Article about Mumsnet on Unherd. "Has Mumsnet fallen for Farage? Labour is losing Middle England"

[lechiffre55]

The title is slightly clickbaity but the article seems fairly balanced to me.
It's about what Starmer and Labour have done wrong to lose support. No element of smear against Mumsnet.
https://unherd.com/2026/01/has-mumsnet-fallen-for-farage/

I came across this article in The Critic that I think contains some information relevant to this thread's discussion:

https://thecritic.co.uk/into-the-boomerverse/

"It isn’t just decent but out-of-touch commentators like John Harris, or even somewhat otherworldly former Archbishops who keep their minds chastely behind a veil of ignorance about modern Britain — it’s Sir Keir, our less than beloved national Don Quixote.

His faith in public institutions which have manifestly failed, his reverence for international laws that nobody is following anymore, his assumption that economic renewal will take care of itself and his confused obeisance to progressive trends all reflect the time-warp generation. He believes in institutions because they worked for him, he blindly worships international law because it was a fiction still indulge in his youth, he expects the economy to turn around because it always did before and he takes the knee to the BLMs of this world because he liked to sing along to Free Nelson Mandela as a young man. There are no nostalgics like progressive nostalgics….

…Things that were once Britain’s chief strengths — stability, the rule of law and institutional continuity — have become collective curses when removed from the context of patriotism and a government focused on the national interest. Whilst other countries have woken up to the reality of a changing world and new threats, unanticipated by the framers of the post-war Western order, Britain remains asleep even as the house burns down around it. Leaders care more about international law, proceduralism and liberal civility than they do about their fellow citizens. "

I didn't say you were a bad person. I think Cummings is a bad person. Or more specifically a deeply dishonest manipulative and hypocritical person. Unless you are actually Dominic Cummings then don't worry about it.

So, ignoring the derail, we've got an elite that's wildly out of touch, and an elite that's increasingly explicit in seeing democracy as a pesky annoyance. The numpties on TRIP are not outliers, they are speaking for their class.

I think this is a very dangerous situation, and we can count ourselves lucky that we've got the populism we've got, and not something genuinely extremist. This might not hold if Labour allow their authoritarian instincts to prevail.

If you start out from the premise that the institutions are the only true preserves of Paddington Bear British Values, and therefore we must defend the institutions at all costs, and not even allow ourselves to think about why the institutions aren't working... we might lose the failing institutions anyway, and we might lose more than that.

@SionnachRuadh
These would be the institutions that are already riddled with useful idiot virtue signalers?
The police, more interested in offensive tweets and non crime hate incidents than crime.
The BBC protectors of paedophiles, rape gangs, men in women's prisons, and "from the river to the sea".
Academia where a lot of this started.
NGOs being paid by government ministers to tell them what to think, even when their advice is against the law.
The civil service who decide how Britain will be run not the elected politicians - see Cummings links in this thread.
The who edifice is rotten.

It is why people like Farage and Trump have so much power. Because common sense the and basic everyday needs of the voters comes dead last in the eyes of the useful idiot virtue signallers. You can only push people sof far for so long before people get sick of it and start pushing back. That's why people call Farage a release valve, because people are looking to leaders like him and Trump for relief. The longer the pressure builds up the bigger the bang when it eventually goes off. Explosives literally work like this. The more constrictive the vessel they are stored in, the bigger the bang when they are set off.
Farage is right about if you think he's bad, wait until what comes after him.

Is that an argument?

She ran a shit campaign, it doesn't reflect on women, just on herself.

And she was telling Bill no, she didn't need to visit places like Michigan, her campaign manager said that wasn't necessary - while Trump was in Michigan talking to factory workers and telling them he was going to revive the American car industry.

The only way it was caused by her being a woman is if lady brain meant she couldn't see why that was a serious strategic error.

I don't know if this story is true, but it seems plausible.

We know that Hillary didn't go to Wisconsin. What I heard was that Democrat organisers in Wisconsin were worried about low black turnout in Milwaukee, and begged the campaign to send them Barack Obama or Michelle Obama or Jesse Jackson or anyone who could fire up the base.

