in fact, because as Harris notes, based on evidence, at least half of the UK is on the left of centre politically, albeit not radically so.
Sorta implicit in the definition of centre, no?
in fact, because as Harris notes, based on evidence, at least half of the UK is on the left of centre politically, albeit not radically so.
Sorta implicit in the definition of centre, no?
That left wing electorate:
Farage beats Starmer in every respect except one, poll finds
Reform leader comes out on top – apart from when voters are asked which leader is an ‘honest person
And the “honest person” question ain’t got a big margin:
But a third of respondents said that the Prime Minister was honest, compared to 29 per cent for Mr Farage.
Although obviously anyone who thinks Sir Keir is honest is too stupid to live, never mind vote. Let’s hope the NHSatzgruppen get to them first?
I do not wish to overquote from what he wrote, so let me summarise this suggestion. What he is saying is that there is an unrepresented majority within England, at least, at present. They are searching for a decent form of politics which, as he put it, would be somewhere between the opinions of Ed Davey and Caroline Lucas.
The notion that a politics anywhere near Caroline Lucas represents ‘decency’ is a grotesque affront to most of us that actually work for a living (rather than depending on the taxpayer’s largesse)
I’d also be wary of drawing some conclusions. Translated from the original.
What people want is not hard to summarise. They want fairness and justice.
Which usually means someone else pays for them to exist.
They think there should be a proper social safety net. They believe in state services.
As above – most don’t believe people should be permanently on welfare however. Most of them work in state services so of course they believe in them but whether in some areas 50% of the populace should be employed by the state is open to question in terms of sustainability
They want a future that those who deny climate change are seeking to deny them.
And three holidays per year – it’s only budget flights that Reform voters go on that should be banned.
They recognised the importance of coexisting with their neighbours.
It’s getting tough to afford those trips to second homes with all this Brexit baggage
More than that, they do not wish them to be subject to prejudice.
Prejudice is the stuff of Gammons and people who believe there is ‘two tier justice’ , or indeed ‘neoliberals’ or ‘The Far Right’ – Prejudice against those people is required
They believe that everyone should contribute in a fair way. They actually believe that contributing is important because what the government does is of value.
As long as their inflation linked final salary pension schemes (which they contributed to the destruction of by voting for Blair / Brown) are preserved of course.
That is why they wish that it were done well, and that those who work for it are fairly rewarded. They do not have a dogmatic belief in the state versus markets, but they most certainly believe that markets also have a very positive role to play so long as they are appropriately regulated. They cannot be described as neoliberal as a result.
No – unproductive parasites is probably more appropriate but I think he is spot on to some extent These are the bedrock of the non productive public sector and the public sector leeches within profession like law and the Third Sector. They do constitute around 35 to 40% of the electorate – which is why Reform certainly needs to be looking at plural voting for private sector workers on the grounds they pay the piper.
The last poll I could find online said Reform 34%. That means that 66% of voters are leftist, the Conservatives being Labour Lite.
Based on the evidence, at least half of the UK is right of centre politically.
Also the definitions of “left” and “right”. The whole concept is moronic.
I often think it’s comical
How Nature always does contrive
That every boy and every gal
That’s born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative.
“But a third of respondents said that the Prime Minister was honest, compared to 29 per cent for Mr Farage.”
What’s the margin of error? It’s usually +/-3%, isn’t it?
Is that there Overton window set in stone?
“Centre” has a variety of meanings as does “fair”.
On the normal definition of “Centre” *exactly* half are are left-of-centre and *exactly* half are right-of-centre. Murphy clearly knows less arithmetic (let alone mathematics) than I did when I was six (OK, maybe the proverbial ten-year schoolboy rather than a typical six-year-old because I got some coaching from my favourite sister who was a year older)
Idk if any of you Blokes saw this. The Con Party’s Paul Goodman accidentally explains why the Con Party will never be in government again:
But if parties with experience, like the Conservatives and Labour, find it hard to govern, one without it, like Reform, would find it next to impossible. Here are three illustrations.
As Trump said, they have experience, but it’s bad experience. It’s experience of catastrophic, unforced, 100% failure in everything they ever promised to do. After skullfucking the British economy over a flu and ramming several million more Third World migrants into Britain as punishment for us voting to leave the EU, Cons should be looking up which countries might offer them asylum, not sniggering about how you plebs shouldn’t expect your government to ever do anything for you.
