Conservative party/opposition watch

[Potemkin Villager]

According to the Grauniad "Lisa Cameron, the SNP MP who defected to the Conservative party on Thursday, said she and her family have been forced to go into hiding in Scotland after she was threatened with being “bricked” in the street."

Meanwhile "A Conservative British MP has served notice on his government that he is planning to bring legal proceedings, including a reference to the international criminal court, for being complicit in Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

Crispin Blunt, the MP for Redhill Surrey and a former chair of the foreign affairs select committee, has written the letter to the foreign secretary, James Cleverly, and the prime minister, Rishi Sunak."

[UndercoverElephant]

So, two more byelections in tory held seats. Sunak has a haunted look about him these days. It's like he knew he had been dealt a bad hand, but didn't realise how much worse it was going to get. I can't see the tories holding on to either of them. I suspect there is not a seat in the country they wouldn't lose in a byelection today.

[northernmonkey]

It doesn't matter what happens in the UK parliament. The two/three main parties are ruling class constructions. There merely to give an increasingly threadbare illusion of choice. This has been the case since the early twentieth century. But, has never been more the case than it is now

[clv101]

I don't really buy that. There were substantive differences between the Blair/Brown governments compared to Major and then Cameron. I expect Starmer's government to be different to the current Tories. The degree of difference might not be as much as so people would like, but I think that's a result of people not realising the limits of national governments - the UK remains the *same* country with the same people and values as Westminster flips. We don't all become Scandinavian or American when a few million people flip their votes.

We do have choice over our government, it's not a threadbare illusion, but it is only a choice over the government and that choice doesn't make a huge difference to the country we live in.

[Ralphw2]

Labour win both seats

[UndercoverElephant]

It doesn't matter what happens in the UK parliament. The two/three main parties are ruling class constructions. There merely to give an increasingly threadbare illusion of choice. This has been the case since the early twentieth century. But, has never been more the case than it is now

I fundamentally disagree, and believe this sentiment is dangerously complacent. Is it going to make a difference to our long-term trajectory? Is it going to bring pre-collapse politics to an end? Of course not. It does not follow that it doesn't matter whether Labour or the tories win the next election. Of course it matters. Even if it is only the difference between very bad and catastrophically bad.

[UndercoverElephant]

I don't really buy that. There were substantive differences between the Blair/Brown governments compared to Major and then Cameron. I expect Starmer's government to be different to the current Tories. The degree of difference might not be as much as so people would like, but I think that's a result of people not realising the limits of national governments - the UK remains the *same* country with the same people and values as Westminster flips. We don't all become Scandinavian or American when a few million people flip their votes.

We do have choice over our government, it's not a threadbare illusion, but it is only a choice over the government and that choice doesn't make a huge difference to the country we live in.

Yes, but sometimes governments can make a big difference. It certainly happened 1945-1951. There is no way the tories would have created the NHS.

Really making a difference requires the sort of cultural change that governments rarely manage to instigate. Politicians don't usually lead in this sense. They follow public opinion. I am absolutely convinced that the only thing that is going to lead to real political change is the widespread understanding that we are heading towards collapse - that there is currently no light at the end of the tunnel.

[Mark]

It doesn't matter what happens in the UK parliament. The two/three main parties are ruling class constructions. There merely to give an increasingly threadbare illusion of choice. This has been the case since the early twentieth century. But, has never been more the case than it is now

The UK is occasionally offered a radical alterative - Foot, Corbyn, Farage...
They never get elected, because the majority of the UK isn't up for radical politics..
As we descend down the slope, people may increasingly turn to radical voices that are currently on the margins... ??

The Tories deserved to lose these by-elections and the next GE.
Everything you look at is in a worse state than when they came to power 13 yrs ago...
The economy, public services, crime, environment, immigration, infrastructure, etc. are all in a terrible mess...
& the level of lying, deceit, poor behaviour and corruption has been off the scale...

Will Labour under Starmer do any better ?
They have the same list of issues to deal with and don't seem to have masses of new ideas...
I guess we'll need to see, but I don't think they can do any worse...
Hopefully he's learned from Blair and keeps us out of any wars...

