In Signs and Machines, Lazzarato dissects capitalism's reliance on partial subjectivities and the reflex actions of machinic enslavement. I.e. The direction of social behaviour through command and response to signals, as if each of us are cogs and switches in a vast machine. To understand power and exploitation we must relinquish philosophies of the subject and attune our theoretical tools to the unthought/barely acknowledged, and the constitution of the relations that operate below subjectivity's radar. Something he praises Foucault, Deleuze, and particularly Guattari for for doing a lot of the intellectual heavy lifting. As it happens, Lazzarato uses driving as an example of one of these partial subjectivities. He talks about how it is a learned competence, but how for most driving to work or driving into town is a semi-conscious performance. The driver melds with the car, adopts a practical sense for navigating the roads and, more often than not, the journey evaporates from memory no sooner it is completed. Being alert as one pilots through one way systems and chooses appropriate traffic lanes is a semi-subjective state almost akin to reflex. The mind is often elsewhere, focused on what's blaring out of the speakers, engrossed in chatting with passengers, or day dreaming about tea time. Likewise at work, discipline and control has dulled us to the point where subjectivity is actively demobilised. We are relays and switches in the machine. Subjectivity only comes into play when something has gone wrong, or we are called upon to design new circuits to enable the signals to flow more smoothly.
Ballard captures the experience of a fused partial subjectivity by bringing together the mechanical body - the car - with the fleshy body's sexual mechanics. Bataille's writing on eroticism was fascinated by the dissolution of subjectivity in sex and the orgasm and, of course, Marx's diagnosis of alienation argued that capitalism meant we only found our humanity in our animal functions - eating, sleeping, and procreating. Crashing together the two partialities creates a new mangled subjectivity or way of being. This is far removed from the 'man' whose death Foucault declaimed, and is something else. The sex in car wrecks is joyless, but so is the desire to court serious injury and death at the intersection. All there is is unfathomable obsession, which is condensed in the figure of Vaughan. A former TV scientist off the nation's screens since his own crash, he has gone from rounded public intellectual - the epitome of 'man' - to a condensation of the one-dimensional. He habitually turns up at smash scenes with his cameras, pores over the images, and obsesses over his goal: a fatal collision with Elizabeth Taylor's Limousine. He has a death drive for a death drive, and the novel begins with this end: the mangled body of Vaughan pinned in the wreckage of a kamikaze launch from a flyover.
The perversity of Crash is not so much the shock of improbably extreme sex between improbably extreme people, or the eroticisation of serious injury or death, but in truthiness. Ballard's imagined community of fetishists cuts up door panels and human limbs to assert the materiality of mutability. Car parts and body parts are thrown together, rammed in an ugly metaphor of the possibilities and becomings technological augmentations have opened to us. And all of these surpass the 'man' of Western philosophy, whose obsolescence is unceremoniously hurled through the windscreen.
In a now notorious interview with LBC's Nick Ferrari on 11th October, asked about Gaza he condemned Hamas, stated his support for Israel's right to defend "herself", and do whatever it takes to get the hostages back. Responding, Ferrari asked if a "... siege is appropriate? Cutting off power? Cutting off water?" And then came the reply: "I think Israel does have that right." Stated baldly in black on white text, this looks what it is: an endorsement of war crimes. But pay attention to his countenance in the footage. Coming off what was a well received conference speech the day before, instead of emoting confidence Starmer was hesitant and slow, weighing every single word and seemingly terrified of saying the wrong thing. Indeed, if one wants to be generous this stilted, worried Starmer misspoke.
Okay, it happens. Mangling one's words and saying the wrong thing is an every day occurrence if your job involves a lot of talking. However, supposing Starmer did stumble, he was quite happy to let the impression that he supported Israel's war on Palestinian civilians continue. There is, for example, Emily Thornberry - the shadow attorney general - endorsing what Starmer said in her own mealy-mouthed way. And David Lammy, before his 'progressive realism' guff, defending the siege. Indeed, this was the line until Labour could no longer ignore the the corrosive effect it was having on its core support. And then the line changed. It went from supporting war crimes to not only not supporting them, but denying they were ever given the shadow cabinet's backing in the first place. History has been rewritten, and whenever it's raised - as it was recently by Grace Blakeley on Question Time - recalling Starmer's remarks are met with a flat denial.
