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Europe’s far-right surge has a lesson for Labour: fix the NHS to see off Farage

Europe has healthcare systems that work better than the NHS. Europe has more far right. So, err…..

36 thoughts on “Eh?”

  1. The link brought back memories of merchandise (T shirts / mugs etc) I saw for the Daily Mail a few years ago:
    “Like spending 20 minutes in a lunatic asylum”.

  2. “In 2010, an administrative reform forced municipalities to shut and merge local public services, to the detriment of residents. Some “native-born” citizens then saw themselves as pitted against immigrants in a zero-sum competition for access to essential public services. This research found that broken promises and underfunded public services deepen discontent, and if people feel that the state can no longer adequately provide for their needs they experience profound discontent. This has proved fertile ground for the hard-right to exploit by pledging to restrict immigration and immigrants’ access to local public services. As a result, this boosts support for rightwing parties.”

    The usual sub-Marxist shit that people don’t know their true interests, that they are victims of a “false consciousness” because of ideology. The proles just lash out blindly when capitalism doesn’t give them enough stuff, and then they get manipulated by the “far right” and agents of the state. They can’t see the real problem because they haven’t been to university, and they need us to correct the evidence that they see from day to day in their own lives. Miliband’s rancid dad was doing this stuff fifty years ago.

  3. It’s the Guardian – one of the few media outlets that would improve its accuracy by introducing AI.

  4. The more I see of this Labour government, the more I like it. They are managing to choose, with precision aim, the precisely wrong solutions for all of the UK’s problems, and thus will only make them far far worse. And thus are hastening the demise of the Uniparty Consensus in UK politics. The Tories were the Uniparty (Frog Boiling Division) and Labour are the Uniparty (Blitzkreig Division). It appears Labour are setting off on their version of Operation Barbarossa, so fingers crossed. They’ve already pissed off 10m pensioners before crossing the start line, which was an interesting decision. And given the Labour obsession with Net Zero it would be highly amusing if General Winter played a role in destroying them, by crashing the Grid in the middle of a long freezing cold spell. Its going to be an interesting 5 years!

  5. I think this is a confusion around ‘fix’.

    Most of us around here would take that to mean ‘make it better at curing people’.

    What ‘fix’ means in that context is ‘spend more money on it’. Worrying about outcomes is far right.

  6. Public services aren’t underfunded because of a lack of funds, they are underfunded because the government pisses away money on shit that nobody wants. A lot of public services would probably have a lot less to do if the government didn’t steal as much of our money . The health service isn’t underfunded at all and is still a bit shit. I don’t see any chance of any left leaning government sorting these problems out. But I lean to the right because I’m misinformed, got it.

  7. Look, it’s quite simple.

    As long as the government gives NHS workers above-inflation pay rises, you won’t mind being the only white face in a sea of primitive tribesmen from the Horn of Africa.

    Checkmate, fascists.

  8. It’s the Guardian – one of the few media outlets that would improve its accuracy by introducing AI

    As long as they don’t use their own archives to train the AI

  9. I’m fascinated that the media are so sure that the rioters have such a fervent interest in politics & favour the right. I’d be interested to know their views on economic policies. Is this libertarians or the Kemi Badenoch wing of the Tory Party in action? Quite honestly, I didn’t realise they had it in them. Maybe I should treating the people at Samizdata with more respect.

  10. tl;dr: nine little white girls and two white women were stabbed, three of them fatally, by a black youth but at least they got free healthcare!

  11. The more I see of this Labour government, the more I like it.
    You & me both Jim. And it’s highly amusing. I didn’t expect them to be so stupid & all start happening so quickly.
    I don’t expect this government to be in power in 2 years time. But it won’t be a pretty exit. I can’t be democratic, because the majority it has, it’s own MPs wouldn’t agree to an election. Half of them would lose their seats. So they’re up riding a tiger. It’ll have to end the other way. Last time was Cromwell, wasn’t it?
    Point being, when the Tories were in government, they owned all the shit. The immigrant swamping, the failing NHS, the crazy ‘Net Zero’ driving energy costs through the roof, the housing crisis etc etc etc. Now Labour own it. They can’t get away with blaming it the previous government because people have short memories. Sunak (who?) is rapidly disappearing into history. All people will remember about Tory governments is don’t vote for them.
    I don’t think this stuff on the streets is going to stop. You’ve already had the JSO, XR & the Palli Lovers. Now Labour owns them & the riots. It’s losing control. And the harsher the measures it brings in the more they’ll backfire. What you need now is a house price crash to hit the curtain twitchers.

