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Keir Starmer and the triumph of the middle class The Labour Party has never been socialist

Get back on the barricades. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Get back on the barricades. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)


January 16, 2024   5 mins

The Labour Party has a bad habit of losing elections, but its overall success canā€™t be doubted. Historically speaking, one of its functions has been to defuse working-class militancy by channelling it into parliamentary forms ā€” and at this, Labour has proved to be a past master.

If the British working class was more reformist than revolutionary, it was partly because of the lessons it drew from its social superiors. In France, a bloody revolution in 1789 helped to inspire the Paris Commune of 1871, in which butchers and bakers took over the running of the city. If lawyers, merchants and bankers could oust the nobility, then working people could overthrow these people in turn. The French governmentā€™s response to this social experiment was to slaughter large numbers of its participants.

In Britain, however, we do things rather differently. Here, the middle class seized political power without the need for an eye-to-eye confrontation with the aristocracy. On the contrary, it was shrewd enough to make use of that patrician culture to consolidate its own power. Church, monarchy, country estate, hierarchy and tradition werenā€™t so much abolished as appropriated, so that Penny Mordaunt could walk in stately fashion before the king at his coronation. Hence the image of the nation as wedded to compromise, moderation and the middle way. When in doubt, the British think of a pendulum. If truth exists at all, it exists somewhere in the middle, pitched prudently between extremes. If we change to driving on the right hand side of the road, we shall do so gradually.

And yet, there was nothing in the least moderate about the Highland clearances of the 18th century, the brutal industrial exploitation of Victorian England, or Britainā€™s later attempts to crush nationalist uprisings in Asia and Africa. But it suited our rulers to see themselves as temperate, pragmatic types, in contrast to the insurrectionary fanatics across the Channel. Extremists are always other people.

Unlike its French counterpart, then, the British working class inherited no revolutionary legacy from the middle classes. Even so, it wasnā€™t always as docile as some might have wished. When industrial agitation broke out on Merseyside in the early 20th century, gunboats entered the river Mersey with their weapons trained on Liverpool. The years surrounding the First World War were awash with working-class rebellion, a current which survived at least as far as the minersā€™ strike of the early Eighties.

Generally speaking, however, there is some truth in the claim that the British labour movement inherited a distaste for insurgency from those perched above it. If France had the Paris Commune, we had the Fabian Society. Mutiny in Britain sprang not so much from workers as from women. It was the Suffragettes, and the feminists who followed in their wake, who sustained the radical traditions of the nation. While socially ambitious workers were becoming respectable trade union officials, the Pankhursts and their progeny were being force-fed in prison and denounced as whores in the press.

It wasnā€™t that trade unionism was an easy option. The ferocity with which the British state tried to destroy such resistance makes for chilling reading. There were plenty of occasions when demanding a living wage meant risking serious injury, victimisation, deportation or even death. No doubt there are some Right-wing oddballs who would rejoice to see Mick Lynch carted off to Australia like the Tolpuddle Martyrs.

Today, when TV journalists report on a strike, they begin not by asking about the issues at stake but about the disruption it might involve. They still havenā€™t learnt that to complain of industrial action causing inconvenience is like complaining that rain is wet. Nor do they note that the only real weapon that the working-class movement has in its armoury is an essentially negative one: the withdrawal of oneā€™s labour. The governing class, by contrast, has a formidable array of means to curb dissent, and has just pushed through an anti-protest law which constitutes a dire threat to democracy.

Yet trade unions are still essentially defensive institutions, and as such are as much part of the landscape of capitalism as flood barriers are part of the natural landscape. The task of both is to contain potentially destructive excesses. What does trade unionism defend itself against? One could do worse than answer: class war. And how is it faring? Throughout the world, an increasing number of states are demolishing public services, selling off public assets, imposing draconian cuts in public spending, systematically spying on their citizens, abandoning regulations that protect working people, restricting civil liberties (not least the right to strike), and dispensing with constraints on profit-hungry corporations. These are not matters which can be rectified by the Starmers of this world.

