Labour are repelling liberal-minded voters like me who don't like the rhetoric around the ECHR or the completely disproportionate and sinister extensions of the definition of terrorism, but of course they are also losing voters on the other wing who will go for Reform rather than Reform-lite. FPTP simply doesn't work in a system with five (or here in Scotland six parties) each large enough to pick up 10%+ of the votes. FPTP could deliver us a Reform government on maybe 20% of the total vote share, or they could wind up with just a handful of seats, all hanging on relatively minor swings.
And yet Starmer won't do anything about this ludicrous voting system, any more than he will stop sucking up to Trump and trying to subordinate the UK to US rather than bringing us back to the EU, as we see with the suppression of any dissent or protest about Gaza
If you think Reform will get simply 20% at the next GE, time to smell the coffee. They're heading for 35% plus, as Corbyn's misplaced alliance with the sectarian Muslim independents and Zack Polanski's red-Green virtue signaling party takeover, both hack into Starmer's core vote.
At 20%, unlikely. That sounds like Hung Parliament territory.
But 30% with the left vote split between Starmer, Davey, Polanski and Corbyn/Sultana, throw in the SNP vote backfiring in this new unprecedented future, will mean Reform could easily get a bigger majority than Labour.
Especially if Farage taps the non voters that politicians normally don't reach and gets them out to vote like he did for Leave in 2016.
30%+ of a 70-75% turnout would be an earthquake of historic proportions.
The sharper analysis suggests that this will come back to bite the Greens. Left leaners will hold their noses rather than face the horrific prospect of Reform - NoPolicy Party. The NoName/Nobody Cares Party will quickly shrivel and die. Methinks…
I think your 2/10 is probably a bit too harsh... I think voters / survey respondents in general are being too harsh (I say, as someone who thinks Labour's year has been pretty disastrous), but only in the sense that while expectations may have been low, the inheritance was so dire that it was going to be very, very hard for anyone - even with a vision - to turn it around. I think Labour are being judged more harshly than the Tories were.
Part of the problem is Starmer's mandate. He sought a mandate to remove the Tories, but in effect did not seek a mandate to replace them with anything. (Your lack of vision point.) The public are not therefore primed to accept anything uncomfortable he's trying to do, and nor therefore are his MPs.
I think there's an additional twist on your points about both vision and control of the Labour Party though. Despite many small 'l' liberals being (historically, at least) supporters or members of Labour, the party itself is incredibly authoritarian. It seeks total control rather than doing anything that might see a political opponent achieve any kind of prominence. I think that's bad at the best of times, but when times are very difficult that also means the party owns all of the problems. And when the problems are so many and of such a large scale that we really need the whole country (or a majority of the country) to unite behind a vision for how to dig our way out of the hole, Labour's authoritarianism makes this even harder.
And yes, that is where my complaint about Labour's lack of interest in proportional representation comes in. But it is a broader point than just the electoral system. It's interesting that you mention devolution as being a part of Blair's vision. In Sussex we're experiencing the imposition of devolution upon us. I'm actually more favourable to the idea of regional mayors than many are, but the local government reorganisation that is accompanying the imposition of strategic mayoralties is the opposite of devolution. I think it's going to cause a lot of harm, make it much harder for local government to deliver growth, reform and regeneration and isn't going to achieve what the government hopes it will achieve (the unlocking of housing growth and cost-savings from merging local authorities).
The government doesn't know what it's trying to do, has boxed itself in, doesn't have a mandate for any particular solution, and instinctively avoids creating the space for anyone else to find or implement solutions. Maybe 2/10 is fair after all...
About the only thing I can say for them is that I don't believe most of them are motivated by personal greed or an ideology that seeks to destroy the British institutions that most people value (but would like to work better). I don't believe the recent string of Tory governments were actually trying to make things better (even if some ministers did take their jobs seriously). And in fact, the worse things got, the more nihilistic they became.
I've read the text but won't bother with the video.
I can come up with criticisms of the government all on my own.
That's not the point.
You are free to find 3 failures. That's fine. That's debate.
