I agree with (I think) everything you've said, and I appreciate you're making the case for not voting Labour , rather than for voting Tory, but - I am at the point where I feel there's a strong moral case against voting Tory. I have never known the health service be in such a state as it is now, never been worried that I or someone I care about might not get the care they need, and indeed I'm pretty sure I'm not getting the care I should be getting for my heart condition. That's a basic failure of our public services that should not be happening in the UK in 2024. But it's not even that - it's the fact that the Tories don't seem to *care*. What are they *doing* about this - or about any other day to day problem you can name? They seem to have checked out. To me that's morally unacceptable.
Thing is, this issue won‘t save the Conservative and Unionist Party (again) from the beating at the polls, they so richly deserve. What people do much more care about right now, might be more urgent to them than fighting against Corbyn (and Galloway) all over again. Turds swimming in Britain’s rivers and on the beaches? The myriad problems owed to Brexit? Like food security, lack of import checks, declining export to and increasing imports from the EU, loss of rights, terrible post-Brexit trade deals, reduced funding for farmers, wrecking the NHS like never before, GP waiting lists skyrocketing, crumbling infrastructure, abolishing the rule of law, HS2, Party Gate, PPE procurement VIP Lane, Hester‘s racism, trying to pass an illegal illegal immigration bill, repeating Liz Truss’ and Kwasi Kwarteng‘s drive-by-attack on the British economy, rising taxes without any investment in infrastructure and I could still rant on. The point is reached, when people are just fed up. The Tories have lost the plot and they truly deserve a thrashing. The current leadership is, much like the Trump caucus in the US, more about ruling the unwashed masses and lining their own pockets than doing the actual work of governing. Not closing a tax hole for non-dom people, like say Rishi Sunak‘s wife, is just a mere coincidence, amirite?
You’re right Damian, and yet what party can we vote for instead? The main ones are all moral sewers of some kind, and voting for a small party seems perverse in our political system.
So much to say to this, that my mind was racing while I was reading, that I may have missed parts. Apologies, therefore if I repeat any point you've already made.
I think the first thing to note about the two by-elections is that turnout was 37% in one and 38% in the other. The Guardian at least recognised the significance of this (if only in the headline).
Everyone, including Professor John Curtice is talking about swings, but these are practically meaningless with so many voters staying away. I've seen lots of discussion about how Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, and not nearly enough on what democracy actually is, and how it needs the support and faith of the people, and how the latter is collapsing. (Before I go off on this, if the GE turnout is even 50%, that would be almost a third up, and I don't believe it's possible to extrapolate from Thursday's results.)
Actually, I'll leave that, as it's not relevant here, and just talk about the Corbyn and antisemitism thing (I'm never sure if it's hyphenated or not, and whether the S should be capitalised or not, so I'll go with your spelling). I'm not at all convinced that Corbyn is an antisemite, and, IIRC, antisemitism first became an issue in Labour under Ed Miliband, who I'm absolutely certain isn't. I do think Corbyn thinks in a Manichean goodies and baddies kind of way, and he's knee-jerk anti-Western and anti-capitalist while also having only a hazy idea what these might be. (His pacificism, such as it is, seems very post-Christian, and rather British—there don't seem to be any comparable pacificists anywhere in the Middle East.) And I think that kind of thinking shades into antisemitism, and Corbyn's position isn't helped by trying to appeal to Muslim Labour supporters, many of whom seem to be socially conservative and tribal and family oriented and not at all steeped in the communitarian traditions of a brotherhood of workers.
Finally, because this is already too long, and could have been much, much longer: I disagree with you on what racism is. I'm getting very close to not believing in its existence as a separate category at all. I believe all of us, to varying degrees, divide people into in-groups and out-groups. And these groups are plastic or malleable, and subject to changing definitions, as well as changing salience. I think strength of ingoup/outgroup feeling is the actual issue. "Liberals" have fairly weak feelings, and can sympathise fairly easily, others (including those we call racists) have stronger feelings, and are less flexible. I'm somewhat influenced by Adorno's F-scale, which I thought was nonsense when I read it at uni, then I softened on it, and now I think it's rubbish again. (Likewise, the sort of people in the USA who complain that they have a racist uncle they have to meet at Thanksgiving strike me as hugely intolerant people themselves, almost as if they shared some decisive personality gene with the uncle…)
But back to Corbyn. The problem with JC, IMO, is that he can be called (and is) both an anti-racist and a racist. Can he be both if the terms mean anything? Certainly, there's no one like Alf Garnett, who hates everyone. Enoch Powell could speak Hindi, Hebrew, and Urdu among other languages, and spoke against calling Kenyans "sub human."
I don't deny that some groups are discriminated against in some parts of the world, but as I don't really believe in race (which is at best atavistic; the idea that there's a black race, and a white race, and a yellow race, etc belongs in the nineteenth century), I don't believe any of this is down to race or any of the putative characteristics of a given race.
I'm not quite clear on what I'm trying to say (when am I ever?), but for Labour to eradicate its current problem, it needs to understand it, and I'm certain that it not only doesn't, it doesn't even want to. All the solutions both sides seem to have come down to "there are people who think the wrong things; if we kick them all out, our problems are solved." I think it's all rather more systemic than that, and the pattern will repeat merely with different faces.
