Greens

Good morning.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

It’s that comparatively rare thing, a good morning. The sun is even out, where I am: plus it’s good in the political ether. Starmer and Labour got the spanking they deserved and Matt Goodwin skulks off – I imagine to Dubai or maybe some bland-but-sumptuous hotel in Eastern Europe – moaning hilariously about ‘sectarian voting’. Presumably because not quite enough white supremacists turned out for him.

It’s a good day because:

Starmer is pitifully weak and unprincipled… and he got beat. Labour’s campaign was cheap, spiteful, and probably in contravention of the law around messaging close to polling stations. Broadly, despite getting huge numbers of activists on the ground, Labour failed to convince folks.

But how could they? The universe just knows that the party has lost its soul and its direction. That it no longer believes in social justice. That it is for sale to the Epstein Classes, to big corporations, to Big Money and to lobbyists – whether they come in the form of Friends of Israel or friends of private medicine. Labour is dead to most of the people I know. Labour activists and People of Conscience are surely, surely leaving the party in droves?

Reform are a real danger to all of us – to our central decencies – but they got beat again. (That’s three on the bounce). This must offer some hope. Their open and catastrophic messaging has but the one focus: shameless racism. We have and can beat it – we can be better than that. Goodwin and Farage’s corporate-imperialist white supremacist worldview is patently Americanised and transparent: it’s a bad fit for anyplace with a sense of history or community. If Gorton and Denton (and Caerphilly) can see past its prejudices then maybe the rest of us can?

(Concerned note: I have a significant dread that Reform will sweep through Wales, at the next election. I’m afraid this fabulous country may be be ripe for that shite – may get suckered. Please god this fear is unfounded).

But enough negativity. This is a good morning. The Greens have won a famous, spirit-lifting victory. They won’t care that their opponents and the bulk of the media will look to undermine it. (And my god, they will. Metaphorical knives will be being sharpened, private dicks hired and lenses polished even as we speak. The Dark Stuff will go on).

So what? They, the Greens know that they really are bringing hope and goodness – yes, really! – to a dark moment in British (and international) politics. They’re *all about* defying the cynical and depressing norms.

Polanski calls out injustice with intelligence and heart. He is the one of the very few significant voices challenging the most obvious and appalling issue of the time – Gaza. Directly, repeatedly and articulately, he takes issue with our complicity, or the complicity engineered in our name, without our authority. He is one of the very few significant voices challenging obscene wealth. (Where is Starmer on this?!? The man’s patently been bought off – literally or otherwise. Ditto THE ENVIRONMENT!!)

Polanski is undeniably and obviously a good man trying to make things better and fairer. Who else in British politics can we say that of? Gorton is a tremendous victory for a fine, local candidate, but it is Polanski’s energy and his consistently strong interventions (on issues seen as untouchable by other parties) that have delivered it. If the fella drank I’d buy him a pinta stout.

What’s the point?

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

My previous post on McSweeney and Starmer was full of anger towards both. Principally, this is because they have betrayed a zillion solid Labour values. Specifically, they cynically and deliberately weaponised ‘feeling’ against immigrants, in a way that was shamefully reactionary and should have no part in the thinking or activity of any reasonable or progressive political party. (And that particular approach goes on, through the hostile language used in government socials accounts and through Shabana Mahmood’s calculatedly weighted grandstanding on these issues). McSweeney plainly ordered them to shift hard right… Starmer utterly capitulated… and it really stinks.

Interestingly – or not – there’s been a lot of stuff in the political ether around how votes are won or cast because of feeling rather than understanding or fact. So maybe, by roaring my opposition, I’ve just fallen into that Modern Way. Government People (or their advisors) might recommend a ‘time for reflection’ before the issue of an ‘I could do better’ statement: and yes, they might have a point. Calling our Reform-voting friends ‘neanderthals’ was neither wise nor fair. It smacks of pomp and maybe even contempt for The Working Classes. But I can promise you I am not guilty of the latter: I just really don’t like racism.

The fella Ratcliffe’s recent intervention makes it clear that people *do have* opinions about immigration. But I would argue that most of these opinions are either racist to their core, or those propounding such notions have been coached towards xenophobia (+) by (what I would view as) our appalling and bigoted press. Ratcliffe is a special (and an especially foul) case because of his obscene wealth. Private-jetting-it waaay above all economic plight and yet scapegoating the most vulnerable. On the one hand to further empower and bejewel himself, and on the other out of sheer and obvious prejudice. Find your own four-letter word.

Starmer has, I believe, *actually called-out* Ratcliffe over his offensive, Reformist nonsense. Hoo-rah! Tiny steps?

I wrote in my last blog that I cannot abide the Prime Minister, for his spinelessness and the HUGE (MORAL) FAILURES around immigration/Gaza/abetting Trump/Mandelson/Palantir etc etc. For the general failure to bring back honesty and decency. Finding ourselves with this or any Labour leader being even remotely in the frame of comparison with Johnson for duplicity and corruption is an astonishing failure for a party predicated upon social justice.

Starmer is not as wildly amoral as Johnson. And he palpably doesn’t drive agendas in the way Alexander Boris de Pfeffel did. But the more we find out the more it seems that his failures of judgement have been contingent upon being ‘won over’ by lobbyists, influencers or multinationals.

Weirdly, I think maybe Starmer should stay – for now. There is merit in those making ‘politically-mature’ arguments around both the unfairness of coverage of Labour – no question! – and the need for ‘some stability’. Give the PM a little time… but don’t necessarily forgive, or forget. Despite his feeble protestations, he is not a Labour Man – or perhaps more exactly, he has drifted, shockingly but perhaps not surprisingly, from core, progressive views. (As I write this I can hear the voices calling out from the List of Good Things ticked-off, which I acknowledge. But you know as well as I do that Blue Labour is not Labour and not right).

So. In the face of billionaire ignoramuses, a mostly diabolical media and a Labour government absconding from the very decencies it was founded for and upon, what’s the point? Where do we go or look? In terms of voting (obvs), we get tactical. In terms of political philosophy, surely we either literally follow Polanski and the Greens, or we follow what they do with interest and maybe even some hope.

Zack Polanski has barely put a foot wrong, since becoming leader of his party. He is bold and real and he cuts the bullshit. He has been overwhelmingly right on immigration, Gaza, Trump and the whole repulsive White Supremacist Project – so across Musk, Thiel, Bannon and the rest. He is all over the Epstein thing and all over the umbilical links between that and the privileged, untouchable few. At home he has been in a different league in terms of compelling narratives and calling-out the economic injustices and imbalances the Labour Party was set up to address. He is killing it on necessary monopolies and progressive state intervention. His plausibility, manner and willingness to speak are different league. The Powers That Be – and they really are out there – will be looking to crush him. Don’t let them.