But a blog that declares a government a failure because it has failed in some respects isn't a blog worth reading. Let me be clear, listing failures is fine and worth hearing about. Conflating a lack of infallibility with failure is erroneous and unhealthy for all walks of life.
Perhaps you explain in the video how these three failures override everything else but "ain't nobody got time for that."
Bloggers who part-time as vloggers need to engage readers with the merit of stepping from text to video.
You've failed to do that. Which doesn't mean your blog is a failure but I prefer to read rather than watch so I'll bid you good luck and a cracking weekend.
Also Substack's mobile page is a mess. So there's that.
I agree. I can read faster than listen and decide quickly whether or not what I'm reading is interesting to me. So I won't be listening to your "vlog" (if that is a word).
Personal feeling; the overriding emotion about this Govt (leaving aside the inevitable viciousness of our right wing controlled media) is disappointment. We all expected more. I also don't buy into the "disaster" rhetoric about the Welfare Bill - that's actually constituency MPs doing their jobs and getting bad legislation changed
Which highlights the Govt issue. They don't listen, learn or adapt, which is what comes from too much responsibility in the centre. Devolve responsibility away from numbers 10 and 11, allow other departments to do their jobs, devolve to the regions and in a memorable P J O'Rourke phrase, stop trying to fix the weeds in everyone's lawns
Good piece. Much of the complacency driven by them spending too much time in the London echo chamber with like minded darlings who told them they were going to be fabulous in government simply because ‘you aren’t the Tories’. Starmer having no fire in his belly and Labour having no detailed policy plan entirely irrelevant in the eyes of these people. I really don’t see what they can achieve for the final four years without massive tax rises to provide more pocket money for the ‘door knob’ lefty back benchers. If they don’t fancy the tax rises then it’ll be four years of drift.
Labour are repelling liberal-minded voters like me who don't like the rhetoric around the ECHR or the completely disproportionate and sinister extensions of the definition of terrorism, but of course they are also losing voters on the other wing who will go for Reform rather than Reform-lite. FPTP simply doesn't work in a system with five (or here in Scotland six parties) each large enough to pick up 10%+ of the votes. FPTP could deliver us a Reform government on maybe 20% of the total vote share, or they could wind up with just a handful of seats, all hanging on relatively minor swings.
And yet Starmer won't do anything about this ludicrous voting system, any more than he will stop sucking up to Trump and trying to subordinate the UK to US rather than bringing us back to the EU, as we see with the suppression of any dissent or protest about Gaza
If you think Reform will get simply 20% at the next GE, time to smell the coffee. They're heading for 35% plus, as Corbyn's misplaced alliance with the sectarian Muslim independents and Zack Polanski's red-Green virtue signaling party takeover, both hack into Starmer's core vote.
I didn't say that they would get 20% - I said that they might get to form a govt on as little as 20%, which is a different assertion
At 20%, unlikely. That sounds like Hung Parliament territory.
But 30% with the left vote split between Starmer, Davey, Polanski and Corbyn/Sultana, throw in the SNP vote backfiring in this new unprecedented future, will mean Reform could easily get a bigger majority than Labour.
Especially if Farage taps the non voters that politicians normally don't reach and gets them out to vote like he did for Leave in 2016.
30%+ of a 70-75% turnout would be an earthquake of historic proportions.
The sharper analysis suggests that this will come back to bite the Greens. Left leaners will hold their noses rather than face the horrific prospect of Reform - NoPolicy Party. The NoName/Nobody Cares Party will quickly shrivel and die. Methinks…
If Greens decide on Polanski to lead them, they deserve the fate Labour suffered in 2019 that their second rate Corbyn wannabe would consign them to.
Does “We will make Brexit work” count as a vision? :) :)
Good article and good video.
I think your 2/10 is probably a bit too harsh... I think voters / survey respondents in general are being too harsh (I say, as someone who thinks Labour's year has been pretty disastrous), but only in the sense that while expectations may have been low, the inheritance was so dire that it was going to be very, very hard for anyone - even with a vision - to turn it around. I think Labour are being judged more harshly than the Tories were.
Part of the problem is Starmer's mandate. He sought a mandate to remove the Tories, but in effect did not seek a mandate to replace them with anything. (Your lack of vision point.) The public are not therefore primed to accept anything uncomfortable he's trying to do, and nor therefore are his MPs.