We know Starmer lies. And his readiness to tell porkies comes from a place of political frailty. Ferrari's gentle probing of Labour's position on Gaza saw the Labour leader almost come apart as he uncertainly made policy on the hoof. One that had nothing to do with principle or even his own personal convictions. It was the one that would keep the press, the government, and the increasingly unhinged Israel lobby off his back. This zone of establishment non-punishment has been occupied by Labour ever since, though the position has evolved from supporting attacks on civilians to being wholeheartedly and very genuinely concerned about the danger of famine and attacks on women on children. Though not enough to support stopping weapons shipments to Tel Aviv. It's no different when it comes to greeting the news of the mooted ICC prosecution. The government says it's a "mistake", while Labour say they respect the court's neutrality. It has nothing of substance to say.
What this tawdry episode says about Starmer in power is his will be a government forever chasing its tail whenever there's some awkward press criticism, or a minister gets found out for dodgy donations, or they come under lobbying pressure from moneyed interests. Last week, the Labour leader's pledge card promised economic stability. But even with a huge majority within reach, it would be rash to expect political stability.
But there is an answer! The very clever strategy people in the leader's office were able to hog political coverage going into the weekend with a Blairite retread: the pledge card. As my wallet is a strange attractor for all the loyalty cards and bits of ID, I happen to have my 1997 original. Comes in handy for infiltrating Labour To Win meetings. These pledges were designed as quick policy wins to show Blair and Brown meant business. There was the punishment of the privatised utilities with the windfall tax. But New Labour meant changed Labour, so we also had "fast-track punishment for persistent young offenders" and "set tough rules for government spending and borrowing".
Starmer's leadership has never pretended originality, and so the resemblance between the 1997 and 2024 cards are more than coincidental. Our new fangled version, with its 'cut NHS waiting times' and 'crack down on anti-social behaviour' are straightforward lifts. The mix of the Milquetoast progressive with the authoritarian and the reactionary continues with 'set up Great British Energy' (which is always mis-sold as a publicly-owned company, when in fact it's a Blairesque Public Private Partnership investment vehicle), and 'Launch a new Border Security Command'. I wonder how many Tory-voting focus groups that went through. And, top and tail, 'economic stability' and 'recruit 6,500 new teachers'. How the leadership managed something less inspiring than Blair's 'New Life for Britain' is a real achievement.
Despite the obvious resemblances the real inspiration for these six pledges is ... Rishi Sunak. At the beginning of 2023, he set out his five promises for government. In case you have forgot, these were halve inflation, grow the economy, get the national debt falling, reduce NHS waiting lists, and stop the boats. An incredibly low effort list of priorities that barely required Sunak to do anything. Taking on board the then economic outlook, falling inflation, GDP growth, and keep tight rein on public spending so debt could fall (as a proportion of GDP) were easy because they would happen spontaneously. NHS waiting lists were a bit of a hostage to fortune, because no Tory government has exited office with waiting times lower than the one it inherited. Sunak might have met this pledge had he decided not to underfund it. And stopping the boats was pure amateurism in the sense he signed himself up to something he couldn't deliver. Hence the grim theatrics of the Rwanda scheme.
Because big brains are in charge of Labour, nothing has been left to chance. Border Security Command, Great British Energy, and anti-social behaviour policies can be brought into being at a stroke of a pen. Economic stability is also relatively easy seeing as Rachel Reeves, when she's not busy plagiarising other people's work, has no ideas of her own and will leave the regulatory frameworks intact and won't haphazardly chop and change the rules like the Tories do. NHS waiting lists are likely to start coming down at the point Labour enters government just as we're over the worst of the seasonal hospital admissions - and this before Wes Streeting's plan to use imaginary spare private capacity. And lastly, 6,500 new teachers works out at increasing recruitment by about 1%. Starmer's government would have to be spectacularly incompetent to not meet any of these aims.
