Keir Starmer's time is up

[bendeus]

Fiver to the server fund to anyone coming up with a credible Nephilim one. I'm trying desperately but I fear it's beyond my wit.

 

[magneze]

Nephilim?

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Fiver to the server fund to anyone coming up with a credible Nephilim one. I'm trying desperately but I fear it's beyond my wit.

Fears he'll be Never-in?

 

[hitmouse]

Andrew Eldritch is Moving Back to Batley & Spen

 

[DotCommunist]

Frank Field has been kicked upstairs as an indy so the perfect set up isn't there.

 

[JimW]

Fields in Our Focus Group Survey Not Filled In

 

[Pickman's model]

cradle of shite

 

[Pickman's model]

fields of the snivelling

 

[hitmouse]

...And You Will Know Us By A Sense of Authentic Values Alignment

 

[Steel Icarus]

Feels of the Never win

Best I can do

 

[DotCommunist]

David Evanescence

 

[pesh]

Annoy Division

 

[bendeus]

Fiver donated

 

[JimW]

Average, White, Bland.

 

[Smangus]

Hollow Horse

 

[JimW]

Poll T'Anka

 

[Pickman's model]

The Damned - New Rose? Or perhaps a total logo makeover?

tbh starmer reminds me more of 'disco man'

down the stairs no one cares

 

[hitmouse]

tbh starmer reminds me more of 'disco man'

down the stairs no one cares

I quite like his classic anarcho-punk LP, The Day the Party Died.

 

[Pickman's model]

I quite like his classic anarcho-punk LP, The Day the Party Died.

didn't the subhumans do a song about starmer, with the line it's fun fun fun till the keith comes round?

 

[chilango]

Tony! Toni! Toné!

 

[chilango]

Radical* Dads' Faction




*Centrist

 

[lazythursday]

That's not what's happening here. Starmer and co are in pursuit of a fictitious centre ground - and believe that they can demonstrate their position within it by attacking the left within the party/standing by flags etc. The left of Labour - if its commentariat are representative of its thinking - meanwhile think that their support base in the University towns and cities can get the job done if they just wait for a demographic moment, enter a popular front with other 'progressives' and wait for Starmer to fail.

Attempts to claim Biden as somehow evidence of the correctness of either approach are very wide of the mark.

My point was that to characterise the right of the party as 'neoliberals' may no longer really be correct, given wider shifts in economic thinking, not least within the Conservative Party. I wasn't passing judgement on either wing of the party's current strategy for winning power. But I'm not sure if your cartoonish summary of left thinking even applies to Clive Lewis let alone the entire Labour left.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

My point was that to characterise the right of the party as 'neoliberals' may no longer really be correct, given wider shifts in economic thinking, not least within the Conservative Party. I wasn't passing judgement on either wing of the party's current strategy for winning power. But I'm not sure if your cartoonish summary of left thinking even applies to Clive Lewis let alone the entire Labour left.

What ‘wider shifts’ in thinking in the Tory Party?

My point about Starmer at al wasn’t about winning elections it was about the mindset, the political ground it seeks to capture to attempt to win elections from. It can, briefly, be characterised as technocratic centralism designed to capture a middle ground that simply doesn’t exist anymore. There is no constituency.

As for the Labour left I’ll be fascinated to read how you perceive it to be rebuilding, organising and thinking through where it goes post Corbyn.

 

[elbows]

Well various aspects of neoliberalism, small government, and narrow ideas about levels of borrowing and deficits have been dying on their arse quite broadly for a while now. The Tories have been coming up with ways to do their own version of this change, involving lots of cronyism and the government giving the money to companies instead of the government providing the services themselves, but it still quite the change compared to the dominant ideology of many recent decades.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Well various aspects of neoliberalism, small government, and narrow ideas about levels of borrowing and deficits have been dying on their arse quite broadly for a while now. The Tories have been coming up with ways to do their own version of this change, involving lots of cronyism and the government giving the money to companies instead of the government providing the services themselves, but it still quite the change compared to the dominant ideology of many recent decades.

As we’ve debated on here, more than once, the Tory shift must be understood as a shift to preserve - and buy breathing space for - neoliberalism rather than a move away from it. You are right to identify the use of public money/contracts to bail out some companies as a key feature of how this works practically. The gobbling up of other companies during the pandemic by hedge funds is another marker of capital’s realignment.

 

[redsquirrel]

Despite the rhetoric neoliberalism never favoured a small state. Indeed it requires an synthesis of state and capital. Capital needs the state, especially at the moment which is why (most of) capital favours increased spending - so long as it is spending on the right sorts of projects.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Despite the rhetoric neoliberalism never favoured a small state. Indeed it requires an synthesis of state and capital. Capital needs the state, especially at the moment which is why (most of) capital favours increased spending - so long as it is spending on the right sorts of projects.

There is also the unintended growth under neoliberalism of social care, mental health services, tax credit workers, job centre staff, NHS, custody services and other significantly state funded services that have proven necessary to deal with the casualties of the economic system.

ETA- and handing as much of these services over to their friends is one of the key ways that neoliberalism will seek to regenerate

 

[splonkydoo]

This Mortal Wet Wipe

 

[elbows]

Yeah I'm probably using the term neoliberalism wrong, using it as shorthand for only a few of its features that were in the driving seat during most of my lifetime so far. I need something else to describe the bits of it that are going out of fashion.

 

[kabbes]

They are going to have to do something radical at some point like replace him with a human.

It’s not really about his charisma — believing that is what got them into this mess in the first place. It’s about having somebody with actual principles and thus who knows how they will respond to events by reference to those principles. Without that — and kief has none of it — the public quickly see through you as inauthentic. When people say they want a strong leader, they don’t mean someone authoritarian, they just mean they want somebody who projects calm by seemingly always knowing what to do. That comes from principles, not charisma.

You might object that Johnson lacks principles, or Cameron or Blair. But I don’t think that’s true. Being amoral or populist or right-wing doesn’t mean you don’t have a guiding philosophy (plus Johnson has never had great approval ratings anyway). I think people have a sense that those individuals have views about things that happen, and that those views are relatively predictable. I have no idea what kief really thinks about anything.