Keir Starmer's multiple acts of conscious cruelty against the vulnerable since becoming Prime Minister have handed Nigel Farage a golden opportunity to pretend to be the good guy.
He is actually without any perceptiveness at all. Not exactly stupid, but with a good number of cogs missing, including the one that might link up to kindness.
The opportunity Labour have been afforded by such an overwhelming majority is immense. Yet they have taken the time to make such a series of dreadful decisions and to mismanage their PR so badly, that their polling and popularity is like that of a party facing annihilation close to a general election.
Unbelievable.
Cutting disability benefits.
Supplying weapons and (allegedly) intelligence to the Israeli government as it pursues genocide in Gaza.
Mirroring Reform UK and Enoch Powell in maligning immigrants
Slashing international aid
Trashing wildlife and habitats while insulting and abusing people who want to protect them
Announcing yet another draconian anti-protest law
Leaving trans people in legal limbo
Rigidly adhering to outdated and socially destructive fiscal rules
Imposing further austerity on government departments and public services
Never has so much damage been inflicted so quickly.
I think it is an error to think of Starmer as stupid. I think he is a fascist and everything he does has been thought out very carefully. He wants to do away with public services and he wants to drive people to the right. He may think he’s a better fascist than Farage, but he prefers Farage to Corbyn in government. It’s dangerous to think of fascists as stupid and it’s even more dangerous to think that getting rid of the leader will change the party behind him.
Yes I actually believe now that Starmer is bought and paid for and has an agenda to destroy the Labour Party like Blair before him. The difference now is that capitalism is in endemic crisis (from which it cannot recover) the neo-liberalism that Blair embraced is a busted flush and capitalism can now only survive in a corporate fascist form. Hence the social basis for the new fascism resting with the Tech Oligarchs. The fact that a Labour MP has defended Lucy Connolly without being expelled, like all those principled socialists and even social democrats, proves that Enoch Scab Starmer would rather be in coalition with Farage than have Jeremy Corbyn, Zara Sultana or anyone else of principle in his ranks.
I think we miss the main point if we focus on Starmer's "stupidity". Yes, he is a bit of a klutz, but the main point is that the essential role of Labour is to manage our wretched economic and political order. He ( and Labour) has the same role as Trump, Macron, Carney and the rest.
I don’t, or can’t, believe that it’s stupidity, not amongst every single member of the Starmer team AND the rest of the Labour establishment. Everyone is talking about this, it’s impossible they don’t know that these right wing policies will drive away traditional labour voters. It’s Politics 101 that no matter how hard centrists pivot to the right it’ll never be enough “red meat” for right wingers - why would they vote for a watered down version? This is not a secret. So they must be doing it on purpose, to utterly destroy the “Left” as it exists in mainstream politics. Starmer has been an Intelligence asset for years, decades even, so it’s not a stretch to say he’s a “plant”, sent to ensure that never again will any new “Corbyns” rise to the leadership of a main political party. Because, like i say, it’s impossible that they don’t know or aren’t aware of the catastrophe they are lining up for Labour at the next election.
That, for me, can’t come quick enough. The whole thing has got to be burned down and destroyed - Accelerationism.
You recognize that you're playing into Farage's hands by talking about him, but you don't seem to recognize that you're playing into Starmer's hands by portraying his malicious sabotage, as if it is innocent idiocy.
You talk about Starmer, almost as if he earnestly joined Labour, transparently ran for leadership, and then made a good-faith effort to govern. HE DIDN'T. He attached himself to a left-leaning party (despite being ideologically opposed to leftist values), hijacked the leadership (through a highly organized campaign of defamation, bullying & backstabbing), and then formed an ostensibly-Labour government that is further right than the Tories.
Starmer is not labour, and never has been. He was installed to stop Jeremy Corbyn, not Nigel Farage.
Starmer was endorsed by the Bullingdon Club's Sebastian James (Old Etonian friend of Boris Johnson & David Cameron). Not for nothing.
Starmer is not an innocent stumble-fuck, fumbling the ball; he's wilfully complicit in the rise of fascism. He was only ever there, to rob the British voting public of any ability to vote left.
So was (confederate segregationist) Joe Biden. Biden's (also highly organized) hijacking of the leadership of the Democratic Party, was undertaken to stop Bernie Sanders, not Donald Trump.
