like the queen this thread will never die: in which we ALL resign (ourselves to disgusting miseries to post-boris politics 2022)

i think we can expect some genuinely socially unpleasant stuff from a Kieth government, but as with everything in UK politics i get no sense of the reality of how much of the public is invested in him or Labour from social/media, polls etc

one of the most important reasons not to vote Labour for me is the hope that these creeps won't be able to claim a mandate based solely on dislike for the incumbents

hah hah did Bastani lose a bet or something.

(xp) That's how it works though.

Lilico knows

I still think the market reaction was mainly to what the mini-Budget said about the BoE decision, but I've thought of a potential secondary factor. The market may have felt that the mini-Budget implied a Labour victory in 2024/25 is more likely than they had previously thought.+

— Andrew Lilico (@andrew_lilico) September 26, 2022

The odd thing about Bastani's claims now is that he has frequently stated before that KS is *bad* at politics, because inexperienced. So he seems to be U-turning on this particular assertion.

PR and electoral reform would be good. It is good that the Labour conference voted for them. The fact that the Labour leadership then states they will ignore this shows that what conference votes for is meaningless and they might as well not hold a conference. The media do not mention this last fact.

i imagine the implied hook of bastani's piece is that this piece represents -- or just plain presents -- an epiphany (which is indeed a fancy greek term for u-turn)

i'm also guessing that he only properly read machiavelli pretty recently and it BLEW. HIS. MIND.

but the second bit may be unfair (also unfair: i'm not going to read this piece, bcz no one needs to read bastani in any longer format than the tweet)

He has been talking about things like Machiavelli for years - I think this is a long-term reference point for him. Part of his schtick is to use very old theories and models, especially eg: Italian Renaissance, amid C21 modernity.

lol sounds like i'd enjoy reading him (not going to tho)

writing it in unherd is the cherry on the cake. He frequently has made bad grandstanding posts and then later taken an opposite position with no acknowledgement that he was previously full of shit - as seen in some of the replies when he's posting about The Labour Files. I'm not going to give a click to unherd or this daft cunt, but he seems to have done a reverse version of what I described here. Another of his previous takes was Kieth is bad at politics and his politics are bad, but you've still got to vote for him.

What is Unherd? Is it like Spiked or something, right-wing libertarian?

yes pretty similar and right-wing libertarian. The funny thing is, apparently they don't even pay that much.

A second Woodrow has hit the Bastani

— labourfan69 (@labourfan69) September 26, 2022

https://unherd.com/author/terry-eagleton/

😃

it has pretensions to being an inclusive intellectual journal albeit one weighted towards the right -- and at one time it *did* i believe pay quite well but no longer (tho as is the way of things it may bung useful names a lot more than e.g. mere scribblers like me) (i have never pitched to unherd)

tbf i don't think it's as flagrantly and needily cynical as sp!ked but what is

Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour would crush civil society
BY ROGER SCRUTON

time to see if the salisbury review still exists

it does!

oh yeah Pinefox, I forgot to mention Douglas Murray has written a lot for them.

https://salisburyreview.com/wp-content/uploads/salisbury-review-3.png

unherd is a safe space for terfs iirc

yep

oh christ I clicked on it. McT has a Starmer piece in it as well.

and guess what, it's bad not good!

He secured his greatest triumph when party delegates belted out “God Save The King” this weekend on their conference’s opening day. There were no boos or catcalls — just genuine passion.

xxxp "eat my dirt, sickle beard!"

I think there's another thread - ha, probably more than one - talking about PR in the UK. I think on balance electoral reform would be a good thing but at the moment I don't see it being anything other than a recipe for a soft right stranglehold on parliament. Probably should still happen simply because it's more ethical than FPTP but it's no panacea

In this country it would mean the Lib Dems would often function as kingmaker so critical support to Kieth here lol.

yah always selfishly been in favour of pr just so i could finally vote in a general election and feel like my vote counts. of course now i won't vote labour so i probably wouldn't bother anyway.
xp

The reports have said that Lab are ignoring PR. They have to push that line otherwise coalition of chaos makes a comeback xp

yeah I think Kieth or one of his creepazoids has said it would be like an admission that they can't win in the FPTP system

As Scotland is gone it would take a house market crash to keep Tories at home and deliver a majority to Labour.

Ultimately it's a load of tripe. Democracy is never very representational, at least 30% don't ever bother with it. PR is too much of a 'one neat trick' to re-shape the fundamental problems we have.

What little I've seen in the way of leftist progress in Europe (and I stress it's not much to write home about) is almost always down to small leftist parties getting into coalitions with the labour equivalents (which will always tend towards the centre left if not centre right). Wouldn't PR make this a more viable way for the left in the UK? And isn't the fact that the libs dems are the third biggest party reflective of fptp, i.e. within such a system only ppl with LibDem brain would bother joining a third party?

I can envisage Labour making something of a comeback in Scotland. The only way is up after all.

My feeling is that the Labour Party currently is far more likely to go into coalition with parties or MPs nominally to its right

I think that piece by Bastani is just pure positioning, like this stuff.

I've had many political differences with @lisanandy but this is massive and incredibly welcome. There is no bigger political issue in the UK than housing and this is a straightforward declaration for a socialist approach over continuity neoliberalism. https://t.co/uybqizc7kr

— Jeremy Gilbert (@jemgilbert) September 27, 2022

You might see some kind of meld of "nice" Tories and Lib Dems increasing the chances of that

Sorry for XPs, I don't get the warning on my phone

The lab right will never allow them within an inch. They'll never get rent controls out of this lot!

Under pr a left alternative could put pressure on Lab but UKIP did do so under the old system xxp

Or current system

My feeling is that the Labour Party currently is far more likely to go into coalition with parties or MPs nominally to its right

Sure, and this is by and large true for its continental equivalents too. The trick is for electoral results to align in a way that they don't have the choice.

Well UKIP was as much a pressure group as a party looking for any kind of electoral victory, I suppose it's *possible* that a single issue left party could bring something like that about under the current system but doesn't seem very likely to me.

Not an electoral party, agree.

State of this.

Starmer is now changing tone. Missions do not achieve themselves, he says. You need to make tough choices.

He says Labour will set up an Office for Value for Money, ensuring money is spent well. And that means that the government will not be able to spend money on things a Labour party would like to do as quickly as they would want.

Snappy sentence.

great way of breaking pledges: honest, was going to nationalise energy, but office for vfm says no.

the quiet man is turning up the volume!

office for value for money??? how are they this bad.

OFFICE4VALUE4MONEY4U

terrible news for the MoD oh wait

That policy gives the lie to all of the other shit they’re peddling - it’s all got a massive asterisk beside it