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Why Keir Starmer is doomed Voters want a Prime Minister who believes in Britain

Move over Ed Miliband. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Move over Ed Miliband. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)


April 6, 2021   5 mins

There are some leaders of the opposition who you knew, in your heart of hearts, would never be Prime Minister. Michael Foot, William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Ed Miliband all come to mind. So too does Keir Starmer.

Starmer, in his defence, inherited a sinking ship from Jeremy Corbyn. He was handed the lowest number of seats since 1935, a bitterly divided party and a Labour brand that even today remains thoroughly discredited among a large swathe of the country. Corbyn did not cause all of these problems but he certainly entrenched them.

Labour’s fracture with the working class, its loss of credibility on crunch issues such as the economy and immigration and its growing dependency on social liberals who congregate in areas where the party no longer needs votes were all decades in the making. This is why any recovery — if such a recovery is even possible — will be generational rather than cyclical.

Starmer made a good start, or at least appeared to. Over the past year, Labour picked off low-hanging fruit, winning back voters who were repelled by Corbyn. In the polls, Labour’s average support jumped from below 29% to 35%. At the last election, Labour trailed the Conservatives by 12 points; today, they trail by 8.

How much of this improvement is due to Starmer remains unclear. While his supporters point to his strong leadership ratings relative to Corbyn, the fact remains that even today Starmer’s “net satisfaction” score still lags behind Boris Johnson — while 33% of voters are satisfied with him, 42% are not. Leaders only ever have a short period to make an impression. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Starmer, a year after becoming leader, has now blown his.

Ask someone on the street to describe Starmer and they’ll probably say he opposed Brexit, is a lawyer, took the knee for Black Lives Matter and is better than Jeremy Corbyn but still doesn’t represent “people like them”. This might explain why, when the country is asked who would make “best Prime Minister”, Johnson still leads on 37% while his nearest rival is not the leader of the opposition but ‘Not Sure’. Starmer trails in third, ten points adrift from the man who has been in power for a year and is criticised on a daily basis.

There are, of course, many who argue that Covid-19 dealt Starmer an unlucky hand.  But it is during moments of crisis, when the glare of public attention is strongest, that leaders are made. Indeed, it won’t be lost on Starmer’s team that it is precisely at the same time as the entire country has been sat at home, watching the news and paying attention to politics, that Starmer’s ratings have fallen not risen. To put it simply, the more people have seen, the less impressed they have been.

Starmerites might respond that his ratings are better than Mr Corbyn’s. But that is like saying Michael Howard’s ratings were better than Iain Duncan Smith’s. In the end, neither saw power. And it appears that the British people can sense that, too. More than half of them told YouGov last week that they simply do not see Keir Starmer as a prime minister in waiting.

Even if you put the question of leadership aside, there remains little evidence that Labour is dealing with the deep-rooted structural problems that arguably make it impossible for the party to win the next election. To do so would require a swing close to what Tony Blair and New Labour achieved in 1997 – with a leader who is nowhere near as popular as Blair was and a party that is nowhere near as popular as it needs to be outside of London and the university towns.

As the 2019 election and today’s polls underline, amid the “realignment” of British politics Labour is stacking votes where it does not need them while failing to win votes where it desperately needs them. Labour will probably cheer Sadiq Khan’s easy victory in London next month, while struggling to hold its historic blue-collar fiefdom of Hartlepool. It is cruising in its stronghold of London with a 20-point lead, but across the rest of the south it is 25 points behind. No party can win power with these numbers.

This reflects how Britain’s new political geography, the first-past-the-post system and earlier Labour leaders have made life harder than it ought to be for Starmer. Over the past two decades, the Left essentially walked into the casino of British politics and put all of its chips behind social liberals whose support is concentrated in liberal enclaves rather than spread across the country. Much of that was entrenched during Corbyn’s tenure and by the dismal reaction to Brexit, and now Starmer is paying the price. Ask the working class today who should lead Britain and Boris Johnson holds a 19-point lead. Starmer might win a few more seats around London, but he should remember that there are still many more Red Wall seats that could fall. The assault on the Red Wall might just be starting.

There is a broader point to be had, too. At the heart of recent political commentary has rested a fundamentally flawed assumption: that once Brexit was over and done with life would return to the traditional “Left versus Right” fault line that governed politics during the twentieth century. We would get back to debating the economic issues that play to Labour’s strengths and that would clear the path for the party to repair its relationship with workers and return to power.

But I was never convinced. For a start, this narrative completely ignores the extent to which the Conservatives have also leaned towards the Left, variously promising to “level-up” the most regionally imbalanced nation in the industrialised world while moving institutions, civil servants and banks north.

It also underplays the extent to which culture, rather than economics, has come to dominate national life — as reflected in our intensifying debates over cancel culture, freedom of speech, the Royal Family and racism in British society. Only last week, voters looked on as Keir Starmer and a number of his MPs rejected a nuanced report on racial and ethnic disparities and instead implied that Britain, and by extension the British people, are inherently racist. Every day that radical left Labour MPs Clive Lewis and activists like professor Priyamvada Gopal are in the news, screaming about racist Britain, is a good day for Boris Johnson.

But as Ronald Reagan reminded Jimmy Carter, nobody wants to be told over and over again what is wrong with their country and its people, especially when much of it is not true. Nobody wants to hear about the malaise. They want to be inspired and led to the sunlit uplands. They want their leaders to believe in the country as much as they do. Yet as much research over the past year has shown, it is precisely on these questions about culture, identity, race and history where Labour MPs and activists are completely detached from the rest of Britain.

Put all of this together and it becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible, to see how Starmer charts a path to No 10. While he might have steadied the ship, too many gaping holes remain. Labour’s broken bond with the working class, its perceived lack of economic competency, the cultural isolation of its MPs from the average voter and an increasingly radical “woke” Left that is cheered on in seats that the party already holds, but loathed in those that Labour actually needs to win — these are all major obstacles that Starmer has yet to tackle.

And unless he does, then he might find himself going down in the history books as the Labour Party’s Michael Howard  — the man who brought “stability” but ultimately failed to win power.


Matthew Goodwin is Professor of Politics at the University of Kent. His new book, Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics, is out on March 30.

GoodwinMJ

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Vikram Sharma
Vikram Sharma
3 years ago

The tragedy for the Labour Party is that its members seem to live in a country different from the electorate. The Party presents UK (or to be specific England) as full of racist, xenophobic, close minded white people with privilege who have benefitted from slavery, colonisation and oppression. Voters look around and find a country largely content, fair, tolerant and diverse. Nobody won votes by doing down their country. If you are ashamed of your flag, your history, your ancestors, your traditions, your contributions to the world, and everything that fills people with pride for their homeland, don’t expect to win votes from them.
when India launched its first satellite I remember BBC interviewing a dirt poor Indian farmer who was asked how he felt that the country was spending money on satellites when people like him were so poor. He replied in Bhojpuri: sir, at night when I look at the sky and see a light moving, I think that might be the satellite from my India. I feel so proud.
Till labour understands that the politics of envy has a much smaller audience than the politics of self reliance and pride, it is bound to, and deserves to lose.

Harry Lal
Harry Lal
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

Great stuff. Btw, is there a Bhojpuri word for satellite? (My parents’ dialect is Bhojpuri).

Vikram Sharma
Vikram Sharma
3 years ago
Reply to  Harry Lal

The satellite was called Aryabhatta; that’s what everyone called it then

Andrew Thompson
Andrew Thompson
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

You need to start writing your own articles Vikram. I eagerly search for your comments on here and am never disappointed by them. Well said once more.

Clem Alford
Clem Alford
3 years ago

I suspect his distance from India makes for a nostalgic patriotic claim. Am I wrong?

Last edited 3 years ago by Clem Alford
Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

Could you give some examples of the party presenting England as full of racist, xenophobic close minded white people? (Not Emily Thornberry)

Mel Shaw
Mel Shaw
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Lisa Nandy doesn’t doesn’t seem to have many positive things to say about the country or its people.

Clem Alford
Clem Alford
3 years ago
Reply to  Mel Shaw

She is half Indian and her dad was from Calcutta. Nothing more radical than a politicised Bengali.!!!!!!

Michael Dawson
Michael Dawson
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

OK, that may be pushing it a bit, but the whole left-wing response to last week’s report on race in the UK falls into that general category, where all the focus is on the problems (which are then greatly exaggerated) and no credit is given for improvements or acknowledgement that most (all?) other countries have a rather worse record than we do.

Alan Hawkes
Alan Hawkes
3 years ago
Reply to  Michael Dawson

And I wonder, where was the balancing defence of the report? Why so much silence from other parts of the political spectrum?

mjp19131919
mjp19131919
3 years ago
Reply to  Alan Hawkes

Trevor Phillips defended it in the Times this week.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Michael Dawson

Agreeing that the report is correct when it says Britain is better than 30 years ago is surely damning it with faint praise?

