With the Makerfield by-election just days away, the recent resignations can only harm Andy Burnham’s chances of getting elected. That will give Starmer the mistaken idea that his position is safe but I’m really afraid that one of the rats who has jumped Starmer’s ship may join Reform, in the hope of getting a seat in the next general election, or even a by-election before then.
This control freak could well drag the whole government down ☹️
I'm not sure what the resignations will do in Makerfield.
For some it will show that the Labour government is collapsing and it's not worth voting Labour. For others, that Starmer is no longer the leader the country needs, and that Burnham should have a chance to do better, and thus they're more likely to vote Labour. And, of course, it's too late to influence postal votes which would have already been posted before the latest round of resignations (I'm not sure what proportion of votes that will be, here postal votes in many places get up to 25-30% of the electorate, which is a very significant part of the vote).
And, of course, it's unclear how Restore will do and whether that will impact Reform chances.
Starmer's time in No 10 is limited whatever way the result goes. If Burnham wins then the required number of MPs signing up to support his leadership bid will happen before he's finished his acceptance speech, and quite possibly will lead to a one-on-one contest with Starmer. If Burnham doesn't win then Starmer will be the leader who's so unpopular with his MPs that one of them even stepped down and let Reform gain an MP to get rid of him, and Streeting (and possibly one or two others) will be getting their challenge in.
no one's going to ask whether we need to spend money on Trident or whether that could be better spent supporting defence capability we might actually use
no one's going to ask whether we need to spend money on Trident or whether that could be better spent supporting defence capability we might actually use
Trident is being used every single day.
That seems like an unfalsifiable claim, along the lines of my tiger deterring rock. Must be really effective because I've never been attacked by a tiger.
no one's going to ask whether we need to spend money on Trident or whether that could be better spent supporting defence capability we might actually use
Trident is being used every single day.
It’s nowhere near as independent as the government and many would have us believe. See this from Chatham House. While the submarines and warheads are British designed and built, the missiles are built and made in the USA.
Trident only becomes truly independent if and when the balloon goes up, at which point the captain opens sealed orders from the Prime Minister.
no one's going to ask whether we need to spend money on Trident or whether that could be better spent supporting defence capability we might actually use
Trident is being used every single day.
But, what is it being used for? Every day there's a sub out there, doing what? It seems mostly that it exists to boost the ego of the British government (and probably some of the population) to make believe we're a super-power because we have these evil devices that are capable of obliterating entire cities. Would UK Trident deter a lunatic using nukes? Very little seemed to stop Trump from launching an insane attack on Iran, even to threaten the use of nukes, would our subs be a deterrent to such idiocy?
Basically, Trident is used every day to waste our money on white elephants.
no one's going to ask whether we need to spend money on Trident or whether that could be better spent supporting defence capability we might actually use
Trident is being used every single day.
That seems like an unfalsifiable claim, along the lines of my tiger deterring rock. Must be really effective because I've never been attacked by a tiger.
I wonder how all the countries without such a stone manage.
I see Starmer is going to unveil a massive data collection exercise under the guise of 'think of the children' while not regulating the tech platform that was creating CSAM, presumably because he's a 'fan of tech' (quote from the guardian).
I see Starmer is going to unveil a massive data collection exercise under the guise of 'think of the children' while not regulating the tech platform that was creating CSAM, presumably because he's a 'fan of tech' (quote from the guardian).
GDPR notwithstanding. Anyone else going off the grid then?
Yeah, it's bonkers. If he really cares about shielding people whose brains are still developing from the evils of the Internet, why pick a cutoff age of 16? It's been well established that the human brain continues developing until the age of 25. So, protect them until they're 16 and then throw them in the cesspit when their brains are still growing the synapses for impulse control? (sarcasm on) Why yes, that's going to make things better. Genius! (sarcasm off)
Cares?
I’m beginning to feel Starmer, who is clearly capable in one trade, is not so much use in another. Tragically, this is the Top Job.
I’m not sure he is at all capable of caring.
So, protect them until they're 16 and then throw them in the cesspit when their brains are still growing the synapses for impulse control? (sarcasm on)
I don't think any particular age is immune from radicalisation, and the current set of pograms are well supported by people posting under their own name on platforms like Facebook and Nextdoor.
I see Starmer is going to unveil a massive data collection exercise under the guise of 'think of the children' while not regulating the tech platform that was creating CSAM, presumably because he's a 'fan of tech' (quote from the guardian).
