Tag: Keir starmer

Dear Labour…

By Daviemoo

Politics in the UK is in tatters.
Everyone- from the people I hear discuss it in the streets, to Lord Heseltine on TalkTV, can see that. It’s hardly a controversy to point this out, the intellectual equivalent of leaving an apple on your desk for weeks, watching its skin dry, pucker, rot- then, one day, for no particular reason suddenly jumping up & exclaiming “my goodness, this apple is mouldy!” It’s played out in full view. Amongst many problems including the deep and intrinsic winding of the far right around key positions like Home Secretary, that rot has pushed people who used to be more radical in their leftism- when it was easy, in full swing in the political sphere- into centricism.
When you number amongst the dreaded far left who are demonised across the board, what is one to do when the leader of the Labour Party says “like it or lump it”.

Firstly let’s start with a disclaimer. Yes there are idiots amongst the far left. There are also total muppets amongst the center left, dicks aplenty amongst centrists, wankers galore amongst the centre right- and I dont think we need to go into the far right do we. No, I don’t condone the actions of twitter incels who call themselves far left but act like misogynistic weirdos, who spam people’s comment sections, who slurp at the shaft of weird totalitarian figures of communist atrocities past and present. It’s weird behaviour that I don’t understand and I don’t associate with my politics. If you want to think that because I call myself far left I’m lumped in with them I will not lose one iota of sleep over it.

The article Starmer wrote in the Times is misrepresented in several places- but it’s hard to know that considering it’s insultingly behind a paywall. It’s all well and good saying “if you dislike how I run my party you can leave” then monetising that behind a screen that stops you reading it, hardly a brave callout to clear off if you have to pay the Times of all people for the pleasure.

The times journos and pundits sell it as a kiss off in its entirety to the far left. It’s not that, the article itself is a celebration in strides made against antisemitism in the Labour Party. Whilst I’m happy to hear moves have been made to deal with antisemitism, which is disgusting and must be rooted out in the most aggressive terms, I can’t speak to that- I’m not jewish, nor am I a member of any political party and I prefer to take my notes about how to respond to antisemitism from Jewish people.
The only way to find out if antisemitism has improved in labour is to listen to jewish voices. Some are happy, some are not and that’s entirely their verdict to make.
What I found consternating on a personal level is the self congratulatory tone of a job well done in making strides forward, and yet the complete ignorance of other burgeoning equality issues in the party- and terming yourself the party of equality rankles me deeply.
Firstly, to be a true party of equality you may consider writing for a newspaper other than The Times who, upon the murder of trans teen Brianna Ghey on the weekend, went to pains to deadname Brianna, deny that her murder was linked to her status as a trans individual and who has also played an integral part in the anti-trans culture war- which an ex advisor of the Conservatives has resigned over, claiming that Sunak will fight the next election over culture war nonsense.
I’m not a stupid man. I know that Rosie Duffield is untouchable. If Starmer did give her the boot, the newspapers would practically gum up with front page stories: “SILENCED AND CANCELLED DUFFIELD- KICKED OUT FOR KNOWING WHAT A WOMAN IS”. She’s untouchable because any move to step her down would ratify her deranged movement in their eternally misplaced idea that they are the victims of their perpetual hate movement against trans people.

Nobody who is sane, least of all trans people, deny that women’s lives are awful- especially with the rise and rise of pindick incels like Andrew Tate, though it goes back further than that. Focusing all your anti misogyny energy on excluding trans people instead of men who quite literally want to subjugate women as sex slaves is something I’ll never understand and yet it seems to be the way of things- and lets be honest, who am I to tell women how to deal with misogyny. I just find it weird that the people saying “we’re literally women lets fight misogyny together” are often described as the biggest threat to women over the radicalisation of a huge swath of young men, the rise of date rape culture which has worsened dramatically in the last 4 years and the all but abolishment of rape punishment under a government who refused to make misogyny a hate crime. It’s entirely possible to stand up for women regardless of their gender. How about we do that- because I don’t see that as radical in any way, I see it as the bare fucking minimum.

That’s enough of a dividing line for me. My support of trans people and women in particular is a hard-line and I’m quite literally happy to end friendships and change my political alignment over it. But if that’s not enough for me to be constantly chewing my nails over labour, how about more?

Brexit. Fucking brexit.
Secret upper crust nonpartisan meetings of political leaders discussing how much brexit has decimated our lives.
Do you know how offensive that is- that British politicians retire for a couple of days to chat over just how much of a fuckup our lives are, all whilst turning their collective back to the public eye between reciting “get brexit done, unleash Brexit’s successes, turn on the brexit bonuses levelling up vaccine rollout siren”. It’s so insulting.
Am I saying this little tete a tete shouldn’t have happened? No, I’m saying we should be INVOLVED. If the UK government knows brexit is a failure and they’re happy to discuss that amongst themselves, just remind me who endowed them with the power to do it? The people they’re currently ignoring in favour of chatting to each bloody other!
Even the Times, again, a paper so steeped in the mythology of Brittania being unfettered by leaving the EU has reneged and called Brexit’s time of death. So for British political parties to completely cut out the PEOPLE in this discussion is an egregious betrayal.
Did Starmer know about this summit? Did Lammy get his say- so to attend? And why, why were the British people, especially those of us whose voices are hoarse from shouting about the brexit failures, completely circumvented in consultation? Starmer’s labour continues to promise that upon election they’ll make brexit work- by taking advantage of it, but not by reunifying in any way. This line of edict is just as undemocratic as the Tories tearing us out after harrying us into a yes or no then ignoring any indication of what had come before.
The very leavers who promised we’d stay in the single market and customs union now tell us it’s good we left them too, as the British economy writhes on the floor turning a disturbing shade of purple.
I feel like I’m being gaslit and not just by the ineffable liars in power- but by those I’m supposed to cheerfully vote to replace them. And when I raise that concern, when I say “ah, I dont know how much I like this”, I’m immediately shouted down- Starmer has a plan, Starmer has an ace up his sleeve. I can only go off the words he says- brexit was voted through by people who wanted to vote for a dream and now I’m being told to vote for a dream to undo it! That way lies folly. I just want to vote for reality- is that wrong?

Brexit is an issue we’ve been fighting on for a long time due to its intangibility right? Okay, how about the other culture war bollocks heaped on us by the shovelful every day: Immi-fucking-gration.

“There’s not much between labour and conservatives on immigration”.

Do you know which far left operative said that provocative, dangerous line?

Keir Starmer. On LBC. If that’s the truth, if we have another iteration of labour who are willing to -as Angela Rayner said on TV recently- tag asylum seekers for the crime of COMING HERE TO SEEK ASYLUM then I don’t know, I feel pretty good about not being okay with that. Treating every immigrant and refugee like a criminal when we don’t give them legal recompense to come or assign enough people to help their paperwork process in decent time is not “hard headed common sense” as Sunak calls it, it’s barbaric, a failure ridden system that needs abolishment and replacement with something that does work, is humane, that considers the world that we’re in and that is still suffering from the reverberations of the British empire and our ridiculous colonialist aspirations- people are being displaced from countries WE started wars in then we have the cheek to get mad when they turn up on our shore!