At the same time, trade unions depend on the capitalist economy; they simply want its fruits to be shared more equitably, and are reluctant to make moves which might deprive them of golden eggs by killing the goose that lays them. Such institutions arenā€™t constituted to bring about radical change, and neither are social democratic parties such as Labour, which began life as the political wing of the labour movement.

The Labour Party has always numbered socialists in its ranks, but despite the lurid protests of some of its critics, it has never been a socialist party. Over the years, the clause in its constitution that committed it to public ownership became as decorative as a fairy on a Christmas tree. Labour leaders have therefore had to invent more and more persuasive ways of placating their Left-wing members while simultaneously selling them out, one of which is to insist that you canā€™t change the world unless you can grasp the levers of power. The problem with this logically impeccable case is that grasping the levers of power usually involves abandoning the vision which makes it worth doing so. Labour leaders like Keir Starmer are like men trying to manoeuvre a parcel of precious goods through a narrow door. Frustrated by the effort, they end up throwing the parcel away and step through the door with a triumphant cry of ā€œTask accomplished!ā€.

As for Tony Blair, he wasnā€™t a renegade. He had absolutely nothing to betray. Nobody ever imagined that he was a socialist, or even at times a social democrat. Instead, as a sheep in sheepā€™s clothing, he remained true to his lack of principles from start to finish. Hugh Gaitskell, by contrast, was a man of conviction; it was just that he clung with commendable passion to a set of anti-socialist beliefs. Harold Wilson started off Left of centre but ended up to the Right of it, a typical Labourist trajectory. Keir Starmer, a natural-born petty bourgeois, has retreated from one Left-wing policy after another and would ban his own MPs from breathing if he thought that it might imperil his entry into Downing Street.

ā€œYou can peel an onion layer by layer, but you canā€™t skin a tiger claw by claw,ā€ was R.H. Tawneyā€™s view of reformism. What, though, is the alternative? Surely you have to start where you are, in an actual world rather than an ideal one. Otherwise you may end up as an ultra-Leftist, a syndrome which Lenin described as an infantile disorder. Ultra-Leftists regard any truck with the existing political system as a squalid compromise. Parliaments, political parties, trade unions, social reforms and civil society all become fatally contaminating. In the Seventies, when the Left was riding high, some Left-wingers used to test the purity of each otherā€™s commitment by asking such questions as ā€œWould you write for the bourgeois press?ā€ or ā€œWould you use the bourgeois law courts if your partner was murdered?ā€ The true ultra-Leftists were those who were able to return an unequivocal ā€œNoā€ to the question: ā€œWould you call the bourgeois fire brigade?ā€

Yet the choice between reformism and ultra-Leftism is surely false. All revolutionaries are reformists. Just because you believe in a thoroughgoing transformation of market society doesnā€™t mean that you donā€™t see the point of civil marriages or a minimum wage. Besides, what bridges the present and a potential future is the working-class movement itself. Its values of co-operation rather than competition, solidarity rather than selfish individualism, and mutual responsibility rather than individual self-interest need to be extended into social life as a whole. In this sense, the future is not some fuzzy utopia parachuted arbitrarily into the present, but something which is active there already, in however shadowy and imperfect a form. You canā€™t adequately portray the present without taking account of what it might become.

When asked what the future might look like, one postmodern thinker replied: ā€œThe present ā€” with more options.ā€ But an eternal present is an image of hell, however many options may distract us from this horror. With a few judicious additions and subtractions, this present is Keir Starmerā€™s sterile conception of politics. It will take more than this to end the class war currently being waged against the working people of the world.


Terry EagletonĀ is a critic, literary theorist, and UnHerd columnist.


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David McKee
David McKee
10 months ago

Poor Terry Eagleton: the working class is such a disappointment to him! But then, the workers will insist on thinking for themselves, rather than allowing the Eagletons of this world to tell them what’s good for them. Brexit is a case in point.

The working class exists mainly in the imaginations of our lefty academics. It was the people who voted for Brexit, not this class or that. Corbyn’s fanatical supporters were wannabe revolutionaries, young, educated, arrogant and antisemitic – a repulsive bunch, and they successfully repelled the voters.

