Is Labour Dead?
From the endless stream of u-turns (both before and after election), to the appalling foreign policy on Gaza, to the failure to scrap the two-child benefit cap, to the GB Energy confusion, to the language used about P&O ferries, to the Council of Nations and Regions fiasco, to the meetings with Giorgia Meloni, to the peerage for Poppy Gustafsson (former CEO of Darktrace), to the complete crackdown on any dissent within the party, to the endless sleaze and freebies culminating in Morgan McSweeney’s elevation, the first 100 Days of Labour in government have been an unmitigated disaster.
But, among a steady stream of bad news about the newly-elected Labour government, this stood out: “Wes Streeting has said the new class of medication could have a “monumental” impact on obesity and getting Britain working”. Read this front page story here telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/1
In effect, Wes Streeting has accepted £280m from a pharma company to trial an injectable weight-loss drug on the unemployed.
I’m not going to even begin to describe how appalling this is on every conceivable level.
With the Tories effectively black-pilled with the arrival of Robert Jenrick & Co we need to take note of the fact that UK politics has moved significantly to the right, and, without hyperbole, the Labour party is dead as a progressive force. Yes ‘we’ have succeeded in consigning the chaotic and lunatic Conservative party to electoral oblivion (for now) but what they have been replaced with is nothing like any Labour government we have previously known.
As Pippa Crerar writes (‘We all hope it’s teething troubles – but worry it’s something worse’: the inside story of Labour’s first 100 days in power‘): “Within days of becoming chancellor, Reeves announced the Treasury would be carrying out an audit of the fiscal inheritance – one of the worst since the second world war. It found a £22bn black hole in government spending plans for essential public services in 2024-25. Labour immediately leapt on the deficit as evidence of irresponsible management of the economy, paving the way for tax increases and painful spending cuts in the budget. But to help fill the black hole, they made what many regard as their biggest mistake: cutting the winter fuel payment.”
Now we’re told, within living memory of the Grenfell disaster, that Labour’s next project is to “slash red tape”.
As Nicholas Shaxson (author of Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World ) writes: “All this comes in a wider context of sucking up to the City of London, while ignoring the policy preferences of much of the public. Starmer has rowed back on pledges to cap banker bonuses and tax windfall bank profits; he has watered down a £28bn green investment plan and now threatens to defenestrate the CMA” [the Competition and Markets Authority – Ed].
Again and again the talking points, the language and the policies are those of the tabloids and the Conservative right. But this is unlike any previous Labour government not because it is introducing regressive right-wing policies, Labour has a woeful track record of this, but because this Labour party has been gutted permanently. There is no credible surviving left-wing aside from a pocket or two of dissenting voices who resisted expulsion. But it’s gone. It’s done. Many people seem to be still talking as if this is salvageable as if this Labour government can still be a vehicle for some kind of progressive change. This doesn’t make any sense anymore. It’s up to people on the left, radicals and progressives to re-set their entire political compass and debate what this means. Many many people came to this dawning realisation a long time ago, say 1984, but others will need to look at all the clear evidence before their eyes and stop the behaviour of their lives and abandon ship. This is not the time to outline what exactly that is, but it is certainly not the Labour Party.
This is not to advocate for any political party as an alternative, but just to see clearly what is happening and what has taken place. The UK has undergone a massive parliamentary political lurch to the right in recent years and anyone with a progressive bone in their body needs to wake up and change tack. We’re off the map. Clinging to a folk-memory of a ‘Labour past’ is no longer a credible position to hold, and organising to protect the most vulnerable in society and to stand up for the poor, the precariat, the minorities or the marginalised is now the task of something other than the British Labour party.
I too was shocked at the framing of the anti obesity drug story. NHS should never be used in this way it raises serious ethical problems. As you say another among a series of worrying developments. One which struck me today was in Wales today announcing an initiative for new modular nuclear reactors to be based in South Wales ex-coal mining infrastructure and to be assembled ‘like Lego’ by 2027 if Last Energy based in Washington USA get permission. Seems as though Labour is running after anything it can get.
Framing?
I listened to a debate on LBC and was struck that on the surface, a large part due to the way the policy has been “framed”, it is likely to fail the identified cohort.
“The drug will be given to out of work, fat, poor and poorly educated people ages 16 – 67 to enable to get off their backside and go to work, because currently they are a drain on society and this policy will also help reduce the number of immigrants”.
If the policy had been framed more along the lines of consulting with volunteers and their GPs to establish suitable candidates, if the drug could help them, side effects communicated and support determined for the long term, the policy may have had a chance of success with some people.
As its been framed the only winners will be a large pharmaceutical company and their shareholders!