I sit in myriad group chats now on twitter, on WhatsApp, on instagram and I listen to people disparage me, my politics, people like me and my rage continues to grow. Ah yes, I’m the problem, silly little airhead me thinking that we might be able to forge a way forward that pleases reasonable people, that we don’t have to continually appeal to centricism – and I hasten to add that whilst I don’t personally dislike centrists because they are centrists, I eschew the idea that moderation is important when so many bulwarks of society, politics and culture are haemorrhaging simultaneously- we need radical reform and it may mean uncomfortable changes and far reaching reform- but for those who suffer under the status quo, I’m willing to bear discomfort as they have for so long: And anyway how much more discomfort do you need than skyrocketing bills and mortgages, stagnated wages, debilitating viral spread, people forced to strike and disrupt national services, an NHS in its agonal breaths and political lying utterly normalised?
Now I need to clarify, yes I understand that in this ridiculous broken system in the UK, we DO have to appeal to a broad range of voters. But if that means appealing to the xenophobes, the anti trans, the “acceptable” culture war nonsense then I am also allowed to lodge a very-big-bloody-problem with it.

To my friends who continually slate the hard left- hi, I’m the hard left. Am I a bad person? Do I seem mean? Do my politics terrify you? Or am I similar to you in a lot of ways but no longer knee jerk react to every person who lodges a complaint with labour’s slide away from radical reform with “OH WELL SEE HOW YOU LIKE THE TORIES THEN”. This tired narrative of “get on board and make changes later” never works- because you somehow never actually make the changes. So many people who claim deep rooted interest in politics want things to change- unless they are affected. I can see it now- “He’s only just been elected, he needs time, that would upset people, oh he’s trying, he can’t rock the boat” or, my favourite one: “it’s not the time”. When is the time to fight for our beliefs and aspirations.
It’s a tale as old as time and the people you’re so angry at, AKA the far left, AKA me, are people who have been asking for change for as long as you have and go from being utterly ignored to ridiculed to being told we have no choice but to vote for those who will not enact our will- the difference I see between myself and you is that I haven’t abandoned my more radical views, even if I’ve delayed them to match the crawl of UK political progression. Yes, you will win the next election- and keeping stuff exactly the same is the grossest betrayal of everyone suffering under the mire right now that I can imagine.

Do I think a labour government would do better for many people than the tories? Yes- but that’s not a glowing endorsement of labour and their actions. I have a Donald Trump toilet brush I trust to do a better job than the tories. They are parodies of politics, besuited shills set on benches in parliament to say empty lines about the jobs they’re getting on with and how levelled up we all are, whilst their back pockets positively strain to hold illicit cash. Preferring labour to that isn’t a ringing endorsement- it’s the least one can do.
Do I think some of the moves labour are offering to make are good? Yes, of course. I know things will be better in many ways under labour, but being better than disaster isn’t a ringing endorsement. I have to ask, how many sacrifices of things we dearly want and need are people like me going to be asked to make? How far will you go to demonise us and our aspirations rather than facing the literal hard right who are in power now?
I see so much garbage about the hard left from people who spend their time on twitter. Apparently its anathema to insult capitalism… How’s that capitalism workin’ out for ya though? Yes there are horrible examples of socialism throughout history, terrible crimes committed by those who espouse communism and absolute fools willing to enact authoritarian communist state politics. I also read a story the other day about an American man who now can’t bend his leg at any joint from hip to ankle because it was crushed at work and he’s too poor to have it fixed, or about an American housewife who died because she couldn’t afford to have the chemo needed to treat her cancer so it just grew inside her. Look at the state of the UK- as people turn their literal power off in their houses because they can’t afford their bills you decry those who lodge their issues with living in heavy capitalism?
You want to talk moderation? How about moderating between positive socialist ideals and positive capitalist ideals and finding your moderation there.

I don’t care about Corbyn very much. I know that’ll upset other people who have agreed up to this point. Yes he was monstered in the press, yes I wanted him as PM, some of his actions frustrated me then and they frustrate me now. I don’t think he’s the devil he’s been painted out to be but I don’t think he’s the only hope for leftist discourse and unity in the UK. In fact, I actively refuse to pin my hopes and aspirations on just one person, just one politician because my leftist politics hangs between the hands of every person who believes in it. We are the change, not anyone who sits in parliament.
I’d hope he’d agree with that along with anyone who believes in leftist reform. I believe we need broad, brave change across the UK. I believe we need to confront problems both archaic and new. We need to reform education, resuscitate our public health system and not look to privatisation as a fix considering we’ve seen how that works for energy, water and the public travel systems- we need to confront the sinuous twisting of the far right amongst our highest offices & to dispel the hate of LGBT+ individuals and migrants, we need to build in a societal buffer for women to ensure that men who practice vile misogyny face the harshest stricture.
I believe we can do it. But that involves change- not maintenance. The system is not fit for purpose. I am willing to watch it be chipped at, provided help is given to those suffering under it now purely because I do not believe blowing it up will be any more helpful than holding it in place as it crumbles.
If you ask for me to vote to keep things the same, you’re asking for me to vote for the mire into which we sink- is that what you want? Because It’s not what I want.

I am tired of trying to appease people who do nothing but disparage my politics. Tried of hearing “if the far left don’t like it they can leave”. Fine! This must be the epitome of the abusive political relationship where I’m told to leave my ideas at the door then I can come in and have the obvious stuff everyone wants but nothing else, the bare minimum stuff it shouldn’t even be a thought to ask for.
“But you’re tory enabling if you don’t vote labour”- a huge indictment of our voting system; but how far is labour allowed to stray from my ideals before it’s not my reluctance to vote for them with enthusiasm that’s the issue? I don’t like it, I’m told to leave, but then I’m told leaving is tory enabling so a genuine question: What do you want from me?! You keep asking me to go if I don’t like it then telling me that going makes things worse. Exactly what choices are you offering? Now we’re told “if you don’t like my vision, leave”. And go where? Vote for another party who will never see power? I’m stuck- it’s not for me to change my politics, it’s for you to represent them!

To those who read this and react with rage, I want you to understand that your knee jerk reaction to anyone questioning labour comes from fear of the tories winning and I understand it, but if labour win, and if labour maintain this horrendous status quo in ways that benefit you but not the oppressed who have lodged complaints- do you want change that helps everyone, or do you just want to win and make sure that you’re ok, at the expense of the rest.

It is also not radical to point out the failure of capitalism. Look at how our bills and rent and goods continue to escalate. It is hardly a shocking standpoint to rationally ask if this system that ties us to debt works- does that mean socialism is the answer? No. But it means discussion of alternatives that do work should not be anathema.

I am tired of pretending to be more moderate than I am. My politics make sense to me even if they aren’t perfect, even if they are “airy fairy”. I do not want labour to lose, I am not trying to work against them- rather I am trying to force a confrontation between the front bench and reality. Voters do not want to hear the same tory line about brexit and minorities do not want to see how truly disposable we are in the face of voter shares and polling. And those desperate people who flee the war zones our meddling creates do not deserve to be demonised by every party. Unfortunately these stances alone seem to be radical. A shame and an indictment on the British political status quo, and calling that out is not meant to be a defection against labour. It’s a cry to the wider voting public to ask why we accept these as the terms of engagement for voting- because to me they are all adding up to be a bridge too far. I don’t want to not vote for labour, I don’t want to vote for them through gritted teeth. I want to stand behind the party proudly and vote for better- I want them to win my vote, not take it through lack of options. That is not radical. 