GDPR notwithstanding. Anyone else going off the grid then?
So, protect them until they're 16 and then throw them in the cesspit when their brains are still growing the synapses for impulse control? (sarcasm on)
I don't think any particular age is immune from radicalisation, and the current set of pograms are well supported by people posting under their own name on platforms like Facebook and Nextdoor.
I was a wet liberal (with a big and small L) in my student days but I have moved steadily to the left since and I’m probably a Trotskyite nowadays. Okay, some Tories aren’t evil, just wrong.
So, protect them until they're 16 and then throw them in the cesspit when their brains are still growing the synapses for impulse control? (sarcasm on)
I don't think any particular age is immune from radicalisation, and the current set of pograms are well supported by people posting under their own name on platforms like Facebook and Nextdoor.
That was almost my point, but all I was actually trying to say was that there is no scientific basis for assuming that people will magically become capable of navigating social media at the age of 16. I agree that noone is immune from radicalisation: rather than doing the hard work of forcing tech giants to stop doing the things that make social media so addictive (and polarising), which would benefit all of us, Starmer is just banning it for a small proportion of the population.
Not that forcing tech giants to do anything would be particularly easy, now we are no longer in the EU. We're just not big enough on our own.
I mean, they could get off X. They could fine some of the platforms. They could appoint someone who didn't pretend that GBNews meets Ofcom's criteria for a news channel.
They could invest in youth services and third spaces so young people have places to hang out with their mates.
Or they could do nothing that involves spending money or screwing the chance of getting a cushy Clegg like job in the tech sector after their political career.
The point's correct that there's no scientific evidence that people magically become able at some age but 'well established that the human brain continues developing until the age of 25' can be a dangerous misunderstanding which is used to attack (among other things) young trans people's ability to consent to gender affirming care.
In fact 25 was just the cut off point for the studies and there's nothing to say brain development is complete by then.
Older people are very vulnerable to radicalisation and harm online and may be even more vulnerable than young people who've grown up with social media but Starmer is both afraid of Musk and Zuckerberg and thinks he can get voters with severe cases of Twitter/ Facebook poisoning to vote for him so he's not doing anything about that.
no one's going to ask whether we need to spend money on Trident or whether that could be better spent supporting defence capability we might actually use
Trident is being used every single day.
That seems like an unfalsifiable claim, along the lines of my tiger deterring rock. Must be really effective because I've never been attacked by a tiger.
I wonder how all the countries without such a stone manage.
Countries like Iraq, Iran, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Libya, Syria or Georgia? And that’s just the ones I can remember from the last few decades.
Remember George W Bush’s “Axis of Evil”? Only one of the countries he named has not been attacked by the USA since then - nuclear-armed North Korea. Coincidence?
no one's going to ask whether we need to spend money on Trident or whether that could be better spent supporting defence capability we might actually use
Trident is being used every single day.
That seems like an unfalsifiable claim, along the lines of my tiger deterring rock. Must be really effective because I've never been attacked by a tiger.
I wonder how all the countries without such a stone manage.
Countries like Iraq, Iran, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Libya, Syria or Georgia? And that’s just the ones I can remember from the last few decades.
I have a feeling that there are one or two more countries than that.
Remember George W Bush’s “Axis of Evil”? Only one of the countries he named has not been attacked by the USA since then - nuclear-armed North Korea. Coincidence?
If the possible threat model is getting on the US's shit list then there's a bunch of divesting to be done.
no one's going to ask whether we need to spend money on Trident or whether that could be better spent supporting defence capability we might actually use
Trident is being used every single day.
That seems like an unfalsifiable claim, along the lines of my tiger deterring rock. Must be really effective because I've never been attacked by a tiger.
I wonder how all the countries without such a stone manage.
The nukes are the price paid by the Big Five for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council table and a veto. One question is whether that still represents value for money (if it ever did). Rocks are cheaper.
I see Starmer is going to unveil a massive data collection exercise under the guise of 'think of the children' while not regulating the tech platform that was creating CSAM, presumably because he's a 'fan of tech' (quote from the guardian).
GDPR notwithstanding. Anyone else going off the grid then?
Nah. I started paying for a decent VPN last year.
And no longer use services or products supplied by American Tech companies?
In less than a year, the government has expanded age verification to such an extent so that soon it will be virtually impossible to be online in the UK without handing over identity documents or biometric data to unregulated companies.
