Is Starmer listening to the Despised ?

This post has been cross-posted at Harry's Place

Keir Starmer whose performances at PMQ's and general approach to politics have been descending from inanity into farce in recent days is apparently preparing a new initiative that refocuses the party on patriotism rather than anti-Western gibberish and seeks to reconnect the party with its working class roots and turn away from the middle class metropolitan snobbery of the “Performative Left”. 

The aim is to renew his party's latent but sadly recently hidden patriotism and includes such useful ideas as dressing up smart and flying Union Jacks rather than Palestinian flags at conferences. 

Lifelong Labour member and Trade Unionist Paul Embery's recent book Despised is an interesting if rather schematic recital of the problem Labour faces as its working class support falls away as at the last election. A lot of the arguments reflect other recent analyses such as that of David Goodhart about the gap between young metropolitan middle class” Anywheres” and more local community orientated and working class “Somewheres”. Embery's solutions as he is of a traditional Far Left hue in terms of economics are basically the kinds of policies that the Bennite Left espoused in the 70's (eg a form of socialism in one country) This wing of Labour was also very anti EU membership in the 1975 referendum. (Embery is also a Lexiteer) 

This seems unlikely to be the kind of policy Labour would follow as it would lose a lot of its middle class self styled “progressive” base and face accusations of "Fatherlandism" whatever that is from the likes of Clive Lewis. 

So again we come back to the same question - what is Labour for ? How will it simultaneous appeal to the “Somewheres” if it loses the “Anywheres” (although where would they go politically ?) Traditional Left of Centre Parties like Labour are declining at a rate of knots throughout Europe (see e.g. Germany, France and Italy) though Britain's FFTP post might stop that happening here. 

My suggestion would be that Labour should divest it self of far-Left types like Lewis as far as possible to have any chance of succeeding. However given how far it has lost the support of C2DE voters even that might not be enough.

Plus ca change.... Intellectuals losing the plot is nothing new

I was recently struck by an amusing (but quite depressing tbh) passage in the autobiography of the Northern Irish 30's poet Louis MacNiece "The Strings Are False" (Faber & Faber, 1965) where he comments on the febrile political atmosphere in England before the war when many of the intellectual class fell over themselves to condone and excuse Russian communism :

"Take the case of Stephen Spender. [In his book] Forward fr­om Liberalism, chosen by the Left Book Club and so under the aegis of Mr. Gollancz dumped upon thousands and thousands of men of good will for whom the Left Book Club was Church... S. argued (accepting the dialectic), liberalism had played its part ; once the vanguard, was now reaction; the man of good will today must acknowledge the Third International. ...   

Then, after he had joined the Party, came S.'s play Trial of a Judge... The intended moral of the play was that liberalism today was weak and wrong, communism was strong and right. But this moral was sabotaged by S.'s unconscious integrity; the Liberal Judge, his example of what-not-to-be, walked away with one's sympathy.  

The Comrades observed this and, at a meeting arranged by the Group Theatre to discuss the play, a squad of them turned up to reprove S. for his heresies. It was an exhilarating evening. There was a blonde girl, pretty and ice-cold, who got up and said that the play had been a great disappointment to herself and others in the Party; they had gone to the play expecting a message and the message had not been delivered; and yet, she said, there was a message to be given and they all knew what it was. She spoke precisely and quietly (you could see her signing death warrants). Certainly, S. answered, there was a message and they all knew what it was;  an artist had something else to do than to tell people merely what they knew and give them just what they expected. The heckling went on. ... And another thing—the Comrades went on — this play gives, expression to feelings of anxiety, fear and depression; which is wrong because . . . S. said if they felt no anxiety themselves, well he felt sorry for them.  

Then there was the strange — but typical—case of Goronwy Rees. Goronwy's father was a Welsh minister; Goronwy was academically brilliant, a Fellow of All Souls, a novelist, an editor of the Spectator, a playboy... One evening there was a gathering of some fifty people—mainly writers—to oppose Fascism. [Cecil] Day-Lewis and Goronwy were the speakers. Day-Lewis spoke first, questioning in his tired Oxford accent, qualifying everything, nonplussed, questioning.  