In his article, Kier Starmer clearly states “we are not going back”. Good, I don’t want you to. But I do want you to move forward. This is not about going back to the halcyon days of the Corbyn manifesto, it’s about moving through the socio-political quagmire into better days.
We need PR, we need broad reform to politics and we need political leaders who stand for bold progress- not establishment. If it’s a crime to think that, lock me up.

Political lying is Normalised worldwide- it is a travesty

By Daviemoo

From the top job to opposition parties, from the ineffectual reporting of “untruths” and “unlawful actions” by the government in a media who, wholesale, sanitise the actions of the inept in power, the United Kingdom suffers from an insidious sickness: political lies. Here, today, a stark reminder that this should not be normal: that we deserve better from politicians, from our media- and from each other.

Rwanda, ‘The migrant problem’ and fundamental falsehoods

Rishi Sunak’s government is currently trying to re-sanitise itself- not quite a return to the norm; for example, the “party of law and order” is pushing, through sub-standard MP’s like Jonathan Gullis or public liabilities like Suella Braverman, to break human rights laws, and the “party of fiscal responsibility” keeps haemorrhaging leaks about misappropriation and misspending from PPE to fraud write-offs to wasted money on a brexit festival: it’s more of a re-branding. The twin forks of lawfulness and lawlessness, fiscal idiocy and fiscal responsibility show a party divided. And even when you legalise disgusting plans like “the Rwanda plan” otherwise known as government sanctioned human trafficking, its legality takes nothing from its repugnance.
Using the perceived face of the public, MP’s like Gullis push the angry, nonsensical and demonstrably false opinions of a British public that simply does not exist: a majority of the British public, contrary to the home secretary’s claims of yesterday, support refugee protections along with broad reforms in the UK’s operation, including opening further migrant processing centres in the UK. Remember also that at last count around 77% of claims were upheld, meaning deporting to Africa will cost much more as those who are approved are eventually settled regardless.

The furthering of this agenda is more unneeded proof of a government in tailspin: a plan grandiose enough to snare headlines and useless enough that the perceived “problem” with migrancy will continue: for those in doubt of this, let us take a moment to ask whether a roulette spin of possible deportation will deter people so desperate to try that they will climb into a half deflated, crowded boat and sail across a choppy sea, running the risk of an incident much like the one which occurred last week leading to death.

The government is lying about this plan. It will not deter migrants. It will not increase safety. It will not prevent people trafficking, and is, in fact, the legalisation of trafficking persons by a government more wrapped around ideological opposition to refugees than invested in border management. And this is by design: the more the government and media demonise migrants, the more the unthinking masses attribute their issues to these migrants rather than a government who has held power for twelve years, has had an overwhelming majority for three.
If the government truly wished to do so, it could prevent migrancy in almost totality: it does not, because migrants are a useful scapegoat: but how many migrants have voted for your taxes to go up and prevented runaway inflation?
And one must stop for a moment to marvel at the not funny but incredulous laughter inspiring parity and parody of a government who declares its most diverse cabinet in history, whilst preventing families like their own from settling peacefully here.

The government continues to spin the pop-culture issues like mass migration, the culture wars (from trying to strip royal titles from those they perceive as inferior despite this flying in the face of “chosen by God” to blaming the actions of sick, perverted men on transgender women and more) because they must, to maintain power, divert blame.

Braverman, when questioned on the fiscal irresponsibility of her Rwanda deportation scheme along with its general success prospects, accused her opponent, an SNP politician, of becoming “ideological”- an irony. Founded evidence shows that the UK has failed to create safe routes for refugees in key areas across the world- and this was shown in a stark and gut-churning select committee in which Braverman, who has aspired to the Home Secretary role for many months, who left in disgrace after leaking privileged information, who was mysteriously reappointed by Sunak despite this- could not provide a single safe and legal route for a high risk refugee. An ideology is a system of beliefs to which you cling even in the face of evidence that it is incorrect- and Braverman clings to the belief that refugees, not tory ineptitude, are the net cause of UK issues. But this is not unique: other areas of the UK in crisis are easily shown to have been failed continually by the tories in the last years and yet the issues in these areas are continually attributed elsewhere.

One must ask at what point the Conservatives do plan to take account for their leadership.

Failing the NHS-a capitalist choice

The NHS is always going to lose money. It’s clear that you must face that fact: healthcare is not, at its core, a money spinner despite the clear necessity of its’ duties. It is not a luxury, but a fundamental right- and in the UK it is currently neither.

The government’s determination to try to wring profit from the NHS is disturbing. There are pragmatic models of healthcare governance which show that fiscal competition can sometimes be a driver of increased health outcomes- but studies like this fail in totality to account for the humanity – and, worryingly, human cost of life or quality of life- behind these studies.
Outsourcing of healthcare may, as Wes Streeting, labour health secretary, says, help the NHS to function if done on a limited and short term basis- but Streeting’s determined positioning of those ideologically opposed to healthcare privatisation as “the real conservatives” misses out on the fundamental reasons behind why the NHS is lauded as a brilliant institution. Healthcare is not and should not be a for profit model, and ensuring that any costed privatised health brought in has no say in the NHS and simply provides the service at minimal taxpayer cost, should be seen as a sign of the utter dereliction the tories have run the service to.

Whilst tory ineptitude may force us, through lack of options, to outsource- one has to ask whether you can call for wholesale reforms whilst also giving temporary control of NHS services to the highest bidder: to fix problems, one needs a holistic approach; outsourcing services is a blocker on long term observance of those services and their issues, which will prevent resolution.
Worse still, those in direct power are determined to stand in the way of NHS improvement: diverting blame, obfuscating stories about medical staff leaving due to exhaustion and a basic reluctance to fairly compensate highly trained workers in literally lifesaving roles have led us to a crucial moment: the UK’s public must decide whether they stand with workers who somehow dragged us to this stage during the pandemic even with its existing systemic issues, or to capitulate to the double headed hydra of governmental malice and a media whose toe-point-switching of support and demonisation of NHS staff can only be described with a term I normally loathe: gaslighting.

The government has even openly resorted to employing bots on social media to spam disinformation:

Governmental think tanks align around certain core ideas and use social media to openly lie to the public’s face whilst wearing the mask of “one of us”. Where exactly are the people who see these tweets and believe them and are then shown evidence of their falsehood? You would think that being lied to on an industrial scale- as we were by Matt Hancock when a child was treated for illness on the floor of my local hospital which I used to work at, would rankle: but instead the public greedily devours the government line even when it’s proven to be from a poisoned pen: why?

