I've heard Farage described as a belch of beery flatulence and that's all he is. He belches out nonsense which the ignorant proto-Trumpite-fascist supporters latch onto. Not because it makes any sense but because it appeals to them in their deeply racist core.
The elected officials from Reform are almost all incompetent single-issue idiots. They are deeply attached to the idea that there is wastage in local government but lack any skills to follow through. They don't see the point of meetings, or hard work, or public service. This is almost the point, to be the laziest person in the room to watch local services collapse whilst they use the platform to spread lies.
It is incredibly concerning that Labour, the party of government, seems to think that the only "solution" to this is to kowtow to the nonsense demands on migration.
I can't see this ending well. I can't predict the next General Election but until there is a strong movement to stand up against creeping fascism, the Reform loudmouths are going to continue spreading nonsense and all the media will follow them round, acting as if it is legitimate political comment rather than a pack of lies.
I've got to be careful what I say on a public forum but the only hardwork I've ever seen a Reform candidate or councillor put in has been to advance their own cause.
Public service doesn't come into it.
They can get away with doing very little because they are coming out with things that, sadly, many people want to hear.
Reform voters might just - if they could see behind the scenes - be shocked at the way they behave but sadly I don't think many of them care.
They've bought into this shtick that all the other parties have failed and that things are so 'bad' because all the other councillors apart from them haven't been doing their job properly.
Sadly, I don't think their lack of concern about community issues will count against them. All they are about at a local level is 'sticking it to the man' and taking twopence happeny off the council task.
People have been conned and will remain conned and will justify in their own minds that they've been conned and will carry on voting Reform regardless because they want to believe that there's someone out there with a magic bullet.
Reform are receiving an inordinate amount of coverage and their supporters simply go 'La la la la! We're not listening!' when anyone calls them out on their lies and misinformation.
The sad fact is that Reform are doing well because they are saying what a lot of people want to hear.
Also, whilst a lot of their current candidates and councillors are complete clowns they'll soon learn how the system works and crow about apparent 'successes' at a local level.
Farage made a big thing about them using the very good Lib Dem textbook on how to win local elections and build capacity at a local level.
If they do what's written in that book it will take them a long way.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Corbyn and Co won't save us. The future looks gammon unless something goes badly wrong on the populist right.
You are underestimating the threat. It's very, very real.
I've fought Reform at a local level. I've seen how they operate. I despise Reform and hold it in utter contempt but I don't underestimate them.
We shall see. I said I do understand and I do. I follow things very closely. I am from a Northern working class background. When I was young my area would vote a tree with a red rosette. Reform are making ground. Please don’t underestimate my knowledge. Disillusioned Labour voter are more to the left than the right. The TLDR channel on YouTube showed this in their most recent post.
Disillusioned Labour voter are more to the left than the right. The TLDR channel on YouTube showed this in their most recent post.
Some of them are. Depends where you look. I’ve said on here before that far and away the most right wing people I have ever met in Britain are my relatives and their friends in the Durham coalfield. Including the generations who were actually miners.
‘Preserve the British position in the world, and the monarchy, but with the British worker in the driving seat’ as one of them once put his worldview to me.
They were/are all Labour members, with the exception of the ones who were communist.
That is exactly where Reform are cleaning up - old school chew-their-own-arm-off-rather-than-not-vote-Labour*, trade unionist, more conservative than the Conservatives. Bluntly the sort of Labour voter who used to helpfully vote Labour in their millions, but who have never really been on the same page as the party leadership or thinkers. Think the men lampooned in ‘I’m Alright Jack’ or ‘Carry On at your Convenience’
We also have to remember that Labour won on a smaller number than Corbyn lost on. There are many disgruntled Labour voters out there. Lots stayed home at the last election. Smaller parties like Reform were able to get their voters out because they were small in number and loyal
‘Preserve the British position in the world, and the monarchy, but with the British worker in the driving seat’ as one of them once put his worldview to me.
In what sense do they want the British position in the world preserved?
And do they really think the monarchy is under threat of abolition? Or are they just using it as a synechdoche for nationalist symbolism in general(*)?
(*) Like eg. someone who is mad because it might be considered taboo to wave St. George's Cross around?