When these lying politicians sabotage the actual left — only to take away all faith in the party where the left used to have a home — they fully clear the path for the far right. INTENTIONALLY. The left has no party left to vote for. BY DESIGN. And the right will vote as far right as they can. PREDICTABLY.
The truth is they’re not scrapping the two-child thing or reinstating the winter fuel allowance out of stupidity, it’s because they don’t want to. The trick for them will be to convince left-leaning voters that they’re still better than and the only real alternative to the tories and Reform without actually doing a damn thing to prove it.
Another great piece, Tom, and spot on as ever. Indeed, the real "two tier Kier" is the one that proceeds with the the failed Tory project of austerity, linked to neo-liberal capitalism, attacking welfare, the winter fuel allowance and working class in general while allowing the fascists to dictate and frame the terms of the debate on asylum and immigration. Starmer's been serving up an open goal to Farage come the next election since he came to office, having previously used the pretext of anti-Semitism to purge socialists from Labour's ranks.
Of course, as you say, Farage's claim to give a stuff about the victims of austerity is a cruel sham and this should be self evident from what his poster boys in the US are doing via DOGE. Do I recall Farage saying the unemployed should be given vouchers instead of cash and banned from pubs (presumably by being electronically tagged or wearing some kind of yellow star) or was I hallucinating? In Orwell's 1984 the key to the regime's power was its ability to obliterate history and re-write the past in an eternal dystopian present that was always at year zero and media coverage of war and other issues was reduced to soundbites. Oceana is at war with Eastasia, it has always been at war with Easasia; Trump denounces Putin as "crazy," he has always denounced Putin as crazy; Nigel Farage champions the working man, he has always championed the working man.
A former journalist myself I've never had a lot of time for the NCTJ and NCTJ validated University courses that DON'T afford for a critique of what's WRONG with British Media and DON'T prioritize investigation. This is small wonder when you consider that local papers have always controlled the NCTJ, feeding the pig of mediocrity of which they are an integral part. And by local and regional newspapers, of course, including the shitty free sheets eagerly consumed at the tube stations of a morning and evening, we mean the Daily Mail group, Newsquest and that other paragon of the Fourth Estate that is Thompson Regional Newspapers. However, in the Age of the Spectacle, where an alienated working class that is disconnected from its own history of struggle, engages with an inverted social reality largely by way of social media and is thus largely integrated into its own enslavement this has plunged to new depths that would have been a godsend to Orwell's Ministry of Truth. Quite recently we had a guest speaker at the college where I currently teach explaining to students that the key to a successful journalism career was to be able to encapsulate news in a soundbite that could be followed on Tik-tok or some similar enslavement platform, most of them owned by Tech Oligarchs who form the social basis of the new fascism. I can't say that this young woman (who was charming and pleasant enough as an individual) was an official representative of the NCTJ but, then again, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
The problem I always had as a journalist, with one foot in the academic and Party theoretician camp, is that you need a theoretical framework to understand how the world works and that facts, interviews and soundbites don't speak for themselves. Meanwhile, Labour needs a new leadership and new politics and it needs them fast.
Unfortunately, the slow motion train crash that has been coming down the lines for decades is still rumbling on. Like with Hitler's regime and 'revolution' it eventually gets to a point where the push for an outcome gets to a stage where no one is actually in control anymore, and if you like, the 'beast' takes on a life of its own, doesn't matter whether you call it fascism or communism or neoliberal economics, the fall into the abyss becomes obvious to more people but it becomes impossible to stop. Populism, greed and the desires of billionaires to become wealthier at any and every cost. A self destructive religion without a soul, but where the 'great god' money is bowed to and worshipped, no matter how many are sacrificed to this variant of Molech. Sinister times indeed.
To say that the above noted is due to Starmers stupidity can't be right - not that he is the smartest domino on the table, but . . . Starmer is doing exactly what is expected of him by the people who installed him. He is just doing it very ineptly, so that it creates waves instead of just going un-noticed. Anyone who is surprised by what 'Labour' is doing just now hasn't been paying attention for the last 100 or so years. The 'Labour Party consists entirely (and mostly always has done) of a large body terminally naive optimists in the lower levels and a small cesspool of venal proto-fascists in the upper crust.
He is actually without any perceptiveness at all. Not exactly stupid, but with a good number of cogs missing, including the one that might link up to kindness.
