Reform

You had one job.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

McSweeney’s gone and even those of us who’d never been in the man’s orbit are punching the air. We didn’t need to be in those eight zillion meetings where he flew his poisonous kites or ‘took account’ of the murderously stupid or prejudiced and then ‘made policy reflect their concerns’. The world is better for his going. If we could believe this was somehow a turning-point towards widespread intelligence and fairness in the public domain then we might expect *things* to actually get better. But we know, do we not, there’s almost no chance of that?

Labour came in on a huge wave of nothing; meaning there was no real enthusiasm for Starmer but the universe had at least, at last understood that the Tories were unelectable, either for their incompetence or their contempt for decency, fairness and respect for the law. Starmer and McSweeney had a huge opportunity, a playing-field to frolic in, with just the one job – to restore some faith. They could have been radical: they could have really done some good.

Their failure lift us, at a moment of such opportunity, is an affront on so-o many levels, it’s hard to know where to start. It speaks to a remarkable level of soullessness and even cowardice. (And, of course, a pitiful narrowness – the sole ambition being to stay in power. Career politics of the most repulsive kind).

The longer the McSweeney-Starmer together-thing endured, the more wrapped in clingfilm they seemed. How, despite all the focus-groups(!) could they not hear/feel/see most things revolve around massive concentrations of wealth and influence? Why nothing meaningful to address either that or the associated control of media and corporations?

Falling back into Tory/Reform-lite tropes which are patently, deliberately and knuckle-draggingly racist (and therefore foul and indecent) registers pretty high on the list of offences with me. More importantly, in a stroke it repulses (and therefore alienates) most of what we might provocatively term the Good Labour Folk out there. So as vile as Farage and Trump, morally wrong and politically stupid. Driven by a foul, ‘popular’ ideology that sets theoretical vote-winning beyond any sense of that which is right. Laughably but obviously, this ‘listening to the concerns’ of neanderthals*…

(*get that this is offensive; don’t care; am angry and I know I’m right – in both senses).

resulted in a net loss of support. Because despite the scary levels of xenophobia (or worse) out there, almost no Reform-leaning clown was ever going to ‘come back to Labour’. And yet the language of division continues almost daily, from Labour’s execrable Home Sec, who thinks Powellite soundbites are still the way to go. They are not. They are grotesque and unworthy of us and of any progressive party. Labour is dead to many of us as long as it continues to deliberately demonise ‘illegal immigrants’.

McSweeney we can pretty sure – alongside the cabal of Blue Labour influencers – has shaped the imagery and language around the government’s lurch/capitulation/strategic realignment to the right. It would of course not have been possible without Starmer’s characteristic spinelessness.

Dull Prime Ministers are a commonplace – and not in themselves a particular issue – but Sir Keir’s feeble malleability and susceptibility to influence put him in a kind of world-level category for vacancy and lack of direction. It’s as though he wants to disappear. The ideas, the motivation, the sense of any compulsion towards re-balancing patently obscene injustice or privilege – local or international – has gone. Replaced by McSweeney’s ‘targets’ and subsumed in endless fire-fighting or briefing to hold things together against revelation, corruption, dissent. Plus, let’s be clear, on the biggest issues of all – Gaza; Trump; Epstein; Mandelson; Palantir; Russian interference – Starmer’s regime has been disastrously wrong, on every single one.

To err is human (as they say) but for leaders to be so wrong on the major issues of the day is extraordinary. To be wrong because you or your processes have been so blatantly corrupted or influenced by sources of power known to all of us – whether that be the machinery of the Israeli or Russian states, or the machinery of technocrats and the obscenely rich – takes political misjudgements into a whole new realm. That of blatant, Kafkaesque or Orwellian falsehood. Plainly we are there now. Presented with imagery, with narrative, with economic truth and necessity which is outrageously false.

The one job that Starmer and McSweeney had was to bring back a bit of honesty and truth. And ideally bring the discourse back towards a level of civility and tolerance. They have scorched away in the other direction. Lobbied. Bought. And in any case immune to the stuff that decent people know will always be right. Both have contributed – almost unbelievably – to a further degradation in the quality of political life in these islands.

