The Cedar Lounge Revolution

Who did the Guardian back over the years at UK GE’s? June 6, 2017

This is fascinating – to me. A round up of Guardian editorials endorsing parties at UK general elections over the 20th century. I’m surprised, though I don’t know on reflection why I would be, at how often the Guardian has supported whatever incarnation of the Liberals was about. It’s certainly an eye-opener how liberal oriented the paper has been and suggests that our perspectives of it as a left paper are distorted by the 70s and 80s (when it was also arguing for Labour and Liberals or LDs in whatever combinations were available).

It certainly explains a lot – though suggests too how credulous it could be in relation to those incarnations of the Liberals. 2010 springs to mind.

Undemocratic… June 6, 2017

I’d never thought of this before – not sure why, but sonofstan noted in comments that:

@MC -Some of my co-workers live in the neighbouring constituency of Buckingham, which is John Bercow’s constituency. It’s bad enough when the Ceann Comhairle thing means you lose one seat, but when you’re effectively disenfranchised in FPTP, it feels very unfair.
Mind you, MC, you do have the compensation of living in Somerset. Worse places.
What on earth can the justification for removing any democratic legitimation for an MP whatsoever? And for disenfranchising ‘their’ constituents.

And what of our own polity. At least we here have the option of voting, as SoS says, for other TDs in a constituency, but isn’t there something problematic about all this? And as we know, it’s not beyond gaming either…

Diary of a Corbyn foot soldier (No 12) June 6, 2017

Many thanks to the person who forwarded this on behalf of Michael Murray. A fascinating insight into the UK General Election as it is fought on the ground. Much appreciated – wbs. And of course, any with other on-the-ground insights, please do not hesitate to contribute to the site. Very welcome at this pivotal time.

(Manchester)

By Michael Murray
Dictionary definition of “foot soldier” “…a dedicated low level follower.”

In this entry:

(1) A month is a long time in politics
(2) Up the polls
(3) The Young Vote

(1) A month is a long time in politics

A month ago, Theresa May called for a ‘snap’ general election, immediately welcomed enthusiastically by Jeremy Corbyn in full “bring it on” mode.

The diary entry read: “ (Jeremy)Please tell me why you are smiling at the prospect of a General Election which is going to be dominated by Brexit – a major fault-line right through the Labour Party, criss-crossing the other fault-line of a totally divided Parliamentary Party?”

A month later? Newspaper headlines saying: “Poll firm predicts shock losses for Theresa May’s Tories at General Election,” by the Political Editor of The Times, no less. The Tory lead in the polls cut day by day almost until YouGov came up with their most recent findings: the Tory lead could be down to as low as 3 points. From a 24 point gap to 3 – within in a month? To top it all, Jeremy Corbyn’s preference for Prime Minister polled higher than Theresa May’s for the first time in London with a 37 to 34 margin for Corbyn compared to 38 to 32 margin favouring Theresa May last month. A second YouGov survey (2nd June: Evening Standard) gives Labour a 17point lead over Tories in the capital. So, in a month, we’ve moved from an impossibly high Tory lead in the polls to predictions that the Tories will fall short of what seemed to be a cast iron guaranteed overall majority.

Now, the real possibility of a “hung parliament” looms and the threat of the emergence of what May called a “coalition of chaos” to represent the UK in the Brexit negotiations, the preliminaries of which are scheduled for a fortnight after the election. Whatever the outcome, Theresa May is in deep trouble. She has gone “..from being the Tories greatest asset to being its greatest liability” Nigel Farage said today (2nd June). Ergo: the Tories are no longer the “Strong and Stable” party but on the verge of another heave.