Forcing people to prove their identity in this way puts adults and 16-17 year olds at risk of their personal data being hacked. Discord is one example of a platform that suffered a major data-leak as a result of the introduction of age-assurance.
The Government has ignored calls to regulate age verification companies so that there are privacy and security standards to ensure that users’ sensitive data is protected. Instead it has expanded age verification so that more people are forced to hand over their data to these companies.
…
Age verification addresses the symptoms not the cause – and even feeds back into the harmful business model. The data shared for age verification can also be used by platforms and the wider data broker ecosystem to send you ads and customised content, fuelling the harmful business model.
no one's going to ask whether we need to spend money on Trident or whether that could be better spent supporting defence capability we might actually use
Trident is being used every single day.
That seems like an unfalsifiable claim, along the lines of my tiger deterring rock. Must be really effective because I've never been attacked by a tiger.
I wonder how all the countries without such a stone manage.
Countries like Iraq, Iran, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Libya, Syria or Georgia? And that’s just the ones I can remember from the last few decades.
Remember George W Bush’s “Axis of Evil”? Only one of the countries he named has not been attacked by the USA since then - nuclear-armed North Korea. Coincidence?
So... are you saying that it would be a good thing for every country to have nuclear weapons @Marvin the Martian ? I mean, I can see ways of defending this view but it's... it's... an unusual one...
no one's going to ask whether we need to spend money on Trident or whether that could be better spent supporting defence capability we might actually use
Trident is being used every single day.
That seems like an unfalsifiable claim, along the lines of my tiger deterring rock. Must be really effective because I've never been attacked by a tiger.
I wonder how all the countries without such a stone manage.
Countries like Iraq, Iran, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Libya, Syria or Georgia? And that’s just the ones I can remember from the last few decades.
Remember George W Bush’s “Axis of Evil”? Only one of the countries he named has not been attacked by the USA since then - nuclear-armed North Korea. Coincidence?
So... are you saying that it would be a good thing for every country to have nuclear weapons @Marvin the Martian ? I mean, I can see ways of defending this view but it's... it's... an unusual one...
I actually narrowly agree with the underlying point that the only reason NK wasn't attacked is because they got nuclear weapons (and crucially the ability to deliver them internationally).
I feel though that people who advocate for 'more money for the military' tend to be very squirrelly over what they actually want to achieve, they'll generally roll out a large number of vague and non-specific threats without actually specifying what it is a more capable military is supposed to deliver.
The point's correct that there's no scientific evidence that people magically become able at some age but 'well established that the human brain continues developing until the age of 25' can be a dangerous misunderstanding which is used to attack (among other things) young trans people's ability to consent to gender affirming care.
In fact 25 was just the cut off point for the studies and there's nothing to say brain development is complete by then.
Older people are very vulnerable to radicalisation and harm online and may be even more vulnerable than young people who've grown up with social media but Starmer is both afraid of Musk and Zuckerberg and thinks he can get voters with severe cases of Twitter/ Facebook poisoning to vote for him so he's not doing anything about that.
Yes, I was overstating my case there. Apologies. The latest studies seem to be showing that the brain can reshape itself at any age in response to new experiences. The logical conclusion is that social media in its algorithm-driven current form is not safe for anyone. As you say, young people who've grown up with it and learned how to assess the reliability of online sources at school are probably less vulnerable than many older users.
Just in case anyone has misunderstood, I have not been radicalised. I have become more radical in response to an increasingly unjust society; economically, culturally and politically.
Remember George W Bush’s “Axis of Evil”? Only one of the countries he named has not been attacked by the USA since then - nuclear-armed North Korea. Coincidence?
There is a popular conspiracy theory in the ROK that the 1979 assassination of Park Chung-hee was ordered by the Americans, who were angry that Park was trying to acquire nuclear weapons.
I doubt the theory is true, and Park would have been trying for nukes not to deter an American attack on the ROK, but to give the ROK more direct control over its own military policy, especially in regards to the DPRK. Nevertheless, it all shows that a lot of people do draw a connection between the acquisition of nuclear weapons and enhanced national autonomy.
It is a rare thing to wake up to a good election result. 1997 was a Great Hope following 18 years of misrule, but that was a disappointment.
I don’t think Burnham will be a great PM, but he has a better record than Starmer and he’s better than the other contenders.
What will be interesting in the future is how the Green and LibDem vote goes in future elections. It looks like almost all the putative Green and LibDem voters (and possibly a few Tories, now disgusted by Reform’s people if not their policies), voted to keep Reform out in Makerfield. How the anti racist vote can get arranged to prevent Reform getting in will take some doing and a lot of honesty.