Clem Alford
Clem Alford
3 years ago
Reply to  Michael Dawson

The whole race relations situation and its industry are in contradiction. Especially in the multicultural arts scene. What I find disturbing is the positive discrimination policies where merit goes out the window. I even have experienced it once at the BBC. A former late musical colleague had a similar experience. He used a Muslim name until he went for the audition and they saw he was white. They even said ‘we thought you was Muslim’!!! He didn’t get the gig!!

Last edited 3 years ago by Clem Alford
Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

since 10 October 1974, no Labour leader apart from Tony Blair has won a general election

This never fails to cheer me. By the time of the next election it will 50 years, and Labour will still hate him.

The universities, left press, and the arts characterise the English middle-class as Mail-reading misers, who are sexist, racist and homophobic to boot. Meanwhile, they characterise the white working class as lardy Sun-reading slobs, who are, since you asked, also sexist, racist and homophobic. The national history is reduced to one long imperial crime, and the notion that the English are not such a bad bunch with many strong radical traditions worth preserving is rejected as risibly complacent. So tainted and untrustworthy are they that they must be told what they can say and how they should behave.

Just as true 6 years on. Worse, if anything.

Last edited 3 years ago by Jon Redman
Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

So what you are saying is that the truth hurts.

Brian Dorsley
Brian Dorsley
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

Please explain.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Brian Dorsley

All the points Jon moans about are true.

Richard Starkey
Richard Starkey
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

You must work as a Labour strategist!

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago

No. Just a voter who looks for facts. The right have given up on facts, preferring ideology and their little prejudices, which are stoked by the chip wrappers they read.

Brian Dorsley
Brian Dorsley
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

I think the right/left dichotomy is misleading. It forces people to take sides and dehumanize those they disagree with.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Brian Dorsley

No disagreement on economic policy forces people to “dehumanize those they disagree with.”
As for forcing “people to take sides” – isn’t that the point of political choice?

Ian Moore
Ian Moore
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

You wouldn’t happen to be a Labour supporter claiming the “right” prefer ideology over facts? My giddy aunt. I take it you never read the Labour “manifesto” or follow the media output from some of the party luminaires who embarrass them on a daily basis in the various forms of media. The problem with Labour, and their supporters, is that they have chosen to follow an ideology unique to the minority in the country, and they will not deviate from that course. The facts regarding popularity amongst voters escape them, based on other facts (economic, social, educational, historical to name a few), which also escape them. I’d suggest that if you are going to take a balanced view you could argue both sides of the political spectrum (and all the shades in the middle) follow ideology, some just pick one that works for the majority of the country and are therefore significantly more successful.

David J
David J
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

As a MOR voter, my view of the left is that facts are the last thing it heeds. Instead, prejudice and revolution are what turn it on.

Clem Alford
Clem Alford
3 years ago
Reply to  David J

And slogan chanting. Serious discussion. No way.

Clem Alford
Clem Alford
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

Aren’t the British left just the same?

Ted Ditchburn
Ted Ditchburn
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

You are delusional and if you cannot even analyse, ie see, the problem then you have no hope of solving it.
Stereotyping people using any metrics, whether race, sex, class, income, or whatever is wrong, not only morally, but in terms of effective problem solving.
Labour has a problem and it will only get bigger if somebody doesn’t get a grip on it.
Living in a comfort bubble of stereotyped opinion isn’t *getting a grip on it*..

Anthony Reader-Moore
Anthony Reader-Moore
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

Not all of us eat chips and would not wrap them in the Guardian/Daily Mirror if we did!

Ted Ditchburn
Ted Ditchburn
3 years ago

Labour activists took their traditional support for granted and traditional labour voter, became smart set synonym for bigoted, white thickos….
These people who say *Give examples* are the sort of people who if you said it rains a lot in Britain, would say, give examples.
Everyone can see what Labour has slipped into being, a hotchpotch of different (and often contradictory) identarian activist groups that have lost the ordinary working class vote that used to bind it all together.
They cannot even see why they lost big in Dec 2019, just as ultra-Remainers cannot see/admit why they lost and stay stuck in their comfort bubble mindset of thick, bigoted,little Englanders being duped by lying Boris.
Both groups probably overlap by at least 50%

michael harris
michael harris
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

Jon doesn’t sound hurt. He sounds pleased that the left is still busy digging its grave.

tmglobalrecruitment
tmglobalrecruitment
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

You seem dim in an infantile sort of way – were you educated after Blair was elected by chance, as that would explain your factless whining drivel.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

Bully for you. You quote a opinion from someone who agrees with you but offer no evidence to back it up.

Ian Moore
Ian Moore
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

And you offer no evidence to refute it.

L Paw
L Paw
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Still, 50 years, no one elected but Bliar, how does it feel on the Left, Mark?

Elise Davies
Elise Davies
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

It’s definitely worse now, as it’s pretty much the only card the Left have.
Why did people vote Brexit? Racism. Why are the white working class turning against Labour in the North? Racism.
It’s so handy! It completely avoids the necessity to think WHY those two situations have come about.
Similarly if everything is ‘structurally racist’ then it means that any situation can be simply explained away.
No qualifications but still can’t get a well-paid job? That’s structural racism that is mate. Not your responsibility at all.

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Elise Davies

Labour cant even Form a front to oppose SARS2 passport,why are they necessary ,when I have Cards which say i have my innoculations?..Johnson Vaccine rollout has been aided by Army, Certain NHS retirees return,.NHS and volunteers, his handling of SAGE Projected ”Data” has been p***poor ,Not to mention track&trace…I hope SDP,Reform &Independents do well on May 6 for Britain’s sake…

Last edited 3 years ago by Robin Lambert
Tom Krehbiel
Tom Krehbiel
3 years ago
Reply to  Elise Davies

Yes, and the Left’s definition of race is confused with: religion (thus, resistance to Islam is racist along with being Islamophobic); language (here in the US, those against Spanish-speaking aliens crossing our border illegally – even white ones – are routinely cast as racist as well as xenophobic); and nationality, which is much the same as the linguistic equating. Thus, “race” no longer has to be regarded as immutable, but including things that are changeable. One can always learn a new language, drop or exchange your former religion, or change your nationality. But the Left will insist that to ask immigrants to do so, much less demand it, is inherently racist.

Clem Alford
Clem Alford
3 years ago
Reply to  Tom Krehbiel

When UK gets Sharia, as it surely will as the demographic proves it, then the left will be the first in line to get dhimmied, or worse if they don’t submit. The Jizya tax will only be a start. Please read the Koran, Hadiths and Sunnah. They are up against the Salafist House of Saud and its massive oil wealth and plans for a global Umma.

Brian Dorsley
Brian Dorsley
3 years ago
Reply to  Elise Davies

Similarly if everything is ‘structurally racist’ then it means that any situation can be simply explained away.

Another, far more sinister, aspect to this is that any opposition can be labelled racist, and therefore silenced and condemned. Under the moral supremacy of progressives anyone deemed a racist (a term now so watered down as to be rendered meaningless), deserves all the bad things they get.

Clem Alford
Clem Alford
3 years ago
Reply to  Elise Davies

What is racist about the indigenous white working class protesting about a government that does nothing about illegal and legal immigrants taking their jobs at much lower pay rates and conditions given by unscrupulous bosses who don’t care if their workers sleep 10 in a room and would rather they didn’t have a trade union.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

Mr Starmer was a rather nasty head of CPS and he and his successor brought in this subjective justice system. Once the main institutions have been infiltrated it doesn’t matter who is voted in -so actually Labour has been in charge for about 50 years?

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

??

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

Woman,aged 23,for no reason ‘glassed’ a complete stranger in a pub,causing him both physical and mental anguish. She has been given a suspended sentence.A man would have been sent to jail. Isn’t it called the long march through the institutions-universities especially but education in general , justice system ,organizations used to be ‘old-fashioned; ie National Trust now have the same trendy agenda.

Clem Alford
Clem Alford
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

Starmer did nothing for the child victims of the peodophile Muslim grooming gangs and Savile scandal when he was the CPS director. Political career was more important. His excuse ‘insufficient evidence’. Funny how everyone else knew. T.R. Times correspondent and other agencies and of course the parents who called for action. All the police and social services knew but did nothing.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Clem Alford

Starmer may have his faults – but if the police didn’t investigate (and you say they did nothing), how could the DPP bring a case?

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

That’s a link to an opinion piece that contains only the opinion of the person writing it. No evidence.

L Paw
L Paw
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Writing in The Guardian, the mouthpiece of everything left, so it must be true…
You said Lady Nugee (Thornberry) for a reason, she proved in her tweet her white English hating credentials.