Even here though, lying about the causation of issues does not reach the depths to which the conservatives are sinking when it comes to political lying and it’s enabling.
Jacob Rees-Mogg has now been brought so low as to actively lie to his own supporters about the government’s disastrous attempt to wrench us from the European Union, enabled of course by those denizens of internet nonsense who cannot bring themselves to accept their government of choice’s ineptitude. Rees-Mogg was recently seen on Question Time, belaying the worries of a wine import expert, a lifelong conservative voter, of some 30 years and confirming that the man’s founded experiences and factual stories of increased difficulty negatively impacting his business: even going so far as to openly disregard the man’s qualms. He also confirmed that the NHS was given it’s £350 million a week post brexit and yet no figures attesting to this can be found: one suspects that if £19.2 billion had suddenly been injected into the NHS, we would not be quibbling over a pay rise for nursing staff.

Brexit, of course, is the shibboleth for success for both sides of the government as they try to style themselves as moderates: from the conservatives shouting louder and louder that brexit is a success as the UK slides further and further down and to the right of the Overton window and the fiscal charts of success to the leader of the opposition promising that we will “make a success” of brexit, one has to wonder why everyone fails to mention the terms and conditions attached- with fair winds, good economy, no wars, no governmental malfeasance, it would take about 35 to 40 years for the UK to re-establish itself as a world leading economy outside the EU. I will be 70 to 75 when this happens, and I don’t believe the children in my family, some literally toddlers, should have to wait until they are my age or older just to see some parity with pre-brexit economics.

The mainstreaming of governmental lies, despite popular recitation by those like Peter Osborne in his book, “The Assault on Truth”, far predates this conservative iteration: from the Falklands debacle and pitting the government against the miners to the long established roots of the word “tory” (allegedly coming from an old Irish word meaning “thief”), governmental policy has been long shaped by those willing to lie to and mislead the public. It is tacitly accepted by populations globally that we are lied to on an industrial scale by the government and that they are aided and abetted by media like Sky, like supposedly independent channels like GB News (whose shady donor links should make anyone scorn the word independent)- even by the BBC who are constantly lamented by the right as too left wing and too right wing by the left- the fact is, I do not want the BBC to be “more left wing”, I want it to be more honest. Can the right say the same?

Political lying is as in-your-face-obvious as the chaos that suffuses this current government. Division in the tories is sown openly across the pages of the newspapers, divided now themselves amongst what to report to prevent open rebellion by a beleaguered nation.
To begin to restore political trust, one must begin with political honesty- for one does not trust that which is not honest. So if we hope to regain control of the runaway train of British political discourse and progress someone must wrest the wheel from those who would seek to plow us through more obfuscation.

In the far flung recesses of my mind I long for a government who aligns with me on issues like the mass taxation of the hyper rich, the reformation of the NHS in a “post” pandemic Britain, the forging of strong links to our neighbours, the protection of immigrants- on prevention of landlords abusing the populace and assisting the young in being able to afford property, in modernising education and in standing up to the megaphone dullardry of bigotry who complains about cancellation from multiple mainstream media; but for the moment I look at the status quo, at a nation devouring its own tail just to avoid hunger pangs and I’m willing to settle for a government who just doesn’t lie to me every day, a government who doesn’t throw ideological shrapnel into the face of the population- and most of all, a government committed to bettering the lives of the citizens of the UK.
Once upon a time I’ve never lived, governments supposedly did what was right for their people: currently we subsist under a government determined to recycle money amongst themselves, demonise the innocent, divide the nation and scatter our resources amongst themselves as they angrily ask you why you should have to share with strangers.

Until we begin to steadfastly call out mass political lies, like Mark Francois blithely giving out vaccine misinformation in parliament, to our own allies continuing to push the Big Lie of Brexit (as my good friend Aid Thompsin now calls it), the normalisation of lies will continue- and until people realise that politicians, our representatives, lying to us is not “for our own good” but “at our own detriment”, the United Kingdom will continue to be run like a racket by those whose only success is to pillage the nation whilst blaming the innocent for their bulging pockets.

The Politics of Privilege- Or “There’s Room For Us All On The Left, People”

By Daviemoo

I made it clear yesterday that I think the infighting of the left wing is going to do nothing but further right wing agendas. All I have done on this blog so far is explain that the right, as morally supple as many of them are, are happy to sit behind whatever winning ideology they need to to further their agenda by degrees- it’s an unfortunate reality that the one thing the right does well is understand that a crawl, not a run, is a winning strategy in politics.

The best time to plant a tree is ten years ago, and the second best time is now. This is a Chinese proverb I usually use to tell people about fitness. But in this instance, the right planted their tree some time ago, and have nurtured it. It’s fruit isn’t swelled to bursting, but it is hanging from the tree and growing slowly in the sun. Meanwhile the left is too busy arguing over what seed to plant.

Don’t misunderstand me here- I understand why ideological urgency is a key part of leftist belief and this is more philosophy than advice, more musing than discourse- but it’s frightening to watch the right wing agenda crawl further up the slowly blackening veins of society as we on the left continue to argue over which fight is the most vital- they all are, but the issue with ideological purity is that compromise is never a part of it.

Compromise is, lets be frank – rubbish. Nobody ever walks away happy in a true compromise, but they don’t walk away defeated and furious. Compromise is about both sides finding a way forward- and it’s confusing to say both sides when we’re all supposedly on the same one. But at some point nuance, realism and compromise needs to be brought to the forefront of leftist discourse, or we’re doomed to more merry go round political disagreement that never actually progresses any agenda, and pits those on the same side fundamentally against each other.

Rubbish it may be, but compromise is vital here.

Now let’s be clear- some things can’t be compromised on: if you’re too dense and regressive to see the right wing puppet masters behind the trans panic then let the scales fall from your eyes and see rich, middle class white women only one notch below rich middle class white men arguing for a minority to lose rights. Trans people have been able to use the spaces of their gender for over a decade longer than I’ve been alive. Cis men who commit crimes dressed as women aren’t trans. This isn’t a debate, it’s a moral panic as ludicrous as the satanic panic and the pink panic and any and every panic over people of colour for the last 300 years. So if that’s your “compromise” you’re not a left winger, you’re a shill of the far right. Imbibe those words, learn and do better. Let’s also note that LGBT+ issues tend to be a microcosm of a larger societal issue- and here we see the denigration of trans people and the pitting of cis against trans reflected in the denigration of the SoCiaLisTs and the pitting of far left against center left. There’s room for us all.

When it comes to political ideology – unfortunately this is where realism must be employed. It’s a bitter pill to swallow when it’s your ideology that’s deemed too far, and I think that the UK would benefit hugely from socialist policy in regards to public infrastructure- travel, utilities and more. But I also realise that in a country where nearly 50% of the voting population voted for right wing parties, its going to take more than relentlessly disparaging anyone who doesn’t 100% agree with your ideology to win people over. Yes, people should ideally do the research that allows us a different perspective from the status quo- but even the ability to sit and read about different societal models or modes of politics comes usually from privilege as most people are working to earn money to live and pay their bills. The ability not to do so is, at it’s core- privilege.

