Topic: Doesn't matter who you vote for as long as it's for the right reasons!

[Libertine]

@BritainElects
Westminster voting intention:

CON: 40% (-4)
LAB: 31% (-4)
LDEM: 13% (+7)

via @IpsosMORI, 02 - 08 Jul, Chgs. w/ 03 Jun

 

[rob1966]

@BritainElects
Westminster voting intention:

CON: 40% (-4)
LAB: 31% (-4)
LDEM: 13% (+7)

via @IpsosMORI, 02 - 08 Jul, Chgs. w/ 03 Jun

 

Boris gave us our FREEDOM!!!!!!

[Nobby Reserve]

I find it interesting the number of people I've spoken to Starmer about that say "He's shite" and "He never pulls the Tories up"

When I ask them if they regularly watch PMQT, they say no. When I ask them if they read the articles or opinions he writes they say no. When I asked them if they've seen his press conferences or discussions on his views they say no.


Does not compute. How can you slag someone off for 'being shit and getting the message out there' when you're not observing or paying attention to anything they do or say?

I think in times past, what the leader of the opposition said, particularly if it was very critical of something, was widely reported on both TV news and in the print media.

The print media these days has a fraction of the circulation it once did, whilst the Tory-supporting papers have become rabidly pro-Tory/anti-Labour, anti-EU, anti-'librul'.

TV news also isn't watched anywhere near as much, and the BBC itself has its editorial dictated by the Tory Party so the main bulletins gloss over.

In short, whatever Labour figures say has much less impact now (unless they ever say something that can be used against them by the RWM)

[Zeb]

Robert Shrimsley has come at the 'culture war' from the Tory point of view over in the FT.

https://www.ft.com/content/3a82f466-85f1-4bb3-8c32-62a1914ad8dd

Spoiler

   “But we didn’t start this culture war,” one cabinet minister routinely protests. In a sense, he is right. Not only did the Tories not start the fight as they define it, they have come close to losing it by default. Even now, this conflict needs to be understood less as a war than a rearguard action.

Conservative enthusiasm for a fight with any cause they can label “woke” is clear. But this week saw Tories scrambling to get in line with the England football team, whose taking-the-knee protest they had dismissed as “gesture politics”. The home secretary drew extra fire for having failed to denounce jeering during the protest. It was a useful reminder that Tory culture warriors can be very blinkered. Pitting yourself against the national team before a major tournament is just bad politics.

This display of fallibility highlights the fear beneath the braggadocio. Hence the myopia which left Tories unable to see that taking the knee did not mark the endorsement of an anti-capitalist agenda by millionaire footballers.

For even though, after their Brexit win, Tories may seem to have the upper hand, their strategists can see an uncomfortable reckoning with demographic destiny. This is why there are actually two culture wars, one immediate and electoral, the other long term and strategic.

The first is a calculation of electoral advantage. Where they can make the debate about civil disorder, the silencing of mainstream voices or apparent lack of patriotism, they are on strong ground. These value issues bind the new Tory Brexit electoral coalition and disorientate the Labour party.

A sign of the second approach came with the efforts of Sir Robbie Gibb, a former Tory press chief and new member of the BBC Board, to block the hiring of a senior journalist considered hostile to the government. His direct intervention illuminates the more strategic goal.

For the keenest combatants, the core realisation is that the conservatives have lost the establishment and with it many of the shapers of society’s values. The BBC was long seen as hostile but as they survey the media, the church, the arts, but also the judiciary, educationalists, the civil service and big business, Tories see many of the drivers of opinion embracing progressive values. One Tory MP jokes that his constituency is so old-fashioned that “the lawyers and doctors still vote conservative”.

The broader point is that while the Tories won the economic battles, they neglected cultural issues allowing progressives to shape social policy. Today’s conservatives see this as the key error which has fostered a climate in which heritage institutions like the National Trust start collating lists of stately homes with historic links to slavery. For Tory culture warriors, highlighting the iniquities of the empire is an attack on the national pride which is at the core of their own electoral appeal.

Partly this is the influence of graduate culture. The scale of university expansion in the past two decades means colleges now set the cultural compass for up to 600,000 new students a year. (It is not entirely coincidental that the Tories want to cut the number of arts degrees.)