Jacqueline Heath
Jacqueline Heath
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

I don’t think you realise how racist your statement is. Either you believe the people of colour in the Labour Party are racist so you are preemptively excluding them from the analysis you request or you believe only white people can be racist – which is empirically not the truth – and which is itself a racist stance.There’s nothing in the human psyche world-wide that actively prevents racism from taking hold in any culture if the person’s upbringing or adult biases enable it.
Additionally you seem fairly sure that people who are tempted to reply to your challenge will be unable to find a white xenophobic close minded person which actually says a lot of positive things about that demographic of the Labour party. Perhaps that section of the Labour Party is the least racist? Then again, perhaps you are forgetting the antisemitism scandals that are, after all, only a few months in the past. Do they not count as racism in your eyes?
Finally I’m unsure why Emily Thornberry is to be excluded from the list, she’s still a Labour MP. The Labour Party have not disavowed her which also says a lot about them.
I think you are trying to place the goal posts of this conversation in such a way that no-one can actively reply and therefore you can feel vindicated. Don’t bother; racism is wrong in whatever guise it strikes in whatever party or sphere of life it manifests itself. But then, so is being an apologist for it and so is attempting to manipulate a conversation so that people engaged in an honest discussion of racism are silenced before they even get started.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago

Mark thinks that whether something is racism or not depends on the race of the racist.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago

I’m confused. I asked a question, I didn’t make a statement. I asked for evidence of the Labour Party  ‘presenting England as full of racist, xenophobic close minded white people’ the bit in italics was a quote from Vikram. How was my question racist?
Emily Thornberry made her comments over six years ago and lost her place in the shadow cabinet as a result. She was, in effect, disciplined.
Of course, anti-semitism is racism. And there have been some appalling examples of it within the Labour Party. What connection does that have with my question?

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Try Teachers Preaching ”White privilege” rubbish to Infants!

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Robin Lambert

Again, evidence?

Paul Goodman
Paul Goodman
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

I think you will find that in asking for evidence you are deigning somebody’s lived experience.

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Try news item on wednesday April 7…Also Many Zero hours Jobs, have Units on ”Unconscious bias” and ”prejudice” etc if that isn’t brainwashing jiggerywokery I dont know what is?..

Fennie Strange
Fennie Strange
3 years ago
Reply to  Robin Lambert

‘Jiggerywokery’ – I love it! Thanks Robin, now all I need is an opportunity to use it! 🙂

Last edited 3 years ago by Fennie Strange
Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Robin Lambert

Evidence, please.

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

see Above clone/clown…

Lydia R
Lydia R
3 years ago
Reply to  Robin Lambert

I think there’s a strong case for saying this school is creating a hostile environment for white children and it’s time organisations promoting this stuff are taken to court.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

They can’t, because such evidence does not exist. They are culture warriors fighting clouds.

Ian Moore
Ian Moore
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

Recent article on school children being taken to National Trust sites and encouraged to write (often false) narratives on how the owners/founders of said sites were racist, and/or profiteers from things such as slavery.

David Stanley
David Stanley
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Clive Lewis likened those who wrote the recent report to the KKK.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  David Stanley

No, he implied that the report’s portrayal of the extent of racism in the UK was as absurd as the KKK denying they were a racist organisation.

David Stanley
David Stanley
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

In that case he is comparing the UK as a whole to the KKK which just proves my point even more.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

No, Mark. They just make it up and lose the thread…..

Jonathan Weil
Jonathan Weil
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Didn’t David Lammy compare Brexiteers unfavourably to Naz!s a while back?

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan Weil

Maybe you’re thinking of Brexiteers comparing the EU to the third Reich? Actually, comparing people to Nazis is rarely helpful, unless they actually are. And nine times out of ten, they are not.

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul N
Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

Yes but Abwehr Members Joined Iron&steel community in 1952 ,Read ”The great deception” and ”The tainted source” stop being dopey &open your eyes

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Robin Lambert

What are you talking about? The Iron and Steel Community was joined by European States in the aftermath of WW2, to integrate those sectors and reduce the likelihood of conflict. It was not open to individuals – whether or not they had served in German Military Intelligence during the war. Besides, Germany was subject to fairly intensive de-nazjfication after the war, and the new government was decidedly not a continuation of the previous one.

Martin Price
Martin Price
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Mark, I notice from your comments over recent months that you often ask for evidence when people express opinions that disagree with your own. This is not a bad thing, but do you not also have eyes?

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Martin Price

I do have eyes And I’m aware that we all see things differently. I want to understand why and how people see things differently. First step is to try and find out where the information people are basing their opinions on is coming from. Hence the request for evidence to support statements that read as statements of fact but are actually opinion. I’m sure I’m guilty of making opinions sound like facts, too. But I try and come up with examples or evidence if I’m claiming to be making a statement of fact or interpretation.

Last edited 3 years ago by Last Jacobin
Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Some people cannot differentiate between evidence, and opinions and assertions, which are opinions expressed with such force and conviction, that the speaker or writer hopes what they say will materialize out of the ether.

John Gleeson
John Gleeson
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Nearly every lefty/remainer type is as oblivious to anything outside of their secular religious political cult as a narcissist or psychopath is to the thoughts and feelings of others and genuinely empathising with others.
That’s not hyperbole. They really do not see, observe, acknowledge, comprehend, recognize anything outside of their bubble, that the rest of us see around us as clear as day, round the clock, year in year out. It’s a collective pathology, and let be real, a collective mental illness all thi extreme identity politics, racist woke shit.
They never listen or read an opposing view point or argument objectively to gain even one ounce of understanding of them before acting the expert on the subject, and outright dismissing anything opposite to their brainwashed ideology on its face (just look at the reaction to race report the other day).
Years on from Brexit and many still ask, in all insincerity, ”give me just one fact, argument or reason for leaving the EU that isn’t a lie”. BBC, Channel 4 and the rest have no left/woke/sjw/remainer bias, to them they’re all in bed with the Tories. They think you’re mad and can’t comprehend you’d have any proof to give (which they’d instantly find some delusional lie to dismiss without giving it a second look anyway).
They demand evidence for such things like Richard Dawkins does with religious people, in the full expectation they’ll never receive it as it obviouly doesn’t exist in reality.
They’ve dumfounded me for years, and they always will. How can all these people who simply hold a set of political beliefs in common all have the same personality traits? Traits that are as abnormal as any of the main major personality disorders they mirror so closely.

I agree with most of the liberal principle and a lot of left-wing policies. But I’ve rarely ever met a Lefty/remainer who wasn’t genuinely unable to understand or comprehend that people think differently to them. Or that acknowledging that and seeking to undertand the real reason why does not make them evil, or mean they are committing some unspeakably depraved act by listening to the reasoning of others with different views.
I just don’t get how holding a set of principles I myself hold in many areas, has so incapacitated their cognition, perspective, world-view and morality so perverely and in such totality, that they lose their on individuality and just have the same hive mind that is a predictable as the most basic computer program.

Last edited 3 years ago by John Gleeson
John Hunter
John Hunter
3 years ago
Reply to  John Gleeson

I’m still waiting for one EU law and one tangible benefit! 🙂

John Gleeson
John Gleeson
3 years ago
Reply to  John Hunter

Tragic. Observe at the pride with which this man said something so embarrassing and shameful.
You just loudly declared ”I can’t and won’t think for myself. I refuse”. Well done.
There is a reason Britain is the most historically accomplished nation on earth. The majority refused to be brainwashed, belittled, talked down to, dictated to, cowed, manipulated, made to feel ashamed of their heritage, frightened into going along with the 1%’s exclusive interest in their wealth and the profitablity of their portfolios, companies, vested interests and other investment.
You’re proud a punch you did succumb and did abdicate your own thinking on the subject. I don’t know why, John. But you are.
It’s so ludicrous and ridiculous to see people so propagandized and programmed to hate and dehumanize other people that their brain is genuinely unable to compute that 17 million people were anything other than completely backwards. That they voted to leave without one decent reason or tangible benefit, despite having been exposed to many many argument and reasons for leaving over the years. And we now live in a society where there are million of John Hunters, who seem to think that if they don’t agree with the reason other people give for why they think or voted the way they did, then they don’t have any.
I will never ever again post on political comment thread in my life after this as I never again want to encounter people who boast about stuff like thi and revel in such idiocy, if I can possibly help it.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  John Gleeson

I’m genuinely trying to get beyond that. From your post I can see you’re frustrated lefties don’t ‘get it’ but it would help me if you explained what I don’t get.

Brian Dorsley
Brian Dorsley
3 years ago
Reply to  John Gleeson

Brilliant comment. It’s almost like they want racism to exist so that they can go around ‘bible-bashing’ others. I call them moral supremacists, because they’re just as bad as, perhaps even worse than, racial supremacists.