Instead of immediately assuming those who share differing ideas of socialism or political or prison reform etc are purposely bad people who’ve read what you have and simply choose to believe the bad stuff–  ask yourself whether theyre lucky enough to have had the chance to read and understand what you have. Have the discussion about it. If your ideas are the best- surely conversing with people about them civilly is the best way to expand your circle of believers…

Additionally, the never-ending hatred between the so called far left and so called centrists is exhausting. If you’ve more anger towards people who share your fundamental politics than those who are the antithesis of it then perhaps you’ve fixed your sights more on being the best leftist, and less on depowering those who despise your politics.

We’re at a strange crux at the moment. I’ve said it before that Jeremy Corbyn was a victim of a different type of populism than Boris Johnson is: his name is invoked as a dirty swearword and a tarnished messiah alike but he’s just another politician, with good points and bad points alike. Looking at him as a paragon of leftist perfection is revisionist at best. I’m not a Corbyn hater, I did like the man a lot and I thought he would have been a damn good PM and better than Johnson (but I also think anything including and up to a damp shoe would be better than Johnson). But he had his flaws- his neutrality on the hot issue of Brexit showed a finger slipped way off the pulse of what the electorate wanted at the time- which was the surety either of a brexit voted for willingly and with eyes open or a cancellation of a referendum beset with lies and corruption.

I don’t hate Corbyn. But those who sow discord on the left and disparage anyone who doesn’t agree with them, often in his name? Those people, I hate. I’d imagine that he is no big fan of the misogyny, racism, transphobia, homophobia and more I’ve seen meted out against those who don’t like him.  

Starmer is our option for the moment and he’s trying to grow the voting base of labour. Is he losing some of the finer points of what makes labour a great party? Unfortunately sometimes it seems so. I don’t claim to know his plans, sometimes he does things (like yesterday’s “name and shame drug purchasers” promise) that drive me utterly to distraction. But a policy like that can be voted down. People dead due to the corruption and utter theatricality of a banana republic government like Johnson’s cant be resurrected. Ultimately I think Starmer is probably similar in the mindset that we must slowly, slowly erode the hatred towards leftist policy and politics powered by the press and populist pundits like Johnson. Is he doing it right? I don’t know, I’m not an expert in this- but don’t pretend that you are either. We’re all in the dark, hoping for a way forward and even if that way is through a bog, it’s better than being stranded at sea.

If you don’t like Keir Starmer I won’t lose any sleep over it. But actively attacking people who back him out of pragmatism does NOT mean your politics are superior, it does NOT change people’s opinion magically to agree with you- it DOES however push you further away from the realms of someone who can be meaningfully spoken to about how we achieve our goals. Even today I saw Owen Jones who is quite the outspoken critic of Starmer say that he cant endorse other small leftist parties because under the current system, it’s reductive and pointless. Jones does seem to secrete more venom towards Starmer than any tory, and frustrates me with his repeated shrugs and “you think me, a little *journalist with hundreds of thousands of ardent followers and access to a huge platform* can change people’s minds politically?!”. If, Owen, you didn’t believe you could change minds – you probably wouldn’t be a journalist who runs a literal platform based on speaking about alternatives.

In the driver’s seat is a man desperate to sow discord and is the only one who benefits is he- and currently too many of us on the left are too busy backing our own corners to realise that there is a whole middle ground for us to occupy TOGETHER.

I see our slog towards a more leftist nation as a long one. It’s not going to magically change overnight with hoards of red faced vest wearers who think our reductive flag is the best symbol since the cross. It certainly wont change with hoards of hardcore left wingers screaming at anyone outside of their club, acting like their moral superiority is comfort as our life quality degrades due to an unwillingness from them to engage and enact plans to help move their agenda forwards. It certainly isn’t going to change by alienating those on our side who want more radical change- and compromise can be met with less radical points now and the measure of which more radical change we want in the future.

The overarching theme is simply this. If you want to enact change, it’s time to stop making acquaintances enemies and tacitly aiding your enemies by alienating those who would be friends.

Together we stand and divided we’re fated to tory boot stamping. So the next time you type “Centrist Keir lover” or “Stupid Corbynista” perhaps wait and ask where your commonalities lie, instead of your differences.

viemoo is a 34 year old independent writer, radicalised into blogging about the political state of the world by Brexit and the election of serial failures like Trump and Johnson. Please check out the rest of the blog, check out Politically Enraged, the podcast available on all streaming platforms and share with your like minded friends! Also check him out on ko-fi where you can keep him caffeinated whilst he writes.

It’s either a gentle step to the left or another goose step to the right

By Daviemoo

I can’t take any more political discourse that uses the worst “both sides” lamentations. So many people will insist on telling me that all politicians are scum, liars, wrong, bad- and the irony is that I don’t disagree. I’m aware that politicians are unprincipled. But the temperature of UK political discourse just keeps getting hotter on one side.

Let me make this clear before I move forward: I don’t like Keir Starmer. I don’t even particularly like Labour under him.

He’s made snafu after snafu, he’s slow to react, labour seems to be a seething pit of argument and discussion that amounts to the same endless friction that has persisted, albeit quieter, since 2019.

There are myriad issues that labour need to deal with. On Starmer, the latest sin he’s admitted to is that he will break promises if it means winning an election.

So many of the political savants I follow online or speak to in person happily decry Starmer, led by the latest op-ed from Owen Jones- and it’s not that I don’t understand why people dislike Starmer or Labour under his governance. I’ve sat quietly, swallowing back criticism after criticism as Starmer seems to drag labour further towards the center. I’ve defended him even when what he’s done has annoyed me because I’ve assumed automatically that there is some grand plan I’m unaware of or that he/ the labour leadership must know better. But the rabidity with which every single thing Starmer does is shocking to me, even as someone that frankly thinks he’s a strange mix of a bit wet and also ruthless towards those who he should be courting.

Where, though, is the perspective? So often I’m told “not tories is not a good enough reason to vote for someone” and in normal times I’d agree. Under a shoddy but functional government, that argument would of course hold weight but right now it folds like damp paper.

The tories are responsible for a disasterous mismanagement of the pandemic. Hancock killed scores of older people by discharging them from hospitals into nursing homes, was more concerned with meeting daily testing figures than actual practicable safety regulations, he had an affair with someone he hired using public money and is embroiled in sundry PPE scandals as are many, many MANY tory ministers. Patel forced refugees into unsafe, unsanitary accommodation which equates to prisons, and is set to do more to worsen their situations including opening “camps” in other countries to keep them- and has worked relentlessly to ensure that any meaningful protest in the UK is curtailed- purely as a reaction to unrest under her own government’s shoddy handling of the new civil rights movement BLM. Gove’s revealing tapes about wanting the north to suffer and calling us toothless, Raab- a man who accused the UK workforce of being amongst the laziest despite us working longer hours and on average working later, and when sick- abandoning his vital duty as Afghanistan fell, to stay at a hotel that it would take someone on minimum wage over a month of full time work to afford ONE NIGHT at. All the tories refused to vote for free school meals then when the UK public pressured them they mis sold the contracts and inflated the prices for sub standard goods- and MP Ben Bradley in particular said that his constituents would use the vouchers in “brothels” and “crack dens”. Rob Roberts was disgraced by sexual misconduct claims and yet continues in his role unabated. Lets also not forget about the horrendously inept minister for Education, Gavin Williamson and his myriad mistakes, most prominent of which was declaring proudly that the Co2 Monitoring systems for schools would protect children from covid- despite none of the monitors being installed when children went back. All of this of course helmed by the racist, sexist, xenophobic, bumbling and useless prime minister we’ve had foisted upon us – Alexander Boris Johnson. Racist articles and books, homophobia, islamophobia all of which he refuses to apologise for, corruption claims stemming back to his journalism days including a confirmed claim that he doxxed a journalist for a friend to allow them to suffer physical violence, calling huge salaries “chicken feed”, laughing and joking about the swaths of dead from covid, talking about bodies piling high in the streets, telling us lie after lie after lie about brexit from the alacrity of trade deals with the US to telling UK companies to “fix the issues with their supply chain”, to simply failing to understand the vital difference between animals slaughtered for profit going to farmers VS culling of animals at huge loss to their owners. He’s raised national insurance, caused inflation in bills, made food shortages nationwide… Johnson’s failings, both personal and professional are long and storied, and yet beloved he remains by many Britons who see this rich, daffy and doe eyed fool as one of them. Johnson wouldn’t stop to put a person on fire out, used to burn £50 notes in front of homeless people and wreck their businesses for fun, has had affairs behind the back of his cancer stricken spouse. He is a moral failure of a human, and a professional failure of a politician and those who love him fail to see that they have enjoyed supporting a confection, a fraud and a fake.