  12. Dennis, Pointing Out The Obvious

    History shows that nothing placates the far-right like an improved health care system.

  13. I give you this story from the Torygraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/02/watch-hartlepool-protester-bitten-on-backside-by-police-dog/
    Watch: Hartlepool rioter bitten on backside by police dog after taunting officers
    Footage shows man shouting ‘don’t touch me, I pay your wages’ before canine grabs his shorts from behind with its teeth

    This story doesn’t wash. This man was not a rioter. He was doing nothing either illegal or violent. He’s now suffered a serious assault by the police.
    Your media may try (or be under instructions) to spin this crap. But nobody who was there is going to believe it. And people talk to people. Soon nobody will believe it. And if people lose all confidence in what they’re being told by the “Establishment” you really are in the shit.

  14. Still, at least Starmer has reduced the number of migrants

    He has hasn’t he?

    Starmer is starting to look like Honecker

  15. The Tories were the Uniparty (Frog Boiling Division) and Labour are the Uniparty (Blitzkreig Division).

    Excellent.

    Re: Plod dog bites man – the Terriblegraph is as all in with the Labour government on quashing civil liberties as it was with the Tories doing the same during covid. They spout the same ‘far right’ bullshit as the Graun and all the rest.

    Literally not a fucking word to acknowledge that people might just be a tiny bit sick of seeing their fellow citizens murdered by violent peasants from backwards cultures. Not the slightest question about why Plod goes all in with truncheon and dogs for these rioters but goes on bended knee for BLM (when not fleeing) and has been treating fans of Jewish genocide with kid gloves. Even the ones waving fucking swastikas.

  16. Off topic a little, but as I mentioned BLM, I can’t remember if the story of Sonya Massey was discussed here. She was a 36 year old black woman who called the police to her house, worried about a break in. The cops showed up, checked the house and all well. They went in to get some details and then got hyper aggressive because she was standing near a pan of boiling water. One cop bellowed at her, told her to get down or he’d shoot her in the face. Then he did. You can see the body cam video and it’s not pretty.

    So, it is a police killing and it’s a white on black murder. There is nothing at all to suggest the officer did this out of racial hate, it looks like he was just a trigger happy psycho.

    I only mention this because it seems a far more convincing case of police brutality than George Floyd. Sonya Massey wasn’t a criminal and she was an unarmed woman. There’s no doubt that it was the shooting that killed her.

    What was the media reaction? Minimal. What was the reaction on the streets? Tumbleweed. No protests, not even a vigil. Makes it abundantly clear that the BLM riots were 100% politically motivated to blight Trump’s administration. It was a pack of fucking lies.

    Either that or black Americans and white liberals value drug addled criminals more than women…

  17. The cop acted hysterically. But “she was an unarmed woman” isn’t really true; you omitted to say that she had picked up her pan of boiling water.

  18. There is nothing at all to suggest the officer did this out of racial hate, it looks like he was just a trigger happy psycho.
    I don’t think that follows. I’ve no doubt police like him are accustomed to blacks acting irrationally. See the George Floyd saga. The back story was the police were responding to a call about what turned out to be a non-existent intruder, which sets the scene. So he may have genuinely believed she was a bit touched & about to throw a pan of boiling water in his face. The body cam the video’s from will a distorted view of reality & make distances look larger than they are. The actual distance from her to him is well within threat range. It’s about two counter tops width. 1m20. And you can’t see how much room he has to back out of apparent danger. People’s decisions are guided by their previous experiences.
    Nevertheless, if the usual suspects had wanted to make a song & dance about the incident they would no doubt have ignored the above & gone for it. The truth is always what you say it is.

  19. The Labour government seems to be acting like their victory was due to massive public support rather than mass dissatisfaction with the Tories and that they have a genuine mandate from the public for their policies

  20. The Labour government seems to be acting like their victory was due to massive public support rather than mass dissatisfaction with the Tories and that they have a genuine mandate from the public for their policies,

    Let’s hope they don’t look behind the facade of their Potemkin landslide too soon. The longer they believe they have popular support, the harder they will eventually land on the concrete of reality.

  21. And another one in the Torygraph:
    Urgent action is needed to tackle the “tsunami of lies” on social media which fanned the flames of protests across the UK following the Southport stabbings, a leading expert on Right-wing extremism has said.
    Professor Matthew Feldman said that within 30 hours of fake news emerging online about the suspect, it had spread across multiple platforms, sparking riots that led to 53 police officers being hurt.
    He said that social media companies are “not doing enough”, adding that “tougher laws are needed”.