People aren’t fools. They prefer half a loaf on their plates, to dreams of burning down the bakery with the capitalist bakers inside.

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
10 months ago
Reply to  David McKee

You think Brexit was people “thinking for themselves”?!?!
No, it was people being conned by crooks and liars like Johnson and Farage. Chickens are coming home to roost now though and the Tories and their chums will be out of power for a generation.
Hope it was worth it!

Martin M
Martin M
10 months ago

Even if “the Tories and their chums will be out of power for a generation”, as you say, Britain isn’t going to rejoin the EU in that time. That ship has sailed.

Paul T
Paul T
10 months ago

Chanting your incantations about Brexit will not get you to paradise and the virgins any quicker. Even if Labour do win the next election they will most probably be out at the one after; the electorate can only take so much of the bait and switch before they realise that balance can only be achieved by voting them out.

Andrew Barton
Andrew Barton
10 months ago

Classic leftist arrogance: the people ignored their betters in the metropolitan elite and allowed themselves to be ā€˜connedā€™. I wasnā€™t conned. I listened to all the arguments and voted to leave. I havenā€™t regretted my decision for one second.

Andy Moore
Andy Moore
10 months ago

What was your record? A banking crisis, an acceleration of the gap between rich and poor, oh and you also sent our military on a couple of tours in the Middle East.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
10 months ago
Reply to  Andy Moore

He was ā€˜firedā€™ by CORBYN for supporting a Class War candidate no less!

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
10 months ago
Reply to  Andy Moore

New Labour is the perfect example of why you should ignore political rhetoric and focus solely on outcomes. All that cuddly stuff about ‘equality’ and ‘educashun, educashun’, and what did we actually get? Non-stop war and the largest upward transfer of wealth in our history.
We should never forget that it was a Labour Chancellor who changed the way the cost of living is calculated to conceal the extent to which he had stitched up the party’s traditional supporters.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
10 months ago

Who cares? Starmer is almost a Tory rather like Tony Blair before.
However there will be NO place for ā€˜Trotsā€™ like you Fisher old chap.

Lesley Keay
Lesley Keay
10 months ago

Oh give it a rest. Believe it or not, many of the people who voted for Brexit did so because they were totally fed up with the Status Quo, not because they took all of the propaganda (from both sides) as true. And frankly, the continual trope that people are stupid is just infantile. Many of the people who voted for Brexit had long ago stopped voting because they knew that whoever one, it would not improve their lives.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
10 months ago

You can’t be a socialist and in favour of EU membership. The two things are mutually exclusive. After all, what is ‘free movement of labour and capital’ if it is not class war? I know books are full of long words and difficult, but do give one a try sometime. Then you might be able to make the occasional intelligent contribution to this forum.

Pedro the Exile
Pedro the Exile
10 months ago

worth every bit-the sort of arrogant ,patronising view typical of your average “Champagne Socialist”-the very idea that the proles can form independent views and think for themselves is so totally abhorrent-they must be being manipulated by those nasty right wing (“sic”) demagogues eh?
Heaven forbid that the intelligentsia of the remain adoring establishment should be conned by the glorious European project and its silver tongued mouthpieces.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
10 months ago
Reply to  David McKee

Are you really “working class” when you retired early?

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
10 months ago
Reply to  David McKee

and ironically this is the kind of thing that is only said by middle class people who until the Tories made us all poor (or they retired early to become dependent on the state) thought of the working class as plebs.
The working class exists in the imaginations of the working class. The difference now is that the economy has moved on and many of the working class have retired or entered cosy tertiary sector jobs.

A D Kent
A D Kent
10 months ago
Reply to  David McKee

You do know that Jeremy Corbyn was a Eurosceptic don’t you? Oh, and the antisemitism claims were a scam. Watch Al Jazeera’s ‘The Labour Files’ for plenty of examples. Especially episode 2.
Anyone who believed that a party with a leader who ‘liked’ a mural or allegedly claimed Jews don’t understand irony was going to lead to pogroms was, and is, a preposterous snowflake even if those claims were true.