That is exactly where Reform are cleaning up - old school chew-their-own-arm-off-rather-than-not-vote-Labour*, trade unionist, more conservative than the Conservatives. Bluntly the sort of Labour voter who used to helpfully vote Labour in their millions
Okay, but people change, and someone who was a Coal Miner 30 years ago is no longer the same person 30 years later, I don't think it's particularly helpful [*] to consider them as 'disillusioned Labour voters who are moving to the right'. Speaking bluntly, the only way of 'attracting back' those sorts of voters is going to promise to reverse 30+ years of social progress, and they are unlikely to believe that promise coming from Labour.
[*] Unless you are driving at a particular narrative of course.
That is exactly where Reform are cleaning up - old school chew-their-own-arm-off-rather-than-not-vote-Labour*, trade unionist, more conservative than the Conservatives. Bluntly the sort of Labour voter who used to helpfully vote Labour in their millions
Okay, but people change, and someone who was a Coal Miner 30 years ago is no longer the same person 30 years later, I don't think it's particularly helpful [*] to consider them as 'disillusioned Labour voters who are moving to the right'. Speaking bluntly, the only way of 'attracting back' those sorts of voters is going to promise to reverse 30+ years of social progress, and they are unlikely to believe that promise coming from Labour.
[*] Unless you are driving at a particular narrative of course.
Totally agree - which is why I mentioned having lost them in 2005, rather than them being at risk now. I was absolutely meaning they have moved, not they are moving. At the same time, for a hundred years they voted in the Labour total.
‘Preserve the British position in the world, and the monarchy, but with the British worker in the driving seat’ as one of them once put his worldview to me.
In what sense do they want the British position in the world preserved?
And do they really think the monarchy is under threat of abolition? Or are they just using it as a synechdoche for nationalist symbolism in general(*)?
(*) Like eg. someone who is mad because it might be considered taboo to wave St. George's Cross around?
The one who said that, said it to me in the late 1980s!
There was a definite strand of Labour member, still common in the old industrial areas, who really didn’t/doesn’t pay more than lip service to the international brotherhood of socialism. That’s why they have found it, right back to Keir Hardie, easy to be anti-immigrant. What they wanted was a fairer share of the British pie, not for the British pie itself to be fairer for the world.
Ie, crush the bankers, destroy the Tories, keep the empire, god bless the King, down with foreigners, we’re in the driving seat.
Reform have picked up the golf club/saloon bar bores who felt abandoned by the Tories post Thatcher (indeed never forgave the Tories for defenestrating her), *and* somehow the old nationalist conservative left who feel abandoned by Labour. It’s a heady brew and I feel a bit like that Irish politician (who exactly escapes me, might have been Charles Haughey)
‘I can see how it works in practice, now explain how it work in theory’…
They want fascism with themselves in control. What does that tell you? They are a dangerous addiction for the Labour party, who needs to walk away. They are, of course, in diminishing and restricted supply.
Sorry, one more - the classic example of ‘fairer share of the British pie’ is railway nationalisation. The justification on the basis of natural monopoly, needs public subsidy as a public good, is a complete retcon.
Nationalisation was a a Labour goal for decades before taking power in 1945, on the basis that the workers should share in the massive *profits*
Nationalisation was achieved in 1947, largely because WW2 had brought the railways to their knees and there weren’t any profits… ever again. But a lot of the proponents and voters for nationalisation saw it as a share of the profits/removal of the money tap from the shareholders (even though money and profits were now academic) rather than ‘we should own the railways as a public good’
I think reform attracts the far right vote, the socially conservative vote, and the vote from people who want protectionist economic policies because they think it will solve the problems in the UK brought on by Osbourne's austerity and Brexit (it won't) - the sort of people who would think Trumps tariff policy is a good idea
Whilst reform will deliver the social regression - it won't deliver the protectionism because it is funded by libertarian millionaires who just want a low wage low regulation economy in which they can continue to evade tax effectively enough to pay less on their income than their servants; and have jumped on the social regression bandwagon to get it.
Kemi Baedinoch as a first generation immigrant herself will not win over most of Reforms base - which she doesn't understand because she is a libertarian and sees the Reform leadership and political instincts as similar to her own. (The split between the leadership and the voters in Reform is huge.)
Neologism for retroactive continuity. The art of changing in-world history in some fictional universe in order to explain / justify the story you want to write now.