The Cons and their partners in Labour have never found it “hard to govern”. We all saw how easily they could do anything they liked during COVID, laws and “human rights” be damned. This is the old, familiar whinge of the Cons: “oooh, it’s HARD for a democratically elected government to make the civil service do what it wants. Vote Con for another glorious decade of TOTAL excuses ”
On day one, the new Reform administration instructs the Royal Navy to return small boats containing illegal migrants to France as they cross the Channel. Naval officers refuse, asserting that the French will refuse to accept the returns, that there is a risk that migrants will scupper their boats, and that in these circumstances refusing to take them to Britain would breach international law.
Have those naval officers arrested and sacked for refusing to obey the lawful orders of His Majesty’s Government.
Since we’re wasting £50Bn a year on “defence” that isn’t defending us, any politician worthy of breathing air should *welcome* a fight with these “world class” uniformed civil servants. Appoint a Horrible Cunt to oversee the purge of useless officers. See: Pete Hesgeth
On day five, Reform’s new Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a businessman with no political experience, is accused of bullying civil servants. Downing Street’s Propriety and Ethics unit steps in. Staffed by civil servants and based in the Cabinet Office, the unit has a formidable reputation. It helped to investigate Nadhim Zahawi, Priti Patel, Dominic Raab and Chris Pincher under the last government. All were forced out, rightly or wrongly.
Take a chainsaw to the civil service. Traumatise them with massive job cuts from day one, keep them terrified and unable to mount any effective resistance to His Majesty’s Government. Stop asking for permission to govern.
On day 10, the new Reform home secretary, like Suella Braverman, demands that the Progress flag, which represents the LGBTQ+ cause, no longer be flown above the Home Office. He has no more luck than Braverman, who said later: “I couldn’t even get the flag of a horrible political campaign I disagreed with taken down from the roof of the government department I was supposed to be in charge of.”
Pathetic.
But regardless of one’s view of the matter, there can be no doubt that a Reform government would be seen, in some corners of Westminster and Whitehall, as illegitimate. And would be met from day one by an institutional intifada.
Cons are such natural born losers they’ve already surrendered the next fight, and to people who have zero democratic mandate whatsoever.
My impression is that those at the top of Reform think of themselves as Big Men with Strong Views. They certainly have the latter – hence the falling out of Farage and Rupert Lowe. And maybe, in government, they would prove themselves the former. Perhaps a Reform government would beat establishment resistance to a pulp (metaphorically, not literally).
My impression of Paul Goodman, Baron Goodman of Wycombe, is that he’s a rat-faced clown who has nothing to offer except his £300 a day expense claims for penis-breathed loserwaffle in the House of Old Fruits.
@john77
“Centre” is how most people describe their own political outlook. e.g. Greens think of TTK’s Labour as right of center, Lib Dems as right wing, Conservatives as far right, and Reform as evil planet destroying Nazi’s. Reform supporters, having been drawn from both Conservative and Labour voters, naturally see themselves as centerish, and view the green party simply as raving loonies rather than raving lefty loonies.
@ Andyf
Yeah, well …
Just as most people (but not I) expect a “medium” T-shirt to fit them. But I had to spend part of one term studying mathematical logic.
You may have omitted to notice the poll result that showed most journalists consider themselves “left-of-centre” – which has serious implications as their view of “centre” will be conditioned by their “left-of-centre” environment. So a significant majority of journalists are so far left that they think they are left of a “centre” that is itself well to the left.
You don’t wantt my anecdote
Is Spud referring to this, btw:
At Glastonbury, I saw what England’s silent majority really looks like. Why aren’t politicians listening?
John Harris
Yes, England’s silent majority are Rafe, Jocasta and all the other chlamydia infected wankers chanting “Death to the IDF” at Glastonbury. Enjoy huffing that copium, John.
There’s never an IDF cruise missile strike when you want one, is there? And such small portions.
@ Steve
Surely that is intended for a laugh – not a single member of the silent majority will go to Glastonbury. Even Glastonbury itself admits that.
‘Centrist’ is an elastic term. What the commentariat and politicians consider to be centrist is often not what the majority of the electorate want. Unless centrism is defined by what the majority want, ‘centrist’ means no more than the way that the liberal elite describe their group’s consensus.
To many ordinary voters, many ‘centrist’ policies seem extreme — eg rejoining the EU, pursuing net zero in the vague hope of influencing the weather a century hence, mass immigration, multiculturalism, indoctrination in schools, egalitarianism, intervening in Libya, invading Iraq….In short, Tony Blair and his ilk were extremist, not centrist.