It is a rare thing to wake up to a good election result. 1997 was a Great Hope following 18 years of misrule, but that was a disappointment.
I don’t think Burnham will be a great PM, but he has a better record than Starmer and he’s better than the other contenders.
What will be interesting in the future is how the Green and LibDem vote goes in future elections. It looks like almost all the putative Green and LibDem voters (and possibly a few Tories, now disgusted by Reform’s people if not their policies), voted to keep Reform out in Makerfield. How the anti racist vote can get arranged to prevent Reform getting in will take some doing and a lot of honesty.
He will at least be more charismatic. It worked for Boris Johnson why not Burham?
As I write Starmer has thrown his hat into the ring of a leadership fight. Interesting times ahead.
I don't know if Burnham will make much difference, although he is more interesting than Starmer, which isn't difficult. But how will he satisfy this gnawing hunger people have for visible signs of progress? Good to see Reform defeated.
There's so much he would have to do to make Labour a decent party again. Just off the top of my head
(1) End food poverty and the need for food banks - see people are decently paid or have social security they can live on
(2) stop the persecutions - those of trans people, the anti-immigration attacks on those who come here to work or stay from abroad and the attacks on disabled people and other groups needing social security.
(3) Rejoin the EU
(4) Stop the technologically illiterate attacks on internet users under the guise of child safety and instead stand up to the tech companies and right wing media and regulate them properly
(5) stand up to Trump and fully coordinate defence policy with the EU and other willing countries
(6) nationalise power and water - stop the encroachment of private companies on the NHS - stop the private sector profiteering in public goods
I'm sure people can think of a few others. I'm always amazed that people not having enough to live on to eat or heat is tolerated. It shouldn't be.
Andrew Marr predicted a Lib-Lab pact/coalition at the next General Election. Mind you, he's also been predicting civil war, which I tend to see as something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people - whether from the left or right or wherever else - talk about such things it teeters towards creating an expectation of it in my view.
None of us have a crystal ball but I can see Labour's fortunes reviving to some extent although whether Burnham or anyone else can turn things round in the next two years remains to be seen.
I can also foresee further splits on the far right - with further splintering within Reform and Restore. The more they splinter the better, I think but the corrolary of that is we are likely to see even more virulent and nasty groups emerge.
I'd be interested to hear what Scottish shipmates have to say about the Conservative and SNP wins up there, but perhaps that's not appropriate for a thread about the Labour government. Happy to hear that if it doesn't turn into a complete tangent.
As for the Conservatives, are they permanently holed below the water-line or will we see some recovery there? That might be something for the Reform threat thread.
It's Aberdeen South - if you look the SNP vote didn't drop by very much but the Labour vote completely collapsed and these people are clearly willing to vote Conservative despite them being as racist as Reform. Probably a combination of the oil vote here (The Scottish Tories are pro continued North Sea drilling) and Unionist tactical voting.
There was a time when Labour voters would never have shifted to a Tory but one of the bad things of Labour's current right wing shift is that it legitimises it - they say similar things so I think it removes the stigma of a tactical vote for the Conservatives.
Andy Burnham’s personality is in stark contrast to Keir Starmer. He’s bound to win any leadership contest, barring some massive X factor skeleton in his cupboard.
It remains to be seen what happens policy-wise. Andy Burnham says he generally supports the Labour Party policies in the 2024 manifesto.
Billy Bragg's thoughts yesterday. I am getting to see him in concert tonight.
"oday’s Makerfield by-election could ultimately prove to be a watershed moment in British politics. On another Thursday in June ten years ago, the vote to leave the European Union created divisions that have only been exacerbated by the failure of Brexit to deliver the changes promised by Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. Johnson rode the Brexit bus all the way to Number Ten and Farage’s prospects of following him through that door are at stake today. Victory for Reform will severely hamper the prospects of the Labour Party under Keir Starmer to mount a challenge to Farage at the next election. Defeat will not only dent Reform’s confidence. It will also send to Westminster someone capable of galvanising a united front against the far right.
And that’s not just about improving the prospects of the Labour Party. If Andy Burnham becomes Labour leader, he will be the first to take office committed to a proportional electoral system that makes everyone’s vote count. Votes for other left of centre parties will result in representation. This will mean governments formed from those parties will have the support of the majority of voters, making them able to carry out their mandate with popular support.