(2) Up the polls

Do I believe the polls? How do they tally with my electioneering experience in the last month?
On the polls: taken together there is a wide range of results being reported. And then there are the arguments amongst the pollsters on methodology, which raise doubts about the accuracy of the predictions. One aspect of this I find particularly intriguing, and that is: there is a consensus that a line drawn through 45 year old voters gives a majority to Labour below the line and to the Tories above it. Associated with this, older voters polled are more likely to actually vote on election day than the youngest cohort (18-25 years old) or the next cohort (25-35 years old). Factoring, or not factoring in that weighting makes all the difference in predicting Labour’s chances, it seems.

At the beginning of this election campaign the few of us, who were out, focused on our own ward.
I was struck by the number of under 35s, on our sheets based, as they are, on the electoral register, and on previous elections identifying themselves as Labour Party supporters, who said they were voting for the Lib Dems this time. The reason? The Lib Dem position on Brexit, compared to Labour’s. I ask them how the felt about the Lib Dem’s role in the Tory coalition government. Some half-hearted arguments would be offered, such as: the Tory cuts would have been much worse without the Lib Dems in the coalition. And the tuition fees issue? Shoe shuffling and averted glances. Okay. “Well, thanks for your time.” As for the wider constituency of voters: either you met the core Labour supporters, or people with blank stares.

That was then. Less than a month ago. Now the Lib Dems are not in the reckoning. Labour’s policy on Brexit is the only game in town: accept the referendum result and fight the threatened Hard Brexit. And, anyway, much to my surprise, I readily admit, immediate social policy issues, not Brexit, but the state of the NHS, nationalisation of the railways, pensions, education have dominated the conversations on the doorsteps and in the media. Even the most aggressive questions to Corbyn in the televised debates have been about the IRA, Hamas, The Nuclear “Button” rather than Brexit.
The Labour Manifesto has been powerful ammunition for canvassers: hegemonic, John McDonnell, the chief mover of this comprehensive political and economic programme, would say. I have no doubt that many of those wavering Labour supporters will do the right thing come polling day. And the recent polls support that gut feeling. Beyond that, the election took what seemed like an interminable time to ignite, but in real time that was only a couple of weeks. And the Manchester terrorist attack, of course, halfway through the month, slowed Labour’s gathering momentum to a virtual halt as electioneering was suspended for a number of days.

In those moments of low intensity campaigning you get irritated with the frustrations of actually making contact with your constituents, in every sense. Not least, the multi-occupancy houses with a dozen bells mostly not working. No intercom, or a non-functioning intercom with spiders’ webs all over it. Large blocks of gated flats with neither intercoms nor outside letter boxes. And the “churn” – the big turnover of private flat dwellers typical of our constituency of Hackney North. You rang the bell, or walked up the stairs to canvass the occupants of a flat who had moved out months before. The present occupants didn’t know how long they might be staying there. Then on to the next house. A fellow canvasser, with whom I often had a drink after a bout of canvassing, decided in the first week she was, in future, going to spend her weekends canvassing in Birmingham, where her parents lived, rather than endure the central London scene. She yearned for streets with single family occupancy of terraced houses. In that first week, I met another canvasser, a tall, handsome polite and friendly young man who introduced himself as Jermain Jackman. Son of Nigerian parents, about 22 years of age. I was told after the canvass this was the 2014 winner of the Voice UK. Now at University and living up the country, he’d joined our local branch at 16. At the time of meeting him I was disappointed he’d not experienced canvassing at its liveliest and most engaged. I needn’t have worried. Today I see him on YouTube, plugging Labour and Corbyn. Committed.

And then. Soon we, the now swelled ranks of volunteers, were drafted to help out in marginals in the greater London area, looking after our own safe seat a lower priority. We were working with other comrades from other constituencies, in my case, in Croydon at one geographical extreme and Kilburn at the other, plus yet still unfamiliar parts of Hackney. The pace had picked up. The tide began to turn. I rang the bell of a multi-occupancy flat in my own ward. It turned out that the person on my electoral list had moved. No surprise there. Before I could get a word out he said: “How do I join the Labour Party? How can I help out?” This wasn’t unusual. Lots of people in the streets were asking how they might help, or verbalizing or signaling, with a thumbs up and a smile, their support. Suddenly, it was great to feel part of a movement that was making an effort to make a difference.