When, for example, the TV show Dallas wrote off a whole series as being one character's dream, that was a stonkingly obvious retcon.
That is exactly where Reform are cleaning up - old school chew-their-own-arm-off-rather-than-not-vote-Labour*, trade unionist, more conservative than the Conservatives. Bluntly the sort of Labour voter who used to helpfully vote Labour in their millions
Okay, but people change, and someone who was a Coal Miner 30 years ago is no longer the same person 30 years later, I don't think it's particularly helpful [*] to consider them as 'disillusioned Labour voters who are moving to the right'. Speaking bluntly, the only way of 'attracting back' those sorts of voters is going to promise to reverse 30+ years of social progress, and they are unlikely to believe that promise coming from Labour.
[*] Unless you are driving at a particular narrative of course.
Totally agree - which is why I mentioned having lost them in 2005, rather than them being at risk now. I was absolutely meaning they have moved, not they are moving. At the same time, for a hundred years they voted in the Labour total.
Okay, but who is the 'they' in the last sentence? Who exactly 'voted for Labour for hundred years'.
Until the mines were closed the majority of people there worked in state enterprises or in the public sector for life, had a pension linked to their employment, housing provided - by and large - by the state and could expect their children to have similar opportunities.
State employment has gone, public sector employment has thinned out, the jobs available in the private sector are generally badly paid, and housing is expensive in relative terms and poor quality. The population that has stayed around are dominated by pensioners who might well own their property, but are on a fixed income, so generally averse to any form of change, and because of the decay of civic institutions are highly atomised.
But you know all this, so why do you insist on referring to a common 'they' ? These are different societies and (to my next point) largely different people.
Reform have picked up the golf club/saloon bar bores who felt abandoned by the Tories post Thatcher (indeed never forgave the Tories for defenestrating her), *and* somehow the old nationalist conservative left who feel abandoned by Labour.
Very-ish, have you looked at life expectancy among former industrial workers? There's not an awful lot of the latter left. I can't dig it up right now, but I remember ward by ward analysis of some of the "Red Wall" constituencies, and the latter were often concentrated in small towns/areas of former social housing with very low turnout, with the votes being down to a dormitory town or more affluent area down the road.
Sorry, one more - the classic example of ‘fairer share of the British pie’ is railway nationalisation. The justification on the basis of natural monopoly, needs public subsidy as a public good, is a complete retcon.
I don't think so, because I don't see many people arguing for nationalisation on the basis that it was nationalised *back then* because it was a natural monopoly, and it was *because it was nationalised back then* on that basis that it should be nationalised *now*.
I'm sorry, but this comes across as a rather Pooterish set of points.
That, of course, is the other problem. The absence of political engagement leads to apathy, not voting, not feeling part of anything beyond the self, or a self-identified small group. At that point, politics is for other people. "I know my place" revived for the 21st century. Ugh.
Sorry, one more - the classic example of ‘fairer share of the British pie’ is railway nationalisation. The justification on the basis of natural monopoly, needs public subsidy as a public good, is a complete retcon.
I don't think so, because I don't see many people arguing for nationalisation on the basis that it was nationalised *back then* because it was a natural monopoly, and it was *because it was nationalised back then* on that basis that it should be nationalised *now*.
I'm sorry, but this comes across as a rather Pooterish set of points.
Whereas a close reading of your posts reveals you as a Whig… the Labour movement is whatever the comrades will vote for this week, and if that’s different to last week well then, these are different voters.
Unless your point is that what they will vote for this week is ‘better’ than what they would have voted for under Attlee or Wilson. And if not, where’s the coherence between Labour now and Labour then? Is it the arc of progress, or were we happy with getting a Labour government then in the hope it would get us to better Labour voters now?
My question is, is Reform using its time into the spotlight to not just maximize its poll numbers through media appearances and social media, but to also maximize the number of seats it could win by building party infrastructure across the country, especially in seats where they have a chance of winning, as the LibDems did in the last election? Are they forming relationships with talented, media-savvy, relatable, and in-touch-with-local-issues community members in each target seat that could be potential candidates in four years? Are they reaching out to second and third generation immigrants (and some first generation ones) who see recent migrants as “not like them” and “cheating the system” and could become some of Reform’s strongest supporters (like with Trump in the US)? Are they trying to make the image of the party and its leadership younger, more gender-balanced, and more working and lower-middle class? If not, then it’s likely their poll numbers will drop before the next election as they become as people’s attention moves elsewhere, and even if their vote share is still higher than in the last election, they won’t win many more seats.