The opportunity Labour have been afforded by such an overwhelming majority is immense. Yet they have taken the time to make such a series of dreadful decisions and to mismanage their PR so badly, that their polling and popularity is like that of a party facing annihilation close to a general election.
Unbelievable.
Cutting disability benefits.
Supplying weapons and (allegedly) intelligence to the Israeli government as it pursues genocide in Gaza.
Mirroring Reform UK and Enoch Powell in maligning immigrants
Slashing international aid
Trashing wildlife and habitats while insulting and abusing people who want to protect them
Announcing yet another draconian anti-protest law
Leaving trans people in legal limbo
Rigidly adhering to outdated and socially destructive fiscal rules
Imposing further austerity on government departments and public services
Never has so much damage been inflicted so quickly.
Not what I voted for.
Source: George Monbiot
just take the opposite of that list and start your own party... simples.
I think it is an error to think of Starmer as stupid. I think he is a fascist and everything he does has been thought out very carefully. He wants to do away with public services and he wants to drive people to the right. He may think he’s a better fascist than Farage, but he prefers Farage to Corbyn in government. It’s dangerous to think of fascists as stupid and it’s even more dangerous to think that getting rid of the leader will change the party behind him.
Yes I actually believe now that Starmer is bought and paid for and has an agenda to destroy the Labour Party like Blair before him. The difference now is that capitalism is in endemic crisis (from which it cannot recover) the neo-liberalism that Blair embraced is a busted flush and capitalism can now only survive in a corporate fascist form. Hence the social basis for the new fascism resting with the Tech Oligarchs. The fact that a Labour MP has defended Lucy Connolly without being expelled, like all those principled socialists and even social democrats, proves that Enoch Scab Starmer would rather be in coalition with Farage than have Jeremy Corbyn, Zara Sultana or anyone else of principle in his ranks.
Let’s not forget also all the anti-protest laws that Braverman set up all remain in place.
I think we miss the main point if we focus on Starmer's "stupidity". Yes, he is a bit of a klutz, but the main point is that the essential role of Labour is to manage our wretched economic and political order. He ( and Labour) has the same role as Trump, Macron, Carney and the rest.
Managed decline for the majority, and continued good times for the wealthy and their cheerleaders.
He is a stooge for the establishment.
Starmer is a cnut and Farrage is a racist cnut- allegedly 😝
They're both racist see next 🔄 you Tuesdays. (Objectively.)
I don’t, or can’t, believe that it’s stupidity, not amongst every single member of the Starmer team AND the rest of the Labour establishment. Everyone is talking about this, it’s impossible they don’t know that these right wing policies will drive away traditional labour voters. It’s Politics 101 that no matter how hard centrists pivot to the right it’ll never be enough “red meat” for right wingers - why would they vote for a watered down version? This is not a secret. So they must be doing it on purpose, to utterly destroy the “Left” as it exists in mainstream politics. Starmer has been an Intelligence asset for years, decades even, so it’s not a stretch to say he’s a “plant”, sent to ensure that never again will any new “Corbyns” rise to the leadership of a main political party. Because, like i say, it’s impossible that they don’t know or aren’t aware of the catastrophe they are lining up for Labour at the next election.
That, for me, can’t come quick enough. The whole thing has got to be burned down and destroyed - Accelerationism.
You recognize that you're playing into Farage's hands by talking about him, but you don't seem to recognize that you're playing into Starmer's hands by portraying his malicious sabotage, as if it is innocent idiocy.
You talk about Starmer, almost as if he earnestly joined Labour, transparently ran for leadership, and then made a good-faith effort to govern. HE DIDN'T. He attached himself to a left-leaning party (despite being ideologically opposed to leftist values), hijacked the leadership (through a highly organized campaign of defamation, bullying & backstabbing), and then formed an ostensibly-Labour government that is further right than the Tories.
Starmer is not labour, and never has been. He was installed to stop Jeremy Corbyn, not Nigel Farage.
Starmer was endorsed by the Bullingdon Club's Sebastian James (Old Etonian friend of Boris Johnson & David Cameron). Not for nothing.
Starmer is not an innocent stumble-fuck, fumbling the ball; he's wilfully complicit in the rise of fascism. He was only ever there, to rob the British voting public of any ability to vote left.
So was (confederate segregationist) Joe Biden. Biden's (also highly organized) hijacking of the leadership of the Democratic Party, was undertaken to stop Bernie Sanders, not Donald Trump.