Mrs R
Mrs R
10 months ago
Reply to  A D Kent

He was a eurosceptic until it mattered, ie until he became Leader of the Labour Party and then he suddenly changed his mind.

Martin M
Martin M
10 months ago
Reply to  Mrs R

I maintain that although Corbyn ostensibly “changed his mind”, he still did things which were of considerable assistance to the Leave campaign.

Benedict Waterson
Benedict Waterson
10 months ago
Reply to  A D Kent

He might have come from the eurosceptic trad. left, but he was a shit leader and allowed the party to swing towards the interests of middle-class remainers.
What possible reason could Al Jazeera have for undermining anti-semitism claims? Al Jazeera?

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
10 months ago
Reply to  David McKee

Nowadays the majority of working age Brits – over 60% – are employed in small businesses, their own or someone else’s. The real war is between these people and the ruling corporate classes employed by the state or big business. Eagleton’ fantasies of a downtrodden working class rising up against the wicked capitalists belong in the nineteenth century.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
10 months ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Indeed the real war is between the people who work in small business, many of whom are self-employed, and those employed by the state or big business who are better remunerated, have pensions that people working in small businesses can only dream of and job security too.

Paul T
Paul T
10 months ago

Absolutely. To be told, repeatedly, that “we are striking for higher salaries, longer holidays, shorter working days and better pensions than you for you” as though the rest of us will be magically transported into these unaffordable-if-all-taken-together ideals is just nonsense. They then justify this largesse-at-our-expense as trying to stop a “race to the bottom” is obscene.

Rosemary Throssell
Rosemary Throssell
10 months ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Correct, although as a business owner I will be working well past my retirement age which is a few months away.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
10 months ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Indeed. I’ve commented before that being in thrall to a Marxist view of the world is a failure of intellect, imagination, or most likely, both.

Rosemary Throssell
Rosemary Throssell
10 months ago
Reply to  David McKee

I am not young and I am certainly not anti semitic.

Ralph Hanke
Ralph Hanke
10 months ago

Good on you Rosemary!

I am older and not antisemitic. There is hope for us all yet.

Bruce Bishkin
Bruce Bishkin
10 months ago
Reply to  David McKee

I guess the difference between working class and middle class needs no clarification

jane baker
jane baker
10 months ago
Reply to  Bruce Bishkin

Now and for several decades,anyone “working class” who actually is in paid employment is actually middle class. What would once have been “the working class” are people on benefits and I don’t mean workers who need UC to top up. Recently we had work done by my home. These builders ,sparks,chippies etc,they weren’t ignorant gits who ate pies. These were educated men who could look at a building chart,a spec,and work to it. They were using high tech equipment. Most of them.were well travelled and did things like scuba diving etc. They were literate and cultured. They went the theatre etc.
The Working Class,the ones who actually earn money are now,to all intents and purposes “middle class”. This is why for a couple of decades now Labour has sought to create a new solid voter base by championing immigrants but of course once an immigrant starts to prosper even a little bit,they vote Tory. Labour has got White Saviour Complex anyway. They only like migrants who are compliant victims and will tolerate being patted on the head.

M. Jamieson
M. Jamieson
10 months ago
Reply to  jane baker

I am not sure those on benefits would be the new working class. They represent something else.
I think service workers are a closer fit. Low wages, no autonomy, little job security and no or low benefits are common.

Roddy Campbell
Roddy Campbell
10 months ago

White van man is the enemy of the people!

But who are the People?

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
10 months ago
Reply to  Roddy Campbell

White van man.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
10 months ago
Reply to  Roddy Campbell

The ones that pay his invoices.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
10 months ago

Right, reading that has taken 6 minutes of my life that I’m not getting back.

Bret Larson
Bret Larson
10 months ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

I stoped at 2.

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
10 months ago
Reply to  Bret Larson

Skimmed for 3

Ian Barton
Ian Barton
10 months ago

Iā€™m not sure that ā€œunions want to see the fruits of capitalism shared more equallyā€. Iā€™m pretty sure each union wants as much as possible for its own membership. Thatā€™s a very different thing.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
10 months ago
Reply to  Ian Barton

And what are they fighting for for their membership? … to see the fruits of capitalism shared more equally.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
10 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Unions are largely irrelevant. Nowadays most people work in small businesses or are self-employed. The issue is the damage done to them by corporatism, whether of the state and its banks, or the big businesses that live by rent seeking, not ‘capitalism’ itself.