Of course the parties of the right will also have the same opportunities, but their current stampede to racist extremism may not prove as popular as they seem to believe. Restore Britain are a far right party whose remedy for the problems that people face - rising costs, lack of housing and access to timely treatment by the NHS - is to deport foreigners. As a result, they have been leaching support from Reform in polling ahead of the Makerfield by-election.
In an attempt to shore up support, Farage posted an essay on Substack over the weekend that harped heavily on white grievance. In terms of content, it was a rehash of claims aired in 1968 by Enoch Powell in his infamous Rivers of Blood speech: laws designed to combat racial discrimination have marginalised whites; British cities have changed beyond all recognition; people of colour have domination over whites
Farage lacks Powell’s rhetorical skills but his message was fundamentally the same: white Britons are becoming second class citizens in their own country. Yet Powell’s fearmongering was just that. His claim that in 15 to 20 years the black man will have the whip hand over the white man has not come to pass, not in 1988, nor 2026. Instead we live in a society united by support for a football team that truly reflects the multicultural make up of our county.
Farage clearly believes that he is speaking for the vast majority of citizens when he spouts such divisive rhetoric, yet recent polling does not support his view. When asked which policies they want the British government to prioritise, a majority of voters chose, in descending order, running and managing government in a competent fashion (81%), standing up for ordinary people against wealthy economic and financial elites (66%) and standing up for the interests of Britain against right wing populism (52%).
None of the other options they were offered by pollsters commanded majority support but tellingly bottom of their priorities, favoured by only 9% of voters, was standing up for white people against non-white people.
Anyone who has experience of Reform in town halls across England will know that they are incompetent legislators, spending more time making life harder for the trans community than fixing potholes and providing care for the needy. Farage and his friends are unlikely to stand up against the billionaire class, given they are funded by them and are not willing protect us from right wing populism, quite the opposite.
Reform have no coherent policies for improving the lives of ordinary citizens that don’t begin and end with removing people of colour from society. Yet while very few voters actively support such discriminatory policies, the danger comes from those who understandably feel disenchanted with politics due to the the failure of Westminster to address the problems they face and see Reform as a last desperate roll of the dice. It’s those voters, who want to send an F-you message to Westminster that offer Reform the best opportunity in Makerfield.
But the idea that deporting immigrants offers an answer to voters problems was not borne out by Brexit. Loathe though they were to admit it at the time, some who voted Leave have now confessed that they did so because they wanted to curb immigration. Their hopes for such simplistic solutions to their grievances were dashed when the new immigration system kicked in during 2021 and, over the next few years, 300,000 EU immigrants were replaced by almost a million non-EU immigrants.
If Reform are able to win on Thursday, the lie on side of the Brexit bus will be replaced with another lie, that the NHS will be more efficient if we deport 3 million people of colour. Events on the streets of Minneapolis have shown us how divisive it is to round up people who live and work among us, neighbours and colleagues, spouses and lovers.
The people of Makerfield have the opportunity to send a message to Farage, Restore, Tommy Two-Names and Kemi Badenoch too: that they will not stand by while bad faith players seek to turn whites and non-whites against each other to create a society based on brute force, bullshit and Britannia."
'Populist' is a slippery term, often used as a euphemism for anti human rights politicians and the conspiracy theories/ regressive attitudes they use to attack minorities - that there is a sinister or out of touch 'elite' working against what are posited to be the interests of the 'ordinary people'.
It differs from being Socialist in that it's not primarily about stopping what an actual rich and powerful elite actually does in terms of rapacious financial exploitation but instead is mostly used as a banner to justify attacks on powerless minorities who are falsely constructed as dangers to the nice ordinary common people - sometimes this is done using fantasies about billionaires funding rights movements for sinister reasons and often it involves positing regressive fantasies about the nature and beliefs of 'the people' while they're at it.
It's not a compliment to call a politician a 'populist' unless the 'complimenter' thinks the politician in question is taking this kind of ugly approach and approves of it.
Popular is something different. Politicians can be popular without being populist.
Have the Tories always been this unpopular in Makerfield, or is it just that the near-entirety of their bloc has gone over to Reform and Restore?
They've tended towards 20-30% of the vote, dipped down closer to 10% in 2005 and broke 30% in 2017 and 2019. So, yesterday was a really bad result for them - probably shifting to Reform, but it's possible given how narrow the gap between Lab and Tory is that some may have swung behind Burnham as a tactical vote against Reform.
