not really being a good enough writer to condense her class discourse thinking to twitter sized chunks that doesn't boil the piss of lots of people who grew up in poor versions of most of the things she bullets points, especially the housing and education and reduced odds of progressing to higher education with parents that never had a higher education etc. All the formative stuff that made some of us into complete fuckups. Never mind some of us council estate scratters that think Bourdieu is a variety of red wine and cultural capital is a loan company!

Anyway I'm always looking for an excuse to slag off Novara Media. This "cultural working class" thing is problematic, but you need a better writer than Grace to do a critique of it any justice, she just ends up sounding like another variant of the middle-income plus property earning working classes - which I'm sure wasn't her intention.

She's right about the accent thing, but that's hardly a startling insight.

People do need to transcend class and social mobility is in such a rapid decline that 20th century definitions are not particularly helpful or enlightening anymore. But still...

i saw her do a Q&A when her book stolen was being published. could be the questions and the fact the chair was her apparent mate ash sarkar but she seemed to be good at circling round the points she wanted to make, but it was all a bit baggy and not pointed enough. tried reading the book (should prob give it another go to be fair) but felt it had the same sort of issue.

seems to be a tendency on the UK left to downplay the specificities of people's experience in the name of some ideal working class coalition (actually cross-class but never mind). you can define precarious or downwardly mobile middle class people (a significant chunk of the corbyn coalition) as working class if you want but they don't have all the same interests & struggles as people who were raised poor despite some overlap, it seems dishonest to pretend otherwise & any necessary solidarity shouldn't be conditional on doing so

Under her "relation to the the means of production" definition wouldn't that put people who are fairly comfortable in the same category as people depending on foodbanks? A big element of class solidarity is about knowing other people are experiencing/have experienced the same struggles and hardship etc

If Marina Hyde was reduced to working at a call centre she'd be common as muck!

I say this as a bourgeois benefit bludging layabout who hasn't worked in nearly 10 years. I think even Marx would have said I was a wanker!

Like whaaaaaaat?

Peter Mandelson: “I’m afraid Keir Starmer has come badly unstuck”.

Damning interview by @Anoosh_C with Starmer's supposed ally. https://t.co/eKW4d7Ja2J

— George Eaton (@georgeeaton) May 11, 2021

There’s no point in getting rid of the incubus of Jeremy Corbyn and continuing to uphold his policies and manifesto on which we went down to such a terrible defeat in 2019.”

Yet Mandelson told me he hadn’t spoken with Starmer since 2018, when they talked “briefly about Brexit”. “I wish I had given more,” he responded, when asked about his relationship with the leader’s office. “All I can do is write articles and give interviews. What else can I do?”

Keir Starmer’s leadership ratings now worse than Jeremy Corbyn’s, polls show https://t.co/Hoh5FiuGOS

— Jon Stone (@joncstone) May 11, 2021

It's probably already in motion. He turned up in Hartlepool dressed like a defrocked vicar, but I think he was mainly hanging out with Dr Paul.

Denying he's talked to him is his Roman thumbs up!

Under her "relation to the the means of production" definition wouldn't that put people who are fairly comfortable in the same category as people depending on foodbanks?

This is the standard trad Marxist line. "You have more in common with the homeless man on your street than the man who owns your company," etc.

So cases have been going up for 2/3 days by a few hundred...I hope it's a blip...

Faiza Shaheen is not very impressed with Blakely's class oppression erasure and has gone in hard on her!

sorry Tom. I'm becoming a sick addict when it comes to getting my fix of mainly inconsequential "what people say on twitter" occurrences.

you have to wonder exactly how long it will be before the Right mounts a challenge.

his authority has drained away as fast as May's did after losing the majority but it takes longer to ditch a dud leader when you are in govt. Starmer won't hobble on for as long as she did.

Since appreciating people for their good looks seems to be back in fashion itt then Faiza Shaheen >>>>>> Grace Blakeley.

Idk if there will be a challenge from the right, partly due to a lack of obvious options, partly because they must surely still fear whatever remaining left wing there is in the membership will be able to rally against them. Would Nandy suit them any better? Beyond her, who do you have? Reeves? Jarvis?

I’d guess they know they have Starmer in their pocket and figure that an economic implosion is still Labour’s best chance of returning to power, rather than anything the leadership is actually going to do positively. Sit tight and hope to win by default.

Animated lads getting hot under the collar itt

They've had no trouble scraping the barrel in recent years, yeah it might not have yielded much success but that doesn't put them off! and what remains of the membership can't be relied on or might not be big enough these days. I wouldn't confidently predict if by a miracle some decent candidate got enough nominations to run, that would actually beat Reeves or some other waste of space.