Sorry, one more - the classic example of ‘fairer share of the British pie’ is railway nationalisation. The justification on the basis of natural monopoly, needs public subsidy as a public good, is a complete retcon.
I don't think so, because I don't see many people arguing for nationalisation on the basis that it was nationalised *back then* because it was a natural monopoly, and it was *because it was nationalised back then* on that basis that it should be nationalised *now*.
I'm sorry, but this comes across as a rather Pooterish set of points.
Whereas a close reading of your posts reveals you as a Whig… the Labour movement is whatever the comrades will vote for this week, and if that’s different to last week well then, these are different voters.
Not really, as your comparison is with voters 50 years or 100 years in the past who just happened to live in the same place. Do you think people pick up a political tendency based on some spores that leech out of the soil? Material conditions actually matter.
Unless your point is that what they will vote for this week is ‘better’ than what they would have voted for under Attlee or Wilson. And if not, where’s the coherence between Labour now and Labour then? Is it the arc of progress, or were we happy with getting a Labour government then in the hope it would get us to better Labour voters now?
It's a mix of the changing economic and social circumstances, historical contingencies and material conditions. If those were always 'Labour voters' you may as well ask why Labour wasn't founded 300 (or 3000) years before it actually was.
They don't need to win seats. They don't need to be in government to hijack public discourse and set the political agenda. In fact they would probably prefer not to be in power, because if they aren't in charge of implementing their own policies they can claim the policies weren't implemented properly when things go wrong. Like they did with Brexit.
Neologism for retroactive continuity. The art of changing in-world history in some fictional universe in order to explain / justify the story you want to write now.
When, for example, the TV show Dallas wrote off a whole series as being one character's dream, that was a stonkingly obvious retcon.
Millenium was a late-90s X-Files spinoff about a private-investigator waging a secret war against an Illuminati-like group with unclear aims and purposes. The main selling point of the show was the weekly flashing of freaky religious imagery onto the screen in the manner of, say, Altered States.
In one later-season episode, an associate of the protagonist reveals to him that the ultimate purpose of the cabal is to acquire for itself "the true cross of the Christ", because that relic guarantees victory to anyone who marches into battle with it. This was mooded as paradigm-shifting knowledge for both the characters in the story and the audience at home.
Some time later(possibly after a few standalone episodes not involving the overall cabal), the sidekick informs the investigator that his earlier explanation about the Cross was all hogwash. I suspect the counter-revelation was worded in a sinister ambience, eg. "It's all just shadows, Frank, nothing but shadows. And it always will be", but it really did seem like a forced attempt at blocking off a previously announced but now unwanted plot avenue.
The leader of Reform majority Nottinghamshire County Council has banned reporters from the local news outlet and by extension other local newspapers and the BBC from contacting councillors and will no longer be sending the outlet press releases. At least they can't ban journalists from public meetings, so I hope journalists turn out in force at the next one.
I guess this might have something to do with one of the councillors being shown up in an interview with said news outlet a couple of months ago when it was obvious he wasn't on top of his brief.
I've heard phone-in debates about the spate of painting England flags on any available surface and flying them from lamp-posts.
There's a claim which says this only happens in England, but that's not true. It happens everywhere that the far-right are on the rise. It's part of the play of extreme nationalism. They take on the role of the true guardians of national symbols and history whilst elevating the sense of grievance.
It happens almost everywhere. The British do not have a particularly strong culture of flag-waving, so it's an easy target for the proto-fascists.
One Refirm council has forced libraries to put any kids books on gender that doesn’t fit what they want in adult sections when someone calls out Reform they claim free speech. It appears only to be for what they want to say. Fascists they are
Reform are less of a threat when they pick corpses as their candidates. That is assuming that even Reform are incapable of bringing forth a zombie apocalypse.
Reform are less of a threat when they pick corpses as their candidates. That is assuming that even Reform are incapable of bringing forth a zombie apocalypse.
