Douglas Murray on intolerant politics

[BovaryX]

There is an interesting article by Douglas Murray in the DM about the authoritarian, identity politics which have alienated Labour voters and triggered a paradigm shift in the political landscape. It covers some of the themes which Lang GC Pencils and others have been discussing in light of election result.

It is a divide between people who have real-world concerns and those focused on niche and barely significant ones...How, you might ask, have we reached such a state? There is a clue in the Labour Party’s dysfunctional reaction to its catastrophic defeat on Thursday

All right-thinking places must surely want to remake themselves in the image of Brighton, seems to be their thinking.
This is actually a great example. Brighton is fun and stuff, but it has: a massive homelessness problem. A massive drugs problem. A dodgy local kingpin who runs dodgy nightclubs. Prostitution. The biggest disparity between rich and poor you've ever seen this side of Rio de Janeiro. London level house prices and barely any London level jobs. Thousands upon thousands of commuters who pay £4000 to live in Brighton and work in London. Poor schools. High crime. Vomit on the streets of a morning and gay pubs with "no terfs" signs outside. Oh and the only Green MP in the country.

I don't dislike Brighton but it's plenty messed up, not something to emulate really.

If I had a young family I would not choose to live there, basically. If I was rich and liked to party maybe I would.

Probably not, because there's nowhere to park.

“ gay pubs with "no terfs" signs outside.”

Oh that is SO depressing.

Thanks for that, packingsoapandwater, fantastic post.

Great post packing. They were taken for granted by Labour. The Tories put local candidates up in those seats instead of gifting them to activists parachuted in from anywhere and they won.

This thread is brilliant. Nodding away at so much. Thank you. From someone who has moved a lot between the ‚Classes‘... what you say makes a lot of sense.

It is possible to highlight the positive nature of immigration while also highlighting the positives of staying put. You could, for example, highlight the money saved when people stay and care for their own relatives, and thank them for doing so. You could highlight the importance of stability in communities, particularly for children. You could put policies in place that support people in staying where they are (yes housing is a key part of this).

THIS!

Also: bloody fantastic post, Packing.

Another one agreeing with packing

Tony Blair also ruined London and began an unravelling of integration which led to my family being labelled coconuts etc as being non white means my London history is not really my history, everything is about skin colour. This years after years of Londoners chugging along as, well, Londoners...

I can’t believe Putney went red.

I will look up the Parekh report.

AutumnRose, my DD aged 11, came home asking why she did not come from ‘anywhere’. A sixth generation Londoner on my dads side, proper London Irish. She later asked why racism against the English was allowed when racism against anyone else was not.

The trouble with being woke is that you effectively prioritise some and not others. You judge. You define. Twenty years ago I remember a black colleague, newly a grandmother, saying what she wanted for her granddaughter was for colour not to be an issue. Sadly I suspect things have got worse. Not because her granddaughter won’t be able to form the same easy relationships with neighbours and work colleagues that her grandmother had. But because of the greater awareness of ‘diversity’. My best guess is that most people just want to get along with their lives and take people as they find them.

I am still very angry about the accusations of racism that happened around Brexit, even though I was uncertain so did not vote. . No attempt to ask why people might have supported Brexit. The creed was remain, so anyone who did not follow the creed was fair game.

I so hope we can get back to civilised debate when faced with divergent opinions.

Yes packing. Awesome post

Needmoresleep

I so relate to that. I’ve had my friend’s 18 year old, you know when you first start work and have to fill in a billion forms, being very upset because at the end of the exercise he felt horrendously “othered” by all the ethnicity questions.

My late father long refused to fill in those forms.

I’ve mentioned here that I hate wondering if I got a job because I tick a diversity box. Posters replied saying “but your application is anonymous”. Yes, but when I turn up to interview they see my skin colour!

I have been rewatching The Good Wife, Eli makes a reference to “this was meant to be a post racial society”. It was, and we were really getting there.....until some groups decided to fuck it all up.

I am so hoping that this will put us back on a good path.

Those forms... I panicked a bit when
20 years ago and together with other new mums we set up a community group to protect our local park. The Labour run Local Authority would not talk to us as they felt we were insufficiently diverse. Till I remembered that one Committee member was Asian and another black. It was really just chance. New mums in our area came in all shapes, colours and sizes.

The Local Authority then decided we were too Middle Class and so not representative enough. I asked another mum in the playground, who lived on a local estate whether we were getting it wrong. No, not at all. She was glad mums like me were using our energy and experience to fight for local facilities. She was too busy dealing with the housing department, benefits etc. And anyway there was little chance if mums from her estate set up a group, that they would be listened to either.

I suspect divide and rule has been used as a tactic for a long time. It is essentially telling people they are not 'good enough' based on colour, background, sex or whatever. Merit would be a better basis.