    So a liberal Jewish academic is an expert on “Right-wing extremism”? I’ll bet he is! There’s a lot of leftish Jews involved in various self styled “anti-fascist” organisations. Given their history, one might understand why. Apart from the Brownie-points of course. But they do have a reputation for finding right-wing extremists under every stone they turn over. That lot could find right-wing extremists in a Girl Guides sleepover. The more they find the more they justify their existence & their funding. His expertise will have been reading other experts on right-wing extremism. And so ad infinitum.
    The “fake news thing has been going on ever since us monkeys learned to talk. You’ll hear stuff about pop stars & football clubs & any subject you care to mention. Are all those far-right extremist inspired?

  22. “The Labour government seems to be acting like their victory was due to massive public support rather than mass dissatisfaction with the Tories and that they have a genuine mandate from the public for their policies”

    Reform+Tories got more votes than Labour. Sir Kneel got over 500k less votes than Corbyn did in 2019. And plenty of the 9.7m that did vote Labour will have done so more out of hatred of the Tories than a rabid desire for Labour. They really need their heads examining if they think they got in on a wave of popular sentiment.

  23. BiS – Candidly, English people shouldn’t be allowed to read news that isn’t pre-approved by some kind of Sanhedrin, and/or their local imam.

    BiW – I don’t think Labour are stupid. Evil, yes, but they can read the election results as well as we can.

    They’re trying to manufacture consent. Chomsky is wrong about a lot of things, but he was right about how the sausage is made. The last time in our history the government of England was this hostile to the people, William the Bastard had just conquered us. But William was honest about his intentions.

    Normanes Eunt Domus.

  24. Marius – policing in the US is an unnerving mixture of Officer Friendly and Judge Dredd.

    I’ve met some lovely local Yank cops, who were delighted to have a chat with me and let my boy have a go in the police car, they even had a little sheriff sticker for him (it made his year, but also consider the fact these guys – not massively well paid civil servants – went to the trouble of carrying stickers to give to delighted little children, heartwarming no?). Those guys seem great.

    The Feds tend to enjoy sticking guns in people’s faces at zero provocation (unless you’re trying to assassinate Donald Trump, in which case they treat potential gunmen on the honor* system). I had one Johnny Fed put his hand on his pistol because I had a rotten cold and was struggling to speak as loudly as he would like when being questioned at the US border with Canada. Rude.

    Getting into Canada, otoh, the border feds just smiled and said “Welcome to Canada, have a good time eh?” It’s a more relaxed place in general, but it’s also full of Chinamen so I’m not sure what the moral of this story is, but there have been other black people like Sonya Massey, who were killed or beaten by American cops and it didn’t get media traction. The Psycho Killer part of their criminal justice system does seem out of hand. Let’s be honest, it’s also not as if the Floydy Georgie protesters didn’t have a point. Police brutality / overly rapid escalation to violence is a real problem in the USA.

    I’m not sure if they deliberately pick the worst people to sanctify, in a deliberate inversion/mockery of our morals (Barabbas Lives Matter) or if it’s more randomly based on where we are in the politico-media cycle (BLM was a CIA internal regime change asset, and it needed to be activated at the right time to maximise damage to DRUMPH), but neither Saint Trayvon or The Blessed Floydy George went out there with good intentions. Similarly to the lack of outrage about Sonya Massey, there have been black security guards and policemen killed by Antifa, but the President of the United States didn’t speak at their funerals.

    I remember a more innocent age, when our heroes were Eddie the Eagle. That were brill.

    *Sic

  25. @ Jim, bloke in Spain

    Indeed!

    I didn’t think Der Sturmer and his freak show could actually surprise me, but Jupiter’s cock, they’ve managed it!

  26. Dennis, Pointing Out The Obvious said:
    “History shows that nothing placates the far-right like an improved health care system.”

    Didn’t they prefer improving the public transport system?

  27. Bloke in North Dorset

    “ Didn’t they prefer improving the public transport system?”

    Good point. A question for Starmer that will never be asked: If the trains don’t run on time after you’ve nationalised them what will you do next?

  28. ” A question for Starmer that will never be asked: If the trains don’t run on time after you’ve nationalised them what will you do next?”

    Historically the next move would be to start rounding up and shooting the ‘wreckers’.

  29. So who had the Southport child killer Axel Muganwa Rudakubana down as being the real first black Doctor Who on their 2024 bingo card?

    No doubt they’re going to go with a mental health defence on this one. It would be quite something if it turns out the young Axel was sexually abused by the BBC . . .

  30. PJF: “So who had the Southport child killer Axel Muganwa Rudakubana down as being the real first black Doctor Who on their 2024 bingo card?”