I hold out the hope that if they do Zombie Thatcher will turn round and handbag the lot of them.
One Refirm council has forced libraries to put any kids books on gender that doesn’t fit what they want in adult sections when someone calls out Reform they claim free speech. It appears only to be for what they want to say. Fascists they are
Do you have a source for this? Not because I'm doubting you, I'm just interested to look at the facts of the case as it sounds legally questionable.
A would-be Reform councillor here, who then got elected, posted on social media that in 5 years time there wouldn't be Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem or Green councillors but only Reform.
I asked whether it was part of their agenda to create a one-party state. They did not respond.
I met a young Reform councillor from another area recently and he distanced himself from some of the more extreme things his party has come out with and feels the 'fascist' tag is bandied about too loosely.
As indeed one might expect them to say.
I can see Reform gaining a lot more seats on our local and regional councils next time unless the other parties get their acts together. Which, sadly, they don't at the moment.
It was in Kent @Pomona , and this article mentions it in passing. Another one of those headline grabbing statements, that doesn't actually do anything.
I've recently ended up on a table with Reform supporters at two different events. At the first one I knew who they were as one was a by-election candidate. The second time I didn't have a clue. In both cases they were middle-class, middle-aged women. I think they were the sort of people who years ago would have been keen on Margaret Thatcher and Mary Whitehouse.
It was in Kent @Pomona , and this article mentions it in passing. Another one of those headline grabbing statements, that doesn't actually do anything.
I've recently ended up on a table with Reform supporters at two different events. At the first one I knew who they were as one was a by-election candidate. The second time I didn't have a clue. In both cases they were middle-class, middle-aged women. I think they were the sort of people who years ago would have been keen on Margaret Thatcher and Mary Whitehouse.
Thanks for the link. Along with the blatant transphobia and homophobia from Reform councillors, 4 out of 6 Your Party founders have expressed transphobic/generally anti-LGBTQ+ views so it's all very depressing to be a British LGBTQ+ person right now.
Not all Brits are being specifically targeted as undesirables.
And the Reform-voters are probably not depressed about the party's championing of their causes. Quite the opposite.
They are, however, convinced that Starmer is trying to destroy the country by letting it be overrun by brown and trans people. Stupid lies can be just as depressing for those who believe them as the truth.
Not all Brits are being specifically targeted as undesirables.
And the Reform-voters are probably not depressed about the party's championing of their causes. Quite the opposite.
They are, however, convinced that Starmer is trying to destroy the country by letting it be overrun by brown and trans people. Stupid lies can be just as depressing for those who believe them as the truth.
Yes, I usually think Reform voters are depressed, as they complain vociferously about broken Britain. I get that this is the politics of grievance, but why are they so miserable? Is it an act, or real?
Comments
The elected officials from Reform are almost all incompetent single-issue idiots. They are deeply attached to the idea that there is wastage in local government but lack any skills to follow through. They don't see the point of meetings, or hard work, or public service. This is almost the point, to be the laziest person in the room to watch local services collapse whilst they use the platform to spread lies.
It is incredibly concerning that Labour, the party of government, seems to think that the only "solution" to this is to kowtow to the nonsense demands on migration.
I can't see this ending well. I can't predict the next General Election but until there is a strong movement to stand up against creeping fascism, the Reform loudmouths are going to continue spreading nonsense and all the media will follow them round, acting as if it is legitimate political comment rather than a pack of lies.
Public service doesn't come into it.
They can get away with doing very little because they are coming out with things that, sadly, many people want to hear.
Reform voters might just - if they could see behind the scenes - be shocked at the way they behave but sadly I don't think many of them care.
They've bought into this shtick that all the other parties have failed and that things are so 'bad' because all the other councillors apart from them haven't been doing their job properly.
Sadly, I don't think their lack of concern about community issues will count against them. All they are about at a local level is 'sticking it to the man' and taking twopence happeny off the council task.
People have been conned and will remain conned and will justify in their own minds that they've been conned and will carry on voting Reform regardless because they want to believe that there's someone out there with a magic bullet.
We shall see. I said I do understand and I do. I follow things very closely. I am from a Northern working class background. When I was young my area would vote a tree with a red rosette. Reform are making ground. Please don’t underestimate my knowledge. Disillusioned Labour voter are more to the left than the right. The TLDR channel on YouTube showed this in their most recent post.