John Gleeson
John Gleeson
3 years ago
Reply to  Brian Dorsley

After more than a decade spending more mental energy on trying to understand these truly unhinghed, malicious, obnoxious, hate-filled, racist, intolerent, bigoted, thick-as-shit, hypocritical, delusion, warped people and their endless capacity to sow hatred and division in a way that only truly deviant people with severe personality disorders (narc, sociopaths, pychos, anti-social personality) do, the only answer that always make sense is that leftism/progressivism/wokeism/remainerism (its all the same thing), is simply the ideal – and probably the only ostentatiously social acceptable – way people can act and exert superiority and mental, physical and emotional dominion over other people.

That is all they are about. That is the alpha and the omega of absolutely every single thing they do. It’s to exert their perceived ‘moral superiority’ over other people, thereby gaining power and feeling good about themselves.

You reminded that is why they always fabricate and create an out-group to demonize in every single circumstance. Then use that supposed ills of that group as the reason for why they are so incredibly odious, having been so disgusted by the ‘moral depravity’ of the demonised group they are being thoroughly revolting, depicable human beings only because they are so virtuous, decent and superior in every way.

They really are a scary, callous, inhumane group of bullies, abusers, sadist, narcissists, deviants, pervs and run the whole gamut of maladaptive, unpleasant human characteritics, all hiding behind a nice, respectable facade.

Zorro Tomorrow
Zorro Tomorrow
3 years ago
Reply to  John Gleeson

Easier to say cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias. There are at least two on this thread who suffer. To most sensible, not particularly political people, this kneeling support of LGB whatever and of relatively recent minorities for votes blind sides the fact UK is 88% WASP (whose opinion should not count but does). As we’ll probably see in Hartlepool, even if the Labour Remainer parachuted in contender scrapes in, it will send Starmer a clear message. Resign, you’re not wanted mate.

John Gleeson
John Gleeson
3 years ago
Reply to  Zorro Tomorrow

It would have been. But for me, the main thing is who programmed them with those things and why. Not to mention their maladies go beyond just a few fallacies to something far deeper and more sinister. The hate and abuse unleashed on Leavers was insane.
Plus with Leave you knew who was who and why the were saying what they were.
You have 17 million odd remainers who just got drip-feed Project Fear doomsday scenarios from people in lofty positions in big multi-nationals and banks and just blindly followed these people based on arguments from authority, particularly J.O.B and other remainer ‘thought-leaders’ and who never questioned their own side at any stage or enquired any deeper.

The definition of sheep. Those posters you mentioned shouldn’t even be posting on Unherd. It goes everything these mindless, unthinking, lickspittle, establisment bootlicking herd-followers represent.

William Harvey
William Harvey
3 years ago
Reply to  John Gleeson

I agree with a of that except “They shouldn’t post on unherd”. I actually want more of them to write on here
so as to prevent this also becoming just an echo chamber. You have to consider all sides. Not everything the left argues for is wrong and not everything the right argues for is wrong either

John Gleeson
John Gleeson
3 years ago
Reply to  William Harvey

I agree with the principle you are getting at. But you’ve misunderstood my reasons for saying that. I didn’t mean to imply no-one with opposing voices shouldn’t post here. The articles here are a mix of all viewpoints, all intelligently written, whether I agree with them or not, and it is a place that is designed to harbour diversity of thought of real substance and intelligence. It’s not a an echo chamber like the Guardian to begin with, so these imbeciles aren’t going against one set ideology here in the first place (but leftists never get that point in the main, because anyone who disagree with them are all put in the same box. It’s them who create the false dichotomy, not me).
But these guy are the typical internet trolls, completely brainwashed and are clearly unable to form a thought of their own violotion.
There’s a massive difference between opposing views and honest debate around that and people who come here just to attack, bait, goad, troll and abuse others whose only crime is to think for themselves and differently from the narrative they’ve themselves been brainwashed into.
If you think the guys I’m referring to are here for honest, constructive debate rather than those things I mentioned, then either out of the 100 or so posts I’ve seen from them I’ve messed all the intelligent, genuine ones, or we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that matter.

Michael Cooper
Michael Cooper
3 years ago
Reply to  John Gleeson

Oh dear this has become a rant and you have fallen into the same trap as those you accuse. Sad you started out well.

John Gleeson
John Gleeson
3 years ago
Reply to  Michael Cooper

No. I didn’t fall into any trap. If you mean the trap that William Harvey talked about anyway. I’ve clarified what I meant.
I’m not a de-platforming mong. I just meant they have got this place wrong. And in customary fashion too, because the notion that there are people that exist who don’t fit into the little black and white schism they operate under is alien to these people. You either think the correct way (which is to conform precisely and identically to their every thought, decree and dictum), or you think incorrectly. I.E, you’re a racist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, nationalist, blah, blah, blah.

This place in anethema to them. They are here in the same way IS are to ancient monuments that pre-date Islam, in that it’s a heresy to them. It’s the wrong place for them because it wasn’t created so everyone could stick to the same group-think, which is what they want.

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  John Gleeson

16.3 Million Remain 17.4 leave

John Gleeson
John Gleeson
3 years ago
Reply to  Robin Lambert

What point are you trying to make?

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  John Gleeson

Probably that lots of people voted, or that it was quite a close vote. He could even be pointing out that there was no “how hard do you want your Brexit” question.
It’s hard to tell.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  John Gleeson

I’m not sure it’s the principles held by “left wing” people that makes them “oblivious to anything outside of their… [viewpoint]” (for at least some on the left, at any rate). I suspect it’s exactly the same reason that makes some right wing people “genuinely unable to understand or comprehend that people think differently to them” or “lose their on individuality and just have the same hive mind”. I’ve seen these phenomena on both sides of the aisle.
Zorrow Tomorrow nailed it: “cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias”. Or, possibly, “human nature”.

John Gleeson
John Gleeson
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

The idea that ‘both sides are just as bad’ is false in from the perspective of the big picture. And it’s usually only Leftists or those that lean that way say it.
I’ve yet to see one exhibit some sort of understanding when they get criticized that the person offering the criticism is not automatically a right-winger that represents everything they hate. And by extension is only saying what they are because they are on the right and have an ideology of their own, and therefore can dismissed instantly.
It’s usually used as a knee-jerk rebuttal that stops them even reflecting on their on behavior for an instance (something, due the inherent religiousity and conviction that what they believe is THE Ultimate Truth, they don’t do). But in this case you’ve just made a good point with truth in it, and I don’t take for that kind of idiot. I just think you miss the profound difference between the two political positions.
Leftism today has become a secular religion made up by academics in classes like Gender studies’ and ‘Queer study’ classes, the social ‘sciences’, African-American studies, or derived from devout Marxist who expanded the ideology beyond just economic oppression. Me, me, me subjective subjects posing as real scientifically validated subjects, rather than the tragic historical trauma in some cases, and just the hate-filled, bigoted, intolerant neurosis and resentment in the other cases.
It’s nothing like the old Labour movement. And it’s way beyond just a set of political preference for how the government do things that most people in this country who voted for the Conservatives hold.
Of course, people in general can exhibit all the cognitive distortions of those people under the sway of some doctrinaire, fundamentalist, man-made cult ideology, cult or religion. But such people are generally acknowledged to have some sort of personality disorder that makes relating to other people and having an accurate perpective of the world impossible.
Not all the Left are like that, of course, just most today in the age of Wokism and all the other ism’ these people create non-stop.
I deplore the most widepread form of Leftism today not because I’m a right-winger (to whom they attribute every known evil) but because I know rigid ideology makes free-thinking, skilled, and comprehensive cognition impossible. And out of decency, humanity, genuinely seeing beyond race and other factors, out out logic, reason, rationality, love for evidence and empiricism, genuine liberal principle and because facts and reality matter.
The opposite of the Left today. Yet that doesn’t stop their delusion in thinking they tsand for all those things.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  John Gleeson

We can at least agree on this:

 rigid ideology makes free-thinking, skilled, and comprehensive cognition impossible

well, difficult, at least. So w have some common ground. And this is true whether it’s a doctrinaire right wing refusal to contemplate state intervention, a fanatical devotion to and trust in Trump, or a “progressive” who believes that only white people can be racist, or a leftist who is committed to the teachings and methods of Leon Trotsky. You even see it in the Covid/Vax/Lockdown debate.
I’ll grant that there is sometimes more emphasis on the left on purity of doctrine – they share that with Evangelical Christianity – and that may explain the number and depth of the splits in both movements.
But dogmatism and refusal to think knows no party political barriers, sadly.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  John Gleeson

On the specific point of Brexit-related blind spots, I get that leaving the EU will allow a more sensible and sustainable approach to agriculture than the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (if we chose to fund it properly, which government announcements so far suggest we may not). I get that it could allow a fairer immigration policy – in that we need no longer discriminate against Asian or African migrants (though I’m not sure that’s what the plurality of Brexit voters actually “voted for” – and it seems that, as Mrs May implied, our business sector will continue to demand high inward migration, so the “Britain is full” community may not be happy either). I get that we can now lower workers protections and reach trade deals that allow lower food and safety standards for imports, and thereby lower costs to UK industry and help exports to non-EU markets (though EU markets would be hit by tariffs if we do that – and I don’t think that’s the sort of “taking back control” most of us wanted).
But I struggle to see many concrete benefits to weigh against the loss of free movement rights and frictionless access to our nearest market. Perhaps, John, you have some specific benefits in mind?