Peter B
Peter B
10 months ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Well said. This doesn’t get said enough. There is no political party that represents small and self-employed businesses and hasn’t been since 1991.

Martin M
Martin M
10 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Sure, but each union wants their members to be more equal than others.

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
10 months ago
Reply to  Ian Barton

Indeed the whole point of Unions is to ensure demarcation and that your particular set of skills remains paid more than some other set of skills that traditionally has been paid less.

Why are well paid doctors striking but to regain a previous comparative level of pay. Equally the government are resisting paying them because then the nurses and other NHS workers will want uplifts themselves.

Mike Downing
Mike Downing
10 months ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

Oooeerr. My differentials are being eroded.

Paul T
Paul T
10 months ago

You just ache for a circular firing squad moving in a purity spiral don’t you Mr Eagleton?

Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden
10 months ago

There is a strain of American conservatism claiming that the Fabians were the chief modern Gnostic force in Britain and so Labour became their principal front for pursuing the esoteric ‘arts’ in modern life.
Today’s Democrats are much the same and Sir Kneeler’s uninspiring lot simply carbon copy their fantasy economic and paranoid cultural programme.

j watson
j watson
10 months ago

I think there was something in the Author’s basic theory that Labour was a fairly unique British response to a much more militant left which is anchored much more to the centre ground than the more Marxist ever supported. And I would argue we’ve been better for that.
A bit prompted by the sense Labour may be on verge of a landslide (not convinced it’ll be quite that myself) I just wonder if what we are really missing is more coalition Govt. Point being we end up either not making crucial national decisions (e.g long term funding of social care) or get dragged to more extremes (e.g Hard rather than Soft Brexit). Our adversarial politics has some advantages – can you imagine how a Trump or Biden would handle weekly PM Questions and that accountability – but it has a serious downside when we need to make longer term decisions.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
10 months ago
Reply to  j watson

Yes, let’s have a committee of the great and good, eh? After all, government really should be left to the people who know best, shouldn’t it?
Except, of course that, as the events of the past twenty years so perfectly illustrate, there is no such thing as ‘the people who know best’. They don’t exist.

j watson
j watson
10 months ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

That’s not quite what was relayed as you know. A coalition might represent a bigger majority of public opinion and that might help with big longer term decisions. Pros and Cons of course.
Not sure if you just read a bit too fast for yourself or was a deliberate twist?

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
10 months ago
Reply to  j watson

You see what a success coalitions have been on the continent or how successful our recent experience was

Peter B
Peter B
10 months ago

To be fair, 2010-15 wasn’t that bad. Certainly not compared to most of what came afterwards. And they actually got some sensible things done like raising the individual tax allowance for everyone (before the later stupidity of abolishing it for “the rich”).

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
10 months ago
Reply to  Peter B

You are joking. Raising the individual tax allowance for every one was a stupid virtue signalling mistake and an exemplar of the reasons of why we are where we are now.
Everyone need to pay something so that they have a stake in how the system works
As to abolishing it for the rich, exactly what do you mean?

j watson
j watson
10 months ago

Certainly mixed I agree, but on some long term issues – social care being a good one – the countries we most compare ourselves with have been better at longer term decision making and one wonders if that is partly because of how coalition working just something they are much more used to? I’m not sure but food for thought.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
10 months ago
Reply to  j watson

It is because they do not have the elephant in the room that is the NHS

A D Kent
A D Kent
10 months ago

 Interesting piece ā€“ and one with which I mostly agree ā€“ but itā€™s puzzling as to how Eagleton manages to skip from Blair to Starmer without mentioning the C word. Where did the left-wing policies that Starmer has ā€œretreated fromā€ come from? It certainly wasnā€™t Blair.