    *snorts breakfast tea out of nose*

  31. BIS,

    “The “fake news thing has been going on ever since us monkeys learned to talk. You’ll hear stuff about pop stars & football clubs & any subject you care to mention. Are all those far-right extremist inspired?”

    Apart from people talking bollocks down the pub, in the quad at school, there was also a lot of bollocks in TV and newspapers. Anyone watching TV in the 70s had Uri Geller on bending spoons on what were supposedly quite serious TV programmes. Or the documentaries about “did aliens build the pyramids?”. You went to a sci-fi convention, there were always a load of blokes selling books about nonsense. Most of the “fake news” thing is loved by the old media as a way to attack new media.

    Also, I am really, thoroughly pissed off with this lazy “far-right” thing. I don’t think people attacking a mosque because they think Muslims are killing little girls says anything about their politics. Many of these people might be thoroughly apolitcal, but they just don’t want their kids getting murdered. And I share that view. My approach is voting for a lot less immigration. Let the Pakistani engineers and programmers in, but Abdul’s cousin who has a sub-95 IQ and is going to work in the kitchen of a takeaway can stay there.

  32. We do not need riots in the UK.
    We need to keep the centre left in power. We must NOT have a far right dictatorship.
    We must protect freedom and democracy.
    The murderer of those 3 girls was pure evil, and must be punished.

  33. @WB

    Right on cue our PM speaks:

    “If you target people because of the colour of their skin or faith, that is far-right and I’m prepared to say so”…

    “I won’t shy away from calling it what it is – far-right thuggery,” Starmer added

    There’s a confluence of several bizarre things here. First of all, whenever was anyone – especially on the left – scared of calling stuff “far right”? They LOVE calling stuff far right. They do it all the time. Why pretend that saying this sort of thing is “far right” is itself a bold, radical step and fortunately we are blessed to have a PM with the strength and fortitude to call it thus?

    Secondly, when did “far right” become the strongest possible pejorative? “Far left” isn’t. I honestly thought he was building up to something like “I won’t shy away from calling it what it is – extremist, racist violence” or “mindless criminal intimidation” or “attempted ethnic cleansing” or even “domestic terrorism”. “Far right” is pretty lukewarm in comparison.

    And finally, is it even accurate? Like WB, I doubt most of those rioting were especially political and no doubt many of the political opinions they do have are centrist or even left-wing. The British working class political consensus, such as it exists, is basically “hang the pedos and fund the NHS”, a mix of left and right priorities that isn’t well represented by any single Westminster party, and contains elements too extreme for any to truly embrace. Farage comes closest and his willingness to disregard norms or “red lines” set by the political and media class explains a lot of his cut-through with such demographics, but even he doesn’t go the whole hog. Nor is this contained entirely to the lower classes. It’s certainly echoed in fairly conventional middle-class thought, though with some extreme elements toned down (“jail the pedos for life” maybe, and “less low skill immigration” rather than “no more immigration”).

    I really don’t think the rioters will be too upset about being branded far right. I don’t see that they’ll think of it as a challenge or an insult, but at best as a complete misunderstanding of their cause and at worst just as another attempt to silence and marginalise them. Even though the label “racist” has also lost much of its sting from overuse, I reckon that would have been a harsher and more accurate rebuke for activities like attacking mosques and Asian minimarts. And the people doing those things might well think of themselves as “not racist”, even if it’s very much “I’m not racist BUT”, so it might pay to remind some of them that attacking Asian family businesses is, in fact, blatantly racism. There’s at least some chance this might appeal to the better angels of their nature. I can’t see how calling them “far right” is going to make them reconsider their priorities in any way.

    I think this piece “gets it”: what we are seeing is much more like inter-ethnic conflict (and specifically ethnic rather than a racial) than it is any manifestation of the left-right political axis: https://unherd.com/2024/08/how-britain-ignored-its-ethnic-conflict/

    Also the intro about all that “I ♥ MCR” graffiti that “somehow” sprung up after the Manchester Arena bombing, with similar occurrences after the London Bridge terror attack, is fascinating. Legacy of the 2012 Olympic planning for a recurrence of the 2011 riots, and all paid for by the Home Office – similarly the bussed in “faith leaders” who turn up after successive atrocities. Though it’s sourced from a Qatari owned propaganda mouthpiece, so worth some scepticism of the details, even at the time the supposed “spontaneous response” of love and inclusivity was clearly being engineered by someone. I don’t know if the powers that be will try something like that on a grand scale to “heal” the divisions in so many towns and cities this week, but it’s worth looking out for.

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