It was a very simple decision for tactical voting to keep Reform out; it was a clear two horse race and easy to vote for the horse that wasn't a misogynistic, sexist fascist.
Comments
It certainly used to be a “Friend of Mandelson”, but I think it may have moved on a little.
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/morgan-mcsweeney-already-back-advising-starmer-4470837
This control freak could well drag the whole government down ☹️
For some it will show that the Labour government is collapsing and it's not worth voting Labour. For others, that Starmer is no longer the leader the country needs, and that Burnham should have a chance to do better, and thus they're more likely to vote Labour. And, of course, it's too late to influence postal votes which would have already been posted before the latest round of resignations (I'm not sure what proportion of votes that will be, here postal votes in many places get up to 25-30% of the electorate, which is a very significant part of the vote).
And, of course, it's unclear how Restore will do and whether that will impact Reform chances.
Starmer's time in No 10 is limited whatever way the result goes. If Burnham wins then the required number of MPs signing up to support his leadership bid will happen before he's finished his acceptance speech, and quite possibly will lead to a one-on-one contest with Starmer. If Burnham doesn't win then Starmer will be the leader who's so unpopular with his MPs that one of them even stepped down and let Reform gain an MP to get rid of him, and Streeting (and possibly one or two others) will be getting their challenge in.
Trident is being used every single day.
That seems like an unfalsifiable claim, along the lines of my tiger deterring rock. Must be really effective because I've never been attacked by a tiger.
It’s nowhere near as independent as the government and many would have us believe. See this from Chatham House. While the submarines and warheads are British designed and built, the missiles are built and made in the USA.
Trident only becomes truly independent if and when the balloon goes up, at which point the captain opens sealed orders from the Prime Minister.
Basically, Trident is used every day to waste our money on white elephants.
If that happens we’ve already lost, and they have proved themselves obsolete.
I wonder how all the countries without such a stone manage.
GDPR notwithstanding. Anyone else going off the grid then?
I’m beginning to feel Starmer, who is clearly capable in one trade, is not so much use in another. Tragically, this is the Top Job.
I’m not sure he is at all capable of caring.
I don't think any particular age is immune from radicalisation, and the current set of pograms are well supported by people posting under their own name on platforms like Facebook and Nextdoor.
Nah. I started paying for a decent VPN last year.
I was a wet liberal (with a big and small L) in my student days but I have moved steadily to the left since and I’m probably a Trotskyite nowadays. Okay, some Tories aren’t evil, just wrong.
That was almost my point, but all I was actually trying to say was that there is no scientific basis for assuming that people will magically become capable of navigating social media at the age of 16. I agree that noone is immune from radicalisation: rather than doing the hard work of forcing tech giants to stop doing the things that make social media so addictive (and polarising), which would benefit all of us, Starmer is just banning it for a small proportion of the population.
Not that forcing tech giants to do anything would be particularly easy, now we are no longer in the EU. We're just not big enough on our own.
They could invest in youth services and third spaces so young people have places to hang out with their mates.
Or they could do nothing that involves spending money or screwing the chance of getting a cushy Clegg like job in the tech sector after their political career.
In fact 25 was just the cut off point for the studies and there's nothing to say brain development is complete by then.
Older people are very vulnerable to radicalisation and harm online and may be even more vulnerable than young people who've grown up with social media but Starmer is both afraid of Musk and Zuckerberg and thinks he can get voters with severe cases of Twitter/ Facebook poisoning to vote for him so he's not doing anything about that.
Countries like Iraq, Iran, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Libya, Syria or Georgia? And that’s just the ones I can remember from the last few decades.
Remember George W Bush’s “Axis of Evil”? Only one of the countries he named has not been attacked by the USA since then - nuclear-armed North Korea. Coincidence?
I have a feeling that there are one or two more countries than that.
If the possible threat model is getting on the US's shit list then there's a bunch of divesting to be done.
And no longer use services or products supplied by American Tech companies?
Extract from what the Open Rights Group said today about Starmer's announcement:
So... are you saying that it would be a good thing for every country to have nuclear weapons @Marvin the Martian ? I mean, I can see ways of defending this view but it's... it's... an unusual one...
I actually narrowly agree with the underlying point that the only reason NK wasn't attacked is because they got nuclear weapons (and crucially the ability to deliver them internationally).
