Reading this article as a Left-voting, sex-realist feminist made me roll my eyes at times, particularly this bit:
'McSweeney’s lesson from Barking was not just that voters should be listened to because that was good politics, but that voters should be listened to because they knew what they were talking about.'
And this bit made me snort too:
'The radicalism at the heart of the McSweeney-Starmer project is that it is, in effect, trying to prove Blair wrong — but using many of the tools Blair mastered to do so. When Starmer appeared alongside Blair on stage at the TBI’s Future of Britain conference last year — widely reported as their coming together — Starmer actually delivered a subtle rebuke of his predecessor’s political argument. “The project,” he declared, speaking of his own designs on power “is to return Labour to the service of working people, to become once again the natural vehicle for their hopes and aspirations.”
There were other projects available, he admitted. One alternative was what he called the “rabbit hole of identity politics”. But the other was more pointed. “You could even completely unmoor from the concerns of working people,” Starmer said as Blair watched on.'
This bit confused me because I don’t see any big difference between Trudeau, Arden, Miliband(s) et al and Starmer:
'In September last year, McSweeney and Starmer flew to Montreal to attend the “Global Progress Action Summit” where the world’s leading centre-left politicians met to discuss “bold new ideas and directions in progressive governance”….McSweeney hated it. According to those who spoke to him afterwards, McSweeney felt too many of the arguments on show were disconnected from reality. The world had moved on, but so much of the content appeared to be rehashed versions of Clintonism.'
McSweeney and this article don’t mention women in any significant way, it feels like a description of typical Trade Union blokey politics all over again (i.e. we might listen to women after the revolution is won) with a veneer of identity politics (i.e. we’ll only listen to the right sort of woman).
I’m open to being persuaded otherwise, some of what McSweeney says he believes Labour should do would be great to see but listening to what Starmer says doesn’t give me any confidence that listening to working class voters is top of the list of things Labour will do. I don't see this incarnation of the Labour Party as friendly to voters like me.
https://unherd.com/2024/05/the-mcsweeney-project/