I agree with (I think) everything you've said, and I appreciate you're making the case for not voting Labour , rather than for voting Tory, but - I am at the point where I feel there's a strong moral case against voting Tory. I have never known the health service be in such a state as it is now, never been worried that I or someone I care about might not get the care they need, and indeed I'm pretty sure I'm not getting the care I should be getting for my heart condition. That's a basic failure of our public services that should not be happening in the UK in 2024. But it's not even that - it's the fact that the Tories don't seem to *care*. What are they *doing* about this - or about any other day to day problem you can name? They seem to have checked out. To me that's morally unacceptable.
Thing is, this issue won‘t save the Conservative and Unionist Party (again) from the beating at the polls, they so richly deserve. What people do much more care about right now, might be more urgent to them than fighting against Corbyn (and Galloway) all over again. Turds swimming in Britain’s rivers and on the beaches? The myriad problems owed to Brexit? Like food security, lack of import checks, declining export to and increasing imports from the EU, loss of rights, terrible post-Brexit trade deals, reduced funding for farmers, wrecking the NHS like never before, GP waiting lists skyrocketing, crumbling infrastructure, abolishing the rule of law, HS2, Party Gate, PPE procurement VIP Lane, Hester‘s racism, trying to pass an illegal illegal immigration bill, repeating Liz Truss’ and Kwasi Kwarteng‘s drive-by-attack on the British economy, rising taxes without any investment in infrastructure and I could still rant on. The point is reached, when people are just fed up. The Tories have lost the plot and they truly deserve a thrashing. The current leadership is, much like the Trump caucus in the US, more about ruling the unwashed masses and lining their own pockets than doing the actual work of governing. Not closing a tax hole for non-dom people, like say Rishi Sunak‘s wife, is just a mere coincidence, amirite?
You’re right Damian, and yet what party can we vote for instead? The main ones are all moral sewers of some kind, and voting for a small party seems perverse in our political system.
So much to say to this, that my mind was racing while I was reading, that I may have missed parts. Apologies, therefore if I repeat any point you've already made.
I think the first thing to note about the two by-elections is that turnout was 37% in one and 38% in the other. The Guardian at least recognised the significance of this (if only in the headline).
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/16/labour-can-celebrate-byelection-victories-but-low-turnout-could-indicate-larger-threat
Everyone, including Professor John Curtice is talking about swings, but these are practically meaningless with so many voters staying away. I've seen lots of discussion about how Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, and not nearly enough on what democracy actually is, and how it needs the support and faith of the people, and how the latter is collapsing. (Before I go off on this, if the GE turnout is even 50%, that would be almost a third up, and I don't believe it's possible to extrapolate from Thursday's results.)
Actually, I'll leave that, as it's not relevant here, and just talk about the Corbyn and antisemitism thing (I'm never sure if it's hyphenated or not, and whether the S should be capitalised or not, so I'll go with your spelling). I'm not at all convinced that Corbyn is an antisemite, and, IIRC, antisemitism first became an issue in Labour under Ed Miliband, who I'm absolutely certain isn't. I do think Corbyn thinks in a Manichean goodies and baddies kind of way, and he's knee-jerk anti-Western and anti-capitalist while also having only a hazy idea what these might be. (His pacificism, such as it is, seems very post-Christian, and rather British—there don't seem to be any comparable pacificists anywhere in the Middle East.) And I think that kind of thinking shades into antisemitism, and Corbyn's position isn't helped by trying to appeal to Muslim Labour supporters, many of whom seem to be socially conservative and tribal and family oriented and not at all steeped in the communitarian traditions of a brotherhood of workers.
Finally, because this is already too long, and could have been much, much longer: I disagree with you on what racism is. I'm getting very close to not believing in its existence as a separate category at all. I believe all of us, to varying degrees, divide people into in-groups and out-groups. And these groups are plastic or malleable, and subject to changing definitions, as well as changing salience. I think strength of ingoup/outgroup feeling is the actual issue. "Liberals" have fairly weak feelings, and can sympathise fairly easily, others (including those we call racists) have stronger feelings, and are less flexible. I'm somewhat influenced by Adorno's F-scale, which I thought was nonsense when I read it at uni, then I softened on it, and now I think it's rubbish again. (Likewise, the sort of people in the USA who complain that they have a racist uncle they have to meet at Thanksgiving strike me as hugely intolerant people themselves, almost as if they shared some decisive personality gene with the uncle…)
But back to Corbyn. The problem with JC, IMO, is that he can be called (and is) both an anti-racist and a racist. Can he be both if the terms mean anything? Certainly, there's no one like Alf Garnett, who hates everyone. Enoch Powell could speak Hindi, Hebrew, and Urdu among other languages, and spoke against calling Kenyans "sub human."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoch_Powell#Hola_Massacre_speech
I don't deny that some groups are discriminated against in some parts of the world, but as I don't really believe in race (which is at best atavistic; the idea that there's a black race, and a white race, and a yellow race, etc belongs in the nineteenth century), I don't believe any of this is down to race or any of the putative characteristics of a given race.
I'm not quite clear on what I'm trying to say (when am I ever?), but for Labour to eradicate its current problem, it needs to understand it, and I'm certain that it not only doesn't, it doesn't even want to. All the solutions both sides seem to have come down to "there are people who think the wrong things; if we kick them all out, our problems are solved." I think it's all rather more systemic than that, and the pattern will repeat merely with different faces.