Dress it up however they might, fleecing the most defenceless, shooting ducks in a barrel because of their structural location in the economy - at the bottom - is unalloyed Toryism. Johnson did it, Truss did it, Sunak did it, Now Starmer is doing it.
Earlier this week Keir Starmer delivered his first leader's speech as Prime minister to Labour's annual party conference. As mood music, the old Stranglers hit from the 1980s, Nice 'n Sleazy, would not have gone amiss, chiming perfectly with the lack of integrity Starmer has brought to the event and politics in general.
When almost one year ago Starmer, as leader of the opposition, raced out of the traps to sound his endorsement of Israeli war crimes against the civilian population of Gaza - at this week's conference in a big 'fuck you' to the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court the terms apartheid and genocide were prohibited - it was clear then he hadn't the slightest intention of relinquishing his sense of himself as the Establishment's man. He has been consistent since.
Starmer, along with his partner in crime, Rotten Rachel, through capitalist strategies of displacement, has been shifting the worst effects of neoliberal economics onto those neoliberals regard as soft targets. While depriving pensioners of a winter fuel allowance and maintaining the two child benefit cap - despite a Pat Rabbitte election-type promise to scrap it - he has shamelessly been on the take, having his designer clothes and numerous pairs of glasses bought for him by a wealthy donor to the Labour Party. Add on the other freebies such as Arsenal and Taylor Swift tickets, and the sum soon adds up. In freebies alone Starmer is estimated to have acquired more than all Labour leaders combined since Tony Blair - £107,145, and more than any other MP since 2019.
This makes the mischaracterisation of the British Labour Party by its erstwhile Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell, all the more difficult to comprehend.
But this is exactly what the Labour government is for, a trait more pronounced under New Labour than at any time in the party's history. The Labour right is Tory lite. We would expect McDonnell to know this given that he has spent his entire political life within Labour resisting lurches to the right. He actually had the party whip withdrawn from him for taking a principled stance in voting against Starmer's policy of keeping the two child benefit cap. Instead of there being any great reset here, all Starmer has done is reheat the old neoliberal austerity measure promoted by the former Tory Chancellor, George Osborne.
According to Owen Jones, the Starmer family income places him in the top one per cent of earners in the UK. Which means he is richer than ninety nine percent of the population. Yet here he is on the take, accepting quality clothing, glasses and event tickets, all gratis, from the wealthy elite while children can go hungry and pensioners can freeze as a result of his policies. Who is going to pay for the extra layers of clothing that senior citizens will require this winter to keep warm because the Labour Prime Minister has robbed them of their fuel allowance? No wealth donor gonna wade in there.
Not too hard to envisage the Labour pile on had Boris the Bad been caught in the headlights with his Saville Row trousers around his ankles, with Starmer and Reeves heading the lynch mob baying for Boris blood.
John McDonnell: has compared Starmer to another Keir:
When Keir Hardie was elected as the first Labour MP, he went to work in parliament in his working man’s tweed suit. He wasn’t expensively clothed by rich sponsors because, as a matter of principle, he refused to ape the Tories and Liberals in their expensive frock coats and silk top hats.
We who at one time slogged it out with no clothes other than a blanket understand only too well the Armani men eager to wear tuxedos while sucking quails' eggs at the Queen's banquet. We too saw the metamorphoses from blanket men to banquet men by those who wanted power simply for the pleasure of wielding it rather than do anything progressive with it.
Hard to quibble with the following writer that the party conference held in Liverpool:
provided further confirmation of what an increasingly large portion of the British public already think: Keir Starmer is a boring liar who is doing a terrible job as Prime Minister.
Leave the last words to the Stranglers:
Nice 'n' sleazy
Nice 'n' sleazy does it
Nice 'n' sleazy does it
Nice 'n' sleazy does it
Does it every time
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I vote Labor in Australia ( the way it's spelled down here) because they at least are pro union and do things for the benefit of all the people. Labour in the UK are Tories in disguise. They all went to the same public school and are determined to benefit their business cronies at the expense of the proles and will happily bomb foreigners to boost profits. The whole lot of them should be against the wall.
ReplyDeleteThey have a tendency to sell the pass in Ireland as well. The Labour Party here is under better leadership than it has been in a long time and its activists in the ground are to the fore in a wide range of progressive issues. Out of all the parties they are the best to work with. The problem comes when they get tradeable numbers in general elections. The impulse to serve as a condom for Fine Gael all too often proves stronger than the impulse to be progressive. Every society can get a government but to have good governance a society needs robust opposition. The Rabbitte rush to get a backside on a ministerial seat is what all but destroyed Labour.
DeleteInteresting point about different political clevages coming from the same schools
DeleteNeo liberalism seems to be the only game in town and the choices are neo liberalism or nice people to implement neo liberalism. We have a lot of self proclaimed socialists in Ireland but they fit more into group 2 than presenting an alternative economic model. Not unique to here. England, america, Canada in the same boat
What is Australia doing different in that it's an English speaking common law country that does not appear to be afflicted with the same process problem . Is it a less open economy or are they on the free trade buzz as well?