Streeting may have passion, but he lacks the intelligence to think a policy through from start to finish and has the presentational skills of a six year old, this is catastrophic due to the post he is in. The right wing press will make hay with this for years!
Iain, who actually said this? > “The drug will be given to out of work, fat, poor and poorly educated people ages 16 – 67 to enable to get off their backside and go to work, because currently they are a drain on society and this policy will also help reduce the number of immigrants”.
Do you have a link?
Because this phrase: “…currently they are a drain on society…” is chillingly similar to the Nazi Party’s “Useless Mouths” and “Life unworthy of life” rhetoric aimed against Jews unable to work, people with serious medical problems or disabilities, and other Untermenschen not deemed to be useful to Germany.
Remembering that Scotland doesn’t register in the Metropolitan mind set. What does this article mean to your average English voter, where are those not sunk in Farage rhetoric to go? We have another option but they do not.
Here the majority are centre or centre left but we cannot get together to work the electoral system and return a Holyrood parliament with a clear majority and bold enough leaders to get us out of this pernicious union.
“What does this article mean to your average English voter?”
Everything. They are witnessing the same as us in terms of betrayals and failures from Labour on all of the points I raise.
Aye … and 22 Billion for Carbon Capture and Storage… enabling the fossil barons to keep burning planet earth…
And if Australia’s experience of carbon capture is anything to go by – it does not work and does not make economic nor climate / environmental sense!
Don’t create a mess in the first place and you don’t have to spend money cleaning up your mess!
Ploughing money into children, insulating houses, infrastructure and green technology creation / distribution, will provide a greater return!
But with labour sticking to tory austerity spending and prolonging brexit, the future does not look good, especially for future generations of Scots if Scotland remains in the union!
Sorry, I’d missed that Ann
Organise to protect all our society, surely?
The question you all seem to be ignoring is why ‘proper’ left wing/progressive parties are no longer attractive to vast swathes of the electorate (if they ever were).
Any ideas?
Vast swathes of the electorate believe what they read in the right wing comics, sorry, tabloids.
Frank – polling shows that many policies identified as ‘left wing’ are actually popular with the public particularly in Scotland.
The predominantly right wing media, owned by rich beneficiaries of current policies, do their best to persuade public that left wing policies are not economically feasible. In addition they also point the finger of blame for the public’s dissatisfaction at minorities to distract the attention away from significant changes.
They are aided and abetted by large sections of ‘unbiased’ media who accept the current economic status quo and frequently take their news lead from the right wing media.
But you don’t.
Why?
are you saying you’re more intelligent because you read The Guardian?
Could the vast swathes of the people who read the tabloids read them because they agree with them?
After all why would you pay for an item that you disagree with?
John – I have often been told by friends and colleagues that the main reason they buy the red tops was for the football, the racing and the showbiz gossip. Then people get used to buying the same paper and inevitably absorb, to some extent, the political messages they contain.
However though voting patterns show that the political influence of red tops is limited recent history shows us they can still do a very useful hatchet job on politicians that threaten the status quo.
They can also set the agenda for broadcasting media which in turn focuses public attention on particular topics. We are all susceptible to this phenomenon no matter what media we consume.
John,
I’m sorry but why would they “absorb’ the political messages unless they agree with them. Are you saying people are no better than sheep?
I often read papers/blogs that I don’t necessarily agree with but it helps stimulate the mind to alternative opinions.
I get the Daily Telegraph every Saturday for it’s brilliant sports coverage and Michael Deacons ‘Way of the World’ column, the rest goes in the recycling bin where it belongs. Why should anybody else be different?
John – I did qualify this by saying to some extent.
We are all influenced by what we see, hear and read. Why do you think advertising is a multi million pound industry?
Like it or not many people are not particularly interested or engaged with politics and therefore do not seek out articles in the way that you or I do. The red tops (or internet) may be their main / only source of political opinions.
It is also proven that the more often a topic is discussed in media, the more politicians tend to discuss it and that this higher profile consequently leads to the issue becoming a higher priority with the public.
Thanks
John
Newspapers matter, still. Otherwise very very rich people wouldn’t send a fortune buying them up. They’re mot just vanity projects.
John Learmonth, I think that’s the wrong question. Not many people support reactionary policies. The question, for the Left in particular, is how to effect change in a society in which so much power is held by so few.
“why ‘proper’ left wing/progressive parties are no longer attractive to vast swathes of the electorate? ”
It is worth other readers noting that this “question”* (copied above) is a right-wing talking point (trolling) that gets reposted endlessly across any discussion about social democracy (and the lack thereof).