Some of them are. Depends where you look. I’ve said on here before that far and away the most right wing people I have ever met in Britain are my relatives and their friends in the Durham coalfield. Including the generations who were actually miners.
‘Preserve the British position in the world, and the monarchy, but with the British worker in the driving seat’ as one of them once put his worldview to me.
They were/are all Labour members, with the exception of the ones who were communist.
*until say 2005 as discussed upthread
In what sense do they want the British position in the world preserved?
And do they really think the monarchy is under threat of abolition? Or are they just using it as a synechdoche for nationalist symbolism in general(*)?
(*) Like eg. someone who is mad because it might be considered taboo to wave St. George's Cross around?
Okay, but people change, and someone who was a Coal Miner 30 years ago is no longer the same person 30 years later, I don't think it's particularly helpful [*] to consider them as 'disillusioned Labour voters who are moving to the right'. Speaking bluntly, the only way of 'attracting back' those sorts of voters is going to promise to reverse 30+ years of social progress, and they are unlikely to believe that promise coming from Labour.
[*] Unless you are driving at a particular narrative of course.
Totally agree - which is why I mentioned having lost them in 2005, rather than them being at risk now. I was absolutely meaning they have moved, not they are moving. At the same time, for a hundred years they voted in the Labour total.
The one who said that, said it to me in the late 1980s!
There was a definite strand of Labour member, still common in the old industrial areas, who really didn’t/doesn’t pay more than lip service to the international brotherhood of socialism. That’s why they have found it, right back to Keir Hardie, easy to be anti-immigrant. What they wanted was a fairer share of the British pie, not for the British pie itself to be fairer for the world.
Ie, crush the bankers, destroy the Tories, keep the empire, god bless the King, down with foreigners, we’re in the driving seat.
‘I can see how it works in practice, now explain how it work in theory’…
Nationalisation was a a Labour goal for decades before taking power in 1945, on the basis that the workers should share in the massive *profits*
Nationalisation was achieved in 1947, largely because WW2 had brought the railways to their knees and there weren’t any profits… ever again. But a lot of the proponents and voters for nationalisation saw it as a share of the profits/removal of the money tap from the shareholders (even though money and profits were now academic) rather than ‘we should own the railways as a public good’
Whilst reform will deliver the social regression - it won't deliver the protectionism because it is funded by libertarian millionaires who just want a low wage low regulation economy in which they can continue to evade tax effectively enough to pay less on their income than their servants; and have jumped on the social regression bandwagon to get it.
Kemi Baedinoch as a first generation immigrant herself will not win over most of Reforms base - which she doesn't understand because she is a libertarian and sees the Reform leadership and political instincts as similar to her own. (The split between the leadership and the voters in Reform is huge.)
Neologism for retroactive continuity. The art of changing in-world history in some fictional universe in order to explain / justify the story you want to write now.
When, for example, the TV show Dallas wrote off a whole series as being one character's dream, that was a stonkingly obvious retcon.
Okay, but who is the 'they' in the last sentence? Who exactly 'voted for Labour for hundred years'.
Until the mines were closed the majority of people there worked in state enterprises or in the public sector for life, had a pension linked to their employment, housing provided - by and large - by the state and could expect their children to have similar opportunities.
State employment has gone, public sector employment has thinned out, the jobs available in the private sector are generally badly paid, and housing is expensive in relative terms and poor quality. The population that has stayed around are dominated by pensioners who might well own their property, but are on a fixed income, so generally averse to any form of change, and because of the decay of civic institutions are highly atomised.
But you know all this, so why do you insist on referring to a common 'they' ? These are different societies and (to my next point) largely different people.
Very-ish, have you looked at life expectancy among former industrial workers? There's not an awful lot of the latter left. I can't dig it up right now, but I remember ward by ward analysis of some of the "Red Wall" constituencies, and the latter were often concentrated in small towns/areas of former social housing with very low turnout, with the votes being down to a dormitory town or more affluent area down the road.
I don't think so, because I don't see many people arguing for nationalisation on the basis that it was nationalised *back then* because it was a natural monopoly, and it was *because it was nationalised back then* on that basis that it should be nationalised *now*.