The tories may not always have been the party of scum, but scum they are now. Giving credence to the continued efforts to support the tories in their vast and storied failures, the british press- how anyone can continue in good conscience to allow the tories to run roughshod over the country they claim to love is beyond me.
Sometimes I feel almost paranoiac about it- it can’t possibly be as bad across the board as I see it? And yet the evidence is there, plain to see.

I don’t blame the tories for everything negative in my life, but for those things they are attributable, the links are plain and I cannot but judge those who- I can only assume- wilfully miss this ignorance.

Given all of the above let us be frank: British politics is a hellscape.

But this then is where my frustration mounts. Again, I think Labour has myriad serious issues at present and understand how poorly they are performing. And being told by it’s leader that he will lie or break promises to win the vote is hardly endearing. And yet I cannot feasibly see them as worse than the tories, bearing in mind the litany of things I’ve mentioned barely scratches the surface just of the last 5 years.

I understand, truly, why people would have huge distaste for Labour at present. But how can one truly thing that the better alternative are the tories.
People are so often calling labour centrist that they forget just how far right the tories have gone, and as someone who considers myself far left I often look longingly for a party that actually represents how I feel on myriad issues but the other parties in the UK I unfortunately know- specifically based on how our political system works – are a waste of time.

Any vote that isn’t for the opposition is a waste, and people can decry labour as centrist or corrupt or no better than tories- but tories we have. We are under the thumb of the most corrupt government in living memory. And I can’t help but look to America as an example of a country who held it’s nose and voted in what so many refer to as a centrist melt. Biden is a disappointment in grand terms as is Harris, but we always knew they would be. But Trump’s presidency was marred with corruption scandals, tacit declarations of violence and an increasingly emboldened far right- much like this endless elitist rule by the tories has brought here.

At the end of the day I will hold my nose and vote for labour because any change, any move left however slight, is better than continuing down the dangerous path towards authoritarianism we are already too many steps down here. Until we find a political figure who reaches and unites more of the left in a way similar to Corbyn but without the long shadow he cast (don’t come for me, I liked him a lot), we have to make do with what we have or as always, votes will be split between a handful of indy parties, greens, lib dems and a big share for labour as the tories again coast to victory with less than half of voters wanting them to take power.

The temptation to push for huge change is there, and if it were possible to make a movement so vast happen it would be revolutionary- but until this movement takes place we’ll be doomed to repeat this fractured pattern of splitting and being overseen by those we do not want in power.

So it’s up to the electorate- a gentle step to the left or another goose step further right.

A government without shame

By Daviemoo

What to focus on, dear reader? As the British electorate are set- again – to allow another government minister to slither out of a mess of their own creation, I want to focus on the specifics of Dominic Raab’s blatant dereliction of duty and ask- if the rule of law doesn’t apply, and common decency doesn’t apply – what does?

“The sea was closed”

Do they think we’re stupid? Yes. They do. The government that has lumbered it’s way from disaster to disaster over the last 18 months has officially given up on trying to find any credible reasoning for it’s misdeeds. This is the only conclusion a reasonable person can come to when hearing Dominic Raab proclaim that he was “working in his hotel room” and wasn’t paddle boarding, because… “The sea was closed”.

I for one would like an intimate breakdown from Mr Raab, detailing the no doubt lengthy and fastidious process that the Cypriots go through every evening to close the sea, and what measures they must take every morning to safely reopen it- though I do sense Mr Raab may have skipped that, as we are painfully aware that this government knows or cares very little for a safe reopening. Raab’s allies are all singing the same refrain of “what difference would it have made” or “he works hard”. We don’t know but it may have helped a lot, and of course he does… that’s why he can apparently afford a £40k holiday….

This though, is the standard set by a government headed by a man who said he “could not meet with families whose loved ones had died of coronavirus until their litigation”- of which, there is none – “had finished”. Boris Johnson, over a year on from this suggestion, still has avoided meeting the families of the bereaved – mind you, there are now over 131,000 official coronavirus deaths, and authorities estimate this is closer to 150,000 so one can suspect Johnson would have quite the task on his hands. That is if his hands weren’t busy ebebebe, painting I uh… ah… model ah… buses… Mind you, Johnson’s darkly anti-litigious career is positively littered with this type of bumbling. Fired twice for lying, caught out on PPE funding, allowing the Johnson Variant into the UK, casually laughing at the mass unemployment of the mine closures, callous indifference towards the deaths of tens of thousands, letting bodies pile high for all he cared about- suggesting people may “live longer” when catching covid. Suggesting we take a “gender neutral approach” to decarbonising with the G7. Misappropriated funds for a flat revamp, racist and homophobic language, another breach of ministerial code for jetting to an event on the public dime- the top man is the bottom of the barrel.

Let’s look instead then to Priti Patel, accused by a government employee of bullying- Johnson’s chosen investigator concluded that Patel HAD bullied staff- not only that she had bullied staff, but public funding was then apportioned to her victim as compensation- and just so you know, it’s quite a sum. Anyone who looks at the self assured smirk of Patel knows that underneath the arrogance lies a human so bereft of genuine kinship, one knock to the ego may produce bluster that could relocate small fishing villages like a category 5 tornado. Patel’s propensity for limitless confidence in the face of being wrong was recently recirculated on social media where she staunchly defended the death penalty- even in the face of being asked whether she thought it was right that people may be wrongly put to death… At least she applies the same logic to British citizens as she does to any non British people- basically, let them die if they’re an inconvenience.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, ghostly Victorian chimney sweep of the front bench and reject of Geppetto is, according to a source of a source of mine, quite friendly to the workers in parliament- which is surprising considering he’s so openly ambivalent towards the health, wealth, working conditions and general ability to survive of a gut wrenching portion of the British public at large. Mogg once sang god save the queen as one of his own party tried to open up a discussion about the separation of the Royals from the state- one can only assume he believed he was auditioning for a lead role in the musical “Bad Politicians and the Systems they Protect”.