However…the majority also want: the NHS (crap but largely free at the point of use), subsidised jobs, nationalised industries, lots of handouts paid for by “the rich”, less free trade, etc with fewer muslims and niggers (though ‘Chalky’ is a “good bloke” and “those muzzies over there voted for Brexit”).
And so Reform moves steadily leftward…
@ Theophrastus
see my post above @12.50.
Am I going to be categorised as “autistic” just because I tell the truth?
At Glastonbury, I saw what England’s silent majority really looks like. Why aren’t politicians listening?
John Harris
The crowd at the Balcony Sabbath farewell gig are more like to be a representative of the silent majority than the Glastonbury crowd.
John – the Guardian doesn’t do (intentional) laughs. But the overall context is, British politics is rapidly shrinking down to a simple choice between Reform and Stop Reform. Shades of how Trump has become the Main Character of American politics, even when he “lost” their politics still revolved around him.
Most of them are still stuck at the “Bargaining” stage. Although I find their fantastical delusions less infuriating than chinless Tory “lords” (Depression) boasting about how they couldn’t even get the Pedo-BLM flag taken down after we gave them a massive, landslide majority. If I had written that confession Paul “lord” Goodman made, I’d be sitting in the shed with a revolver and a bottle of whisky.
Apparently Liz Truss and Suella DeVil aren’t welcome in Reform – I bloody well hope so. Britain don’t need any more losers who talk a good game in the Daily Mail. The chinless Tory lord inadvertently highlights the importance of coming to government with a plan for how to use the levers of power, and a willingness to execute that plan. Most of which has nothing to do with the House of Commons. I give Reform a 50/50 chance. If thy’re watching the United States and Argentina, they will know what to do. We need people who understand where the administrative choke points are, and how to rapidly get *our guys* occupying those positions. Fail to establish a secure beachhead in the permanent establishment, and we might as well burn the entire country down as an insurance job.
HTF did Black become “Balcony”?
The hilarious part is that the chinless wonder is trying to assert that this hasn’t occurred to Nigel, with his political history and record of successful lever-pulling. It’s obvious that Reform is going to have to be ready to go with a combination of shock & awe and the parliamentary party discipline to implement the plan, so they will be.
The plan itself, mind, will be kept under wraps except for various feints. Both Trump and Millei have shown the way.
Wait until someone tries to tell him what “100 IQ” means.
BiND,
“The crowd at the Balcony Sabbath farewell gig are more like to be a representative of the silent majority than the Glastonbury crowd.”
I presume autocorrect failure. Balcony Sabbath sound like a swing jazz version of Black Sabbath. But yes.
The reason I like numbers is that you get out of your bubble, your biases. Most journalists think punk rock was this huge thing, but it’s because that’s who young, middle class political journo types in London liked. All their friends were into it.
But actually, The Sex Pistols only had the 13th biggest selling album of 1977. ABBA, The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac were above them. London Calling by The Clash (1979) wasn’t in the top 100 of 1979 and was only the 65th biggest selling album of 1980. ABBA’s Super Trouper was the biggest selling album of 1980. Way above The Clash was a Barry Manilow album, the soundtrack to Xanadu and the Jeff Wayne War of the Worlds album.
Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours has sold about 40m copies in total, similar to the soundtracks to Grease and Saturday Night Fever. Any one of them sold more albums than all of the punk rock era.
Glastonbury is 210,000 people which is huge for a festival, but it’s still less than 0.5% of the population. About 3 million people in the UK saw Avengers Endgame in its first weekend. Grand Theft Auto 5 was bought by 1.5 million people on the day of release. And lots of Glastonbury goers just go for the music. I know people around Swindon that go (not a difficult trip) and they’re libertarians that hate Corbyn.
You mean like https://www.google.com/search?q=jazz+sabbath ? (Featuring the son of Rick Wakeman, btw!)
Steve,
“As Trump said, they have experience, but it’s bad experience. It’s experience of catastrophic, unforced, 100% failure in everything they ever promised to do. After skullfucking the British economy over a flu and ramming several million more Third World migrants into Britain as punishment for us voting to leave the EU, Cons should be looking up which countries might offer them asylum, not sniggering about how you plebs shouldn’t expect your government to ever do anything for you.”