The events of the Corbynn years so completely validate Eagletons thesis that itā€™s hard to understand why he hasnā€™t mentioned them. Read the Forde Report, watch ā€˜The Labour Filesā€™ (all five episodes) and youā€™ll see what the Labour Party is. Itā€™s management and upper eschelons are a rotten bunch of corrupt, Establishment centrist, war mongering, sociopaths ā€“ those who made it into the Lords after the 2019 debacle being the most sickening in this respect.  

Martin M
Martin M
10 months ago
Reply to  A D Kent

I didn’t think you were allowed to use the “C word” in print.

Jane Hewland
Jane Hewland
10 months ago

I have for some time wondering if I need Unherd in my life any more. It was fantastic during the pandemic but Iā€™m learning less and less and being force fed more and more drivel. This kind of tops the pile, as do all the Brexit-related responses it has generated. Tired arguments. The problem with the left is they think we live in a centrally perfectible world and that they know what that perfection looks like and are justified in forcing the rest of us towards it. This is a daft failure to understand anything about human nature and life itself. I think I will review my subscription at the end of the month.

Rosemary Throssell
Rosemary Throssell
10 months ago
Reply to  Jane Hewland

Me too.

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
10 months ago
Reply to  Jane Hewland

Agree with your comment on the left but I will continue my subscription as Unherd does publish some genuinely good articles. The problem is that most journalists are left leaning so as they need writers if they are to continue they have to publish a fair amount of dross. I should add that often the comments are better than the articles and worth reading in themselves.

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
10 months ago
Reply to  Jane Hewland

Don’t you think that the general criticism that moronic lefty essays face below the line are compensation?

Benedict Waterson
Benedict Waterson
10 months ago
Reply to  Jane Hewland

It publishes stuff from left, right and centre, which is a big part of its appeal, because you get a broad range of material and information, including some good articles from left-leaning writers.

Janos Abel
Janos Abel
10 months ago
Reply to  Jane Hewland

“The problem with the left…” and any political party is that supporters think that parliament rules while it follows well-funded lobby organisations.

Peter B
Peter B
10 months ago

This man seems to live in a bizarre fantasy world.
There is no “class war currently being waged against the working people of the world”.
And many of the remaining trade unions are representing largely middle class interests in the public sector.
Not that I buy into this class stuff anyway. There are people that work and contribute. And some who unfortunately cannot who deserve help. And some who choose not to.
Then consider this:
“At the same time, trade unions depend on the capitalist economy; they simply want its fruits to be shared more equitably,”
Does that really describe the current rail strikes ? If anything, rail workers are overpaid in comparison to workers with similar skills outside their regulated industry. It seems more probable that they are actually striking not for greater equity, but to preserve the current inequity which happens to suit them very well.
Similarly, I would suggest that trade unions are not primarily “defensive organisations”, but rather conservative and protectionist ones. They’re quite entitled to fulfil those roles. But let’s at least be honest about it.
The author writes as though workers were forced into “the industrial exploitation of Victorian England”. But the movement from rural work to cities started before 1837 and was not enforced – people moved for better wages (though admittedly, their options weren’t great). But the same happened in other countries – nothing unique to England or done in a worse way here.

Mark 0
Mark 0
10 months ago
Reply to  Peter B

You made a similar point to me but put it better! He’s a TRUE BELIEVER like those who clutch their copies of the communist manifesto and no amount of reality looking nothing like their debunked ideas will dissuade them

Dennis Roberts
Dennis Roberts
10 months ago
Reply to  Peter B

Do you really think people willingly worked in Dickensian industry and living conditions? Enclosure and later on mechanisation drove people into the cities – it was either that or they starved. Once in the cities they had to take what they could or, again, starve. Whether it was worse elsewhere or not I don’t know.

jane baker
jane baker
10 months ago
Reply to  Peter B

The author is a humanist atheist.who believes all human beings are rational and have an innate moral compass!

Mark 0
Mark 0
10 months ago

“trade unions depend on the capitalist economy; they simply want its fruits to be shared more equitably”

No they do not, they seek power and money as much as any politician: you may criticise the media’s response to train strikes for example but we (as in everyone not in a rail union) rightly demand why our work and leisure days are ruined by a union membership that on average earns quite a bit more than the UK average worker.