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul N
John Gleeson
John Gleeson
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

”Well, yes, there is this reason, and that reason, and those other reasons, but they are not ‘concrete’ reasons. They are not reasons I agree with so they don’t count. Give me more reasons, and I’ll see if there are any that I’LL agree with.
There won’t be of course, because I’ve already sided with the global elite and they’ve made it very clear that under no circumtance am I to be reasonable or concede Brexit has any benefit at all and only financial arguments count as reasons.
But lets just pretend for a while until I instantly dismiss anything you put to me without giving it a moment’s thought and declare I was right all along that there is no evidence of any concrete reasons for why it could be a good thing – and again I win the argument for the millionth time. Please indulge me. Even just once. I want to know how the great James O’Brien, my hero and idol who taught me everything I know, feels on a regular basis when he performs the above routine and OWNS Brexiteer on his show. Must feel great being such an intellectual giant”.

I tell you what. You be the first one to show me you have a mind of your own and did you own research and analysis, and found concrete reasons that will remain true for eternity that leaving the EU was a disaster that will leave the UK worse off in more way than it will benefit from now until humanity is wiped out.

Show me that you differ from the Mighty J.O’B in getting your sources from places other than the purveyors of the what became known as the doomed Project Fear, which caused Jimbo and many other to have very real public mental breakdowns and many to become seriouly depressed and needing medical help. Only to turn out to be the biggest mountain of mendacious, dishonest bollocks ever foisted on the British public, but which remainers still don’t question. Still rely on. Still only talk about the red bus like absolutely demented fools.
And will continue to do that. Utterly brainwashed beyond help. You’re on the right side because the people you listen to those are mega-successful heads of business and commerce on the world stage. Not the thick working riff-raff who object to a world without borders immigration system which would make it harder for those oily profit-obsessed pychopaths in suits to move cheap third world labour around and exploit them, and save money on moving their goods across borders and don’t destroying the fabric of nations to do that.
Show me you’re one of the few that aren’t brainwashed and I’ll engage. Until then, no. I’ll not playing along with some tediously predictable remainer charade I’ve seen a thousand times, where they are not open to any new information or perpectives anyway, imply because you all fell for every argument from authority.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  John Gleeson

“Show me you’re one of the few that aren’t brainwashed and I’ll engage”

How concrete do you need your proof to be?
It’s almost like you think that if someone can differ from you it is because – unlike you – they are almost certainly brainwashed by some dark conspiracy. Disappointing.
One of my major reservations about Brexit was the strain and damage it would cause for the British Union itself. Taking (as it turned out) two of the UK’s constituent nations out of the EU against their will is bound to cause some level of disaffection with the whole enterprise. Particularly when Scotland was told to vote no to independence to guarantee their place in the EU. Then there are the particular difficulties in Northern Ireland, where border inspections on a porous 300+ mile border present… practical and political difficulties, and… health and safety issues – not to mention (in a province that is only part of the UK by the consent of its people) turning the status of the province from a very distant concern for the vast majority into a live political issue. All this before the shortcomings of the Boris deal and the NI protocol became apparent.
With that background, forgive me for wanting an actual concrete set of benefits to set against the (potentially fatal) damage to the country itself.
SO, once more – what ARE those benefits?

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul N
Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

With SARS2 disastrous effect on Employment,matey We dont Need Dinghy people or 30,000 Fruit pickers, there will be 2million unemployed……Ed davey,Keir Starmer,mark drakefool,nicola sturgeon are So Pi***poor Boris will get away ..unless before 2024 Gen Election he spirals in polls,As M.Thatcher did from June 1990 & Poll tax unpopularity ..replaced nov 22

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Robin Lambert

I’m not sure that 30,000 unemployed retail workers (or whatever they were doing before) about to be forced into seasonal labour picking fruit in the fields will see that as quite the sunny uplands they were promised – however much global warming we get this summer.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Replying to a stitch-up of a report, the response should have been” Let us now take a proper look at racism….”

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

I wonder why people downvote a person who requests evidence for an unsupported assertion? And how many downvotes I’ll get for asking that question?
If you have some evidence to contribute, go ahead. If you have nothing to contribute, jog on.

John Gleeson
John Gleeson
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

There are genuine calls for it, like yours, where you have conducted yourself respectfully, acknowledged certain things so as to show you are worth being taken seriously (whether that is just a clever ploy or not I don’t know, but the occurrence of remainers who haven’t been poisoned to acutely depise, belittle and dehumanise leavers in the most degrading way is very low).
And then there are the calls from abhorrent, anti-social, malice-filled trolls who, like Germans under the Nazi given free-reign by their superiors to unleash the full-force of their prejudices towards designated groups, have launched themselves into doing that non-stop for years on end.
It goes without saying the context was different, as was the extremes to which they were permitted to take it. But the incitement to turn one group against the other and whip up hatred for the purposes of acheiving the aims of those in authority was just a calculated and deliberate, and many of the same methods were used.
Of course that waitrose masses, inbetween the mega-rich billionaires at the top who run the show, and the working class ‘underneath them’, whom they despise with a hatred that goes deep into pychopath territory, didn’t need a second invitation.
Frankly leavers are sick of the most enthusiatic and unhinged of that groups’ continued goading and trolling using James O’Brien’s tiresome negative hallucination, ideological blindness schtick.
In truth, everyone should have gone and done their own objective research. In most cases evidence is arrogantly and delusionally demanded by ignorant types who got all their bias info from their own echo-chamber. And who are asking rhetorically as they don’t expect to see any evidence, simply because the people they follow and who do their thinking for them dismissed it all when it was presented to them using certain dishonest tactics and just the most disgusting, haughty dismissals ever seen.
Yet, these types have no idea they’ve been subjected to the most successeful mass-media hate campaign every inflicted on the British public by the neo-liberal, predatory capitalist global order (and they are still proud socialist in some cases). They genuinely think they’re on the side of facts and evidence. People here are mart enough not to take them seriously. They are loathed for being utterly loathsome.This site’s demographic is people who aren’t the easily brainwashed type who outsource their own research, analysis, thinking and world-views to others completely, so don’t fall for idiotic baiting ploys and mocking condescension easily. That is what you are seeing there. Not people who can’t provide evidence if they think the other person is worth taking seriously.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  John Gleeson

Thanks… I think.

F Mcallister
F Mcallister
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

What, you mean the same Labour Party that tried to ban White people from a conference based on their skin colour? We, the people, will take no lectures from these Marxist bigots on ‘prejudice’.

David J
David J
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

My ex for one, who would argue the Lady Nugee line until she ran out of breath. And don’t get me started on the ex’s historically-illiterate views of Empire and Royalty.

Mud Hopper
Mud Hopper
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

‘That Photograph’ was enough for me. Add to that the periodic ravings of the likes of Abbot and Lammy, and there you have it.

John Smith
John Smith
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Once again you are playing your “where’s the evidence” card. Are you really so unaware and ill informed? Some recent examples of labour UK/whites are racist chanters: Lisa Nandy MP, Neil Coyle MP, Pat Glass MP, Dawn Butler MP, Diane Abbott MP, Nadia Whittington MP, David Lammy MP, keir Starmer MP etc. Etc. Etc.

Oh yes and Emily Thornberry as well.

Last edited 3 years ago by John Smith
Simon J Hassell
Simon J Hassell
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

Beautifully put indeed!

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

I am sure you are right, but the politics of envy has baseline support of about 30% of the vote. So they only need to sway about another 10% to be in with a shout.
The other vice besides envy that pushes people to vote Labour is hate. Labour supporters in the House, the press, and on social media all imagine that the more vicious the hate they express, the more people they are persuading. Other people in the echo chamber applauding their hate encourages them in this. Of course the opposite is true. Voters like cheery and amiable, not hate-filled and envious, which Blair understood but few others of the left do, fortunately.

Last edited 3 years ago by Jon Redman
Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

What on earth is this “politics of envy” stuff?

Mark H
Mark H
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

What the Aussies call “cutting down the tall poppies” – i.e devoting political energy to pulling down those who have for whatever reason done well in life.
A classic example being the destruction of the grammar school system.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark H

I thought it was a term used by the wealthy to describe anyone who challenges their right to be wealthy?

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Yes, it is. Like the faux patriotism the right of this this country specializes in ( subsidized by Russian oligarch contributions to the Tories’), it is an old saw for the gullible and uncaring.