Needmoresleep yes, all I hear is that it’s intended to help with prejudice. When I’ve dared to say I think it makes things worse, the reaction I get is that I’m a bad person. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Also, I think it’s important to remember there are now huge numbers of jobs attached to all this and I don’t think those people will give up easily. Though I at least I now feel like it’s not just a handful of us who are royally pissed off with this.

Great thread. A woke acquaintance shared this clip on social media
www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1136149183233784
and whilst nothing to do with the election, for me it sums up why working class people such as myself are so turned off by middle class Corbynistas. It's from the Channel 4 program 'Home', which I haven't watched, but this clip was shared as a kind of moral lesson, with the title 'How to Deal With a Racist'. Everything about this clip is so far-fetched and cartoon like - the saintly immigrant who gives up his money to the man abusing him, the horrible rabid white working class racist man. And then we have the symbolic perfect multicultural family who swoop in as heroes - and following the narrative we've seen time and time again, this means that there is a double standard, with threats of violence to be cheered on so long as the 'right side' are doing it. I'm not saying immigrants don't have to put up with abuse, they do and they shouldn't, but I have worked directly for many years with immigrants from war torn countries, and they have unanimously told me how much more welcoming the UK is than any other country they have been in. I've also lived in other countries and have seen this to be true with my own eyes. It's not the message of this clip that's the problem, but the whole patronising tone of it, and the fact that this supposed comedy program written by a privately educated, middle class white Cambridge graduate is educating the commoners on how to behave next time they see any bad behaviour in the dole queue - and worse than that, being shared by the woke as some sort of public service announcement for the plebs. It's like the middle class far left have just discovered that brown and black people are actual humans too and so need to share this valuable insight with all of us because we're obviously all too thick and racist to realise it. The latest story of the evil and ignorant great unwashed of which I smell is bullshit has been shared by LOJ:
twitter.com/Obewankanobewh1/status/1205534123248570372
It's the exact same narrative as the Jesse Smollet scandal - I accept I could be wrong, but really, 'bumboys'?! and 'Boris, Boris, Boris'?!

...Come to think of it, I'm also pretty offended that by the amount of swearing in that clip, as thought that's how the writer thinks working class people all talk - even the cashier is effing it! So tired of being spoken down to by these muppets with zero real world experience. Sucking dick for socialism T-shirts FFS, obviously worn by a woman who wasn't pimped out at 15 by a friend's mother, like someone I knew, going on to suffer mental health problems, eating disorders and making several suicide attempts. Yes, that's all just a joke isn't it, Owen? FWIW I didn't vote at all this election, for the first time. I couldn't bring myself to vote Tory, but I did consider it and understand why many did. The most pathetic thing is the way in which this crushing defeat is still being defended and excused. It just makes them even more contemptible.

Some great points being made here, as an outsider I think that the benefits cap, 2 child benefit cap, bedroom tax etc were seen as a good thing by a lot of working class people in the UK, the Tory policies brought an odd sense of fairness to those who were struggling but still going to work every day. I think a lot of working class people see those who don't work and live off benefits as hugely prevalent in society because often you're more likely to notice them or read articles about them when in reality its a tiny percentage and people who find themselves living off benefits genuinely struggling and want to be in work.

I think as well the private school thing and getting rid of Ofsted was misjudged. It appeared to me like they were just trying to get rid of the competition so that defacto state schools were the best. I think a lot of people who would have voted Labour in the past or would have been expected to be Labour voters would have aspired for either themselves at the time or their child then or now to be able to attend a Grammar school for social mobility.

I think people also understood that a huge increase in spending while trying to tax richer people (who are generally much more easily able to move country) would result in huge tax increases and given the percentage already spent servicing debt would be another reason that the bottom could fall out with an ageing population. I kept thinking about how a single tax payer moving out of New Jersey meant that they had to redo the whole state budget because of a much diminished tax take www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/business/one-top-taxpayer-moved-and-new-jersey-shuddered.html

were seen as a good thing by a lot of working class people in the UK

miri
Really interesting to get your perspective and I think that’s an accurate observation. Your New Jersey example suggests the Laffer Curve is not just theoretical. I think punitive tax rates are often more popular with the politicians making them than with the people they are supposed to benefit!

how refreshing to find one with intelligent, well thought out and honest comments

Pjlady
I agree with you. This forum is really special because people engage with each other and have interesting, passionate discussions without the vitriol which typifies much of the internet. I am also relatively new to this forum and I have been struck by how welcoming people are, even if we have different political views. That’s a rare and precious thing these days. There are lots of intelligent informed posters and I have learned a lot from them. Packing many interesting points in your post.

brilliant thread. so many great posts

because I'm a bit slow on the uptake, the first time this pinged my radar was Emily Thornbury's image of Rochester tweet. I grew up around there, and I know precisely what it's like. I couldn't believe that a Labour politician was showing such condescension towards working people. What the hell does she think the Labour movement was for ?