I'm sorry, but this comes across as a rather Pooterish set of points.
Whereas a close reading of your posts reveals you as a Whig… the Labour movement is whatever the comrades will vote for this week, and if that’s different to last week well then, these are different voters.
Unless your point is that what they will vote for this week is ‘better’ than what they would have voted for under Attlee or Wilson. And if not, where’s the coherence between Labour now and Labour then? Is it the arc of progress, or were we happy with getting a Labour government then in the hope it would get us to better Labour voters now?
Not really, as your comparison is with voters 50 years or 100 years in the past who just happened to live in the same place. Do you think people pick up a political tendency based on some spores that leech out of the soil? Material conditions actually matter.
It's a mix of the changing economic and social circumstances, historical contingencies and material conditions. If those were always 'Labour voters' you may as well ask why Labour wasn't founded 300 (or 3000) years before it actually was.
Oh, and what Doublethink said.
Millenium was a late-90s X-Files spinoff about a private-investigator waging a secret war against an Illuminati-like group with unclear aims and purposes. The main selling point of the show was the weekly flashing of freaky religious imagery onto the screen in the manner of, say, Altered States.
In one later-season episode, an associate of the protagonist reveals to him that the ultimate purpose of the cabal is to acquire for itself "the true cross of the Christ", because that relic guarantees victory to anyone who marches into battle with it. This was mooded as paradigm-shifting knowledge for both the characters in the story and the audience at home.
Some time later(possibly after a few standalone episodes not involving the overall cabal), the sidekick informs the investigator that his earlier explanation about the Cross was all hogwash. I suspect the counter-revelation was worded in a sinister ambience, eg. "It's all just shadows, Frank, nothing but shadows. And it always will be", but it really did seem like a forced attempt at blocking off a previously announced but now unwanted plot avenue.
OK thanks.
I guess this might have something to do with one of the councillors being shown up in an interview with said news outlet a couple of months ago when it was obvious he wasn't on top of his brief.
There's a claim which says this only happens in England, but that's not true. It happens everywhere that the far-right are on the rise. It's part of the play of extreme nationalism. They take on the role of the true guardians of national symbols and history whilst elevating the sense of grievance.
It happens almost everywhere. The British do not have a particularly strong culture of flag-waving, so it's an easy target for the proto-fascists.
Also painting visible symbols in places where people live/work/travel etc is a good way of making a movement look bigger than it actually is.
I hold out the hope that if they do Zombie Thatcher will turn round and handbag the lot of them.
It's an impossible situation. I concur with the judgement; the original injunction seemed to me to be a capitulation to mob rule.
Badenoch can feck off if she's nothing useful to contribute, which she hasn't.
Farage is misrepresenting the judgement as turning on the EHRC
Could we avoid ventriloquising please.
DT, Admin
Do you have a source for this? Not because I'm doubting you, I'm just interested to look at the facts of the case as it sounds legally questionable.
I asked whether it was part of their agenda to create a one-party state. They did not respond.
I met a young Reform councillor from another area recently and he distanced himself from some of the more extreme things his party has come out with and feels the 'fascist' tag is bandied about too loosely.
As indeed one might expect them to say.
I can see Reform gaining a lot more seats on our local and regional councils next time unless the other parties get their acts together. Which, sadly, they don't at the moment.
I've recently ended up on a table with Reform supporters at two different events. At the first one I knew who they were as one was a by-election candidate. The second time I didn't have a clue. In both cases they were middle-class, middle-aged women. I think they were the sort of people who years ago would have been keen on Margaret Thatcher and Mary Whitehouse.
Thanks for the link. Along with the blatant transphobia and homophobia from Reform councillors, 4 out of 6 Your Party founders have expressed transphobic/generally anti-LGBTQ+ views so it's all very depressing to be a British LGBTQ+ person right now.
Not all Brits are being specifically targeted as undesirables.
And the Reform-voters are probably not depressed about the party's championing of their causes. Quite the opposite.
They are, however, convinced that Starmer is trying to destroy the country by letting it be overrun by brown and trans people. Stupid lies can be just as depressing for those who believe them as the truth.
Yes, I usually think Reform voters are depressed, as they complain vociferously about broken Britain. I get that this is the politics of grievance, but why are they so miserable? Is it an act, or real?