The Wisconsin Democrats didn't get the Obamas or Jesse Jackson. They got Chelsea Clinton.

At that time, I think, party bigwigs were still interested in grooming Chelsea as a future candidate. Or they pretended to be, to suck up to Hillary.

I should reread that book Shattered, that gave the definitive account of what a shitshow the Hillary campaign was. It's a strange book because it was written by journos who were embedded with the campaign and obviously really wanted her to win, and kept being amazed by how awful the campaign was.

Trump is the villain of the story, but he's almost entirely offstage.

They give us a picture of Hillary being so arrogant she was almost floating above the campaign, with her overpromoted aides squabbling among themselves about who had access to her and who was going to get the big jobs after her inevitable win.

I don't like Bill Clinton for obvious reasons, but the man is a genuine political genius, and there are odd, almost sad moments where Bill wanders into a meeting and says he's worried about the polls, and maybe it would be an idea to reach out to Middle American voters, and everyone just ignores him.

It's a great example of how an arrogant and out of touch elite can sabotage itself.

Someone who didn't read the article

@SionnachRuadh
Ty for Shattered book recommendation, just bought it on Audible.
What you describe reminds me of Kamala's campaign, where she paid big bucks for many celebrity endorsements. How much did Beyoncé get paid, and she didn't even sing? It's one elite hiring other elites. How can that possibly bridge the divide to the working people? Maybe I'm too old to understand the draw of celebrities on young people, but their lives are so different from mine why would I care what they think?
And then look at Trump for comparison, the big fuss over the comedian ( Kill ) Tony Hinchcliff making a joke about Puerto Rico being "garbage" at Trump's Madison Square Garden rally. The joke is offensive to some and it's a good attack line for the Democrates very close to the election. How did Trump respond to this self inflicted wound? He got in a garbage truck with a high vis jacket. It's a connection to working people. He owned and defused the garbage problem. The serving at McDonalds thing too, doing a job that many Americans do, young Americans. Doing what working people do.
I don't remember many celebrities being involved in the Trump campaign. The most obvious one I can think of is Hulk Hogan at the same rally as Kill Tony. A wrestler who is probably on every TV in every household in America with kids. It's the connection to the common people thing again. I don't think of Hulk Hogan as an elite, although others might disagree.
To me there was two different mindsets in action during Harris vs Trump.
Elites looking down on the little people wanting their votes.
An elite trying to connect with the little people wanting thier votes.

I think this is a very dangerous situation, and we can count ourselves lucky that we've got the populism we've got, and not something genuinely extremist. This might not hold if Labour allow their authoritarian instincts to prevail.

Agree. Great comments by both @SionnachRuadh and @lechiffre55 - what you're describing is what I'm seeing too. And many people I speak to.

Puerto Rico being "garbage" at Trump's Madison Square Garden rally.

The Latinos/as that everyone was getting offended on behalf of think PR is garbage too. That's why they moved to the US. Think of the song like to be in America's second verse.

The only offence that might be taken is of the "hey, that's ours, only we get to say how shit it is" type.

The serving at McDonalds thing too, doing a job that many Americans do, young Americans.

And clearly loving it. Despite the artifice of the media stunt, his joy was sincere.

My mid-30s, US family member, Democrat through and through, said at the time that everyone considered the Clintons to be corrupt and lining their nest and her vote for Hillary was joyless.

The serving at McDonalds thing too, doing a job that many Americans do, young Americans.
And clearly loving it. Despite the artifice of the media stunt, his joy was sincere.

I remember watching this and seeing a side of Trump I had never seen before and realising that he has the common touch.
I also began to realise that the BBC was not making any effort to show that side of him at all.

Yes.

I think there are a lot of Democrats, or their equivalent social group in the UK or where I am in Canada, who have this kind of a priori view that Trump is dumb and can only do dumb things and hire dumb people, and his campaign was dumb. And they have blinded themselves to the fact that he ran a really good, tight campaign.