It’s not all about winning, I think, not this time around. Too much self damage has been done to the Labour Party. They haven’t gone away, the Blairites, their followers, and the doubting Thomases.
A study just a few months ago, when the Tory lead in the polls was still way up there, estimated that at least 5% of the Tory-Labour gap in the polls was accounted for by people’s perception of the internal going’s on in the Labour Party. That surely is an underestimate? No. It’s about working around perceived divisions in the party. I know I, and many others of the Corbynist persuasion, are campaigning for a cross section of candidates with diverse political opinions, some anti-Corbynist. But pegging back the arrogance and the rapacity of the Tories as far as we can, that’s the job that has to be done: in the process, bringing about durable, meaningful change in the political culture. “Just bate before you,” an old Irish proverb says, “The future will take care of itself.”

(3) The young vote

If a higher number of 18-24s vote than has been the case historically then there is the possibility of a close run election. Most seem agreed on that. And that’s what gives me great hope. Young people who support Labour like to communicate this almost compulsively, when approached. As a canvasser and leaflet distributor I’ve experienced that. Then look at YouTube over in the last few weeks. Let’s start with the music group Captain SKA’s protest video “Liar, Liar.” At 18.19 this evening (the Labour Affairs editor’s deadline is 18.00!) views on one site alone exceeded one and three quarter million. Have a listen, it’s quality – as music and “agitprop.” Though produced by an unlisted band, it has hit Number One spot on a whole number of charts, including iTunes. I’m reminded of a line from a Dylan song (1965) “Something’s happening and you don’t know what it is, Do you Mr Jones?”: “Ballad of a Thin man.” Imagine the multiplier effect of social media “sharing”? Something’s happening alright.

Or, look at New Musical Express JME interview with Jeremy Corbyn the other week, also available on YouTube and NME’s own site. Over a quarter of a million views on the I-D site alone. Now apply the “share” multiplier again to get a fuller sense of Jeremy’s impact on young people. Or, the YouTube video of Jeremy speaking to 20,000 young people at a music concert in the Tranmere Rovers’ ground in Liverpool about music and creating greater access to it within the educational system. And about taxing Premiership teams’ media income to fund youth participation in football countrywide. What other party has these issues on its agenda?

The Guardian told us (May 31st) that Labour dominates the political discourse on Twitter. According to a recent survey a whopping 84% of the 18-24 age group get their news online, not from the mainly biased main stream media. And, it’s good to hear, according to the Oxford Internet Institute, that the majority (53%) of the content is sourced from quality professional news sources from a politically radical perspective.

The youth of the country has the opportunity, and the means (social media), to make a difference. If that happens, I’m prepared to revise my usual curmudgeonly response to seeing a bunch of young people in a pub or restaurant grinning into their smart phones rather than talk to each other.

I can begin to believe they might actually be phone-banking for some just cause.

murraymicha@gmail.com
Facebook: Michael Murray London – a commentary/digest of political news for busy people.

Trump vs. Khan June 5, 2017

What is with Donald Trump? Even by his own standards this is utterly bizarre – another false attack on London Mayor Sadiq Khan for something Khan never said.

Trump tweeted today…

“Pathetic excuse by London mayor Sadiq Khan, who had to think fast on his ‘no reason to be alarmed’ statement. [Mainsteam media] is working hard to sell it!”

What is truly strange is that he tries to double down on his earlier tweets attacking Khan. What Khan said was, in the course of a longer piece:

My message to Londoners and visitors to our great city is to be calm and vigilant today. You will see an increased police presence today, including armed officers and uniformed officers. There is no reason to be alarmed by this.