Zorro Tomorrow
Zorro Tomorrow
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

Pair of stupid lefties. Nobody cares about your lazy bearded scrounger from the 1860s, other than the blood on his hands.

Andrew Lale
Andrew Lale
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark H

Do you think that Karl’s question was a genuine in-good-faith question? You so silly.

Last edited 3 years ago by Andrew Lale
Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Lale

It was serious. I did not expect a sensible or credible answer.
I still wait….

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark H

As a grammar school boy, I can cheerfully say that their loss is no tragedy. The real tragedy is that privately educated politicians insist that public education be done as much as possible, on the cheap.
And as “cutting down the tall poppies”, it give a gardener a job!

Daniel Goldstein
Daniel Goldstein
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

A tired old right-wing trope.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

“The other vice besides envy that pushes people to vote Labour is hate.”

There are good and bad (ethically speaking) reasons for voting for most parties.
Left wing voters may be motivated by “envy” or “hate”, as you suggest. Or by love, sympathy or concern for the poor whom they see being let down by the right. They may be motivated by justice for those they see as economically or otherwise oppressed.
Right wing voters may also be motivated by justice – believing that those who have done well are entitled to the rewards of their success. Or by ambition, hoping they too can benefit from opportunity. Or by concern for especially their more affluent and law-abiding fellow citizens. On they other hand, they may be motivated by selfishness and an unwillingness to pay any more than they must in taxes to support those less well off, or by racism which they rationalise (or don’t) as “Britain is full” or Group X is feckless or criminal or extremist or unpatriotic.
As I said – good and bad reasons. Wasn’t it Trump who said something about many good people on both sides? Why the urge to demonise those who disagree with you?

Michelle Johnston
Michelle Johnston
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

Wow you just lit up my day so on point.

Aden Wellsmith
Aden Wellsmith
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

The problem is that with its rejoin the EU idea, the Labour party members have just expressed their white supremacist racist credentials.
It’s just that they are unconscious white supremacist racists.
Let me explain why. They will openly say that women are discriminated against because they statistically earn less.
The EU is statistically white. India for example is statistically brown. They want rules where white EU gets special treatment compared to brown India.
They are the racists.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Aden Wellsmith

Eh? Could you explain that again, please?

Mark H
Mark H
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

Maybe just read the post again – it’s perfectly clear.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark H

But not in the strictly statistical sense.

John Gleeson
John Gleeson
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

Jesus. All it would take for you to cure yourself would be through an encounter with someone identical to you in pychological make-up. Even just once.
You’d be face to face with a delusional, vomit-inducing cretin so obnoxious and with such an alarmingly unwarranted sense of his own intellectual grandiosity and moral supremacy compared to anyone who differs from his infantile Paul Mason/Owen Jones student leftism, you’d never want to appear to be remotely similar to such a collosal arse of a human being ever again. You’d be cured instantly.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Aden Wellsmith

There is a kind of logic in that. The EU has rules allowing free movement for members and most members are white and on averge wealthier than many non-EU members.
The Tories want rules where rich people from anywhere get special treatment and poor people aren’t allowed in. Most poor people in the world are black or brown.
Both policies are racist. Immigration controls, per se, are racist in that they remove rights to people based on their place of birth – the people are pre-judged, the policies are prejudicial.
So it just becomes a matter of deciding which version of racism you support. The one that removes the additional wealth qualification to immigration or the one that doesn’t.

Jonathan Weil
Jonathan Weil
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Discriminating according to race is racist. Discriminating according to some other trait, that incidentally captures more or less of a given race than another…? If that’s racist, then *everything is racist*, unless or until we live in a world where all traits are equally distributed across all races.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan Weil

That holds true if the trait is ‘size of earlobe’ but not if the trait is ‘access to inherited wealth’ if inherited wealth is a consequence of a historically racist society. I’m not talking specifically about slavery here or deliberate discrimination. But deliberate discrimination, added to the ‘affinity bias’ of those with power (to use the term of the Govt report on racism) added to benefits of inherited wealth can result in fewer opportunities for some racial groups than others. That’s systemic racism as I see it.

Alan Hawkes
Alan Hawkes
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

This is also an interesting comment on the BBC.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

I wish somebody would explain this stupid, lame idea of ” the politics of envy”, which some people seem to swear by. It’s just nonsense to most people.

Don Jujanas
Don Jujanas
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

In short, it’s the idea that if other people are doing better than you, there must be some immoral or unjust reason behind this eventuality, so therefore we should make those successful people less wealthy and/or less powerful. I am not poor but have not succeeded particularly, and I think that taking money off those who have done better than me is immoral, cruel and stupid.

Last edited 3 years ago by Don Jujanas
Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Don Jujanas

Isn’t the flip side of that to believe that people worse off than you are somehow immoral or less worthy? Sometimes rich people are just lucky and poor people are unlucky. The greatest indicator of future wealth is the wealth of an individual’s parents – not that individual’s inherent merit.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Don Jujanas

Life is more complicated than that.
And opportunity is not evenly spread.
I believe it is best summed up by the observation that;
” In the presence of successful men, it is not polite to talk of luck”.

Zorro Tomorrow
Zorro Tomorrow
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

It’s the dog in the manger thing. The dog doesn’t eat hay but doesn’t want anyone else to have it. Not everyone can have a Rolls Royce so nobody can have one. A billionaire can share his money out with a million people and they get £1000 each or: he builds a £200 million factory, employing builders etc and then employs a 100 people for say 10 years, paying them wages for as long as demand for the product lasts. A socialist government will employ additional civil servants to administer it, who produce nothing. They will not run it efficiently tying it up with red tape and the product will be badly made and too expensive. Why socialism is a sh#t system.

Chris Mackay
Chris Mackay
3 years ago
Reply to  Zorro Tomorrow

I think the first part of this comment is well put. As to the second part I would comment that governments of all persuasions will occupy the regulatory space inappropriately.
The dysfunctional element in all governments is their unaccountability when it comes to regulation, which they all consider negatively so as to ensure the safety of those they rule, which they equate with oversight of industry (productive enterprises) every step of the way. Hence the propensity of bureaucracies in government to grow their presence in any sphere. In so doing they create overheads, many of which are unnecessary, whilst others are – OH&S for example.
Hence the observation about expense. Industrial enterprises are not exempt from creating their own inefficiencies, however, they do not need another layer imposed by government. Doubling down on unnecessary expense so to speak.
Let us discuss the failure of government more generally, without the political element which is most often used as a weapon to deflect understanding of issues by appealing to one or another belief (communism v capitalism etc.) not shared by others.

Malcolm Powell
Malcolm Powell
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

A great analysis and summary.Lets hope Starmer will see it

Scott Carson
Scott Carson
3 years ago
Reply to  Malcolm Powell

If he sees it, rest assured that he’ll ignore it.

Icarus none
Icarus none
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

Interesting that you bring up that Indian satellite, given the political aftermath of that celebratory moment. Within months of the launch in April 1975, a court voided the then Indian prime minister’s election to her parliamentary seat. She refused to step aside, instead arresting opposition leaders for failing to support the national priorities. She was voted out two years later. I wonder if the farmer could see if her star had drifted off course.

michael harris
michael harris
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

A wonderful story of the satellite, Vikram. I forget the exact lines, but wasn’t it Oscar Wilde…’we are all lying in the ditch but some of us are looking at the stars’. Properly quoted I hope that gets rendered into Bhojpuri.

Fred Atkinstalk
Fred Atkinstalk
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

This is an excellent comment. However is it not absolutely appalling that you are applauding a member of the underclass for ‘knowing his place’ rather than wondering why a society which squanders unfathomable riches on useless high tech rather than on building an infrastructure (eg sewers.)

I don’t think the farmer is an example of self reliance and pride : I think he is contemptible.

hugh bennett
hugh bennett
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

In 3 paragraphs you sum up much. You make a powerful point in your last sentence… Labour / the Left just doesnt yet fully understand ( or maybe is unwilling to smell the coffee) the way increased numbers working people are now self-employed or work in small businesses. These people work hard, take risks, think differently - they dont want to be patronised by an out-dated Unionised dogma. Rather, they need encouragement,respect and “grown-up” support. Finally, it is a shame that many of the responses to your comments descended into a playground, ” my dad is richer than your dad” rant by some contributors.

Chris Scott
Chris Scott
3 years ago

Go to the labour party website and there is a Let’s Vaccinate Britain campaign and Meet Keir and nothing in the way if a manifesto or real policies. They’re an empty vessel, and echo chamber for the extreme left who knowing they are unlikely to win in democratic election have taken their distorted view of the world to institutions they infest. They are a metropolitan party now; a party who consider the twenty-first century working class ignorant and racist; they despise patriotism and pride in one’s country. In fact they appear to hate it. They will never win another general election unless they begin to tackle economic and educational inequalities across all demographics within in UK.