Then Goronwy who was just as Oxonian as Day-Lewis, took over .... Writers today, Goronwy said, had a function, they were there only to take orders, orders from the Proletariat, no writer of today could do anything at all of value unless he laid down his personality, made himself a mouthpiece and nothing more than a mouthpiece, made himself a living trumpet for the Working Classes to blow through; the truth was not in us - not qua writers, the truth was in the Proletariat, the truth and also the victory.  

After the meeting Goronwy suggested that one or two of us should go to P's; he said he felt like oysters. Oysters at P's are very expensive."

Its amazing but perhaps not surprising that "people of good will" are still being taken in and misled by absurd and rancid ideas like the virtue signalling vapidity of Identity Politics. And isn't there a clear parallel between the requirement to "take orders from the Proletariat" and the spectacle of white celebrities and politicians abasing themselves by "taking a knee" and their confessions of guilt like this nonsense from Julienne Moore and others ?

Coronavirus and the British Press - disgracing itself as usual

This post has been cross-posted at Harry's Place

The current Coronavirus crisis is bringing out the worst in British journalism with panic mongering and false reporting showing up our tabloid press as incompetent as well as dangerous.

Look at this disgraceful farrago. On the 2nd April the Daily Mirror tweeted a headline that said that "UK's deadliest day set to be Easter Sunday when government fears 50,000 will die" quoting “a source”. Of course this was unlikely on any reckoning especially since the lock down was in place by then.

If you look for the page on this story now you will see that the Mirror has changed the headline to “Coronavirus 'could kill 50,000' in UK with Easter Sunday 'to be deadliest day'”. Rather a change eh ?  And at the bottom of the article they say "Mirror Online has amended this story to clarify that, according to a source, as many as 50,000 people could die in the UK throughout the entire pandemic, not before Easter Sunday."

A disgrace to journalism - but there you go, alarmism, incompetence and buried retractions - all stock in trade for much of the MSM. Lets hope after this crisis is over there is some reckoning for this kind of behaviour.

Labour – Is the nightmare finally coming to an end ?

This post has been cross-posted at Harry's Place

The Labour leadership election is under way and we are already seeing splits in the party between the Hard Left/Momentum faction and the centre Left which seems to be finally waking up to the fact it has a chance to take back the party.

Momentum’s attempt to impose its ticket of Rebecca Long-Bailey and Angela Rayner has descended into farce with the news it is having a yes/no ballot of its membership on the Momentum leadership's choice. Yes the membership have the choice of LB/Rayner or – well its not clear what they will do if the proles of the membership say no – perhaps they will elect another one. Such Momentum heroes as Owen Jones and Paul Mason  are up in arms but so far Lansman and co are sticking with their North Korean style democratic path.

Meanwhile the "anti-Zionist" crank side of the party is not happy that all of the leadership candidates have signed up to the Board of Deputies 10 point plan to help Labour overcome its anti-Semitism issues. This is very upsetting to a lot of people, have a look on Twitter at some of the responders to Angela Rayners' tweet supporting the BOD's plan, sadly some of them reckon they are going to have to leave the party - probably before they get kicked out for their tweets on these threads I would imagine.

Maybe finally the nightmare may be coming to an end for Labour (and many former supporters like me) and the swamp could be drained of the cranks and the Far Left that have led Labour to the verge of destruction. Lets hope so, the country needs a proper opposition. And lets make sure next time that there is no more question of a "broad church" that includes these people, they need to be permanently excluded from the party in future.

The "Zwarte Piet" debate - Identity Conflict in the Netherlands 

At this time of year in the Netherlands there is an ongoing debate and protests about "Zwarte Piet" a traditional blackface character in Dutch SinterKlaas processions that take place in many cities and towns.

There have been protests and counter protests on this in the last few years and this year again it will be a bone of contention. See here :

"Anti-Zwarte Piet group Kick Out Zwarte Piet (KOZP) is planning on protesting Sinterklaas’ black-faced helpers during Sinterklaas arrival events in mid-November in 12 different Dutch municipalities. The group feels that the traditional form of Zwarte Piet (Black Piet) is a racist caricature. ” 

"Recently, the municipality of Deventer announced that at least a third of the Piets at the coming arrival event have to be sooty Piets, so with soot marks on their faces instead of full black makeup. Should this not be the case, the event would not be subsidised. However, this plan was met with so much dissent that the municipality withdrew it. Around 80 people and 15 Black Piets protested the sooty Piet rules at the city hall, calling it blackmail, as the subsidy was conditional, based on the proportion of sooty Piets in the event.  