Scrutinising the ranks of what was once called the Great and the Good, they see few sympathisers. One government ally says: “When you are looking for people to put on public bodies there are just not that many qualified like-minded souls. We simply did not pay enough attention to public appointments and the left did.”

Speaking at the Tory think-tank, Policy Exchange, Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, defended his determination to wade into cultural appointments noting: “The left has been quietly making these decisions for years, pushing these cultural institutions.”

From the sudden interest in even minor jobs on public bodies to the proliferation of non-executive directors of Whitehall departments, there is an attempt to create an alternative establishment, a new great and good. All governments make political appointments. But this is a recognition that much of what shapes society happens outside of government and in places where conservatives feel outnumbered.

Brexit has also taught Tories to believe in a long war. It took 30 years to move from the first stirrings of Euroscepticism to Brexit. That victory emboldened Tories to go after the existing elite. Now they see a new long march, to reclaim the establishment, appointment by appointment.

For now, the culture war may seem an electoral asset but voters under 45 skew heavily against Brexit and the party. This is one reason why ministers are so keen to target cancel culture on campuses and the teaching of history in schools.

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson himself is cautious of culture war rhetoric. He is rarely first into the fray and often resists the urges of warriors in his own ranks. As the football row shows, his caution is wise. Voters are not seeking more division so Tory targets must always seem to be militants and the party’s positions mainstream rather than reactionary.

The current calculation is that outside cities and elite institutions, public sentiment is on their side. But they also see the demographic danger and the need to tilt the landscape of social norms.

This is an existential fight for traditionalist culture warriors. And that is why those hoping this week’s missteps over the England team may ease hostilities are going to be disappointed. This is a long war and it has barely begun.

[close]

Other than some Tories being deeply, deeply weird, it is striking how much of the idea of a 'culture war' and what is intended etc. has become a received wisdom. Is it just the basic politics of picking on society's 'outliers' (eg Thatcher era 'loony left' councils damned for wanting to make provision for LGBT issues)? Which makes the successful response similar to the one Labour made then before then pushing things even further in the right direction? (One of the Blair government's most lasting achievements was in helping to push forward and solidify a measurable and lasting change in general social attitudes on some issues.)

[So… Howard Philips]

Thought exactly the same, she seemed to despise Patel especially I thought.

But is her dislike based on their different backgrounds? Patel - (Ugandan) Indian and Hindie - Warsi - Pakistani and muslim rather than any strong idealogical reasons?

[bigbonedrawky]

But is her dislike based on their different backgrounds? Patel - (Ugandan) Indian and Hindie - Warsi - Pakistani and muslim rather than any strong idealogical reasons?

When there's so many genuine reasons to dislike Patel, we don't really need to look beyond that. 

[Robinred]

I think in times past, what the leader of the opposition said, particularly if it was very critical of something, was widely reported on both TV news and in the print media.

The print media these days has a fraction of the circulation it once did, whilst the Tory-supporting papers have become rabidly pro-Tory/anti-Labour, anti-EU, anti-'librul'.

TV news also isn't watched anywhere near as much, and the BBC itself has its editorial dictated by the Tory Party so the main bulletins gloss over.

In short, whatever Labour figures say has much less impact now (unless they ever say something that can be used against them by the RWM)

Yet Rees-Mogg as leader of HOC, was able to complain yesterday that the BBC was guilty of too many left wing appointments, which damaged its claim to be politically neutral. (It was ONE appointment - former Huffpost editor Jess Brammar).

Needless to say, all the major news outlets carried the story - and the fact that Sir Robbie Gibb had contacted Fran Unsworth at the beeb to complain that “she cannot make this appointment” as it would mean the Government’s “fragile trust in the BBC will be shattered”.

Tim Davie must be mortified🙄

[rob1966]

But is her dislike based on their different backgrounds? Patel - (Ugandan) Indian and Hindie - Warsi - Pakistani and muslim rather than any strong idealogical reasons?

Hard to say - she was giving both Johnson and Patel loads of shit, but no idea if the attacks on Patel where because she hates the way she is/does things or if it was based on background/religion/ethnic origins.