If a decent candidate got enough nominations Labour would be in the position of trying to stop any rampant entryism but also desperately needing new members to stave off insolvency!

Nashwan: yes, this thread lately has been reminding me of old times on ILM. (Though to me 2003 feels somewhat recent and I always think of Mark S, in 2001, as a slightly new arrival.)

Louise Wener - classic or CLASSIC?

the next Labour leader betting odds is as arbitrary as it ever was: Zara Sultana just below Yvette Cooper in the betting, probably only one of the 7 below Burnham has any realistic chance.

xp

I hope you aren't suggesting that is an alt of mine, Pinefox. I was barely even online in 2003 and had never heard of ilx and didn't even open an account till about 2010!

and I can't abide indie rock.

lol just scrolled that entire thread and took in the essence of unfiltered old ilm

Animated lads getting hot under the collar itt

You started it!

gender-neutral lad

is this a usage that we can get behind?

im not sure

ffs

as in "lads" has been avowedly gender neutral in some~ cultures on these islands forever as noted many times on this site

tsk jim

Also i thought anvil was just referencing toms dname tbh

Idk if there will be a challenge from the right, partly due to a lack of obvious options, partly because they must surely still fear whatever remaining left wing there is in the membership will be able to rally against them. Would Nandy suit them any better? Beyond her, who do you have? Reeves? Jarvis?

I’d guess they know they have Starmer in their pocket and figure that an economic implosion is still Labour’s best chance of returning to power, rather than anything the leadership is actually going to do positively. Sit tight and hope to win by default.

All of the above depends largely on their perception/assessment of things, and on that front who knows? The levels of delusion and self-deception aren't getting any easier to quantify. There also seems to be some level of comfort in doing badly (as it shows "we still need to work on ourselves", which is a position they don't seem invested in departing from

I don't really see how they can hope to win either of the next two general elections. Think things shift after that maybe as boomers filter out of the system, but if the median age increases (and percentage of working age voters declines) in a majority of seats, thats a deeper structural issue Labour are going to need to have serious answers for, for any elections after that

Jess Phillips has been uncharacteristically quiet of late

The inspirational and highly principled Zara Sultana is as short 20/1 to be next Labour leader. I'd put her true odds as at least triple figures, sadly.

probably 2/1 to lose her seat tho :(

There is a story in Private Eye that Johnson had a ccj issued to 10 Downing Street last October for an unpaid debt and it still hasn't been paid. If I lived there I wouldn't sweat it too much about debt collectors either.

We must be days away from another rare Blair intervention surely.

there was a diabolical New Labour reunion on GMB this morning as well. Adonis would have had his silk wanking gloves at the ready

Calzino: No, I find it a mild coincidence that your ILX name is a bit like that odd person's (who was really called Calum and had devolved into Calzer by that point?), but I don't think you have much in common with him.

phew!

When did Tony Blair morph into David Icke?

That "lads" has had particular valence in Ireland is true, but whether it was a gender-neutral term, say a hundred years ago, I am more doubtful -- don't think I recall ever reading any evidence for that.

Flann O'Brien would be a good example: I don't think he ever includes women in "lads" (but then, TBH, I don't recall him using the word "lads" very much itself much either). Actually you could do some kind of search of eg the whole works of Joyce, Yeats, Synge, O'Casey and I think you'd find the same thing. So was real speech different? Unsure.

New Statesman headlines.

Why I will never forgive Boris Johnson for the damage he has done to the country I love
BY MARTIN FLETCHER

Peter Mandelson: “I’m afraid Keir Starmer has come badly unstuck”
BY ANOOSH CHAKELIAN

Why is the world’s best vaccinated country experiencing a Covid spike?
BY HARRY CLARKE-EZZIDIO

Is it time to end our Mitford obsession?
BY NEW STATESMAN

Who listens to Rag’n’Bone Man?
BY KATE MOSSMAN

My lockdown nostalgia
BY SOPHIE MCBAIN

The sex recession: How our love lives are stunted by hyper-sexualisation
BY LOUISE PERRY

Rachel Cusk and the art of the midlife crisis
BY JOHANNA THOMAS-CORR

Do Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner realise how much they need each other?
BY STEPHEN BUSH

As Tony Blair warns that Labour could die under Starmer, is he planning a return?
By Harry Lambert

Reading is bad for your health

Slough is even worse.

This deeply unpleasant comment also reveals quite a lot about how Mandelson views the relationship between Corbyn and the party. An incubus is specifically a male demon who visits women in their beds, copulating & giving them sinful & erotic dreams. It's an image of violation. https://t.co/MlWdSpBGN5

— James B (@piercepenniless) May 12, 2021