I think there's an additional twist on your points about both vision and control of the Labour Party though. Despite many small 'l' liberals being (historically, at least) supporters or members of Labour, the party itself is incredibly authoritarian. It seeks total control rather than doing anything that might see a political opponent achieve any kind of prominence. I think that's bad at the best of times, but when times are very difficult that also means the party owns all of the problems. And when the problems are so many and of such a large scale that we really need the whole country (or a majority of the country) to unite behind a vision for how to dig our way out of the hole, Labour's authoritarianism makes this even harder.
And yes, that is where my complaint about Labour's lack of interest in proportional representation comes in. But it is a broader point than just the electoral system. It's interesting that you mention devolution as being a part of Blair's vision. In Sussex we're experiencing the imposition of devolution upon us. I'm actually more favourable to the idea of regional mayors than many are, but the local government reorganisation that is accompanying the imposition of strategic mayoralties is the opposite of devolution. I think it's going to cause a lot of harm, make it much harder for local government to deliver growth, reform and regeneration and isn't going to achieve what the government hopes it will achieve (the unlocking of housing growth and cost-savings from merging local authorities).
The government doesn't know what it's trying to do, has boxed itself in, doesn't have a mandate for any particular solution, and instinctively avoids creating the space for anyone else to find or implement solutions. Maybe 2/10 is fair after all...
About the only thing I can say for them is that I don't believe most of them are motivated by personal greed or an ideology that seeks to destroy the British institutions that most people value (but would like to work better). I don't believe the recent string of Tory governments were actually trying to make things better (even if some ministers did take their jobs seriously). And in fact, the worse things got, the more nihilistic they became.
I've read the text but won't bother with the video.
I can come up with criticisms of the government all on my own.
That's not the point.
You are free to find 3 failures. That's fine. That's debate.
But a blog that declares a government a failure because it has failed in some respects isn't a blog worth reading. Let me be clear, listing failures is fine and worth hearing about. Conflating a lack of infallibility with failure is erroneous and unhealthy for all walks of life.
Perhaps you explain in the video how these three failures override everything else but "ain't nobody got time for that."
Bloggers who part-time as vloggers need to engage readers with the merit of stepping from text to video.
You've failed to do that. Which doesn't mean your blog is a failure but I prefer to read rather than watch so I'll bid you good luck and a cracking weekend.
Also Substack's mobile page is a mess. So there's that.
I agree. I can read faster than listen and decide quickly whether or not what I'm reading is interesting to me. So I won't be listening to your "vlog" (if that is a word).
Hmm, criticising the messenger, not the message.
But "you, the messenger, have deliberately made the message harder to engage with" is a perfectly valid criticism.
Personal feeling; the overriding emotion about this Govt (leaving aside the inevitable viciousness of our right wing controlled media) is disappointment. We all expected more. I also don't buy into the "disaster" rhetoric about the Welfare Bill - that's actually constituency MPs doing their jobs and getting bad legislation changed
Which highlights the Govt issue. They don't listen, learn or adapt, which is what comes from too much responsibility in the centre. Devolve responsibility away from numbers 10 and 11, allow other departments to do their jobs, devolve to the regions and in a memorable P J O'Rourke phrase, stop trying to fix the weeds in everyone's lawns
Good piece. Much of the complacency driven by them spending too much time in the London echo chamber with like minded darlings who told them they were going to be fabulous in government simply because ‘you aren’t the Tories’. Starmer having no fire in his belly and Labour having no detailed policy plan entirely irrelevant in the eyes of these people. I really don’t see what they can achieve for the final four years without massive tax rises to provide more pocket money for the ‘door knob’ lefty back benchers. If they don’t fancy the tax rises then it’ll be four years of drift.
Nick, why do you think the civil service put forwards the policy of employers NI hike?
Starmer's rallying cry was he wasn't going to raise taxes on those in work.
So these NI changes were totally consistent with that.
A total disaster, especially when allied to Rayners (un)employment rights changes.
This is all on Starmer, the civil service can be criticized for plenty of other things.