@residentadviser To be fair, neither you or I know anything about Al Carns.
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William
593 posts
Rory Stewart had a political philosophy of sorts. And he had a very clear position and direction on the central policy question of the day. I don’t see that with Al Carns (who only joined Labour two or three years ago?).
Sabrina Miller@SabriSun_Miller
It’s giving Rory Stewart
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If any Labour members think that there’s a super competent Streeting operation waiting in the wings, I remind you his press secretary was a director of comms for Nick Clegg until the LDs were wiped out in 2015, and then Head of Press for the Remain campaign in the referendum.
Stakeholder Consultant@echetus
I note that this, like the other letters to Starmer, is worse written than a random Substack post and littered with grammatical errors (“covid pandemic” “Labour Unions”).
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@_night_brain__ It’s very difficult to build support through legislation, it just doesn’t register to low info voters. They have no coalition at all.
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The thing about bond markets is that if Labour said:
"We're going to borrow this money to do a massive investment in nuclear energy, built to Korean standards, we're going to expand our airports and ports, renew and expand Britain's highway and rail systems, renew Britain's armed services and we're going to dramatically overhaul our planning and approvals system to do it rapidly"
Labour would get a very positive response from the markets and its borrowing rate would fall.
Unfortunately what Labour tells the markets is "we're going to borrow money and throw it at our client groups - welfare recipients, pensioners, the public sector and unions - basically the least productive members of society". Oddly enough this doesn't go down very well.
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@FranklinVH2 Part of it is that Labour are so hated and their comms are so poor that any announcement anyway would get ignored. After a certain point it’s just screaming into a void.
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The Renters Rights Act came into force 10 days ago and I think it's a great example of a party that is almost embarrassed of its work. It passed, was reviewed, and came into force without so much as a peep.
If there was ever an illustrative case...
This was a flagship policy
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@The_Clermontian The British state fought the war for those reasons. Public willingness to back the state relied on moral outrage at Nazism. There’s no scenario where Britain could have kept fighting in 1940 if it was against a generic military regime.
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Britain and France went to war with Germany because Germany attempted to destroy their order in Europe. That's good, their order in Europe was worth preserving, but its hardly some moral damning that the USA didn't follow them in. Nobody fought WW2 over the Holocaust.
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I joke about it sometimes but nobody else is villianised for not joining the war early. We don't tsk at Brazil for not declaring war in 1939.
Jimmy Scrambles 🇨🇦🇫🇮🎃 🐧 🦞@RazzberryYams
@hecubian_devil WW2 politics in America is underdiscussed. I feel like because post-war America was so self-conscious of America joining late while Britain was so united during the war that it was all kind of glossed over. Nobody has been villainized for keeping America out until 1941.
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You have to find the grim humour in the fact that Labour was reelected to a massive majority in 2024, led by a generation of politicians with one central and shared critique of the previous 15yrs of economic policy, very shortly after the relevance of the critique collapsed
Matthew Zeitlin@MattZeitlin
Beyond anything about Starmer per se the big problem for any British government seems to be that post Truss, the fiscal constraints really are binding which will frustrate whoever suceeds him
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@TorquilMacneil @robertshrimsley The school fines are not there to punish rich people.
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@robertshrimsley I'm no fan either, but rich people should be able take their kids skiing and to water their gardens, and the fact so many Brits now think that is absurd self indulgence is a sign of the depressing decline of the country and the huge crisis that is looming.
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Great piece on Restore: - the party of racial purity and rich people who are fed up at not being able to take their kids skiing or water their huge garden at weekends
link below
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@HoyasFan07 It’s not really possible to sustain cold war defence spending without cold war GDP growth.
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During the Cold War, the UK spent an average of 5.5% GDP on defense.
In the 1980s, the avg. was 4.9 or 5% GDP.
From 1990-2010, the avg. was 2.9%.
From 2014 to 2024 (Tory governments), the avg. was 2.1% GDP.
As recently as 2023..... just 2.2% .
