Labour isn't Working - Thread 33

[Nuthatch26]

A chat thread for those who don't like this Labour government. 💙

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.

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Blair was also responsible for bringing ‘messaging’ and spin into British politics in a way and to an extent never seen before him. I think in that way he soiled politics. Not that current Labour shuns any of that Blair propaganda technique, they’re all for it. So the left now condemns Blair’s regulated capitalist successes but adopts his debasement of political discussion. Typical.

Amongst other things (a lot of which is common sense, especially in relations to benefits) Blair is saying Rishi is in favour of digital ID. I've not heard that before.

I’m unsure Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell didn’t just respond to changed circumstances with 24/7 media rather than shape it - they looked as though they were shaping as they were competent at responding to an always on media landscape. God knows this lot can’t look competent if their life depended on it.

yes Blair has hit the nail on the head - over and above everything else nobody wants what Starmer is doing a poor job of selling. Except public sector workers and people who never hope or expect to get off of low wages/no wages.

I missed that, I thought they agreed on incoming AI revolution and the need to plan.

I looked it up, Sunak’s administration explicitly stated there are "no plans to introduce digital ID," dismissing the proposals as a "creepy" move toward state tracking.

I hope he’s sticking on that.

It surprised me. They were discussing AI, Rishi's name came up and Blair said Rishi was also in favour of digital ID and said something like "we can talk about that later if you like."

Ok, so Blair was better than Brown. Blair is better than Starmer, Reeves, Streeting and Rayner and so what do they do now?

Starmer holds off from handing the job to any would be successor in the hope that he can reignite a decade of success, he is no Blair.
Blair, is kind to Starmer, saying labour’s failure is not solely down to his personality. It is a bit though, come on.

Blair intervenes therefore to inform this Labour government that all the moral posturing in the world will not save them.

Without growth, welfare reform, sensible energy policies, working with the business sector, rather than over taxing and over regulating it, this government will continue to flounder from reset to reset and U turn to U turn.

Do you think anyone in government is actually listening?

There is already a 'Has Blair moved to the far right' thread.

Thankfully it's mostly sensible replies.

I disagree with Blair on many things, but one thing he is good at is reading the mood of the country, something a lot of other politicians are just incapable of.

There’s something in that, I agree. And political coverage has - thankfully - got less deferential than in decades past: “Prime Minister, do you have any important words for the nation?”.

What I objected to with Blair were, among other sleights of hand, the routine ‘burying bad news’, changing the vocabulary in a dishonest way (like ‘investment’ for ‘spending’ etc) and the re-announcement of policies and spending commitments as if they were new. Starmer’s addicted to the last one in particular.

It's pie in the sky thinking, I know, but given the incompetent floundering of Starmer et al, it seems to me it would be no bad thing if Blair threw his hat into the ring to lead them until the next GE, whenever it happens - and I'm not a fan of Blair by any stretch of the imagination.

Blair was at least clever. The current government are almost terrifyingly stupid.

I know that I say this quite often but I am bemused at how much press time Reeves, Phillipson and Rayner get. Mahmood and Cooper hardly get any. It’s weird that the Education Secretary gets so much more airtime than the foreign secretary or the Home Secretary.

Those videos with Gemma Collins put out by the DoE were so toe curling bad, it makes me wonder if the people working for Phillipson hate her. Reeves shouts at men in vans. And keeps saying “Do you know who I am?!?” This bunch are just not serious people.

At least he just speaks, not in soundbites and ridiculous Labour lines.

I’d get him and Rishi with Kemi to look problems. Pointless though as on here many will just say tax more, don’t worry about spending limits. And go on about ‘far right’ to anyone who says it’s problematic.

Maybe a left lurch will end that trend anyway.

Yes, I agree. Blair is definitely intuitive when it comes to what the country is feeling. Starmer really needs to swallow his pride and just listen to him.

Loving the far right accusations levelled at Blair on here though. Imbeciles!

Without growth, welfare reform, sensible energy policies, working with the business sector, rather than over taxing and over regulating it, this government will continue to flounder from reset to reset and U turn to U turn.

Do you think anyone in government is actually listening?

Why they can't bloody see this is beyond me (and no amount of gaslighting comms will persuade people that this is what they're achieving). So, the answer is no, they're fingers in the ears, going 'La la laaaa, can't hear you.' Total bunch of incompetents.