[Nobby Reserve]

Robert Shrimsley has come at the 'culture war' from the Tory point of view over in the FT.

https://www.ft.com/content/3a82f466-85f1-4bb3-8c32-62a1914ad8dd

Spoiler

[close]

Other than some Tories being deeply, deeply weird, it is striking how much of the idea of a 'culture war' and what is intended etc. has become a received wisdom. Is it just the basic politics of picking on society's 'outliers' (eg Thatcher era 'loony left' councils damned for wanting to make provision for LGBT issues)? Which makes the successful response similar to the one Labour made then before then pushing things even further in the right direction? (One of the Blair government's most lasting achievements was in helping to push forward and solidify a measurable and lasting change in general social attitudes on some issues.)

It's a thought-provoking piece but I personally believe that the 'culture war' was very much started by the right-wing, as a reaction to what they considered to be social 'progressiveness' going 'too far'. As the journalist states, it's a rearguard action.

I also don't actually agree with the author's insinuation that social progressiveness is some kind of cohesive plan by 'the left'. I think it's just a natural evolution that began in earnest in the 60's with movements aimed at securing equal rights for certain groups and conquering discrimination, which has expanded to cover increasingly niche groups that are discriminated against.

I do think this para is incisive:

"The broader point is that while the Tories won the economic battles, they neglected cultural issues allowing progressives to shape social policy. Today’s conservatives see this as the key error which has fostered a climate in which heritage institutions like the National Trust start collating lists of stately homes with historic links to slavery. For Tory culture warriors, highlighting the iniquities of the empire is an attack on the national pride which is at the core of their own electoral appeal."

There are plenty of current Tories who are socially progressive by nature (including, to an extent, Bozo himself). But they go along with the Trumpist agenda of whipping up division along [social] liberal-conservative lines to secure the votes of a section of white, working class society that most definitely does view social progressiveness as having 'gone too far'.

As Waarsi said the other day, dog-whistle politics might win votes, but it destroys countries.

[Zeb]

Johnson looks ill. And this speech on 'levelling up' is utter bollocks. Goodall's pointing out that there's not a policy area which he's not pulling in to use as a 'success criteria' for 'levelling up'. It's like watching a bad Compass meeting trying to mate with David Cameron while he waffles on about 'big society'. Like Jen Williams is commenting, it's wonderful promising to clean up town centres for civic pride but if the council's running on a shoestring then there's nothing there to maintain it. Goes back to that piece by Jennings on the benefits of showpiece things in the political short term for these chancers at the cost of there being bugger all use to much of it long term.

[Dr. Beaker]

Its great listening to Johnson making a speech when its not to the tory party, absolutely every joke is met with silence, and his delivery deteriorates from joke to joke as he realises he's just not funny,

[12C]

Johnson looks ill. And this speech on 'levelling up' is utter bollocks. Goodall's pointing out that there's not a policy area which he's not pulling in to use as a 'success criteria' for 'levelling up'. It's like watching a bad Compass meeting trying to mate with David Cameron while he waffles on about 'big society'. Like Jen Williams is commenting, it's wonderful promising to clean up town centres for civic pride but if the council's running on a shoestring then there's nothing there to maintain it. Goes back to that piece by Jennings on the benefits of showpiece things in the political short term for these chancers at the cost of there being bugger all use to much of it long term.

I’m sure you have read Michael Rosen’s poem about Fascism

“I sometimes fear that
people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress
worn by grotesques and monsters
as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis.

Fascism arrives as your friend.
It will restore your honour,
make you feel proud,
protect your house,
give you a job,
clean up the neighbourhood,
remind you of how great you once were,
clear out the venal and the corrupt,
remove anything you feel is unlike you...

It doesn't walk in saying,
"Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution." “

From a while back, but it reads like a script or the Tories.

[Zeb]

I also don't actually agree with the author's insinuation that social progressiveness is some kind of cohesive plan by 'the left'. I think it's just a natural evolution that began in earnest in the 60's with movements aimed at securing equal rights for certain groups and conquering discrimination, which has expanded to cover increasingly niche groups that are discriminated against.

Just on that little point, I didn't read it's so much he's suggesting a cohesive plan but is actually agreeing with you that it's wrapped in the 'politics' of progressive movements.  I don't think it's a historical inevitability though, or at least that it cannot be reversed, it's good hearted people finding those common causes (got fragments of Lemn Sissay's words in my head) to set aside differences and beginning sometimes long and bruising journeys to something better and then fighting to keep it.