It is always posted in bad faith and is intended to reinforce authoritarianism not generate genuine discourse. The poster hopes to goad others into denigrating other people for believing what they read, so he can accuse them of “elitism” and snobbery. Topic derailed. Trolling achieved.
*Asking why those presented with only onions in the greengrocers buy onions, but do not buy bananas?
(Answer: It must be because they love only onions)
We are getting close to enforced medication. Medical fascism. No surprise from Streeting who has long been in the pocket of Big Pharma. But of course, this is not for the benefit of patients. It’s all about putting public money in the BIG Pharma wing of the Money Power, which includes, the banks, ‘Defence’-Industry and Agri-Food (the latter of which causes the obesity in the first place). Neat business plan!
Labour is indeed finished – but this was inevitable. Its historic role was to betray the working class. It was early infiltrated by the ruling classes, the Oxbridge mafia, the Fabians etc. Their role was to defang the nascent labour movement and bring it under establishment control.
There never was a “parliamentary road to socialism” – just as there is no longer (if there ever was) a parliamentary road to independence.
Parliament is a theatrical pretence at ‘democracy’ – run by the bourgeoisie on behalf of the ruling class – stacked against any meaning fun change. Capitalsm has never had anything to fear from His Majesty’s Labour and Imperialist Party.
They just used to be a bit more subtle about it.
Now they are openly and obviously the temporary alternative to the Tories while they get their act together – or merge with ReformUK.
There must never again be any credible challenge to the Plutocracy.
Perhaps you’d like to tell us your proposed way out of this?
Is there one?
No point complaining if you haven’t a solution
What’s yours?
No, it’s not. I rather suspect it has just taken a tactical decision to get all its dirty work done in the first two years. Not great for the misnomer that is “Scottish” Labour schedule-wise, admittedly, but necessary if you’re in any way following a UK-centric approach.
Of more concern might be that it now appears the supposed main party of Independence’s only electoral salvation lies in having their main opposition self-immolate, rather than it itself having anything to offer the electorate. Now that really could be judged as looking like political death throes.
The world has changed, Britain has changed, where I live in NZ has changed. We are now all vassal states, satrapies, of the American and globalist capitalist system, ruled by the sociopathic beneficiaries of the system.. Only an irredeemable sociopath could sit in the interview chair on public television and say that starving and dropping 76,000 tons of bombs (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2024/10/8/one-year-of-israels-war-on-gaza-by-the-numbers) on the two and half million Gazan population is “Israel has the right to defend itself”. Starmer, and his team, are bona fide sociopaths succeeding the Tory ones who pushed austerity on a population of fellow countrymen and families already leading austere lives, austerity on austerity, dismay on dismay, poverty on poverty. . . Billions upon billions of dollars are spent every year by these entities and their mouthpieces to persuade us that the their form of capitalism is the only way, that socialism is Marxism, that growth is not cancer, that lies are honest, that truth is relative, that getting money and prestige is the only endeavour of any worthwhile human being – see ads on YouTube, the social media, the papers, the media. All that money has worked. All those algorithms have worked. Every word you ever write, every opinion you have ever uttered is now recorded and a substantial proportion of the power system is now used to keep the information intact and immediately recoverable when needed to bring you down. Elon Musk’s millions for Trump are the tip of the iceberg appearing above the foul waters, while the rest lies deep and malevolent and undetected under the surface. For every million dollar “donation” to politics, ten times as much will be used directly to propagandise the public, to frighten off the concerned, to buy out the corruptible. We have to admit, for the moment, they have won. Labour is now the Democratic Party, the Tories are the Republicans – they have emulated these corrupt entities and their corrupt politics to the nth degree. . They are both rotten to the core, the stench of hypocrisy rising like a choking mephitis from the decay of the politics and the fabric of the Palace of Westminster. They are bought out entities of moral hollowness. They will only lose when things get so bad that societies start to finally break down ,and then we’ll turn from what we have now, a sort of proto-fascism to a fully fledged one. Perhaps Trump will signal the start of the finality of that process? No-one now will be allowed to form a left wing movement or party. You will be harassed, dismissed, arrested, sidelined, slurred, blackmailed, betrayed, jailed, deprived – and you will die a worn out disillusioned cast-off of society. That is now our future. Do you still fondly think Scotland can gain independence? You will never, ever be allowed this, unless you literally take to the streets and risk your health and life. Perhaps that will happen. If you want to save your society, that’s what you’ll have to do. Do I exaggerate? Perhaps i do, but every day we experience things that we thought we’d never see in our lifetime and we have become inured to chaos and madness. It’s all deliberate, calculated – a mass and effective gaslighting of societies to render us impotent.