About time… June 5, 2017

This is useful, from Steve Richards in the Guardian where he notes that:

Labour’s manifesto was always going to be a big break from the party’s recent past. In some respects the leap is liberating, moving on from previously understandable but paralysing attempts to navigate the mad UK pre-election “tax and spend” debate: “Every penny of the £10.50 we plan to spend on reducing class sizes in a trial scheme for five nursery schools is carefully costed by charging owners of £2m homes 10p more to park their cars.” That never appeared, but wouldn’t have looked out of place in any Labour manifesto between 1997 and 2015.

And what of this?

For Labour’s current leadership, armed at least with a clearer sense of purpose than some of its bewildered internal opponents, the manifesto in part becomes an argument about a different set of values and priorities rather than an accountants’ manual. When the former SDP leader David Owen read the manifesto he was reminded of SDP election programmes, and made a donation to Labour.

But there’s more. Richards asks…

Though the two main parties are miles apart, the questions being posed by both are unrecognisable from recent elections. What taxes should rise? How do we pay for social care? What form should an industrial strategy take? What markets work, and what should a government do if they fail? How do you meet a housing deficit as well as a spending deficit?

And he concludes that British politics has, perhaps counterintutively, swerved leftwards again. Not very far, admittedly. David Owen is testament to that. But some way.

Some commentators try to make sense of the scattering of their own powerless heroes: David Miliband would have become Labour leader if he had wooed a few more MPs; Jeremy Corbyn would not be leader if Labour MPs had not nominated him; if Cameron and Osborne had chosen a different date for the EU referendum, they would have won; the only reason why the Conservatives’ manifesto moves away from Reagan/Thatcherite liberalism is because May’s adviser, Nick Timothy, holds freakish sway.
But at some point even the most determined backward-looking custodians of the “centre ground” must acknowledge that a new pattern has belatedly formed in response to the 2008 crash and the challenges of globalisation.

He’s spot on. It really is time that people moved on from this delusion. For a start the ‘centre’ hasn’t worked. Elections have been lost here there and everywhere by left parties or even residual left parties attempting to contest that terrain. Furthermore there is an appetite for more leftwards solutions. Richards himself notes that the UK political agenda has moved leftwards. But not just there. Continually in this period we see left of centre parties appearing. Some are left social democrats, others older parties attempting to contest more leftward ground. Still others democratic socialist. But what’s striking is the numbers that they’re beginning to stack up in terms of support. It is genuinely remarkable to see the BLP contesting, at least in polls, such high figures. Of course it’s been lucky, so far, that May has proven a less adept politician than expected and that Corbyn has played so well. But it seems to me that all this indicates a larger dynamic where voters can be convinced – in certain circumstances – that centre right politics isn’t the only show in town.

Is this true? June 5, 2017

Stephen Collins likes Leo Varadkar. He writes at length about his qualities. But there’s this:

Most importantly Varadkar has managed the almost impossible feat of being a politician who comes across to the public, especially younger voters, as if he is not a politician at all. In this anti-politician phase of western democracy that is a crucial asset.

Really? I don’t know if I’m well placed to judge that, but what do others think?

Then there’s his supposed coolness under fire…

One of the strongest arguments in Varadkar’s favour is that he has displayed an ability to perform under pressure. During a recent Dáil outing as the stand-in for the taoiseach and also at the final Fine Gael hustings he showed the kind of coolness and debating skill that will be required in the next election.

But to me there’s a contradiction..

One of the things Fine Gael TDs and members found so frustrating about the last general election campaign was that despite the party’s impressive record on the economy the Fianna Fáil leader, Micheál Martin, ran away with the debate by espousing the hard-to-define concept of “fairness”.

Fairness is a slippery concept, never more so than when Stephen Collins is using it. But I wonder is Varadkar well placed to articulate it given that he has already nailed his colours to the mast of the Independent’s ‘coping class’ albeit in very slightly different language – and wasn’t that telling how he discussed those who get up early, but only in the context of paid work. Sure, he rowed back later, but it was a revealing insight into his worldview and – for a medical doctor particularly so. Carers, those who work in the home, whatever, all dismissed in favour of those who have paid jobs.