I feel though that people who advocate for 'more money for the military' tend to be very squirrelly over what they actually want to achieve, they'll generally roll out a large number of vague and non-specific threats without actually specifying what it is a more capable military is supposed to deliver.
Yes, I was overstating my case there. Apologies. The latest studies seem to be showing that the brain can reshape itself at any age in response to new experiences. The logical conclusion is that social media in its algorithm-driven current form is not safe for anyone. As you say, young people who've grown up with it and learned how to assess the reliability of online sources at school are probably less vulnerable than many older users.
I can’t see how anyone can fail to be.
There is a popular conspiracy theory in the ROK that the 1979 assassination of Park Chung-hee was ordered by the Americans, who were angry that Park was trying to acquire nuclear weapons.
I doubt the theory is true, and Park would have been trying for nukes not to deter an American attack on the ROK, but to give the ROK more direct control over its own military policy, especially in regards to the DPRK. Nevertheless, it all shows that a lot of people do draw a connection between the acquisition of nuclear weapons and enhanced national autonomy.
Congratulations to Burnham on his win and to all the Labour activists who canvassed for him.
The whole background to this by-election doesn't sit easily with me - but this is by far the best possible outcome.
I don’t think Burnham will be a great PM, but he has a better record than Starmer and he’s better than the other contenders.
What will be interesting in the future is how the Green and LibDem vote goes in future elections. It looks like almost all the putative Green and LibDem voters (and possibly a few Tories, now disgusted by Reform’s people if not their policies), voted to keep Reform out in Makerfield. How the anti racist vote can get arranged to prevent Reform getting in will take some doing and a lot of honesty.
He will at least be more charismatic. It worked for Boris Johnson why not Burham?
As I write Starmer has thrown his hat into the ring of a leadership fight. Interesting times ahead.
Talk about damning with faint praise!
(1) End food poverty and the need for food banks - see people are decently paid or have social security they can live on
(2) stop the persecutions - those of trans people, the anti-immigration attacks on those who come here to work or stay from abroad and the attacks on disabled people and other groups needing social security.
(3) Rejoin the EU
(4) Stop the technologically illiterate attacks on internet users under the guise of child safety and instead stand up to the tech companies and right wing media and regulate them properly
(5) stand up to Trump and fully coordinate defence policy with the EU and other willing countries
(6) nationalise power and water - stop the encroachment of private companies on the NHS - stop the private sector profiteering in public goods
I'm sure people can think of a few others. I'm always amazed that people not having enough to live on to eat or heat is tolerated. It shouldn't be.
None of us have a crystal ball but I can see Labour's fortunes reviving to some extent although whether Burnham or anyone else can turn things round in the next two years remains to be seen.
I can also foresee further splits on the far right - with further splintering within Reform and Restore. The more they splinter the better, I think but the corrolary of that is we are likely to see even more virulent and nasty groups emerge.
I'd be interested to hear what Scottish shipmates have to say about the Conservative and SNP wins up there, but perhaps that's not appropriate for a thread about the Labour government. Happy to hear that if it doesn't turn into a complete tangent.
As for the Conservatives, are they permanently holed below the water-line or will we see some recovery there? That might be something for the Reform threat thread.
There was a time when Labour voters would never have shifted to a Tory but one of the bad things of Labour's current right wing shift is that it legitimises it - they say similar things so I think it removes the stigma of a tactical vote for the Conservatives.
Andy Burnham’s personality is in stark contrast to Keir Starmer. He’s bound to win any leadership contest, barring some massive X factor skeleton in his cupboard.
It remains to be seen what happens policy-wise. Andy Burnham says he generally supports the Labour Party policies in the 2024 manifesto.
Here’s that manifesto.
“Generally” is a good word! Let’s see what he proposes to update in the light of the changed national and international circumstances.
But I did appreciate his clear rejection of dark and divisive politics. I’ll be fascinated to see how he tackles that.
Would be awesome if he was successful in a spill. More of a populists man.
Harold Wilson
Example -
https://youtu.be/vzIg5EXXu9E?is=evfVgT6iafQ2fqV7
"oday’s Makerfield by-election could ultimately prove to be a watershed moment in British politics. On another Thursday in June ten years ago, the vote to leave the European Union created divisions that have only been exacerbated by the failure of Brexit to deliver the changes promised by Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. Johnson rode the Brexit bus all the way to Number Ten and Farage’s prospects of following him through that door are at stake today. Victory for Reform will severely hamper the prospects of the Labour Party under Keir Starmer to mount a challenge to Farage at the next election. Defeat will not only dent Reform’s confidence. It will also send to Westminster someone capable of galvanising a united front against the far right.