With Tories and social progressiveness, I'm always unsure. I can find common cause on issues. Sometimes several issues. They're not all absolute horrors. But you quickly run into why all things are relative. The big pitch Johnson's making today is trying to sound like a left wing government while ruling just as they have done for a decade. I'm really not so sure there's as big a difference on the social liberal/authoritarian scale there so much as they realised they needed to put out they'd 'changed' in places to win votes post-Blair with an entirely different (generalised) group of voters.

[TepidT2O]

Levelling up, northern power house.

Easy words.  And in many ways admirable ambitions, but they are of course only to try to win northern voters.

The outcomes will be the real test. If they make genuine in roads then society will have benefited. If they don’t, they will have wasted everyone’s time, money and hope and they will have been shown to be the worst kind of flim flam merchants.

I know which one is more likely ….

[stewil007]

Levelling up, northern power house.

Easy words.  And in many ways admirable ambitions, but they are of course only to try to win northern voters.

The outcomes will be the real test. If they make genuine in roads then society will have benefited. If they don’t, they will have wasted everyone’s time, money and hope and they will have been shown to be the worst kind of flim flam merchants.

I know which one is more likely ….

As has been said, isn't this what every government has said in one form or other since time began?  and does levelling up ultimately mean just sending more money to an area?

[Dr. Beaker]

As has been said, isn't this what every government has said in one form or other since time began?  and does levelling up ultimately mean just sending more money to an area?

No he specifically said (and he wasn't specific about much) "You don't make poor areas richer by making rich places poorer".

[stewil007]

No he specifically said (and he wasn't specific about much) "You don't make poor areas richer by making rich places poorer".

but just because you spend more in a poor area doesn't mean you have to deprive (oh the irony) a richer area?

[reddebs]

I love how they're marketing the levelling up of the places they've decimated over the last decade. 

Surely they don't expect voters to now think they're the good guys and it was some big, bad, unseen otherling that caused all the problems they've created?

[Welshred]

I love how they're marketing the levelling up of the places they've decimated over the last decade. 

Surely they don't expect voters to now think they're the good guys and it was some big, bad, unseen otherling that caused all the problems they've created?

Of course they will. They'll blame Labour for it and the people will lap it up.

[Dr. Beaker]

but just because you spend more in a poor area doesn't mean you have to deprive (oh the irony) a richer area?

I know but until he tells us how it's going to be done, Tory voters will be in fear. Today was the time to explain, but he didnt and because it wasn't a Tory party audience guffawing themselves unconscious, it was obvious to all (once again) that there is no plan.

[Red-Soldier]

I love how they're marketing the levelling up of the places they've decimated over the last decade. 

Surely they don't expect voters to now think they're the good guys and it was some big, bad, unseen otherling that caused all the problems they've created?

Johnson said that he will give local communities a bigger voice (greater devolved powers) and that is why the North has had major deprivation issues over the years.  He's bascially saying blame your local MPs and councilors, but do not blame the national government of the past 11 years.

[reddebs]

Of course they will. They'll blame Labour for it and the people will lap it up.

It was a bit of a tongue in cheek post as yeah you're dead right, they will.

[rob1966]

I love how they're marketing the levelling up of the places they've decimated over the last decade. 

Surely they don't expect voters to now think they're the good guys and it was some big, bad, unseen otherling that caused all the problems they've created?

You answered your own question yesterday when you spoke about former mining towns voting Tory.

[Red-Soldier]

I know but until he tells us how it's going to be done, Tory voters will be in fear. Today was the time to explain, but he didnt and because it wasn't a Tory party audience guffawing themselves unconscious, it was obvious to all (once again) that there is no plan.

Yep.  They do not have any policies.  None that will work anyway.

[TheShanklyGates]

I know but until he tells us how it's going to be done, Tory voters will be in fear. Today was the time to explain, but he didnt and because it wasn't a Tory party audience guffawing themselves unconscious, it was obvious to all (once again) that there is no plan.

If only this were true.

[reddebs]

Johnson said that he will give local communities a bigger voice (greater devolved powers) and that is why the North has had major deprivation issues over the years.  He's bascially saying blame your local MPs and councilors, but do not blame the national government of the past 11 years.

It's pretty much what I heard back in Barnsley at the council elections in May.  Get labour out and we'll have more money to spend on improvements.

[Nobby Reserve]

I love how they're marketing the levelling up of the places they've decimated over the last decade. 