The new pledge card is not the programme for the incoming government, and should not be judged as such. But by setting a low bar in what the Labour leadership takes to be the public imaginary, they can easily exceed their own expectations. On teachers and teaching, where the big challenge is the triple threat of underfunding, workload, and retention, anything on top of the extra teachers' pledge tick the under-promising and over-delivering box. On GBE and BFC, setting them up and branding them provides an illusion of forward motion. And on it goes. Starmer will be able to say his project of authoritarian modernisation, or mission-driven government as he styles it, is well underway.
The problem with this is the assumption the public aren't paying attention and can't smell bullshit. Just as talking about hope a lot does not call it out of the ether, most people won't notice a Labour government unless it materially improves people's lives and is experienced as such. Being able to get doctors' and dentists' appointments, seeing wages consistently rise faster than prices, experiencing the green transition in the form of lower energy bills, these are ways Labour could and should make a difference. And Starmer would be rewarded for enabling this with more future general election victories. But the actual chances for that are very slim. Why? Because of the alliances he's actively pursued with the right aligns him and his project with the interests arrayed against the people - the overwhelming majority - who would benefit a progressive prospectus.
There are a few things that makes this a non-starter, quite apart from the fact that neither Johnson nor Farage could tolerate playing second fiddle to the other. The first is the massive vote winning programme Rees-Mogg proffers is ... exactly the programme the Conservatives have now. To the right's wonky antennae, Rishi Sunak gives off the vibe of being a centrist, but this argument is complete drivel. The Rwanda scheme is more his than it ever was Priti Patel's and Johnson's. He's done more to attack equalities and set trans people up as folk devils than any of his predecessors. And you would be hard pressed to find any Tory leader more slavish to fossil fuel interests and as openly contemptuous at cleaning up the air in British cities. Rees-Mogg and those fool enough to listen might counter that Sunak isn't really a believer, but it doesn't matter. Those about to attack a trans man in a toilet won't care whether Sunak's contribution to the discourse of dehumanisation comes from a place of "genuine concern" or cynicism. Oil company executives won't be fretting that their North Sea drilling permissions don't rest on the Prime Minister's acceptance of climate change denialism. And Rwanda's Paul Kagane will carry on taking UK government money and not a single asylum seeker without caring about Sunak's real beliefs.
And then there is the electoral arithmetic, which is almost as foolish as the nonsense commentary that regularly afflicts by-elections. Rees-Mogg is moving the electorate around as if they're draughts on a board. Queening the Tories with Reform does not make for a powerful piece greater than the sum of its parts. A party's support is not a solid, manipulable mass, as we're seeing with Keir Starmer's gallop to the right and the subsequent surge for the Greens and others. Likewise with the Tories and Reform. If they united, some Tory voters would be put off by the crudities of Farage, Lee Anderson, etc. And for Reform, some of its base are quite prepared to support them because they're not the Tories. Anyone who has analysed the 2019 election and how the Brexit Party made a difference in many hitherto Labour-held seats knows that there were enough (mainly older) Labour voters turning to them to protest their party's referendum positioning. This was because, despite everything, even then they couldn't stomach voting Tory. Electorally speaking, a Tory/Reform lash up with souped-up right wing characteristics would be even less attractive to the pool of people each party has around them now. Far from rescuing the situation, chances are it would compound the Tories' woes.
I can understand where Rees-Mogg is coming from. His perception of possible salvation for his party does, superficially, have something to recommend it. Squinting your eyes and ignoring a lot of things, you could argue Johnson triumphed in 2019 on a platform not dissimilar to the one that excites the stunted imaginations of sundry Tory backbenchers. But what makes Rees-Mogg stupid is his wilful substitution of fantasies for reality. And that's the one he lives in now: where the Tories face oblivion, it's too late to do anything about it, and that his own career in North East Somerset will likely be snuffed out by a triumphant Labour candidate.