M Dibley
M Dibley
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris Scott

Why would they need a manifesto a good four years before the country goes to the ballot box? You don’t write and publish policy four years in advance. Nobody does this.

Last edited 3 years ago by M Dibley
Chris Scott
Chris Scott
3 years ago
Reply to  M Dibley

How do you know, you won’t have a general election sooner? A political party having no manifesto or opinion is sloppy and shortsighted. Maybe this is their problem.

Mark Stone
Mark Stone
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris Scott

The fixed parliament act.

Mel Shaw
Mel Shaw
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark Stone

About to be abolished and toothless anyway in present circumstances.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark Stone

For which the Tory manifesto had a commitment to repeal.

Chris Hopwood
Chris Hopwood
3 years ago
Reply to  M Dibley

………………and the Tories would happily pinch the best policies from it

Colin Shingler
Colin Shingler
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris Hopwood

Thats the best one today. Do you write comedy scripts cos freind you have a flair for it.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Colin Shingler

Boris starts his Covid Briefing questions with a couple from members of the public.
He pinched that idea from Jeremy Corbyn.
You obviously have no need to wise up on the funnies……

Leon Wivlow
Leon Wivlow
3 years ago
Reply to  M Dibley

Can you list any of Labour’s policies?

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Leon Wivlow

Not enough space here for the 2017 manifesto, but by far, much was very popular with the public.
As for 2019, I believe Boris is toying with the idea of much, much wider, better broadband.
Very prescient, that.

Last edited 3 years ago by Karl Greenall
Leon Wivlow
Leon Wivlow
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

So popular they still lost?

Jonathan Nash
Jonathan Nash
3 years ago
Reply to  M Dibley

The election is most likely to be in May 2023; even if the Tories choose to hold on to May 2024 (they certainly won’t go in December 2024), we are looking at either 2 or 3 years until the vote.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan Nash

The FTP requires that it be in May 2024. Why would Boris go for an election after only 3.5 years?

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

Er, how long between 2017 and 2019? And that was under the terms of the FTPAct?

Jonathan Nash
Jonathan Nash
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

I think the FTP would require it to be in Dec 2024, but that isn’t very relevant since it is likely to be abolished (a bill has been published). The thinking is that it has to be a May election rather than another winter election (of course), and that May 2023 will be optimal as the economy will still be feeling the effects of the post-pandemic surge. May 2024 is possible, but things are not likely to improve politically between May 2023 and May 2024.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan Nash

The FTP was a blatant bit of constitutional gerrymandering designed to prop up the coalition government because the members of it didn’t think it would last. In particular, the Lib Dems realised that by joining with the Tories they had blown any chance of an electoral future unless they got some kind of PR deal done. They then made a total mess of that. They were right about the damage aligning with the Tories did, though.

Jayne Lago
Jayne Lago
3 years ago
Reply to  M Dibley

No..”.but it will take a while for the red wall people to change their minds and vote Labour again. Labours boat has gone…….England is a very different place to when they were at their most successful. Of course there are still people struggling financially but over the years of my lifetime, I have seen many of the lower working classes move to the upper middle classes. The UK has had a boom time prior to the pandemic, yes some didn’t benefit from this but a huge amount of people did.Jeremy corbyns plan to attract the younger element was clever or at least they thought so. Activists like Owen (can’t remember his first name) who has been bleating about the Union Jack in recent days is typical of why Labour were swamped at the last election. Even now those same elements who are being wound up by academics (many of which did not originate here but came to our universities)) and students who are clearly easily influenced, will be alienating even more of the populace. It is true, the more they attack Boris Johnson the more he will survive and so will the Conservative party. I did write to a Labour MP just after the election of 2019 and make that statement and suggest they stop the bickering and constant criticism of Boris Johnson and start talking about positives for the future. She came back to me with “it’s my job to criticise the conservatives” which they are all still, doing daily. Rachael Reeves, Lisa Nandy, Clive Lewis, Jonathan Ashworth and more. Is it any wonder they are no further forward and I’m afraid relying on the youngsters will not get them far except into more trouble!

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  M Dibley

3 Years December 2024 latest ..

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris Scott

Not sure repeating opinion pieces from the Mail and The Telegraph adds much to the debate. That goes for the article and your comment. I thought Unherd was meant to be different.

Simon Denis
Simon Denis
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Challenging the left wing drivel of the BBC – 86% of all media output in the UK – and counter to the conformist left wing mindset of current institutions. So yes, it is different – and that is what authoritarian left wingers can’t bear. Even when they represent a crushing orthodoxy, they want to be regarded as “heretics”.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

If you believe that, I will have little problem selling you the Forth Bridge.
What number are you thinking?

Last edited 3 years ago by Karl Greenall
Mike Wylde
Mike Wylde
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

OK, how much? But I will need to part exchange a small bridge I have in San Francisco, will that be OK?

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Mike Wylde

Done!

Simon Denis
Simon Denis
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

I’d have thought most numbers beyond your comprehension.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

It depends on which numbers.

Phil Mac
Phil Mac
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

Did it really take you 4 hours to come up with that?

Ben Morris
Ben Morris
3 years ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

what a desperately small-minded take.

Simon Denis
Simon Denis
3 years ago
Reply to  Ben Morris

Oh, it’s you again; with more mindless abuse.

Terry Needham
Terry Needham
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

It is. You just don’t like what the world is telling you.
Your problem

Chris Scott
Chris Scott
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

I don’t read the mail. Why would you assume I read the Mail? I do read the Guardian and have seen the quality of journalism diminish over the last few years.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris Scott

Apologies. I meant the message could have come from the Opinion pieces in the Mail or DT. For example, no concrete evidence is ever provided that the Labour Party ‘consider the twenty-first century working class ignorant and racist’. It’s just repeated as if its a fact.

JR Stoker
JR Stoker
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

To accuse somebody of being a Mail reader is pretty rude!

William Cameron
William Cameron
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Sorry mark I have just spent a week being told by left wing Academia that I asm a racist gammon . So I won’t vote for labour if that what it says about me.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago

Labour does not refer to people as racist gammon.
I think I just saved your bacon.

Duncan Cleeve
Duncan Cleeve
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

Who does the word ‘gammon’ refer to? Does it refer to all races?

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Duncan Cleeve

I believe it refers to the round, ruddy cheeks of those enraged by political correctness, and other associated old saws.

John Gleeson
John Gleeson
3 years ago
Reply to  Duncan Cleeve

It’s a derogatory word used by fat, middle-class, balding white men exclusively toward other fat, middle-class white men who aren’t a cool, laid-back, intelligent and sexually accomplished as them becaue they aren’t left-ing and aren’t unfalteringly right-on and ‘politically correct’ as them.
It’s word they love using as it makes them feel oh so edgy, witty and uber-cool, like when you were a kid an first started to swear. Perfectly infantile, like them.
They also love using the obvious racial undertones derogatory of the white middle-class ‘cis male’ they depise so much in front of ‘people of colour’ and ‘bame’ people so as to showcase how awesome they are for being so woke and able to mock their own race.
Additionally it’s a way for them to ingratiate themselves with non-whites they are cravenly deperate to impress as in the Little Britain ‘my black friends’ sketch so they don’t feel so ‘nerdy and white’. Ugh, how naff and lame would that be? At heart it’s a word they contrived to signify they are different from the ‘uncool’ white people the so often physically resemble to a tee, the gammon who read the Mail and think immigration is out of hand and aren’t smart enough to see Stewart Lee is a comedy genius
Call a black man chalky in their presence and you’ll soon see one, as they descend into apopletic, virtue-signalling, SJW, politically correct rage and their face goes crimson.
I despise the loathome, posers who use the word.

Simon Newman
Simon Newman
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Lady Nugee & the England Flags?

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Simon Newman

Do you mean the BBC presenter and the Union Flags? Took me a while to figure it out.

Andrew Best
Andrew Best
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Diane Abbott
David lammy
Zarah sultana
Nadia Whittome
Emily thornberry
Any of these names strike a bell?
Any comments that have made?
Labour hates the white working class, they have shouted
Gammon
Racist
Xenophobic
Erc erc etc
But labour has never said anything about the working classes?

Peter de Barra
Peter de Barra
3 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Best

… and that Peterborough MP — possibly still in the Clink …

Colin Shingler
Colin Shingler
3 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Best

The biggest problem Labour always has is its hatred of aspiration. Every election the Tories emblazon this across their Manifesto. You want to buy a house we will help you. You want to run a business we will help you. Labour chants Brother we are going to bring in a Minimum wage and all will be paid this. The Rich will pay more tax. We are going to build more Council houses. We will give the worker equality. They forget to add Equality at the bottom is no good to anyone with aspirations.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Colin Shingler

It’s easy to put assertions together. Evidence and proof of a credible nature please.