Surely they don't expect voters to now think they're the good guys and it was some big, bad, unseen otherling that caused all the problems they've created?

The problems that have led to the wide scale levels of disaffection and disillusionment in communities across the north and Midlands have their roots much deeper than the last 10 years.

The whole business/economic model in the UK (and most other western countries, to differing degrees) is one that made depravation of economic standards inevitable for a large proportion of the population.

Catastrophically, too many of the people who are left holding the shitty end of the economic stick have been gullible enough to fall for the gaslighting from the minority who economically benefit, who have sought to deflect blame onto, at various times, the EU/immigrants/lefties/trade unions/and more recently 'wokist Britain haters'.

The advent of social media has simply accelerated the gaslighting as those with the money have found ways to use it to make their gaslighting even more effective with the lack of regulatory oversight allowing more blatant lies, along with the emergence of echo chambers and bots.

[Yorkykopite]

No he specifically said (and he wasn't specific about much) "You don't make poor areas richer by making rich places poorer".

He said the "levelling up" won't be a "zero sum game". And certainly it doesn't need to be.

He also said that it would be "win/win" for both rich and poor. That is more difficult, at least in a narrow economic sense since it implies no extra graduated taxation or greater share of central funds to local governments covering poor areas. In a philosophical terms it is easier to say that a mass redistribution of resources to poor areas will be a win/win for rich and poor alike since everyone in the country benefits from greater equality and better spread prosperity. That has broadly been the Labour party's position for over 100 years. But Johnson is offering neither redistribution nor equality. He's pursuing the chimera of a 'levelling up' that leaves the rich (his own 'Blue Wall' voters) the winners. 

Good luck with that you corrupt toad.

[Dr. Beaker]

Maybe it's new rules now that we know the money tree exists. Maybe he's gonna spend spend spend until he's finally rumbled. Rishi la would have to go though.

[TSC]

Sky’s Beth Rigby on Johnson’s case today

https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2021/07/15/skys-beth-rigby-quoting-boris-johnsons-words-back-to-him-is-quite-the-watch/

[Nobby Reserve]

He said the "levelling up" won't be a "zero sum game". And certainly it doesn't need to be.

He also said that it would be "win/win" for both rich and poor. That is more difficult, at least in a narrow economic sense since it implies no extra graduated taxation or greater share of central funds to local governments covering poor areas. In a philosophical terms it is easier to say that a mass redistribution of resources to poor areas will be a win/win for rich and poor alike since everyone in the country benefits from greater equality and better spread prosperity. That has broadly been the Labour party's position for over 100 years. But Johnson is offering neither redistribution nor equality. He's pursuing the chimera of a 'levelling up' that leaves the rich (his own 'Blue Wall' voters) the winners. 

Good luck with that you corrupt toad.

Yeah, if everyone gets 'levelled up', it usually results in inflation wiping out any gains for the less well-off

Poverty and affluence will always be relative to each other.

[Zeb]

Journos get a hard time of it from some but likes of Rigby and Elgot today weren't shy about getting stuck into Johnson. Jen Williams is another, thought this was a good summary of it all.

As Parliament prepares to wind down for the summer, this morning Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson delivered his latest vision for 'levelling up'.

The genesis of the agenda is often said to be the 2019 general election campaign, but in fact it dates back a little further.

Almost exactly two years ago, days after becoming Prime Minister, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson gave his first speech on domestic policy at the Manchester Science and Industry Museum, one that demonstrated a significant change in direction for the government and for the Conservative Party, electorally and philosophically.

It was a speech, as I wrote at the time, that could almost entirely have been delivered by Andy Burnham - an ode to those places that had been economically forgotten by successive governments.

As well as indicating a willingness to intervene and spend in ways that would have been anathema to most Tory governments, especially the one in charge from 2010 to 2016, it was also one half of the Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson election battleplan, the other being Brexit. And five months later, it delivered. 

At the time that speech was written in July 2019, it was largely sufficient to spell out the direction and the rhetoric of this new government, even if it was patently obvious even then that the ongoing spending implications had not been hammered out. (Neither were they outlined in the general election campaign.)   

That was two years ago. Two years hence, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was this morning at the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre in Coventry, spelling out his vision for a second time.