The personal and the possible.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

The personal stuff. A Tory-free Wales. Pembrokeshire red. (Grimsby red, too!) Feels almost great.

Deeply pleased that not just my own former MP – Crabb, Pembs – but every Conservative clown or thug or xenophobe has been cleared-out, from Haverfordwest to Harlech. This is a triumph, of sorts.

Watched Neil Kinnock on the tellybox, last night. Really interesting. For one thing he was beautifully and next-level articulate: he was also bold and honest enough to target the appalling behaviours he views as being central to the debacle. Nellie bach nailed the badness of the central characters, without needing to name Johnson and Braverman and Truss. We all know what kind of people they are. Kinnock described the ‘revulsion’ we feel for their entitlement, their mendacity, their cheap and shameless waving of that race-card as a symbol of electable(?) single-policy hatred. Good, finally, to hear a prominent Labour figure express the obvious: that policies matter but so does decency – so do morals. We can be better than that.

Strangely now, (or maybe not?), I’ve heard Conservatives finally and belatedly call this out, too. George Osborne had moments of clarity and decency, during last night’s coverage. As did Buckland, this morning. They both directly addressed the sleazy-shiftiness, the shittiness, the behaviours that characterised Johnson-ism and its corrupted hinterland. So if we get into reasons for the Tory wipeout, for the scuppering of twelve Conservative Ministers, for the quiet, seamless ushering-in of the Low-thrumming Starmer Machine, we maybe can or should park political ideologies… and look at urges and feelings.

Cannot stand Farge and deeply resent the platform offered to him. Would go so far as to say that I hold the BBC partly responsible for Brexit, on account of the ridicu-level of airtime the boorish dunderhead received – chiefly, of course, on Newsnight. That airtime felt suspicious to the point of being corrupt. (Oof. That word again). The media generally have been heavily guilty of making Farage the story and thereby changing the story. Extraordinarily, editors have baulked at challenging the wrongness and badness at the heart of his ‘schtick’: instead they have courted and thereby encouraged racism in the ether. This has been a signature disgrace.

Wales has a concerning number of crass right-wing citizens – hang on, let’s call them what they are; racists – so following the vote-counts the story here has already been twisted towards ‘Reform Success’. That’s the headline: not the fact that there will be no Reform MP’s within Wales. Similarly, there is and will be a disproportionate dollop of coverage across the nations. It will be noted that folks have voted ‘in protest’ at the government’s manifest failures. They’ve ‘struck out in anger’, (bless ’em).

The fact (and it is surely a fact?) that the overwhelming number of Reform ‘supporters’ are dumb, effectively apolitical xenophobes-plus will continue to stew but remain unsayable. This is problematic territory: people have the right to protest but racism (and the advancement of what we euphemistically label ‘populist policies’) is and are stupid and wrongheaded. In fact they are just plain wrong. Wilful, negligent, cowardly or overt support or appeasement of Farage has put us here – in a place where danger lurks. The media have served us badly, again.

But hey. Reform are not the story: the Tory Wipeout is. There are no Conservative MPs in Wales. They have been decimated everywhere else. This is a profound change for the better. Starmer has steered Labour with caution but some skill. I nearly couldn’t vote for him – but did. His blandness and that whole deliberate strategic policy-vacuum-thing did my head in but worked. Retreats on green-ness and social policy are concerning; his invisibility then appeasement on Gaza was appalling. His complicity in the wretched and everlasting demonisation of Corbyn* is an embarrassment and insult to the collective intelligence. But he’s used these things (godammit) to win big.

*Where is the Corbyn victory story, in the media, by the way? Mysteriously lost)*.

There is almost no chance that even with a super-majority, Starmer will shift towards the transformational change previously aspired-to. This is another, ‘realist’-centrist new Labour. Despite using the word relentlessly, the new Prime Minister knows he can’t afford to change much – even if he had the appetite. No dosh for Big Projects; not really. But the fella is cute enough to know that decent, steady politics will douse most of the fires. There will always be racists and dumbos: we must all hope their urges can be appeased or defused by good governance and improving circumstances. Not easy; not swiftly achieved; but possible. I wish Starmer and Labour well.

pic from BBC.