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

Have to say that moving UBI into something akin to the political mainstream is important even if it is the LibDems doing it.

It's a weird one really in that a notoriously tankie publication like The Economist can be all in favour while socialist columnists are still handwringing about whether it can be really considered left-wing.

My guess is that UBI is like Modern Monetary Theory in that the pandemic will eventually force policy makers into doing it on the sly even as they're pretending they aren't.

Yeah just needs a rebrand. Obv I will never vote Lib Dem but this is a better move than Starmer's likely to make in his entire career

It's a weird one really in that a notoriously tankie publication like The Economist can be all in favour while socialist columnists are still handwringing about whether it can be really considered left-wing.

How is that weird? The Economist being onboard for something is pretty strong evidence that one should question whether it is left wing - or at least, whether there aren't ways to implement it with results that aren't in the interest of the left.

Theoretically the welfare state in Germany was created to stymie the Left but in the absence of guillotines you take what you can get

The question of whether it's sufficiently left-wing is secondary to the issue of whether or not it will benefit people. Or at least it should be.

And yeah unintended consequences and all that. The most convincing argument I've seen against UBI is that it will be used as an excuse to trim other social protections and things like the minimum wage but that's likely to happen anyway.

iirc the debate on the left is about whether the 'universal' in UBI would ever be implemented in the first place, and whether that would be turn out to be cover for dismantling welfare. So yes it's important to have that debate, and to monitor it's outcomes because the Tories and Lib Dems will look to use it for other means.

They’re on their bullshit in so many ways on so many fronts right now. New PSHE guidance excludes using material from organisations that might call for the end of capitalism, who might refuse to condemn acts of violence against property, or who might support “victim narratives”.

So the government has just released some guidance for teaching PSHE which seems - by my reading - to be written in such a way as to ban using BLM materials in the classroom.

— tetrapod (@pancake_puns) September 25, 2020

Wait I thought erasing history was bad

The question of whether it's sufficiently left-wing is secondary to the issue of whether or not it will benefit people. Or at least it should be.

These are one and the same though, the arguments are precisely that it's not left wing because, in the way say the Economist or Andrew Yang would want it implemented, it wouldn't benefit people.

One of the reasons that parts of the liberal right are in favour is the universality of it would make it much cheaper to implement than more conditional forms of welfare payment (cf the vast amounts of money that are spent on administering a fundamentally miserly system like Universal Credit).

Blairite policy wonks tend to be fundamentally opposed because they're opposed to almost anything universal, raising the spectre of, say, David Cameron getting the same payment as an unemployed single mother of three. It's the same logic that was used to justify tuition fees, they see universal benefits as a subsidy for middle class people - as opposed to something that solidifies support across socioeconomic groups. It's difficult to argue against this, look at the backlash that occurred when Cameron proposed cutting universal child benefit.

Arguably millions of people in the post-war era benefited enormously from capitalist societies needing to show they could look after their people better than Communist societies. The removal of that impetus after 1990 was the start of the slope that led to where we are now - chunks of the welfare state were significantly more generous under Thatcher than Blair despite the former's intentions. Insecurity and anxiety are fundamentally at the heart of our ongoing political shitshow and it's difficult to believe that removing that wouldn't make things better at a stroke.

Obviously there's the question of how universal 'universal' really is given the obvious hostility to, say, migrant workers or even EU citizens receiving it, but exclusionary utopia-building is at the heart of the never-gonna-happen Dominic Cumming's 'project'.

Probably the single biggest reason the LibDems are in favour is that, without Brexit, they have literally nothing else to make people take notice of them again.

As somebody in the clutches of the benefits system I'm all for anything that doesn't feel like being panopticoned 24/7 and I'm guessing I'm not the only one who feels like that

I mean the other thing that might work would be the state literally guaranteeing a job in what is otherwise likely to be a lengthy period of high structural unemployment.

Unfortunately there aren't any difficult challenges happening right now that might require the government to hire millions of people for essential work.

lol the government could literally hire people just to work on infrastructure and bread and butter stuff like that, but they won’t because they don’t want to

I honestly believed they'd have to do something to create work, I guess there's a slim possibility they might still find their hand forced, maybe the relentless pressure from the opposition will push them to it

When Sunak said “I can’t save every business or job - no chancellor could” I thought well ok, but a chancellor with a bit of imagination and the will to use it would come up with something to minimise damage to the economy and protect ppl’s livelihoods (not necessarily jobs) that was a little stronger than £10 off burgers and 22% to keep “viable” people on another 6 months

(Dodds ain’t it)

Seems the Trafalgar Square covidiot protests are now weekly? lol London really needed yet another factor helping the epidemic along.