There was little to disagree with in his descriptions of regional inequality. I would say that, because much of it mirrored the campaign we ran in 2019, which highlighted - as he did this morning - that the gaping geographical economic schism in this country is worse than in reunified Germany at the end of the Cold War; pointed to the woeful divides in life expectancy and social mobility across England; and noted that policymakers have routinely ploughed more and more money back into places that were already thriving over successive decades.

But there are two key differences between today's speech and the one in 2019.

We are no longer in the opening days of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson’s tenure, or in the pre-match build-up to a general election. Concrete solutions are now overdue, not least in regards to how they will be funded.

Yet the ‘levelling up’ white paper promised before summer recess has been kicked into the autumn and the same may well be the case for the ‘integrated rail plan’ that underpins what happens with Northern Powerhouse Rail, despite Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson announcing, with fanfare, his intention to build a new Manchester to Leeds line in that 2019 speech.

(We are used to plans for improved rail infrastructure being kicked down the road, mind. It has now been seven years since his predecessors promised us new platforms at Piccadilly Station and a solution to the rail bottleneck that cripples services across the north.)

There was little in the way of new policy announcements in the speech - arguably there were none at all. He ‘announced’ plans to potentially devolve further powers to areas outside cities, but in fact further powers to such places have long been trailed as part of the forthcoming devolution white paper, which again is yet to materialise.

The ‘high streets’ strategy he cited is not new. The local transport fund is also not new, having been announced in the March Budget. Neither is the government’s research and development pot.

Which is not to say that these policies don’t exist or don’t matter: they do. But in isolation, they do not amount to a levelling up plan, because what was missing from the speech is arguably more significant than what was in it.

In 2019, I wrote that Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson had done his electoral calculations, but not necessarily his financial ones. Two years later, there is still no explanation as to how government will tackle the structural problems underpinning our regional divides, because ultimately they will require significant investment - and not just investment, but recurrent investment.

The other difference with the Manchester speech is this: we now have some sense as to whether this government matches its policies to its rhetoric.

So, for example, ‘the crux of the argument’, said the Prime Minister, is that ‘this country is not only one of the most imbalanced in the developed world, it is also one of the most centralised’.

And yet we have just lived through a crisis that only exposed just how determined the government is to centralise decisionmaking, even on issues where the local level has a better grasp of fighting a pandemic on the ground.

The Prime Minister said local leaders are best placed to ‘level up the skills of the people in their area because they know what local business needs’ - and yet the Department for Education’s skills white paper, published in January, contains not one single reference to ‘local government’, other than once in the glossary.

He talked about progressing living standards, too, when the government is due to reverse its £20 Universal Credit uplift in the autumn and keeps losing fights with Premiership footballers about fairly insignificant sums of expenditure.

Levelling up, or closing the productivity divide - or whatever you want to call it - is of course a generational project if it is to happen, as Germany has demonstrated in the years since the Berlin Wall fell. As I wrote this week, it is also one Andy Burnham is grappling with at local level, as Greater Manchester ponders afresh how to close the gap between Hale and Hyde, Bramhall and Bolton.

And it is unfair to expect a government to have magicked up all the answers to such intractable questions when it has been fighting a pandemic, particularly when those solutions have huge spending implications.

But it is not unreasonable, two years after his speech in Manchester, to expect more than what even Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson self-deprecatingly called, today, ‘a skeleton of a plan’ - if it is even that.

As a speech, it felt like the equivalent of a poor English essay: repeating and describing the question, rather than answering it.

Not only must the white paper this autumn put some serious skin onto those bones, but the Conservative Party is going to have to finally decide what level of tax and spend it can stomach.

And it will then be Rishi Sunak who ultimately reveals if, and how, this skeleton will be fleshed out.

(No link, email newsletter)

[Red Raw]

Ewen Fergusson, Johnson's former Bullingdon Club chum, appointed to has to Whitehall's 'independent' sleaze watchdog.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/15/ex-bullingdon-club-member-appointed-to-whitehalls-sleaze-watchdog

Advised by Gove and appointed by a panel including Giesla Stuart.

Copywrite holders of the infamous group portrait have withdrawn permission to publish the image but Fergusson is two along from David Cameron:

"We're all in this together"

[close]

A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “Mr Fergusson applied through open and fair competition, following the governance code for public appointments. His application was carefully considered on its merits by the advisory assessment panel, which interviewed him and found that he was appointable.”

