The Fabian Society

Honestly I don't know whether I should be pleased that this is the best they've got (seriously, "the Fabians are secretly running the country" is the best you could come up with?) or worried about how complete nonsense like this takes hold.

To me it's a complete joke that the Fabians are suddenly being touted as this shadow-y influential organisation when they're just one of the most vanilla left-wing think tanks out there.

The fragrant Tommy Robinson started touting it just after the Epping judgement. That says a lot, I think.

I think picking up on the word "radical" in that sentence the OP clipped is to fundamentally misunderstand the Fabians history.

advocates gradualist, reformist and democratic means in a journey towards radical ends.

...the words "gradualist, reformist and democratic" are really more significant. The were founded at a time when there was really much more political agitation and revolutionary talk amongst the left. Basically the big pitch of the founders of the Fabians was "yes we want transformative change towards a socialist society but let's be sensible here and just see what we can do bit by bit through the democratic process and achieve progressive change gradually". Their distinguishing feature was "let's be calm and think about this". Which is still really what they do, just come up with fairly dull detailed leftist policy ideas, and try to get Labour to listen to them.

I've got no problem with the existence of think tanks of any political flavour - what I do have a problem with is those where it's not transparent what they're doing and who is funding them to do it.

I've worked with the Fabians as part of an organisation that funded them to write a report - their T&Cs are absolutely clear that you are NOT buying access to decision makers and you are NOT paying for them to be a mouthpiece for your ideas. And they stick to that. I've worked with other think tanks which are much more "you tell us what to write, we'll write it and we'll get you a meeting with the government minister".

To me it's a complete joke that the Fabians are suddenly being touted as this shadow-y influential organisation when they're just one of the most vanilla left-wing think tanks out there.

You've had an interesting experience on MN then.

Still projection.

I did understand that the Fabian Society is really old. Wasn't George Bernard Shaw a member? Its referred to in literature anyway.

This is hardly news.
All political parties have groups within them - think tanks and the like which seek to shape party politics. Nothing radical or surprising in that surely?

Most things have got worse though.

The FS has been around since 1884; it actually predates Labour.

Nope just experience on MN for last few years. You were the one posting passive aggressive responses
Meh can't be arsed to argue this one. Better get back to Reeves trying to gaslight the nation, should be a laugh if nothing else.

Goodness, plenty of projection there.

Is it? Because it opposed to your pov? Because you're right and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong?
All the evidence on the economy shows that Labour have made things worse. Quite a feat actually but something they have achieved nevertheless.

It hasn't really. It raised quite a few responses of 🤔 how come you didn't know, why are you surprised, why is that worse than Tufton St / Billionaires from Russia or wherever having an influence on the last government.

That's quite an interesting pov.

Just what I was thinking 😊

There is an alternate viewpoint ie that many of our judges and people of influence are members of the society. And that they have a belief of disrupting from within. But hey, as it's a left wing group that's OK isn't it? As long as it's left wing views being spread that all is ok. Just as long as it's not a right wing group with that amount of influence and power.

One of the Fabian Society founders was a great-great-relative of mine in fact. I have incredible political influence in that I, er, vote plus post far too much on MN.

Is this supposed to be some kind of counterpoint to knowing that Reform has people who take actual Russian government bribes?

The Fabians are a fairly dull think tank whose primary achievement is producing pamphlets that nobody reads. The idea that they are a sinister shadowy group secretly controlling the levers of power is nonsense (but seems to have become inexplicably popular in online right wing circles in recent years).

Incidentally, when you search ‘Fabian Society founders’ on Google, the first autocomplete result is ‘Jewish’, which gives you an idea of the preoccupations of the people embracing this conspiracy theory.

Aha! Thanks for that lightbulb 😁 Good old Clav.

Er Labour are in power now

Bollocks, Labour have made things worse which took some doing.

Never their fault though, always just the Tories/Reform and now Brexit. Lying, gaslighting cunts the lot of them.

I want to know where these conspiracy theories about the Fabians have come from! For anyone who knows the first thing about them it’s absolutely absurd.

For one thing thing they’re notoriously shambolic so the idea they are an all-powerful organisation pulling the strings is hilarious. They generally struggle to organise a simple meeting (maybe it’s a clever bluff, who knows…)

Seriously though they are absolutely transparent about their purpose and funding which is a LOT more than can be said for many think tanks! And they take their independence of thought from their funders seriously (which again is very different from many think tanks that just let more or less anyone with a cheque book pay for influence).