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Sunak warned that we're living in dangerous times, and that the next five years could be more impactful than the last 30. Yes, more change than the Rwandan genocide, September 11th terror attacks, the stock market crash, austerity, Brexit, Trump, the rise of China, social media, and Covid put together. Blimey, even without specifying anything that promise alone is enough to make the average Tory dizzy. Sunak then tucked in, throwing out mortal threats as if morsels from a banquet of doom. There was war ("18 conflicts in Africa", "Iranian proxies"), there's Putin and China (gas supplies! Russia using migration as a weapon!), and an axis of authoritarian states threatening our country. Alongside economic shocks and energy shocks, the enemies without are aided by the enemies within. We have "people abusing liberal democratic values", evil "gender activists hijacking children's education", and extremists determined to turn Briton against Briton. We must beware the dangers of technology too. Kids are exposed to sexualised content online, and artificial intelligence presents unknown risks unless it is managed properly. Sunak provided the assembled press pack with a Who's Who of right wing fears and anxieties, underlined by the fact the most threatening of them all - climate change - was conspicuous by its absence.
Sunak tempered this with a touch of optimism. He noted that the greatest life-transforming breakthroughs often happen at moments of greatest danger, and so we had rhapsodies about the far reaching consequences of AI (he still wants that tech bro job). Brexit's dubious "freedoms" were talked up, as were export figures and Britain's reputation as a world leader in innovation. He went on with more pig iron production figures, and how fantastic the Tories were in completing the last five year plan in four years. Or some such rubbish. By the end he was pleading with his audience that you can't judge the last 14 years by 49 days of madness.
What was the purpose of this? To draw a sharp contrast between the sensiblism of the Conservatives and the danger of Labour. They've "had 14 years to come up with some new ideas", but there aren't any. Keir Starmer will say and so anything to get into office, and if he does the "tough decisions" will get ducked and the country pitched into great danger. Several members of the shadow cabinet voted against nuclear weapons, and they want to abandon the Rwanda scheme which, acting as a deterrent, will save thousands of lives. Starmer and friends act more like a pressure group than a government-in-waiting. And on Sunak went, encouraged by the friendly press pack who invited the Prime Minister to elaborate his attacks on Labour further.
It is pretty desperate. Apart from the most unhinged sections of our rulers (such as the Telegraph, who are convinced Starmer's about to bring back the militant trade unionism of the 1970s), British capital in general are pretty chill about what Labour are offering. Rachel Reeves's promises to not spend anything, Wes Streeting's message that the NHS (and by extension, the state) will be offering profitable opportunities underwritten by government money, and more recently the dilution of an already watered down set of promises on workers' rights are winning over the big money backers. Now that the Tories are out for the count, capital has entered into its episodic partnership with the so-called party of labour seeing as their usual client party are no longer a viable conduit for their interests.
But for Sunak, he and all the Tory strategists know that fear is what pump primes their base. They're hoping the name-checking of all the existential threats will wake the base up so it stops flirting with Reform and unite behind the Tories to stop the coming electoral defeat from being a historic cataclysm. Unfortunately for him, no matter how blood-curdling the warnings, the Tories under his watch have done such a great job of dissociating themselves from the aspirations and interests of the electorate at large, from its support among the professional/managerial base to the Tory-leaning sections of the middle class and working class, the petit bourgeoisie, and even big business, no amount of the tried and trusted doom mongering will save them. Especially when what these layers fear the most is not Starmer, but another four or five years of "their" party in charge.
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It's fair to say of all the Tories the whip's office have on defection watch, she would not have been among them. Elphicke has, in the recent past, attacked Labour for wanting open borders. She accused asylum seekers of "breaking in to Britain". She is on the record of favouring the right of the state to strip British citizenship from those it takes umbrage at, and has voted with the government on Rishi Sunak's efforts to cut the green crap and curtail the rights of trade unions. Most damning of all, she said her former husband (and former MP for Dover, Charlie Elphicke), who got sent down for sexual assault, was guilty of nothing apart from being attractive to women. The Times also reported that tried influencing the judge on the trial. Her punishment? A one day suspension from the Commons.