John Nutkins
John Nutkins
3 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Best

Good list of loathsome left-wing louts with their ‘policies’. Could I add Dawn Butler to give further depth to the ignorance and stupidity of the group.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  John Nutkins

If you think most of those are not lackeys of Right Wing Starmer, I suggest your chippy stops wrapping in the Telegraph or Mail.
I won’t start on the much more loathsome and incompetent Tories’…

Andrew Best
Andrew Best
3 years ago
Reply to  John Nutkins

Yes you may!
There are so many of them they are just repellent

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Best

Ridiculous!
Labour is in the trouble it is these days because it goes out of it’s way to avoid the working class.

Andrew Best
Andrew Best
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

They can be rubbish In more than 1 way

Eleanor Barlow
Eleanor Barlow
3 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Best

Gammon is the progressive code word for what they think of as thick white working class Brexit supporters, but don’t want to come out with openly.
A bit like Islamophobia is code for ‘racist’ because they’re not sure of their ground in calling someone racist that happens to express opposition to Islam.
Middle class hypocrites all.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Eleanor Barlow

Not quite. It also includes those members of the middle class who associate with the regressive parts of the working class who are attracted to the extremist right.
Every class has it’s progressive and regressive parts. We must not forget this. It is an important point.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Best

21 likes for a list of names. You forgot Jo Cox.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

That’s ‘a bit below the belt’ Mark.

Weyland Smith
Weyland Smith
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

You missed Gordon Brown’s “some bigoted woman”?

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Weyland Smith

Yep. 11 years ago. Hardly a topical example of a response to BLM.

Phil Mac
Phil Mac
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

You seriously think he’s changed his mind since? That he was so far from the current state of the radical left speaks volumes.

Charlie Johnson
Charlie Johnson
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

On balance of probability it is just that! Or the fact that they went out of their way to obstruct a referendum result, spend their time dwelling on identity politics which by implication is a lecture to those who aren’t “on messenge” that they are indeed ignorant and racist.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Evidence is not a requirement these days, on the right.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris Scott

You ought to see those comics the Telegraph and the Mail…….

Mark H
Mark H
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

And the Guardian is just the lefty version of the same thing – each one pandering to their dwindling reader base.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark H

Yes, Mark. If I could, I would buy you a pint for that.
Total agreement.

tony deakin
tony deakin
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris Scott

Not until recently did I finally throw in the towel with The Guardian. Its days as a respectable centre-left voice are well behind it now, unfortunately.
I think the final straw for me was the original headline used in reference to Wiley posting anti-Semitic comments online.

Mark Stone
Mark Stone
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Yeah, this self congratulatory drivel is a bit dull. I’m surprised Starmer even bothers to get out of bed at the minute. He can only agree with Boris pandering to covid shriekers otherwise he really will be doomed.
Note to Ed. How about discussing the real here and now problems of our shell fish industry. British business really harmed by real events that we made. Slightly more challenging for you????

Last edited 3 years ago by Mark Stone
Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

UnHerd is an excellent platform, but some are standing too close to the edge…..
I prefer my spot by the buffet-bar!

Simon Denis
Simon Denis
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris Scott

This is a classic sign of a party about to collapse. If Starmer moves right on culture, to appease the old Red Wall, he’ll lose the bulk of his metropolitan support; if he goes all Corbyn, then the Red Wall is lost for good. Therefore, with lawyer’s caution, he does as little as possible. The Liberals were already in this position by the time of their great landslide in 1906 – which is a warning to complacent Johnsonites. But they ran a divided administration, inept in dealing with the crises of the day – Votes for Women, Ireland and, of course, the First World War. By 1910, their landslide majority had evaporated and they relied on nationalist Ireland, soon to secede. By the twenties, the Liberal Party was on the way down. At the same time, the Tories had moved to the centre, under the likes of Baldwin; but crucially they knew the difference between centre and left, whereas the shallow, unprincipled Johnson does not. Johnson’s ineptitude; his inability to keep the right on board; his serial dishonesty and cowardice are Labour’s last best hope.

Richard Starkey
Richard Starkey
3 years ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

If Starmer moves right on culture, to appease the old Red Wall, he’ll lose the bulk of his metropolitan support

In your view, to whom would the bulk of his metropolitan support transfer their support? A combination of Greens and Lib Dems?

Simon Denis
Simon Denis
3 years ago

Interesting question. I suspect Green, in the main. The temper of Metropolitan opinion is currently so hysterical and conformist that the extreme option is always considered the more honourable. And the Liberals are still hated for having supported Cameron’s Conservatives. Worse, in the demonology of resurgent Marxism, Liberalism is the ultimate hypocrisy. From the right’s point of view, the Liberal Party is weak and hypocritical precisely because it is NOT Liberal in any meaningful sense, so the idiots who run the show lose in both directions. That said, there may well be a greater number of non-Tory non-Leftists in London than confess themselves at dinner parties, and a “shy Liberal” vote may well blunt any putative Green triumph.

Richard Starkey
Richard Starkey
3 years ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

And an interesting answer! Thanks for your thoughts.

Simon Denis
Simon Denis
3 years ago

A pleasure. Many thanks for the discussion.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

Agree, it will be Green. They are Marxist wreckers, so the natural home for metropolitan liberals whose personal wealth rents them insulation from the consequences of their virtue-signalling.

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

Resurgent Marxism. ??
He never went away.

Last edited 3 years ago by Karl Greenall
Simon Denis
Simon Denis
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

He had his rump kicked black and blue by 1989, ducky.

Mark Gilmour
Mark Gilmour
3 years ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

True, Labour has placed itself in a bind. A party that could pose a real threat to the Tories would essentially be UKIP minus the Thatcherism; a more palatable BNP-lite.

Simon Denis
Simon Denis
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark Gilmour

Yes, but not minus the Thatcherism as far as some might think. After all, the heavy lifting of Thatcherism is done and remains in place – union law which prevents a closed shop, flying pickets and unballoted strikes. As for fiscal conservatism – the really unpopular part of the doctrine today – it remains necessary. Therefore the answer must be to slash those parts of the state which do not help and in fact hinder the working poor – the quangos, the bossy boots, the racial bean counters and tenured Marxist windbags. For at least ten years a right wing government could be patriotic and fiscally conservative by slimming down the numbers of the surveillance / propaganda state built by Blair and Brown.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

Cutting down on the quangos, local government, tenured windbags (whatever they are) etc. would potentially be popular but is largely symbolic as most spending is on benefits, health, defence, pensions and education.

Johnny Sutherland
Johnny Sutherland
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

It might also send a small signal to the wastrels that populate Government and Governmental organisations.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago

Small signal to the party faithful. The wastrels are in Government.

John Nutkins
John Nutkins
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark Gilmour

Agree, but why ‘minus the Thatcherism’? A great stateswoman, a leader, courageous, brilliant and good for the country – another PM like that is exactly what the country needs.

Colin Shingler
Colin Shingler
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark Gilmour

Its probably coming already aided and abetted by the left/woke. Tories have skimmed the top off the red wall a Lite/BNP would gobble up the ones who are left in the poorest drug riddled no go estates.

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark Gilmour

UKIP is a dead duck ,has been since 2015,general election high ..It made the mistake of Putting in ‘Cronies” in PPC ,and ignoring people who’d been building up a base for 10-15 years…Reform (Centre right) ..SDP (Centre left) are better bets..As are Independents…

Colin Shingler
Colin Shingler
3 years ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

Starmer is like Corbyn another fence sitter. He really thought bending the knee in submission was a smart move. Shows how dumb he really is.

Leon Wivlow
Leon Wivlow
3 years ago
Reply to  Colin Shingler

Corbyn wasn’t a fencesitter, I could tell you his policies. No idea what Starmer stands for. (Corbyn betrayed his principles when he adopted Labour’s bizarre policy on a second referendum. That surprised me).

Karl Greenall
Karl Greenall
3 years ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

Johnson has moved the Tories’ to the nationalist hard-right.
All the traditional Tories’ I know are now party-less.
The hard right have adopted a kind of Trumpism that looks plausible on the surface to those who do not take their politics seriously and seek simple, or rather simpleton solutions to their everyday problems.
However… Even Donald was found out and given the push.
We need a serious, committed social democratic party in this country to rescue it from the dogs and restore our place in the world as a beacon of wisdom and humanity.

Simon Denis
Simon Denis
3 years ago
Reply to  Karl Greenall

What utter bilge. Nationalist hard right, eh? With a few squeaks of criticism directed toward “BLM” in spite of repeated riot and vandalism? With extensions of so-called “anti-hate” legislation? With further bien pensant intrusions into liberty of conscience? Your attitude demonstrates just how it is that the left spirals into democidal madness – nothing is ever quite far enough away from “the right” for you. Not even the soppiest, dripping wet left liberalism on offer in the person on Johnson.