[Yorkykopite]

Ewen Fergusson, Johnson's former Bullingdon Club chum, appointed to has to Whitehall's 'independent' sleaze watchdog.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/15/ex-bullingdon-club-member-appointed-to-whitehalls-sleaze-watchdog

Advised by Gove and appointed by a panel including Giesla Stuart.

Copywrite holders of the infamous group portrait have withdrawn permission to publish the image but Fergusson is two along from David Cameron:

"We're all in this together"

[close]

A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “Mr Fergusson applied through open and fair competition, following the governance code for public appointments. His application was carefully considered on its merits by the advisory assessment panel, which interviewed him and found that he was appointable.”

I was going to say that this in unbelievable, but of course it isn't. It's par for the course for a government - and a class - that holds the rest of us in contempt.

The photograph of the posh boys has long thought to be incriminating by....the posh boys and their friends. The bloke who holds the copyright is obviously one of their friends and is doubtless being paid a king's ransom to keep it under wraps. But the Labour party should 'fair deal' it and produce massive posters in every major town and city in Britain with the headline 'Chumocracy' and an arrow pointing to Cameron ('The Former Prime Minister, in pursuit of multi-million pound public contracts for his company sent 45 private emails and whatsapp messages to Ministers begging for support'), another to Johnson ('The Primer Minister with a long record of awarding lucrative contracts and high salaries to friends, lovers, former lovers and relations'). And a third at Fergusson ('The man appointed to stop this business'). Then another caption at the bottom 'They're taking the Piss. Stand up and be Counted. Vote Labour')

[Zeb]

Brave to film what's essentially a focus group of ex-Labour voters. First video on the page is worth a listen

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57857017

Lining up to speak to him were a dozen independently selected former Labour voters, with Sir Keir promising to take their words "on the chin".

He was pushed on a huge range of subjects. The sense at the start was not so much anger with Labour, more a quieter, stubborn disappointment.

His predecessor as leader, Jeremy Corbyn, had been "toxic", he was told. Labour was currently in a "death spiral", he heard.

His ideas were "pie in the sky", some even a "waste of time".

Several of the voters hadn't heard of Sir Keir before their encounter, failing the first test for any politician - to be noticed.

Over the hour or so there was no sudden rush of affection for the Labour leader, no one moment where suddenly a connection clicked between him and the audience.

But it was obvious that, with Sir Keir having taken the blows, some of the audience did start to contemplate taking another look at Labour under him.

It was just one night, one town, one group. But, for Sir Keir Starmer, the hope is that a conversation with the country can finally start.

Don't think any of the views expressed would have been a surprise to Starmer, this is stuff you can say in reports from focus groups across years, but perhaps more on the left generally should stop to have a think about the perceptions they've created among voters they think can be persuaded solely by promising lots to them. Trust, reputation, and being perceived to be on the voter's 'side' matter. Hashtags are definitely easier though.

[Dr. Beaker]

Trust and reputation only seems to be important for the Labour leader though, Johnson needs to be exposed for what he is. We've all been told for so long, how clever he is, and yet everything he has done from the word go seems to have proved the opposite. So far the media have turned a blind eye to his shallow opportunism. Though some in the media are now realising they can make a name for themselves if they can just get Johnson angry (having witnessed Starmer's results at PMQ's). Beth tried her best yesterday but Johnson seems to have wised up to it. We need to get him in front of Maitlis but that's never going to happen. And even if they did it wouldn't matter, cos no fucker watches Newsnight.

[Robinred]

Trust and reputation only seems to be important for the Labour leader though, Johnson needs to be exposed for what he is. We've all been told for so long, how clever he is, and yet everything he has done from the word go seems to have proved the opposite. So far the media have turned a blind eye to his shallow opportunism. Though some in the media are now realising they can make a name for themselves if they can just get Johnson angry (having witnessed Starmer's results at PMQ's). Beth tried her best yesterday but Johnson seems to have wised up to it. We need to get him in front of Maitlis but that's never going to happen. And even if they did it wouldn't matter, cos no fucker watches Newsnight.

In some future essay or book about the politics of this era, an historian is going to explore the phenomenon we’ve witnessed - with incredulity bordering on disbelief - of populist charlatans simultaneously occupying the seats of power in so many of the world’s countries, including its ‘superpowers’.