Apparently this time around she said to Caroline Flint 'I'm glad my constituents aren't as stupid as yours'

as my mother said, it's disgraceful. Disgraceful is precisely the word for this abject betrayal of working people and perversion of the Labour movement.

I haven't read the NY Times article because I don't want to create yet another account.

However, New Jersey is a state that is unable to 'create' its own money and therefore dependent on tax receipts (in addition to federal spending), while the UK is a country with its sovereign currency and therefore not constrained in the same way because on a country wide level, government spending comes before taxation (otherwise how can the government demand people pay tax if the currency hasn't already been issued by the government? ).

modernmoneybasics.com/facts/

In the modern era, it doesn't really matter where super rich people live. Their wealth moves around the globe via offshore accounts and various tax loopholes. No one actually moves to Panama for the tax cuts! Wealthy Russians and Chinese continue live in the UK (predominantly in London) because they like the prestige and lifestyle that comes with it.
Where rich people live and where their money resides are two different things.

Place mark so I can come back to this thread to absorb fully the great posts.

Over the last two years, so much of what I think has been turned on it’s head, because I’ve grown to realise the assumptions that I’d built my politics on need to be challenged. It’s hard work, it takes some real thinking and reflection. But it’s worth it.

Then came Brexit. For the first time in a long time, Northerners in traditional Labour areas got the chance to register their anger against the political classes without having to vote Tory. This is THE important point here

Packing
Superb analysis. In a way, it really doesn’t matter whether Emily Thornberry called voters stupid or not. The point is that the left wing media, Twitter and the upper echelons of Remain Labour have repeatedly demonstrated that they think Leave voters are thick racists. As you say, Brexit was an opportunity to express anger without abandoning Labour. This election was the tipping point. And the same old tropes about turkeys and Christmas still dominate social media, demonstrating an obdurate failure to learn even after obliteration in the Midlands and the North....

I agree that Packing's post is excellent. Take one issue, social care. As the population has aged, has been a huge growth in demand for jobs in care - fairly menial jobs that require people to carry out intimate care for elderly people. And a huge proportion of those jobs are now done by immigrants. There's a kind of sneering middle-class attitude that says "British working-class people won't do those jobs, so we have to bring in immigrants to do them."

But of course the reality is that many working-class people would love to do those jobs, but they can't do them, because the demands are often so ridiculous - having to start work at 6am or finish at 9pm, or work weekends, and if you are already caring for your own family those kinds of hours are impossible. Employers could make it more feasible by being a bit more flexible in allowing people to choose their hours or work part time. But they don't.

You can see why a lot of working-class communities then feel less than thrilled when middle-class liberals tell them they should be grateful that so many immigrants are willing to come in and do these jobs.

And the difficulty then is the confusion between immigration and immigrants. I do think that immigrants who have come here have done a lot of good for the country, and have made valuable contributions. I can also see why people are resentful about immigration and the impact it has on their communities - and I think you should be able to say both those things.

packingsoapandwater

Your post rings so many bells for me sitting in my ex-shipbuilding Clydeside town, all bar the one line.

We had high hopes for Blair, foolishly believing that we might see investment and change in post-industrial areas of recividist unemployment. We saw nothing of the sort. After devolution failed with the NW vote, nothing else happened

But here's the dirty little secret about devolution, Labour never really supported it.

I was a Labour member back in the 90s. I campaigned for a Blair government, and for devolution, which was massively popular in Scotland. People here have been agitating for autonomy for as long as we've had votes through which to do so, and Labour have let us down every bloody time.

Even with a 70% in favour vote they took the result as a desire for permanent Labour government, not autonomy from Westminster which was what the people thought we were voting for.

Even before the first Holyrood election this was apparent to those of us on the inside. Those who are old enough may remember the Dennis Canavan affair. Canavan was a popular Labour MP from Falkirk who wished to make the move to Holyrood and represent his constituents there. His local CLP wanted him to be their candidate. The powers that be in London blocked him. He wasn't a good little yes man who would do what he was told. He ended up standing as an independent and won.

Canavan wasn't the only such case though, just the only one to hit the headlines. My own CLP had a similar issue with London blocking our preferred candidate. Two thirds of local members, including me, left over it. I have never voted Labour since.

It took the wider voting public somewhat longer to realise Labour's idea of devolution was Scotland doing what the London Labour leadership wanted, but by 2007 enough had done so for Labour to lose Holyrood to the SNP.

Even now after the arse they made of the 2014 referendum and the loss of their Westminster seats in three consecutive elections they still don't understand that Scotland never asked for permanent Labour government. We asked for autonomy. For the ability to make policies the work for us with no reference to London at all. I despair of them.