And who can forget the man that Cthulu aspires to be – Michael Gove, a man with more drug rumours surrounding him than Freddie Mercury, who literally had a party with people carrying trays of cocaine around. Gove’s unhinged toilet pape-sorry, book, spells out the conspiracy theories of a man who thinks that Jewish people are conspiring against him – newsflash Mr Gove, jewish people hate you just the same as… well, everyone else. Even your ascerbic wife, a woman who drinks vinegar for fun, couldn’t stand you. I look forward to the @ExWestminsterWAG column on how you couldn’t figure out how to satisfy either yourself nor her, so you just decided to drain any trace of satisfaction from the rest of us as penance.

How about Rishi Sunak, a man whose budget is so full of holes that you can only see the actual legislation in direct light. Desperately begging the UK to return to the office, Sunak seems to forget what happened when he begged people to Eat out to Help out, a scheme that would have been better named “get coronavirus at a restaurant”. The budget Sunak apparently scrawled on the back of one of his office property owner ledgers continues to sprout holes as he eyes up his next move- screwing the older voters who put the tories in power. Turns out that no matter how many locks you put on something, the tories are happy to saw through it if it stops another recession – but let me guess, LABOUR LEFT US WITH NO MONEY? 11 years ago… guess that decade of austerity was for nothing huh.

And this, ladies, gentlemen and those of a non-binary nature- is our front bench.

Is that not enough? Let’s look at other prominent figures via their actions.

Matt ShamCrook- Sorry, Matt Shaglots- apologies, spell check – Matt Hancock, the health secretary who was too busy trying to meet at the time impossible testing figures to realise he was fucking a woman who wasn’t his wife- a man so creepingly servile and thin skinned that someone questioning him in parliament prompted him to tell her to MIND HER TONE- ironic for a health minister to undermine a literal doctor asking him questions about the veracity of the PPE that kept her colleagues from death…

Or how about ex PM Theresa May, a small and shy woodland creature often seen scurrying through fields of wheat to try and find something to make a Brexit deal with. Many were desperate to humanise may when she stepped down as PM as she openly choked up – a sentiment which was curiously absent over the mass deportation of people the UK resettled here to make a success of itself, or during her many hours speaking about the Grenfell disaster, or in response to her own tenure as home secretary. I don’t pity May, and I certainly don’t enjoy seeing her often speaking critically of the flatulent suit that is Johnson- she enabled the nightmarish government we see before us, and remainer she was but her weak kneed pontifications about Brexit being the right move emboldened a fervent electorate to allow the no win situation which is currently baring the backs of our supermarket shelves like an onlyfans creator’s previews section.

A lesser figure

This is the standard set by our current government, a government I remind you with a gasp inducing majority. It would be charitable at best to suggest that too many folk in England are politically engaged enough to understand the repercussions of having this government in charge, or of the building blocks which led to this mess.

I’m currently-slowly, begrudingly- reading books by previous tory party MPs who explain how their party began folding long ago, and how like the butterfly effects, the small ripples of principled tories stepping down to make way for corpulent fools like Johnson have led to this situation we’re in now.

Captain Hindsight? At least he’s looking…

People so often look at me and say “but you trust Starmer?! Boring captain hindsight Keith?” and to that I say, I have novelty pens I trust to govern more than a significant portion of our government at present. And I would happily take a small, shuffling step to the left, than have to bear another clomping goose-step to the right.

Do I think Starmer is a hot political figure who will revolutionise politics? No. But I also don’t think he’ll continue curb-stomping the British electorate like this government is- and if I’m wrong… prime ministers can be asked to step down. I’d take a prime minister who just does the job of prime minister over a man who is doing the equivalent of supping a pint at the dispatch box while he tells his lad mates how much shagging he got up to this weekend.

Get in the Corbyn

I was a fervent Corbyn supporter back during his tenure, but the never ending “well Corbyn would have” folk, while well meaning, give me a certain level of frustration. I didn’t think even then that Corbyn was perfect- I have to laugh at those who make any attempt to decry his sartorial choices being as my toilet brush is not indistinguishable from Johnson. I would have liked to see Corbyn as PM, to see what he could do and I do feel that England may be the poorer for it, because having a PM who cared about the electorate would have been quite the breath of fresh air after the endless recycling of politicians who would mulch the British voters to make the rose garden bloom. But it didn’t happen, and Corbyn wasn’t a perfect political figure. I urge people who think like this to stop- now- and look at what we have and realise that if you have the luxury of bowing out, soiling your vote and saying HE’S A RED TORY about Starmer, a lot of people behind you are dying or have died – literally, because of tory policies. The increase in foodbanks, reticence of changes in law about buildings with unsafe cladding, the callous dismissal of the at risk during the entire covid crisis, especially now- benefit cuts, no free school meals- this is what this government fosters, and if you don’t actively, intelligently, vote to oust that- you’re party to it. There is no “I’m just not that interested in politics” any more.

Dear Fellow Lefties: What Will it Take?

By Daviemoo

On day one of “freedom day” rioting shakes London as anti- lockdown protesters sizzle in the sun, desperate to be angry about something. Watching the scenes which, by the way, continue to make my frontal lobe itch, I have to wonder: What is it that it will take for the left to stop fighting amongst itself and wipe the floor with the right wing roaches forcing us all to endure their madness?


Every single day without fail I watch in confusion. There are so many issues that need to be ironed out, addressed, discussed, debunked, dealt with- there is no denying that. But anyone who can’t see the right eagerly throwing fuel into the gaping maw of the culture war engine we’re all riding must be wilfully blind.

Crime Sinister Johnson so recently declared that he REFUSED to partake in culture wars- this, the man who has eagerly poised his pen to pontificate on people of colour, on the LGBTQIA, on muslim women, who has so brazenly displayed his ambivalence towards the women in his life. Johnson stokes controversy in his wake, and it is one of the things I’ll admit he does well – he cannot breeze past a subject without infuriating someone involved with it.

But this is bigger than Johnson himself.

The media in the UK is owned and operated by oligarchs with a vested interest in keeping their fellows in power. The discord sown makes them money, makes their lives better, towering fortunes built on the rickety limbs of the unfortunate fools propping up these monoliths who so willingly believe the falsehoods and narratives spun for them by newspapers with an average readability age of 12.

So many people look at the simple fact that the media favourably paints their political fellows and think this is some loony leftie idea- digging feverishly through issue after issue they find one scant article critical of the government and wave it in front of you, screaming SEE?!! as if this offers proof paid that we’re wrong. We don’t quite live in a regime catered entirely to the right- so naturally, criticism pops up. But in a country currently feeling food shortages by Brexit, suffering a heatwave from climate change, and with no restrictions in place to prevent the spread of a virus which can cause myriad debilitating issues, the press focuses on the usual piffling nonsense- Katie Hopkins being rightly deported from Australia.

The scenes in London today – There are “anti lockdown riots” on “freedom day” – paint an image of the perpetually angry at nothing but desperate to blame something wash of people who don’t understand why their lives are the way they are and filled with the need to fight for a cause- a cause they don’t seem to understand or even know about.