When these lying politicians sabotage the actual left — only to take away all faith in the party where the left used to have a home — they fully clear the path for the far right. INTENTIONALLY. The left has no party left to vote for. BY DESIGN. And the right will vote as far right as they can. PREDICTABLY.
F garage only policy is to do whatever the usual politicians have failed to do.... How he pays for it - who knows
The truth is they’re not scrapping the two-child thing or reinstating the winter fuel allowance out of stupidity, it’s because they don’t want to. The trick for them will be to convince left-leaning voters that they’re still better than and the only real alternative to the tories and Reform without actually doing a damn thing to prove it.
Another great piece, Tom, and spot on as ever. Indeed, the real "two tier Kier" is the one that proceeds with the the failed Tory project of austerity, linked to neo-liberal capitalism, attacking welfare, the winter fuel allowance and working class in general while allowing the fascists to dictate and frame the terms of the debate on asylum and immigration. Starmer's been serving up an open goal to Farage come the next election since he came to office, having previously used the pretext of anti-Semitism to purge socialists from Labour's ranks.
Of course, as you say, Farage's claim to give a stuff about the victims of austerity is a cruel sham and this should be self evident from what his poster boys in the US are doing via DOGE. Do I recall Farage saying the unemployed should be given vouchers instead of cash and banned from pubs (presumably by being electronically tagged or wearing some kind of yellow star) or was I hallucinating? In Orwell's 1984 the key to the regime's power was its ability to obliterate history and re-write the past in an eternal dystopian present that was always at year zero and media coverage of war and other issues was reduced to soundbites. Oceana is at war with Eastasia, it has always been at war with Easasia; Trump denounces Putin as "crazy," he has always denounced Putin as crazy; Nigel Farage champions the working man, he has always championed the working man.
A former journalist myself I've never had a lot of time for the NCTJ and NCTJ validated University courses that DON'T afford for a critique of what's WRONG with British Media and DON'T prioritize investigation. This is small wonder when you consider that local papers have always controlled the NCTJ, feeding the pig of mediocrity of which they are an integral part. And by local and regional newspapers, of course, including the shitty free sheets eagerly consumed at the tube stations of a morning and evening, we mean the Daily Mail group, Newsquest and that other paragon of the Fourth Estate that is Thompson Regional Newspapers. However, in the Age of the Spectacle, where an alienated working class that is disconnected from its own history of struggle, engages with an inverted social reality largely by way of social media and is thus largely integrated into its own enslavement this has plunged to new depths that would have been a godsend to Orwell's Ministry of Truth. Quite recently we had a guest speaker at the college where I currently teach explaining to students that the key to a successful journalism career was to be able to encapsulate news in a soundbite that could be followed on Tik-tok or some similar enslavement platform, most of them owned by Tech Oligarchs who form the social basis of the new fascism. I can't say that this young woman (who was charming and pleasant enough as an individual) was an official representative of the NCTJ but, then again, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
The problem I always had as a journalist, with one foot in the academic and Party theoretician camp, is that you need a theoretical framework to understand how the world works and that facts, interviews and soundbites don't speak for themselves. Meanwhile, Labour needs a new leadership and new politics and it needs them fast.
Unfortunately, the slow motion train crash that has been coming down the lines for decades is still rumbling on. Like with Hitler's regime and 'revolution' it eventually gets to a point where the push for an outcome gets to a stage where no one is actually in control anymore, and if you like, the 'beast' takes on a life of its own, doesn't matter whether you call it fascism or communism or neoliberal economics, the fall into the abyss becomes obvious to more people but it becomes impossible to stop. Populism, greed and the desires of billionaires to become wealthier at any and every cost. A self destructive religion without a soul, but where the 'great god' money is bowed to and worshipped, no matter how many are sacrificed to this variant of Molech. Sinister times indeed.
To say that the above noted is due to Starmers stupidity can't be right - not that he is the smartest domino on the table, but . . . Starmer is doing exactly what is expected of him by the people who installed him. He is just doing it very ineptly, so that it creates waves instead of just going un-noticed. Anyone who is surprised by what 'Labour' is doing just now hasn't been paying attention for the last 100 or so years. The 'Labour Party consists entirely (and mostly always has done) of a large body terminally naive optimists in the lower levels and a small cesspool of venal proto-fascists in the upper crust.