What’s fascinating is how much of a gamble all this is. Even Collins has to admit that:

The big question, though, is whether he has the temperament and the stamina to step into the taoiseach’s role. Bertie Ahern used to argue that a TD needed to serve at least one Dáil term and more likely two before they could be considered for even a junior ministry. That is why he left the obviously talented Brian Lenihan kicking his heels on the backbenches for almost a decade.

And;

By contrast Varadkar will have gone all the way from county councillor to taoiseach in the same time frame. It is some achievement but it means he has not been tested in a number of senior ministerial positions in the way almost all of his predecessors were. It is only when he is actually in the job that it will become clear whether or not he has the qualities required to do it.

When I think about that, the fact that this is indeed an untested politician, one who has had limited experience in frontline roles in government. It’s not that he’s had none, but a large economic or other department? Not quite. Not quite.

And it intrigues me how much his pitch is political – it is to the representatives rather than to anything more. One would wonder is he good on the machine but how will he fare as he attempts to put that machine into action?

We are all about to find out.

More incompetence June 4, 2017

Trump’s incontinent tweets about Mayor Sadiq Khan and his naked opportunism in trying to shoehorn the attacks in London last night into a pro-gun, pro-ban, narrative are appalling in themselves. That they’re deeply misleading is almost taken as read. That is, after all, his stock in trade. But it does betray something about what sort of person he is that at a time like this he would act in this way. Sometimes it is difficult to quite comprehend just how odd his Presidency and his administration is. But not today, not after all that.
 

Meanwhile, just on that more broadly, from the host of Foreign Policy’s The Editor’s Roundtable… surveying the fallout, not from what Trump said in the Oval Office, oh no, that hadn’t broken at this stage. Nope, just the Comey story. 

There’s something else that’s core to this… these guys are just terrible at governing… they’re just really really bad at it… David was talking about how they didn’t think there was going to be blowback on this thing [firing Comey]. They didn’t seed the clouds with Republicans to help them out and they didn’t come up with a replacement that might help their case better – they didn’t lay the groundwork and every single day they do something that just shows you probably shouldn’t elect a bunch of people who don’t know how to run the government who then surround themselves with other people who don’t know how to run the government because you’re going to end up with a complete shitshow in the White House that blows up every day in some new way.

Another contributor noted:

There’s elements of incompetence and conspiracy where there are factions in the administration undermining each other and that are all racing to have the ear of the President and somehow follow up on some crazy tweet of his.

The President himself is completely undisciplined and rather unhinged and as a result they’re not functioning very well. And meanwhile there are hundreds and hundreds of national security positions they still haven’t filled. They’re not good at it.

Four more years of this stuff? Can it be?
Then again, all the talk about impeachment strikes me as absurd. At least as matters now stand.

Reading this from Suzanne Lynch in the IT about the means by which Trump might be deposed after his latest absurd mess the thought strikes that that is all very well, but if as she suggests his fate is in the hands of Republicans in Congress and the Senate, why precisely would they want shot of him?

For it seems to me that he might play a very useful role for them given he is of but not necessarily in the Republican Party and a damaged Trump is one who is more likely to bend to their will in relation to a range of policy areas.

Granted that can only go so far. If he becomes too damaged… well, that’s another story. But then they have a Plan B in place with Vice-President Pence.

So, all that taken into account, why would they do anything to upset the status quo at this point?

And just on London it is notable how few Republicans have broken cover on how deeply inappropriate Trump’s tweets have been. That too tells us something.

Small Lifting Body Shuttles June 4, 2017

This is a piece on the always interesting Spaceflight History site about Small Lifting-Body Shuttles. They may look familiar to some of us, for a not dissimilar design was evident in Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (see 2.30 of this entertaining German dubbed trailer).

And it also has echoes of the craft in the footage at the start of the Six Million Dollar Man.