Douglas Murray on intolerant politics

It was never about democracy, and this was wilfully misinterpreted to the western audience to suit our regimes' narratives .

It keeps coming back to housing.

I agree wholeheartedly with this.

One of the things about the Arab spring was it was interpreted by Western governments and press as being about a desire for democracy as the time.

The Arab Spring interpretation was an entirely western spin on what the Arab people themselves called the Muslim Awakening , intended to create echoes of Hungary 56, Prague 69, the defeat of an ideaology- that through the natural order of enlightened thinking, all nations and peoples aspire to western style democracy and eventually will become right minded enough to demand it...

I'm sure Caroline Flint is furious. But I think she's wrong to attack Starmer, Thornberry etc. Two reasons. One is that you can't suddenly expect people who passionately believe that leaving the EU is the wrong thing to do to start supporting the Leave cause just because of the referendum result. Second, let's not forget that 48% of people voted Remain. Why should their views not be represented in parliament? I'm really sick of this will of the people stuff. All the referendum result showed is that the country was divided in half.

I've said it before that I don't think it's necessarily immigration as such, more a change of migration patterns which can include British white people moving in large numbers to an area.

If you look at what's happened in recent years you have gentrification patterns and what has been termed 'social cleansing' where poorer communities have been displaced to other places around the country due to problems with a lack of council housing.

Immigration has been blamed by some but I think its too simplistic.

In my area the only families that have managed to stay living in the area have tended to be those in council houses. Young people can't afford to stay or return to where they grew up. The population is very white.

But of those who have been here a long time there is resentment over 'the money' and those moving in tend to have moved up from London and the South, which is changing the character of the area. They don't have the same priority of community and devote less time to it.

Of those who have afforded to move here / stay here and are from the North they tend to have certain professions. It's over represented with computer programmers and well paid science based jobs.

It comes back to housing.

It keeps coming back to housing.

... Urgh pressed post by accident.
I read the Madness of Crowds book and while I agreed with his critique I didn't like his analysis at all. It was very smug and right wing.

Also I'm not British but weren't people on here lauding LOJ at one point for his analysis of the British Proletariat? How does that sit now?

I haven't read the article but I agree it sounds like your typical condescending ruling class "I really know what the great unwashed need better than them."

My experience of NW small towns is they tend to have large numbers of traditionalists and somewhere. Where I live they don't like gentrification and 'the money moving in' because it destroys the idea of it 'taking a whole village to raise a child' which is essentially about the importance of communities looking after each other.

I think that's probably true, and it's not incredibly helpful to tell people who don't like immigration that they are being racist. A huge wave of immigration can, I imagine, destabilise a community's cohesion and sense of itself. The trouble with the left is that while it focuses on the benefits of immigration - more people working in the NHS, paying taxes, generally being positive contributors to society - ignores that element. So while all those benefits might be true, they fail to recognise the downsides.

One of the things about the Arab spring was it was interpreted by Western governments and press as being about a desire for democracy as the time. This was a convenient narrative because it fitted in with their narrative about how democracy was best and how the west was winning the ideological war.

What happened afterwards challenged that idea as democracy was not viewed as a priority.

Instead the wisdom now is that the Arab spring was about a desire for dignity in life and being able to live in a way which food and opportunities were more available. I much more basic need. Or one that was about cultural freedom of the majority against an aging authoritarian. And this was to an extent often promised or delivered by more anti democratic movements. These leaders were affluent oligarchs and capitalists who capitalised on the unrest and instability (also see disaster capitalism). The democratic leaders had much less to offer to the masses for a variety of reasons. And didn't offer dignity in the fact that they were often perceived to be beholden to Western Governments in some way rather than being independent and for the local populations interests primarily and not being told by the West what was good for them.

If you compare that with what's happened in the US and UK there are striking parallels though without the same degree of violence.

There is something of a reliance and arrogance in not viewing the wave of political instability in Western nations as part of the same wave of political instability as the Arab spring which predated it. The narrative is that it started with political instability causes by Brexit.

If you follow the strands though this concept is questionable.

England is perhaps the only country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their nationality. In left wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman

OMG! Serendipity! I am just reading that very essay right now!

Could anyone tell me exactly what it was that they did - and do - want that made the Conservatives so much more attractive?

I cannot say what anyone sees in the Tories as I'm in Scotland and all the Tories I know are Tory for sectarian reasons which the English generally seem oblivious to.

I can tell you what annoys my own working class community about Labour.

Identity politics. Everybody hates it. Stop calling people bigots for using the wrong bloody word. The working classes are more likely to live with actual immigrants. To be friends with them., To marry them. Actions speak louder than words. Stop obsessing and stop changing the 'approved 'term than slagging people off for failing to keep up. And for gods sake stop calling people 'privileged' unless they are actually rich.