Knowing her record, the statement snuck out by Labour whips just before PMQs reads like a bad joke. "When I was elected in 2019, the Conservative Party occupied the centre ground of British politics." Err, no. "Since 2019, it [Labour] has moved on from Jeremy Corbyn and now, under Keir Starmer, occupies the centre ground of British politics." Elphicke cites housing and "the borders" as her top concerns. On homelessness in particular, she pledges to work with the Labour leader to sort that out. As she won't be standing at the next election, like Poulter one can only assume this "support" for Labour's efforts will come from a sinecure in the House of Lords. A body, not that long ago, Starmer promised to abolish.
That in mind, it's obvious what Elphicke gets from the deal. But what about Labour? Yes, another defection discombobulates and demoralises the Tory benches further. And for those who look at politics askance, the news compounds the government's woes and adds to the sense of crisis and doom. But really, did Labour have to accept this most awful of MPs, a woman who Jonathan Gullis described on Channel Four News as being very close to him politically? Her admission simply reinforces the truth that the party operates with a hierarchy of racism. Right wing MPs say and do as they please, and racism only exists as a factional tool. Just as the astroturf Jewish Labour Movement, right on cue, illustrated today.
Why Starmer accepted Poulter also applies in Elphicke's case. It's not about chasing Tory voters or leaving nothing to chance where the election is concerned. Despite what the Prime Minister says and, for appearance's sake, Starmer affects to believe, the general election result isn't in any question. The only imponderable is how large Labour's majority is going to be. Contrary to long-winded articles trying to discern what Starmer's real beliefs are, his project is simple. The renovation of the British state, the restoration of the authority of its institutions, and by tackling the intentional (and reckless) neglect of the state's capacity to do things, its legitimacy will be restored. It's an elite endeavour, and Starmer wants to build an equally elite consensus around his mission. With the Tories on a rightward trajectory and extremely unlikely to come back any time soon, this isn't going to be hard to accomplish.
The problem for Labour is this strategy and orientation is destroying its base. This has been obvious for some time, and explains why the the Greens are on the up, how there is a revival in Liberal Democrat fortunes, and there are potentially serious challenges from the likes of George Galloway and a smattering of left independents. Welcoming Elphicke has done its bit to accelerate this decomposition by fuelling a few more resignations. At this rate, campaigning is going to be an affair of paid regional officials "taking holiday", and that minority of councillors who do door-to-door canvassing. As far as Starmer and his shadow cabinet of briefcases are concerned, it doesn't matter because they'll get their ministerial offices and their status as very important people. But all it takes is a huffing and a puffing of the political winds, and absent the firm foundations the Labour leadership have excavated, the whole Starmerist edifice will get blown over.
In a lengthy piece in last week's issue of The Socialist, Socialist Party general secretary Hannah Sell regurgitates exactly the same arguments that were put forward when TUSC officially launched 14 years ago. It is "gaining ground" and "TUSC is not a mass party but it is an important lever to fight for steps in that direction." This is pure piffle. For instance, not only does TUSC's vote not improve from one election to another it lost its sole trade union affiliate a couple of years ago. Some progress.
There are three interlinked problems with TUSC. The first is political. Its pitch as doughty defenders of public services is worthy, but completely uninspiring. They say cutback we say fightback is alright for chanting on demonstrations, but does nothing to contest the politics of public service provision. When politicians have talked about the "necessity" of cuts since before the Tories took office in 2010, simply saying "no cuts" and pretending everything would be fine if local authorities launched campaigns to get back the money denied them is, at best, a prospectus for a society in which there are greater generalised levels of class consciousness than there is now. In its absence, the SP and TUSC are doing King Canute cosplay. They do not explain the class politics that lies behind programmes of cuts, despite positioning themselves as the working class opposition to them. And without this, they don't tell a story that punters might find engaging and convincing. For example, one reason why Jeremy Corbyn was successful for a time is he did offer a simple explanation that linked up society's ills. It owed more to moralism than class analysis, but his brand of anti-cuts politics proved much more effective and appealing than the SP/TUSC's economistic fare.