Good Shepherd@HoyasFan07
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@_Wilsonpilled_ I spent a year doing dishes after finishing my MA before getting a graduate role. It was the most demoralising experience of my life.
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@RixGlen83488 @DesmondSwayne We tried it with the Winter Fuel Allowance and the country lost its mind.
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Many 10s, 20s & 30s already believe the Government simply won't have the money left to pay them a state pension
We must do right by our children and grandchildren and return state pensions to normal growth, so they still have a viable state to inherit
telegraph.co.uk/money/pensions…
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@BernoulliDefect @AaronBastani Labour made all the same noises before getting into power. Believing Reform will be YIMBY is extremely wishful thinking.
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@AaronBastani The new upstart right wing party’s chancellor is pro housebuilding reform 👍
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Pleasant, affordable homes for ambitious, aspirational middle class families used to be centre-right coded.
What the hell happened?!
Jordan@jordanbhx
The anglosphere is resistant to desirable and accessible European city-building. You can have a 40 storey box or antisocial suburban sprawl. We need gentle density, 3-bed flats, generous terraces, shared courtyard gardens, pocket parks, de-trafficking, denser school typologies…
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Crazy mid-twenties blackpill that "life is short" as a platitude is not some metaphorical declaration on the futility of Earthly Delights but actually very literal -- one comes to notice that 75 years is just very few years
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@slackkejakke It’s entirely lashing out because of their angst about their own country. This applies to both sides. They are increasingly insecure and obsessive about GDP numbers to cope.
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Since Trump II began I’m noticing something I’ll call Hegemon Fatigue among Americans. Whereas once they allowed their vassals the illusion of being ‘on the team’, increasingly they don’t bother. This is not just a GOP phenomenon. The example I’ll use is a self-described liberal.
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@CoKeynesian Separating the social care budget and delivering it via a separate body would shine a light on both problems fairly quickly.
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@aarmlovi @stianwestlake These are not the ‘easy parts’ at all. They are the core of governing and require good institutional planning systems.
Difficulty persuading the electorate & parliament to embrace mass house-building, nuclear power etc is a problem in half of Europe and all of the Anglosphere.
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Genuinely insightful exchange here, shaking up the normal Europoor-Amerifat discourse:
Britain is actually really good at the hardest parts of being a developed country (frontier industries & capabilities) but total crap at the "easy" parts: Permitting houses, energy & trains
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@APHClarkson This is only possible for Magyar because Fidesz were in power for 16 years and became the perceived establishment. Figures like Farage remain perceived outsiders and this combative rhetoric don’t land half as well.
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Magyar is a centre-right figure strait out of Christian Democratic central casting, but he understands that while punching to the left and centre might sometimes be necessary, what unites his voter coalition is punching against the populist Far Right with performative enthusiasm
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Peter Magyar displaying a ruthlessness that Biden and Starmer seem devoid of
Magyar Péter (Ne féljetek)@magyarpeterMP
I have arrived at the Sándor Palace to meet the President of Hungary. @DrTamasSulyok is unworthy of representing the unity of the Hungarian nation. He is unfit to serve as the guardian of legality. He is not fit to serve as a moral authority or a role model. Following the formation of the new government, Tamás Sulyok must leave office immediately.
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@The_Clermontian I don’t think this could ever happen again, the public forgiving a governing party for a recession.
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The median Amerilib supports Michael Foot
constans@constans
Broke: Las Malvinas Belong to Argentina Woke: The Falkland Islands have always belonged to the UK. Argentina’s attempt to annex them is imperialist Bespoke: Argentina’s greatest crime was starting and losing the Falklands war, because it helped the Tories win the 1983 election
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People tend to forget that it is only fairly recently (1960's to 80's) that the UK started to get an actual "middle class" population. The country is still struggling culturally to adapt to a modern world centered on a thriving middle class.
Eseosa@miss_preciouus
You can’t win in this UK, the more you work, the heavier they will tax you. What’s the point???
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