The right has offered its successor to the neoliberal order, and that is fascism. What will the left offer? Better managed fascism? Sad times.
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.
Daylight saving time is over, and it’s dark when I finish work. So I haven’t seen local moorhens at Telehouse pond: Magic, Mystic and the Pilot.
No laughing matter
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? Here’s Labour PM Keir Starmer in the same edition:
We’ve got to look at regulation where it is needlessly holding back the investment, to take our country forward. Where it is stopping us building the homes, the datacentres, warehouses, grid connectors, roads, train lines, you name it then mark my words – we will get rid of it. We will rip out the bureaucracy…
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.
Starmer’s £100,000 in tickets and gifts more than any other recent party leader
“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.
Giorgia Meloni: Starmer showed great interest in our Albania migration deal
Presumably, “black hole, we’re doomed!” has been focus-grouped. Who are this bloc of centrist masochists? Why don’t they have a cutesy media monicker?
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 government planned to gut the NHS and flog the entrails of to private equity. The “black hole” is a smokescreen.
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.
If Britain is broken, why does government fiddle with the dials? If the machine is kaput you fix the machine. You don’t play with the settings.
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.
My question for the Labour Treasury team is, if the bond markets are running the country, why are we paying you to do it, particularly when you claim money is tight?
The government either takes us for fools or are so completely clueless about economics that they should be nowhere near the levers of power.