I agree, but going further he also introduced to British politics the managerial style of government that; lacks accountability, that feels that dissent only comes from ignorance, that considers the need for democracy to be managed by experts, and that the “grownups” need to guide voters.

And that mentality is now fuelling the rise of populism across the west.

Tony Blair the arch technocrat!

It's high farce isn't it and more so for me , I voted Blair in and thought he was great to begin with !
Until he shat on us all in so many ways.

But I'm agreeing with him again now and it's the irony isn't it that blair is one of them on their side...this isnt Boris ! This is their own team screaming out STOP you bloody idiots ! Stop !!

Hilarous there is a has Blair gone to the far right 😂

Lord Wolfson gave another plea yesterday (high up in next ) laying out how their policies are stopping hiring and so on and the gov response was ridiculous.

Top bosses are explaining why their schemes are stopping x y.and z and they keep insisting their growing the economy

IMO Blair is a master of realpolitik. The idea that being pragmatic in terms of policy in the short term will gain you power that can be used as a basis to shape ideology in the long term. If you don't have the power, you don't get to shape the ideology.

He did the same in the 1997 election, stole the more acceptable (to his party) Tory policy and made it his own. This shifted the Tories to the right and away from the middle ground you need to capture in order to win elections.

The downside here is that he didn't really do much to shape the ideology. There was no significant repeal of some of Thatchers policies that if left to run long term would lead to negative consequences. For example financial deregulation and social housing.

Seems to me here he is proposing the same thing. Take the middle ground by stealing some of Reforms more politically acceptable policies, leaving them with the less acceptable ones. For example oil exploration.

Will this approach work and the answer is this time I don't know. When he did it last it was about taking Tory policy and forcing them away from the middle ground, but this time Labour are losing votes to the left (the greens) as well. The war on two fronts means that any move to the right to gain votes might lead to a loss of votes to the left. Careful balance is required, and this is without consideration of the more idealogical components of the Labour left that will be unwilling to accept pragmatism in exchange for power.

Not sure it is going to work this time.

@GasPanic I agree with much of what you say, but I think it understates Blair’s ideological legacy. He didn’t just borrow Tory policy to gain power. He helped create the managerial style of government we still live under - targets, messaging, technocracy, and the belief that politics is something to be managed by experts rather than openly engaged with by the electorate.

I believe that he did reshape ideology and we are still living in the system he helped create.

It worked during the Blair era, it is not working, won’t work because of slow growth, low productivity, high taxation, foot dragging on infrastructure reform, high welfare and redistribution policies.

Anyway, at least things are getting serious now, because this government is in serious trouble.

Hes spot on with zero net energy .
Red ed needs to go

He says he can't understand the logic behind it
Neither can we !

Fair points.

Maybe also an addition of expanding the benefit system, encouraging a culture of less personal responsibility - ultimately the expansion of the big state which is part of the core socialist doctrine.

There is also the move towards a more planned economy, fiscal rules and the claim of "no more boom and bust" although we all know how that ended.

For a moment, moving to Scottish politics and the very large question mark over Sturgeon's innocence, this article is an interesting read. What caught my attention was the Jura coffee machine. We have one; it wasn't cheap and if it had appeared in the kitchen without prior discussion, I would have been asking questions - not least because while DH could have afforded to buy it as a surprise, he has enough nous to realise not every woman appreciates kitchen appliances as presents.

That's enough to convince me Sturgeon was complicit in the fraud - well, that and the fact she ordered party members not to discuss the state of the SNP's accounts.

https://archive.ph/c4ib6

Labour stalwarts will likely double down after Blair intervention. You can see it on here already. Many of the Labour MPs will be similar.

Keep going, spend more, tax more. As long as they’re voted out sooner or later with the next GE, they can’t say they weren’t warned.

The scar tissue left from this wretched government will be profound.

The net zero, no drilling, etc agenda is coming apart IMO.

Worthy aims, sure, but the cost is so massive that the need to change course (as post-Boris Tories have done) is overwhelming now. You have to be a cult member to stick with Labour’s policies - as to which, see the Greens, the Labour grassroots and Ed Miliband.

After the ‘everyone is far right’ thread I’m almost at just do what state dependents want, jack it up go left see what happens.

I get that sense sometimes. But then I get the gloomy feeling that no party that follows would make public sector cuts of the right kind to the right extent, and we’d just end up in a hole we have no means of climbing out of.