[UndercoverElephant]

Hopefully he's learned from Blair and keeps us out of any wars...

Starmer is too committed to playing by the rules to do what Blair did. There is no way Starmer will end up misleading parliament about anything important.

The first Labour term is going to involve a lot of firefighting -- a lot of serious problems needing sorting out. But there's also plenty of things labour can do that the tories couldn't have done without alienating their own core vote. For me the real question is about momentum -- by the middle of the next parliament people are going to be asking whether Labour has a big idea to sort the country out, and firefighting won't be enough for that.

[northernmonkey]

I don't really buy that. There were substantive differences between the Blair/Brown governments compared to Major and then Cameron. I expect Starmer's government to be different to the current Tories. The degree of difference might not be as much as so people would like, but I think that's a result of people not realising the limits of national governments - the UK remains the *same* country with the same people and values as Westminster flips. We don't all become Scandinavian or American when a few million people flip their votes.

We do have choice over our government, it's not a threadbare illusion, but it is only a choice over the government and that choice doesn't make a huge difference to the country we live in.

Yes, but sometimes governments can make a big difference. It certainly happened 1945-1951. There is no way the tories would have created the NHS.

Really making a difference requires the sort of cultural change that governments rarely manage to instigate. Politicians don't usually lead in this sense. They follow public opinion. I am absolutely convinced that the only thing that is going to lead to real political change is the widespread understanding that we are heading towards collapse - that there is currently no light at the end of the tunnel.

The NHS and all the other social gains handed down to the masses happened in 1945 because we had a ruling class that was afraid of the several million trained killers that were heading home and who were highly unlikely to take "no" for an answer as they were hitherto forced to at the end of the First World War. So, ground was given and here in the UK the Labour party was given the job of managing that giving of ground in a relatively controlled fashion within the ideological constraints set by that ruling class. That's all.

The UK parliamentary Labour party showed who it really served, for anyone politically astute enough to be seriously interested, as far back as the General Strike of 1926.

[UndercoverElephant]

The UK parliamentary Labour party showed who it really served, for anyone politically astute enough to be seriously interested, as far back as the General Strike of 1926.

The UK parliamentary Labour Party serves the people who vote it into power. If they judge that it has failed to do so then it won't remain in power. That is how democracy works.

[Default0ptions]

Northern Monkey: “The NHS and all the other social gains handed down to the masses happened in 1945 because we had a ruling class that was afraid of the several million trained killers that were heading home and who were highly unlikely to take "no" for an answer as they were hitherto forced to at the end of the First World War.”

I agree. The cohort of battle hardened men of fighting age were only ever going to consent to follow leaders that they considered ‘honourable’.

Compare that situation to the squalid corruption of today’s career politicians.

[Default0ptions]

The UK parliamentary Labour party showed who it really served, for anyone politically astute enough to be seriously interested, as far back as the General Strike of 1926.

The UK parliamentary Labour Party serves the people who vote it into power. If they judge that it has failed to do so then it won't remain in power. That is how democracy works.

Don’t be ridiculous UE.

“The UK parliamentary Labour Party serves the people who vote it into power.”

It serves the big money that funds it.

Your ever so earnest naivety is charming, but you will grow out of it eventually.

[Potemkin Villager]

the majority of the UK isn't up for radical politics..
As we descend down the slope, people may increasingly turn to radical voices that are currently on the margins... ??

I think this small c conservatism amounts to rather more than just not being up for radical politics! I suspect a very sizeable majority
are totally terrified of the prospect of things being done in any way significantly different to what they are used to, even if it is blindingly obvious that it is not working.

[northernmonkey]

The UK parliamentary Labour party showed who it really served, for anyone politically astute enough to be seriously interested, as far back as the General Strike of 1926.

The UK parliamentary Labour Party serves the people who vote it into power. If they judge that it has failed to do so then it won't remain in power. That is how democracy works.

One may only manage to genuinely hold the belief espoused above if one is sufficiently naive as to think that any political party or movement may overcome all of the impediments to mass communicative reach with the population at large in the face of all of the primary means of cultural transmission, not to mention all of the tools of the judiciary, police and, if push comes to shove, the military, in the hands of the ruling class

You do not strike me as that naive.