Someone start a rumour there are 7 BLM protesters hanging out there, they’ll be dispersed and fined by teatime

In years to come historians are going to be horrified that the government merrily encouraged millions of people to put themselves and others at risk of chronic long-term illness, fucked-up neurological shit, or death in order to "help out" an economy that wouldn't adequately help them out if they were unable to work.

A prominent discussion of the pros and cons of UBI was written by ...

John Lanchester!

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n14/john-lanchester/good-new-idea

in order to "help out" an economy

Good thing there's no connection between unemployment and the ability to completely isolate in order to prevent the spread of the economy-destroying pandemic. Not gonna be any Tory-unpalatable side-effects from 1m+ extra unemployed, I'm sure.

Every day a new low.

EXC: Keir Starmer has begun sending personalised letters to attract former major Labour donors who left under Jeremy Corbyn

Among those who have received them is David Abrahams, the Newcastle property developer who donated more than £650,000 to the party under Tony Blair pic.twitter.com/ZqujEcbDJI

— Eleni Courea (@EleniCourea) September 26, 2020

Also, Jesus this is scathing and worse than I expected

You're a laughing stock, @Keir_Starmer. Get a grip or get out!

"If this was a drinking game and you drank every time he said 'I support the government' you'd be like passed out by now, wouldn't yer?" #Gogglebox (1/2) pic.twitter.com/LGdky3tyGP

— The Agitator (@UKDemockery) September 25, 2020

"Keir's gonna turn around and go 'well, to be honest Boris is right, I am great at hindsight and I support everything he says.'" #Gogglebox (2/2) pic.twitter.com/Yvo3HmP0I4

— The Agitator (@UKDemockery) September 25, 2020

Yes. He's bad, isn't he?

So much worse than I expected and every day he’s worse.

I do have some very practicable and realistic suggestions on how he could be "improved", but I got banned for posting them last time!

Fond as I am of many of the Goggleboxers it wasn't exactly an incisive critique, but it's probably another step along the road to Kieth's unshakeable public image as a bloviating fence-sitter

Actual lol

xp

It doesn't especially matter if it's incisive or not, it's in the apolitical mainstream now and it wasn't before.

No one on mainstream TV has really bothered to try and satirise Starmer yet and, even if it's shit and unfunny, there might be a compelling reason to start doing so.

As I said, a step towards his public image being fixed to waht we already know. It's possible that a boring empty vessel of a manager might hold some attraction to a section of the electorate after Boris's Wild Ride so even that mightn't kill him, just needs to take a few tips from Blair's shirtsleeves fake passion playbook. Obv if every unfunny light entertainer spends the next four years calling him a boring cunt it'll provide some gentle lulz, at best

But I'd be happier if people were calling him a racist and a billionaire's stooge, obv

One odd thing about the interview clips was that at moments his old voice / accent seemed to be coming out - the very bizarrely different one from the McDonald's legal case video?

As linked by stet but this teaching guidance really is desperate, laughable, contradictory, unenforceable fascist horseshit

pic.twitter.com/VzIvz9CBqp

— tetrapod (@pancake_puns) September 25, 2020

I agree.

This relates specifically to "personal, social, health and economic (PHSE) education"?

We didn't have that when I was at school. Very odd collocation and seems typical of how overcoded and overdetermined these things now are.

Jesus Christ

BREAKING: Boris Johnson has asked former Mail editor Paul Dacre to run thr broadcasting watchdog Ofcom. Charles Moore is close to a done deal to be BBC chairman https://t.co/rlQmfcDSGq

— Tim Shipman (@ShippersUnbound) September 26, 2020

fuck

i'm starting a "please help me emigrate" kickstarter if anybody's feeling flush

i’m feeling flush with something alright

I agree. Just when you think things can't get any worse - they do.

jesus christ.

moore is a climate change denier, a covid denier... eton, trinity college...

fuck

fuck, this is really bad

It's almost as if nothing matters

9 cops injured at the anti-mask protests, crickets from the usual lot

Charles Moore, famous for never paying his TV license - is not having a license still a sacking offence for BBC staff?

Outrageous that an avowed Keir Starmer supporter should be appointed chair of the BBC https://t.co/5xoXoIgjzP

— John Rentoul (@JohnRentoul) September 26, 2020

JFC this reply.

ghoulish humour?

Usually he's more into dusty capes rather than ghoulish japes

Look, unlike the rest of us John can take the long view.