And that’s not just about improving the prospects of the Labour Party. If Andy Burnham becomes Labour leader, he will be the first to take office committed to a proportional electoral system that makes everyone’s vote count. Votes for other left of centre parties will result in representation. This will mean governments formed from those parties will have the support of the majority of voters, making them able to carry out their mandate with popular support.
Of course the parties of the right will also have the same opportunities, but their current stampede to racist extremism may not prove as popular as they seem to believe. Restore Britain are a far right party whose remedy for the problems that people face - rising costs, lack of housing and access to timely treatment by the NHS - is to deport foreigners. As a result, they have been leaching support from Reform in polling ahead of the Makerfield by-election.
In an attempt to shore up support, Farage posted an essay on Substack over the weekend that harped heavily on white grievance. In terms of content, it was a rehash of claims aired in 1968 by Enoch Powell in his infamous Rivers of Blood speech: laws designed to combat racial discrimination have marginalised whites; British cities have changed beyond all recognition; people of colour have domination over whites
Farage lacks Powell’s rhetorical skills but his message was fundamentally the same: white Britons are becoming second class citizens in their own country. Yet Powell’s fearmongering was just that. His claim that in 15 to 20 years the black man will have the whip hand over the white man has not come to pass, not in 1988, nor 2026. Instead we live in a society united by support for a football team that truly reflects the multicultural make up of our county.
Farage clearly believes that he is speaking for the vast majority of citizens when he spouts such divisive rhetoric, yet recent polling does not support his view. When asked which policies they want the British government to prioritise, a majority of voters chose, in descending order, running and managing government in a competent fashion (81%), standing up for ordinary people against wealthy economic and financial elites (66%) and standing up for the interests of Britain against right wing populism (52%).
None of the other options they were offered by pollsters commanded majority support but tellingly bottom of their priorities, favoured by only 9% of voters, was standing up for white people against non-white people.
Anyone who has experience of Reform in town halls across England will know that they are incompetent legislators, spending more time making life harder for the trans community than fixing potholes and providing care for the needy. Farage and his friends are unlikely to stand up against the billionaire class, given they are funded by them and are not willing protect us from right wing populism, quite the opposite.
Reform have no coherent policies for improving the lives of ordinary citizens that don’t begin and end with removing people of colour from society. Yet while very few voters actively support such discriminatory policies, the danger comes from those who understandably feel disenchanted with politics due to the the failure of Westminster to address the problems they face and see Reform as a last desperate roll of the dice. It’s those voters, who want to send an F-you message to Westminster that offer Reform the best opportunity in Makerfield.
But the idea that deporting immigrants offers an answer to voters problems was not borne out by Brexit. Loathe though they were to admit it at the time, some who voted Leave have now confessed that they did so because they wanted to curb immigration. Their hopes for such simplistic solutions to their grievances were dashed when the new immigration system kicked in during 2021 and, over the next few years, 300,000 EU immigrants were replaced by almost a million non-EU immigrants.
If Reform are able to win on Thursday, the lie on side of the Brexit bus will be replaced with another lie, that the NHS will be more efficient if we deport 3 million people of colour. Events on the streets of Minneapolis have shown us how divisive it is to round up people who live and work among us, neighbours and colleagues, spouses and lovers.
The people of Makerfield have the opportunity to send a message to Farage, Restore, Tommy Two-Names and Kemi Badenoch too: that they will not stand by while bad faith players seek to turn whites and non-whites against each other to create a society based on brute force, bullshit and Britannia."
It differs from being Socialist in that it's not primarily about stopping what an actual rich and powerful elite actually does in terms of rapacious financial exploitation but instead is mostly used as a banner to justify attacks on powerless minorities who are falsely constructed as dangers to the nice ordinary common people - sometimes this is done using fantasies about billionaires funding rights movements for sinister reasons and often it involves positing regressive fantasies about the nature and beliefs of 'the people' while they're at it.
It's not a compliment to call a politician a 'populist' unless the 'complimenter' thinks the politician in question is taking this kind of ugly approach and approves of it.
Popular is something different. Politicians can be popular without being populist.
If (or maybe when ) he becomes Prime Minister, he will have a hard job, but seems a capable sort of chap. We live in interesting times...
Time for the progressives on the left and in the centre to get together? Hope, not hate...