Put simply, a small group of relatively wealthy people (the unions) are ripping off a much larger group of less wealthy people (the train customers). Sound familiar?

Pip G
Pip G
10 months ago

This language of ā€˜class warā€™ and denigration of the past and current Labour Party and Trade Unions reminds me of Trotskyite students in my 1960s-70s university days. Little changes.
The true self interested ā€˜establishmentā€™ is a multiple of large corporations and self moralizing & perpetuating social liberals. A small shop keeper is a ā€˜capitalistā€™. Many who own a house and have ā€˜white collarā€™ jobs consider themselves ā€˜middle classā€™. If they think about it, both have been disadvantaged by, and have a mild contempt for, this ā€˜establishmentā€™.
Reform through parliamentary legislation does bring change. Our best realistic hope is the Labour Party, failings as it has. The 2 largest TUs are now led by women who help their members rather than self aggrandising dinosaurs. Read ā€œA Century of Labour by Jon Cruddas. They will achieve far more than ā€˜Ultra Leftistsā€™ in ivory towers.

nick Crean
nick Crean
10 months ago

I donā€™t regard myself as a right wing oddball but seeing Mick Lynch sent off to Australia would have me popping the champagne corks for sure.

Dick Barrett
Dick Barrett
10 months ago
Reply to  nick Crean

Oddball or not, it makes you right wing.

Brian Doyle
Brian Doyle
10 months ago
Reply to  nick Crean

Then you frightened of superior intellect
Who has way with words and a lethal capability to down the Nonsense the Media and Government spout

Dick Barrett
Dick Barrett
10 months ago

The Labour Party has also failed in its historic mission to become the default national party of government. An alliance built around ordinary working people should have won at least two thirds of all general elections since 1945, but have in fact won 9 out of 21, being in government for 32 years out of 78.

R Wright
R Wright
10 months ago

I tuned out halfway through reading this Owens Jones-level guff.

Ian Cooper
Ian Cooper
10 months ago

Is the right to strike really sacrosanct? There is no attempt at equity.It’s whoever is stronger at the time, employer or union. Shouldn’t industrial disputes be solved in the courts like other civil disputes but with a jury listening to all parties involved, employer, union, government and the public and deciding what is fair?. Unions could be more usefully providing, mortgages, insurance etc for their members.

jane baker
jane baker
10 months ago

It was John Wesley who made it that all the revolutionary fervour and uprisings of the late 18th to most of 19th century Europe didn’t happen in Britain. And I don’t think that was his intention or even the ruling class of that days intention. It was an unintended and unexpected consequence. (But very welcome to the ruling class no doubt). I live in a place ,the Kingswood area at Bristol where John Wesley preached a lot,in lots of known locations,indeed my dwelling is built on one! Also Wesley’s colleagues did a lot of work round here. My own ancestors at the time were not here,they were in Hampshire,Wiltshire,Somerset and other places. Kingswood was a coal mining community. It was a place full of people feared and despised by the bourgeoisie of Bristol. The miners were always burning down toll gates and the citizens of Bristol saw them.as revolting. They actually wanted paying SOME MONEY for the coal they won from the ground by hard labour,enough to feed their families. That’s pretty outrageous. John Wesley came and preached to the miners,he told them God loved them and that may sound corny but actually to individuals or whole peoples who have always been told they are disgusting and horrible and unacceptable that can be an immensely moving message. Onlookers were struck by how this message of love sent tears streaming down their faces,creating white channels in the ingrained black skin of their faces. Wesley and his colleagues gave these men and women a sense of hope. I can remember from my 1960s childhood the last of “old Kingswood” the utterly respectable,clean,tidy local old people with ordered lives and church attendance,the end of the way of life adopted due to Wesley’s influence. Now,well,there’s no coal mining but like everywhere else in the world that lifestyle has been ditched and Kingswood shopping precinct is as good a zoo as any for disgusting and revolting.

Stephen Gosling
Stephen Gosling
10 months ago

Corbyn and his stated policies were a pretty good response to pushing the party and the country to a more just and caring society.