Farmers, who tugged their forelocks and voted for Brexit though it cut them off from their markets, their low-cost labour force and their subsidies, are now protesting a government tax change that prevents their land being used as a financial instrument to facilitate tax avoidance by the ultra-rich.
I’m typing with my ancient Logitech K380. It’s a much nicer keyboard than you’d expect from the design and for the price. It’s also lasted well, and has insanely good battery life.
Apparently Rachel Reeves is a social democrat. As a fully paid up member of the “words mean something” party, I’m here to tell you she’s not a social democrat but a neoliberal. Maybe more “ordoliberal” than “state capacity libertarian” (aka fascist), but a neoliberal never the less.
John Harris makes has a good piece in the Guardian on the risks of underestimating the hard right.
in contrast to Badenoch and Jenrick’s brazen posturing about “culture” and national identity, Labour’s leader and senior figures lack the confidence and political chops to make the case for a modern, liberal, left-of-centre UK. And in its absence, they tend to get pulled in some of the same directions.
Too much?
Newspaper editors seem to love this Labour freebies story because it gives them an excuse to print a picture of a minimally clad Taylor Swift every day.
The corrupting influence of money on politics is rarely more vividly illustrated than by the Labour front bench attempting to defend willingly reducing themselves to Lord Alli’s literal playthings.
Vain, imprudent, lacking both judgement and a moral compass. Starmer, like many a modern politician, is determined to “prove” modern public choice theory.
“Eee bah gum, pet. Labour have condemned us to freeze to death this winter, but at least that Sir Keir Starmer is working with the neofascists to keep the foreigners out,” said no one in the Red Wall.
Over the summer there’s been a change in East London mores: people no longer press the button on the pelican crossings, and leave their baskets for staff to collect on the self-checkouts.
The Chancellor, of all people, “secures” an £8b AWS datacentre that will “support around 14,000 jobs per year” - the most sustainable of which being the delivery riders bringing the lattes to the journalists at the photo-ops and the spads holding the politico’s umbrella.
A ‘tough’ government would be taking power and money from the rich, not mugging pensioners for their winter fuel money or taxing poor families for having kids.
In the polities of neoliberal meritocracy, elected politicians consider ordinary folk non-player characters. If you try to engage with politicians you soon realise the reverse is true. The politicians speak in robotic slogans scripted by shadowy players working for the oligarchy to rig the game.