Stop speaking for people and telling them what they want. Increasing minimum wage is good for some, bad for others. Learn some nuance. Speak to the small business owners that might have to lay people off if it goes up. Consult and take on board their concerns. Create a policy that increases employees wages but not at the expense of putting people out of work. Not at the expense of businesses having to close. The small business owners I know are working class. They are roofers, and sparkies, and flooring company owners, and window cleaners. They want to employ people but may need some government support if you put minimum wage up.

Stop assuming what works in one part of the UK is good for all and can be applied blanketly. Allow different countries and regions to tailor policies to their own needs. When a country or region tells you 'this policy will be bad for us and here's why' listen to them and create a more nuanced policy that allows for difference.

There's so much more I could say but this post is long enough for starters.

as a foreigner's eye.
brexit was litmus test.
working class feels like ignored and think politician do what they want,
not people want.
and then there's referendum.

i think working class vote more leave because know elite doesn't want that.

and they have been watching what politicians doing.
"respect it ? or ignore it?"

pp may want....some respect?

imo, labour promised too many things , pp didn't believe.
so, there's no expect for economy what else wanna expect?

but last several years people remembered how they have been mocked, ignored, be shouted to shut up.

in oppression race, surprisingly they have to keep remind themselves how privilege they are.

elites forced to do that while ignoring their morale and faith by identity politics.

and then there's someone at least saying 'i'm listening'
so...

I don't know, really, what people like Murray think Labour could have been offering working people that it wasn't. It was offering huge investment in the NHS and education, a rise in the Real Living Wage to £10 an hour, strengthening employment rights, extending statutory maternity pay, giving everyone a right to flexible working. But Labour was apparently "out of touch" with what ordinary working people wanted. Could anyone tell me exactly what it was that they did - and do - want that made the Conservatives so much more attractive?

Online, I think people are more likely to pay attention to the tone and attitude of activists than they are granular manifesto detail. Hence my banging on about pompous smug arses such as Owen Jones.

Good post, Red.

I do not think anybody believed they could do that Royalcorgi. They didn't explain the policies well enough and just kept coming up with one freebie after another in some kind of scattergun approach. They could promise unicorns for all but without a strong leader people just didn't believe they could do it. If Tony Blair had promised to nationalise broadband, water, railways etc, the markets would have gone into meltdown because the City would have feared that hed be able to do it. When McDonnell and Corbyn said it, the markets were completely stable because they knew they wouldn't be able to do anything of the sort. I think it was the same with a lot of the electorate. No one believed them.

OK some political guff incoming.

There are no longer the old classes as we know them.

Instead we have 7 distinct tribes in how we see the world. See link below to 3D political compass.
www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/pol3d_main.html

They are the Hard Left, the Centrists, the Progressives, the Young Kind Capitalists, the Somewhere, the Traditionalists and the Hard Right.

Labour have been of late driven by a combination of the Hard Left and the Progressives.

What's noticeable about the hard left is how they are so far away from all the other groups on the political compass.

This naturally limits the appeal they have to the other 6 groups.

My experience of NW small towns is they tend to have large numbers of traditionalists and somewhere. Where I live they don't like gentrification and 'the money moving in' because it destroys the idea of it 'taking a whole village to raise a child' which is essentially about the importance of communities looking after each other. There is a conflict between them and the progressives and the young kind capitalists for this reason.

It's often interpretated as xenophobia but I think it much more complex than that. I think it can at times have elements of that, but there's also this idea which is very positive and ensures the vulnerable are looked after.

We need to start looking at the positive elements here and communicating the idea that different ideas are not necessarily wrong and certainly do have value.

The people who gave been running Labour need to have a good hard look at the political compass and the new tribes if they want to assess where they went wrong and where they go from here.

But Labour was apparently "out of touch" with what ordinary working people wanted.

I think they would have done better with a leader who doesn't give the impression that it is morally wrong to want to earn a lot more than £10 an hour.

Opinium did some polling on why former Labour voters switched away from Labour this time and Labour's policies were not anywhere near as big a reason as Brexit or Corbyn.

I don't know, really, what people like Murray think Labour could have been offering working people that it wasn't. It was offering huge investment in the NHS and education, a rise in the Real Living Wage to £10 an hour, strengthening employment rights, extending statutory maternity pay, giving everyone a right to flexible working. But Labour was apparently "out of touch" with what ordinary working people wanted. Could anyone tell me exactly what it was that they did - and do - want that made the Conservatives so much more attractive?

The kindly lord of the manor tone of that set my teeth on edge.

there's an "improving the poor" tone to the way they talk about people outside their bubble that grates and comes across as contempt

Agree. JC's sons say "Jeremy has dedicated each day of his political life for the less fortunate among us", which though well meant makes it sound as though he is running a charity, not the leader of a political party representing equals.