I still shake my head when I see Johnson delivering his latest Covid bulletin, or anything else for that matter, and ask myself why I appear to be in a minority - albeit a substantial one. That this country has witnessed his rise to leadership, along with the prominence of Frottage and Gove (there are of course others) is as depressing as it is sickening.

[Zeb]

I think trust and reputation does matter even for the Tories. If Johnson hadn't been trusted to deliver on Brexit he'd not have united that vote and got the majority he did? Point of all the performance before the 2019 election? People might not trust him to pay back a tenner though. Suspect that 'levelling up' is deliberately vague because making promises means having to own up to not delivering on them. Instead it's all showpiece stuff with aspirational 'It could be you' for the onlookers. The eternal mystery is how the Tories have maintained the institutional reputation for careful and sensible management of the economy given the past 40 years but it is still there, even as the general view of politicians is that lying liars lie, but then most of them don't preach in the language of revolution but in 'common sense' appealing to prejudices/preconceptions.

edit: may be of interest, a summary of a new study looking at political promises and which ones matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlWNlE_A8yc

[Dench57]

Brave to film what's essentially a focus group of ex-Labour voters. First video on the page is worth a listen

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57857017

Don't think any of the views expressed would have been a surprise to Starmer, this is stuff you can say in reports from focus groups across years, but perhaps more on the left generally should stop to have a think about the perceptions they've created among voters they think can be persuaded solely by promising lots to them. Trust, reputation, and being perceived to be on the voter's 'side' matter. Hashtags are definitely easier though.

Not sure this one in particular is quite the warning for the left you think it is though Zeb. I mean, it's fairly obvious which way it's skewing things isn't it? The 'Ex'Labour voter' headline description is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

“When did you last vote for Labour?”

“2010”
“1997”
“Can't even remember”

The guy claiming to have last voted in 1997 was not just voting, but standing for the Conservative Party in local elections just three years later (https://twitter.com/jrc1921/status/1416049688420261889)
...the guy who is concerned about the party being split last voted for Labour nearly 25 years ago.
...the bloke that says the problem for Labour is the stigma of Jeremy Corbyn....last voted for the party in 2010.

Does like a bit of a stretch to pin all these on the left of the party, but I see what they're going for.

"'Under 25s: don't waste your time, they don't want to work: they just want to sit on their backside'"
Fuck me, what year is it  Don't envy having to court these people for their vote!

Lastly, it seems like a bit of a misstep to me to not have the perspective of any black voters heard, considering some of the noise about black voters leaving Labour over the last year.

[Zeb]

Not sure this one in particular is quite the warning for the left you think it is though Zeb. I mean, it's fairly obvious which way it's skewing things isn't it? The 'Ex'Labour voter' headline description is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

“When did you last vote for Labour?”

“2010”
“1997”
“Can't even remember”

The guy claiming to have last voted in 1997 was not just voting, but standing for the Conservative Party in local elections just three years later (https://twitter.com/jrc1921/status/1416049688420261889)
...the guy who is concerned about the party being split last voted for Labour nearly 25 years ago.
...the bloke that says the problem for Labour is the stigma of Jeremy Corbyn....last voted for the party in 2010.

Does like a bit of a stretch to pin all these on the left of the party, but I see what they're going for.

"'Under 25s: don't waste your time, they don't want to work: they just want to sit on their backside'"
Fuck me, what year is it  Don't envy having to court these people for their vote!

Lastly, it seems like a bit of a misstep to me to not have the perspective of any black voters heard, considering some of the noise about black voters leaving Labour over the last year.

Well, if you're not going to get them to vote for Labour then the hard left need to think up something more convincing than 'young people are going to turn out to vote in numbers never seen before' as an electoral strategy. I'm not seeing an alternative. Wasn't blaming anyone for them not voting Labour, just note how Labour are perceived after the past five years (and you can go back further if you want) and imagine going again with "Here's our promises of lots of things".

And, yeah, some of the views are mad. I know parts of twitter were upset at Starmer for not berating him for it but that's not how it goes on the doorstep, is it? Empathise as you can and then redirect to counterargument.

edit: point taken on diversity, was done by polling company though so would think it reflects constituency as best they could do it.

edit2: just to be clear when I use 'left', I do mean the left - not just those who only recognise their fringe portion of it as being 'the left'.