The average politician just likes being the centre of attention. Look at your MP’s website and how much time they have for stuff that is nothing to do with being an MP. Mine was always full of “going to schools and talking about my work”, But he was in charge of the courts, and I knew barristers who had to have cases postponed because email didn’t work. Like, that’s what you should be doing – calling meetings, asking why the fuck the email isn’t working.
It’s all a bluff. Nice suit, nice voice, say the right sort of things. The only one of the Tories I had any respect for was Gove, who seemed to actually do some thinking, and cared about making things happen.
In the real world, all sorts of people are brilliant that don’t look like it. Rick Rubin looks like a homeless guy, but he produced Adele’s albums that sold a billion copies. If you saw Gabe Newell in the street you wouldn’t think he was a billionaire.
“On day one, the new Reform administration instructs the Royal Navy to return small boats containing illegal migrants to France as they cross the Channel. Naval officers refuse, asserting that the French will refuse to accept the returns, that there is a risk that migrants will scupper their boats, and that in these circumstances refusing to take them to Britain would breach international law.”
Goodman falls for the Big Book of International Law, carved by God himself. There is of course, no such thing. There are treaties and rules we have signed up for. And we can just say “nah, we aren’t doing that”. Now, we have to consider the benefits and disadvantages of that, but we can tell the UN to just fuck off. Then, any naval officers that refuse get court martialled.
“On day five, Reform’s new Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a businessman with no political experience, is accused of bullying civil servants. Downing Street’s Propriety and Ethics unit steps in.”
If you’re a smart motherfucker, you fire these people before lunch on day 1. Conservative wankers like Goodman lack zeal, code. They would rather not upset people than do what is necessary. Getting things done is being Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, not the generals sitting around dining and talking and caring about propriety. It’s about caring about change, and removing anyone who gets in the way of change. The mission matters. People who obstruct the democratically-approved mission in the civil service are the bad guys. If it means you have to fire them and they’re sucking dicks behind the bins to pay the mortgage you shouldn’t lose any sleep over it. If they’d done the right thing and said “yes sir”, they wouldn’t be.
“On day 10, the new Reform home secretary, like Suella Braverman, demands that the Progress flag, which represents the LGBTQ+ cause, no longer be flown above the Home Office. He has no more luck than Braverman, who said later: “I couldn’t even get the flag of a horrible political campaign I disagreed with taken down from the roof of the government department I was supposed to be in charge of.””
You tell the senior civil servant to do it. You give them 30 days. If it’s still there, you have a meeting about it and they’d better have a good reason, or it’s disciplinary action for either incompetence or deliberate disobedience. And if you can’t do that, you change the rules so you can.
“But regardless of one’s view of the matter, there can be no doubt that a Reform government would be seen, in some corners of Westminster and Whitehall, as illegitimate. And would be met from day one by an institutional intifada.”
So you change Westminster and Whitehall. You start by firing large chunks of them. You outsource and privatise as much as possible to people with contracts. “If you fly a rainbow flag, a 5% penalty will be applied”. That’ll fix it. You think someone running a consultancy wants to lose 5%?
“If Farage is to follow in her footsteps, he needs a modern equivalent: a strategic plan for getting his most radical measures – leaving the ECHR, abandoning the net zero targets, scrapping the Equality Act – through Parliament (where they would meet particular resistance in the Lords) in order to ensure that they gain the democratic legitimacy to which the courts would bow. ”
This is actually good advice. You need Day 1 actions. You need to hit the civil service, the courts, legislation hard. The Lords is easy. You send a bill, they bounce it, you ignore the amendments and send it back unmodified. they bounce it and you throw the parliament act at it. But you have to be more Colonel Kurtz about things. You have to not care that the peers hate your fucking guts. You have to not care that the civil service think you’re a cunt. As long as the civil service do as they are told, they can think that.
It’s like I remember someone saying how much teachers liked one of the education secretary. Because she was a teacher. So she was going to do what teachers want. They fucking hated Gove. Because Gove prioritised the children and their parents. He’s one of the few people in those 14 years of Conservatives that I had some time for, because he wanted to improve education and didn’t care about pissing off teachers.
BIW,
With band leader Milton Keanes?
Reminds me of The Old Negro Space Program: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6xJzAYYrX8
Postmodern Jukebox do modern songs with jazz quartets. It’s a mixed bag, but why not?
You mean like https://www.google.com/search?q=jazz+sabbath ? (Featuring the son of Rick Wakeman, btw!)
Not my thing but worth trying.