The municipality has now made alternative agreements, regarding the Piets, with the Sinterklaas arrival organisation. However, neither party will disclose what the new plans entail. The group protesting, Zonder Zwarte Piet geen Sinterklaas (Without Black Piet no Sinterklaas), wants Black Piet to stay fully black in Deventer.” 

This kind of issue where the protest outside the big cities with a large immigrant community is coming from small pressure groups as above is just the kind of thing that inflames mainstream opinion about a loss of traditional cultural values and fans the flames of Right Wing populism. It is the kind of thing that leads to continual conflict between identities on the basis of symbols of tradition. Look at Northern Ireland for example where flags and symbols are used by both sides as mustering points for sectarian conflict.

In instances like this where Leftist identity groups continuously protest on what should surely be a relatively minor issue, there is a real danger that they are just inviting a backlash from the middle of the road population. In the Netherlands now Geert Wilders party is the second biggest party in parliament and in the last provincial elections a new populist party the Forum for Democracy won most seats.

This is what this kind of identity politics does unfortunately, it leads (by definition) to conflict on the lines of identity which is why it is becoming so corrosive in Western politics.

“Fake News” News 

This post has been cross-posted at Harry's Place

The news about “Fake News” today is that Roger Scruton has been restored to his role as a government adviser after the New Statesman had to apologise for its misrepresentation of his remarks about George Soros and the Chinese government to make him sound like a racist and anti Semite. 

The writer involved, George Eaton, has apparently been demoted from his role as a deputy editor with the NS. From the start it was obvious this was a wind up job against a Right Wing gammon who deserved all he got, Eaton was even seen on Twitter opening a bottle of champagne while celebrating his tremendous coup against the forces of Rightish darkness.

This is as egregious an example of a journalist stitching up a political opponent with selective quoting as could be imagined and should remind us that all the talk of how “Fake News” is corrupting the media (usually with the attendant message that we should trust the old established MSM) such smearing tactics have always been with us and are rife in broadsheet journalism as well as the more tabloid sort.

It is the nature of most of the partisan news media in the West to constantly try to catch out and lure politicians and public figures into "controversial" statements to start a round of outrage and shaming. And when that doesn't work you can always just selectively quote and decontextualise what someone has said and try to get away with it.

Also it really makes you wonder what is the future of the MSM if it gets more and more desperate for click bait and exposure in the Social Media age and ends up losing all credibility like the NS has with this debacle.

Labour's referendum mess

Corbyn's Labour is now stuck on the massive horns of a dilemma about its Brexit policy and there are real signs of tension as the splits and the rows amongst the splitters (oh what a surprise) get worse.

On Twitter yesterday Paul Mason was panned quite severely by Ian Lavery the Lexit supporting party chair when he demanded the sacking of the Milne faction who he blamed for the disastrous showing of Labour in last weeks Euro elections. He also came out strongly for a "Peoples Vote" (ie a rerun of the 2016 referendum) in which Labour should campaign for Remain.

The row was summarised on the ultra Corbynite site Skawkbox here. Look at the viciousness of the attacks on someone who was once a Corbynite pin up boy. Its just shows how vehemently the opposition to a Labour change to a Remain stance would be resisted by the people now in charge at the top of Labour.

There is no easy answer here for Labour, it seems the only way they will move to an explicit Remain stance is if Corbyn, Milne, Lavery and McCluskey are removed or sidelined and the views of a number of Northern MP's who are very anti a new referendum are overridden. But that would most likely be the end of Corbynism and the Hard Left takeover would be over. Also it is far from clear that a Remain stance would do them any good in a new GE, would the people who moved to the LDs in the Euros come back to them, and they would surely be severely affected in the North and Midlands.

I can just imagine what the new slogan of the die hard Corbynites such as Skawkbox would be to Watson, Mason et al if they forced a Remain policy - "Why don't you just F*** off and join the Lib Dems ?" And given what the result of positing towards a Remain policy would mean they might well be right.