Partly this is because they focus on stuff they don't easily culturally connect to, the MacDonald's thing, or the kind of humour he uses in his speeches. They don't "get" it, they just see it as a sign of being thick.

But you are right, the media has really dropped the ball in the UK as well and don't show people anything that might make them question that assumption. Or maybe not dropped the ball as it now appears that quite a lot of that may have been deliberate.

I can't bear the 'Trump is dumb, haw haw haw' rhetoric. Whatever he is, you don't get to be President of the USA by being dumb.

The corollary to that is only smart people get to be POTUS.

Well, you definitely have to have 'the smarts'.

Spectator podcast: Sonia Sodha and Tim Shipman discuss:

You think democrats or their "equivalent social group" don't eat McDonald's or work at McDonald's? Do you mean politicians or supporters? It's unclear.

On humour. I spent time in a house where the adult male loved "banter" in the forms of hilarious jokes usually directed at other people. You couldn't complain because it's a joke. But if any banter was directed at him (even immediately after he had made a joke) it was met with either rage or extreme hurt. I think everyone has known people like that. I agree that the US Democrats really struggle to connect. But that sort of banter/humour only works if you are willing to take it as well. Otherwise it's bullying. And lots of people do find that funny I suppose.

I'm not sure what your point is here.

I don't think there is any particular requirement that anyone finds Trump's type of humour funny. Humour is very individual though it also has strong culture, class, racial, and other factors that influence how we receive it. In the end, what we find funny we find funny, what we don't, we don't.

What I was suggesting however is that the progressive middle classes, in the case of Trump and his voting base, tends to interpret the humour that is not native to their own group as evidence of stupidity, and it isn't. It's evidence of a different background. (They on their part also likely find the humour of the university educated progressive classes lacking. Which does not make it all dumb. Just differernt.)

It's fundamentally a lack of class connection. And it is at best a blind spot, and often a way to allow themselves the comfortable illusion that the opposition is all dumb dumbs. Which means they never even try to really understand the strategy or reasoning for the actions. It's why you can't find any half decent commentary on Trump's economic strategies in the progressive media, you have to go to some place like Unherd, even though there you can find socialist economists who will talk about it. But the mainstream progressive left is wilfully blind.

And Democrat commentators were very sneery about Trump at MacDonalds.

Yep because they didn't understand what he understood. Lots of people eat at McDonalds. It's not complicated, it's very simple.
When you sneer at Trump doing a stunt at McDonalds, you sneer at the people who eat there. That's not advantageous when you want as many people as possible to vote for you.
There was a time, when I commuted to work, where occasioinally I would bring McDonalds back for me and my partner. She was always delighted to get random McDonalds. She told our neighbour one day and the neighbour was "I wish someone would bring me random McDonalds". It's no haute cuisine, but for a lot of people it sure hits the spot, especially when you are not expecting it. Sneering at the basics of life is a stupid arrogant move, especially during an election which, at it's most basic, is a popularity contest.
Do not piss people off if you want to get elected. Patronising, and looking down at people does not earn votes, it loses them.

McDonalds is one of those class signifiers. For all its faults, it's one of America's great democratic institutions. And that photo of Trump waving from the drive-through window in his apron was like something out of Norman Rockwell. America has a graduate cultural elite that's educated itself out of understanding its own culture.

There was another great example in Trump's first term, I think in the NYT magazine, where they interviewed some posh Manhattan socialites who used to have Ivanka in their social circle, but had cut her off since her dad went into politics. I think the article was meant to portray the posh debutantes as #Resistance heroines, but it really just made them look like snooty bitches and Ivanka look cool and relatable.

I suppose the UK equivalent in humour terms would be something like Carry On. I always describe Carry On as vernacular British culture, because you can't make it upmarket or intellectual, but it pulled in enormous audiences for decades. Brits who are too sophisticated to understand its appeal are too sophisticated to understand about 80% of the country's population.

TY for link. Always love Tim Shipman. His books around the Brexit era are amazing.