A more charitable person than I would firmly blame terrible educational governance and in my calmer moments, I know that a country that insists on educating people the traditional way- shouting facts at them even if they don’t learn that way- then turfing them out into a world that doesn’t teach critical thinking, only to let them be engulfed in said rhetoric of IT’S THE GAY FOREIGN LEFTIES MAKING YOUR LIVES BAD, can muster some sort of understanding. I struggle.

I make myself sound like I’m above all this – I know full well I’m ocean deep in what could ostensibly be painted as anti government radicalisation, with the leftist propaganda the government sweats privately about ringing at all times in my ears. But I’m not willing to believe that the politics of standing up for everyone instead of propping up the rich is the greater of two evils when the current group in charge are quite literally casting its own citizens, voters- fellow humans – into the bottomless pit of a mass health crisis for the economy.

If there’s a person in the world who doesn’t live in a remote clearing somewhere who doesn’t think they fall victim to the rhetoric they choose, they are foolish.

Of course I see that in my case, it’s THE RIGHT WING UNCARING NUT CASES WANT ME TO SUFFER TO ENRICH THE ALREADY RICH- But when I’m given so much evidence to back that up, how can I ever feel like I’m wrong?

I digress.

The right seems to come at it’s issues with one mind- the simple mind of “we need to win”. It doesn’t matter how far fetched the idea is- watch the right back it.
You can reel off a list of the things Johnson has let us down on and get the same answers back:

“he locked down late multiple times” He had no choice

“his cabinet has been illegally funding PPE contracts” He cant possibly know everything that’s going on

“he refused to work with the EU on procuring ventilators” Who wants to work with the Corrupt EU

“tory donors funded his flat even though he said he did” he deserves to have a nice place to live

“he said let the bodies pile high” lies from Dominic Cummings (even in the face of FREEDOM DAY…)

“he let “eat out to help out” happen” that was Rishi Sunak

“he tried to get out of isolating” he did the right thing in the end

And the irony is, I’ve seen people who have said these EXACT sentences to me laughing at the blind obedience of Trump supporters.

Oh, there is a comparison that Johnson supporters hate. They can’t, or won’t see, through the miasma of their dedication, that they’re willing to do as the Trump supporters do and reshuffle reality to allow Johnson infinite rope to hang himself, along with the rest of us.

The madness of the right backers will always confuse me.

But so too, does the madness of the lefties I regularly interact with.

Holding politicians to account is vital, necessary and important. But the endless castigation of politicians on our side who are, to an extent, powerless against a right-aligned media, and who are woefully underrepresented in parliament thanks to the (admittedly outdated) FPTP system, does no one any good- except those who wish to maintain power.

Starmer’s labour is mired in issues so deeply we can barely see it- only a fool would deny it. From internal issues relating to transphobia and an unfortunate resurgence of Islamophobic rhetoric, to supposed “long time labour supporters” declaring their refusal to vote for a party that “conditions children to be LGBT”- Its LGBTQIA by the way, at least be correct in your stupidity, the labour party has issues that need to be addressed and the daily insistence that all is well is tiring. Another issues of course is the weighty ghost of Corbyn. Endlessly we’re told that he would have been the magical panacea to fix all woes- I’m not quite so confident in Mr Corbyn as others, though I didn’t dislike his politics. But ultimately, I can see why Labour, and Starmer in particular, struggle. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again – a political savant Starmer is not. Even I, who pay close attention to politics, sometimes fail to see why he comes down where he does on the issues he speaks on. But he is not, as so many people regularly say, a red tory. And frankly I’d take a fractured government over one who pours outright malevolence. Somehow, week after week, month after month voters still stick to the frayed threads of the well travelled lines we’ve been fed since January 20 – “it would be worse if Corbyn got in”.

No. It wouldn’t. How could it be worse? Abject dereliction of duty in an ongoing health crisis, corruption with public funds, billions thrown away on an app that fundamentally does not work run by a woman literally famed for data loss – which also happened, a health secretary forced to walk the plank so backbenchers can make money, a home secretary who used public funds to buy off someone she bullied, credit taken for a vaccine program they had little to do with, care homes flooded with the virus at the hands of a man who only cared about reaching an imaginary testing figure he made up on the spot, a new health secretary with close links to privatised healthcare – and at the top of it all, a prime minister so embroiled in hate speech, ignorance, lassitude and outright ineptitude that how he holds a position more senior than lamppost is beyond me.

Anyone else of some sort of sense can see that a government which cares even vaguely for the people it oversees would have fared better.

So begs the question- what on EARTH has to happen before England (in particular, as the spoilt brat of the UK) realises that the infighting around Starmer not being everything of the 27 things the traditional labour camps want him to be, means that this continued warring means that we’ll just keep seeing Johnson or his acolytes succeed.

There are so many suggestions for alternatives:
Zarah Sultana- An amazing politician who is far too young to be in the highest office in England.

Andy Burnham- He stood up to them! True- what else does he stand for…? Great choice.

Recent Labour Joiner John Bercow! – Probably would be a good choice for some- but forget absolutely any far left representation, Bercow appears to be precisely one eyebrow hair’s breadth over the line of centre left, though I’d be happy to be proved wrong.

Angela Rayner- who can’t even admit she stood directly next to Corbyn at a photo op.

Frankly at this point I don’t care who heads the Labour party- come who may, just get the corruption moving, drain the wound, burn out the corruption.

I’ve explained many times that I’m not actually a hardcore labour supporter and I’d love a further left alternative. So many people have said that I and people like me should start a new party (like for example, the NIP- a wonderful and absolutely infeasible idea), which is a brilliant way to even further divide an already ratbitten left. I’m a pragmatist at heart, and stand behind the left that I see having a chance to take power from the tories. Frankly it doesn’t matter who they are- and this, reader, is the crux of it. I think I have the attitude the right do- but on the left. I don’t care if Kier Starmer isn’t the best leftist politician we’ve ever seen. I just want the tories out of power, and after that we can damage control. If Starmer is the devil so feared by many we can oust him and install one of the many other choices people feel prepped to back over him. But until we form alliances, we’re doomed to keep the cycle of conjecture until there will come a reckoning where, whether we want to or not, finally the realisation that we might have to back a leader that some of us don’t like- if it means ridding Westminster of the current devils so determined to make the system work for them at the expense of all of us. Is that Starmer? I do not know- there are people much more politically savvy than me who think he is, and he is not, the man to lead the charge against the tories. But I and a friend of mine both agree that I’d cheerfully see a rotisserie chicken in office over the clumsy bumbling of a buffoon like Johnson.

I plead with anyone who reads this to understand that the unfortunate truth, whether you want to accept it or not, is that an undesirable option is still an option, and without a cogent coming together of the different facets of the left, we’re doomed to sit under the conservatives until this country collapses in on itself- quite literally from the response to the COVID crisis alone.

It doesn’t have to be Starmer, but it has to be someone. So stop squabbling and start working with those you might not necessarily agree with or resign yourself to this- this utter mess- this sham government- ruling over you for the foreseeable future. A shoddy government we install can be dealt with – one who actively works against us to the baying of the ignorant will only keep making our lives worse.