The second is strategic. In all the years the SP and its forerunners have been involved in left regroupment projects, it has fetishised a federal arrangement for participants. It often cites the original Labour Representation Committee to give their stance a principled gloss, but in reality it's about protecting the sanctity and coherence of the SP itself. Over 20 years ago in the Socialist Alliance, it preferred to walk out of the organisation rather than accept majority voting and a membership structure. And now, in TUSC, it reserves the right to stand as Socialist Alternative in seats where they think the opportunities for party building are particularly strong. Needless to say, results show that label doesn't offer any electoral premium over TUSC's. The behave like this because they have a very narrow, Leninist view of themselves. I.e. That they are the revolutionary party, and it's through participation in broader parties and movements that they will grow and, hopefully, overthrow capitalism. With such a millenarian conception of themselves, TUSC, their allies in TUSC, the rest of the labour movement, and so on are but foils for their grand ambitions. In this they don't differ any from the Socialist Workers' Party, the newly minted (and absurdly named) Revolutionary Communist Party, or virtually every other far left organisation that claims some fidelity to Lenin and his works. Where they differ is how they get to become the Bolshevik top dog.
Because TUSC is a means, this flows into its third problem. Because the SP is the revolutionary party, its energy has to be devoted to reproducing itself as a combat party of class conscious militants. This means prioritising the much derided stalls and paper sales, the trade union work where its approach to class politics has, in the past, awarded the SP some profile, and whatever it determines its organisational priorities to be. Putting energy into TUSC dilutes the SP's primary purpose. What this means in practice is TUSC is a useless electoral front that has no real life of its own. And this is a problem if you want to use elections to push an anti-cuts politics. For example, the current surge in support for the Greens to the point where they're in contestation for a handful of parliamentary seats hasn't come from nowhere. It's the result of targeting and campaigning consistently in the same seats over years. For the SP, supposedly the repository of the most advanced theory ever wielded by the working class, this super basic approach to building a profile has passed them by. Either that, or the SP don't want TUSC to grow into anything other than a conveyor belt of one of two recruits per election campaign. Readers can be their own judge.
We've already seen that the pathetic failure of the SP and TUSC to amount to anything has left the floor open to Galloway. Remember, this is not only a party whose ostentatious anti-woke posturing effectively attacks the working class it claims to speak for, it has selected candidates who are antisemitic and anti-Muslim. This will be the face of the extra-Labour left going into the next election, giving the enemies of the labour movement another stick to beat us all with. But everything is not lost for TUSC. It's too late to make a difference between now and the next election, but in the longer term it could profit from the same disaffection with Labour the Greens and Liberal Democrats are poised to do well put of. Provided TUSC dumps its unserious approach to elections. Nadia Ditta's campaign in Southampton did well because it appears she is a community rooted campaigner who has and is likely to continue working her seat. She points to TUSC's future as a viable opposition to Labour. But only if the SP allows it.
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With Tory disaster in the air, everyone is comparing now with 1997. Here's mine: even at the Tories' darkest moments John Major never publicly entertained the possibility his party wouldn't get anything other than a majority. The crisis now is deeper, and so Sunak's official optimism has been downgraded to match.
I don't expect anything else from lazy journalists with an agenda, or from a desperate Tory leader combing the entrails of defeated mayors and councillors for encouraging signs. But, unfortunately, there are those who take anything that suggests Labour aren't on course for a crushing victory as proof it's not going to happen. This has become more pronounced in recent years, where reduced turnout in by-elections and local elections supposedly provide evidence that pollsters have raised an illusion of Labour's inevitable victory. This is nonsense.
There are two types of election. There are first order elections, which are general elections. For most people these matter the most because the electorate gets to vote on who forms the next government, and this directly impacts on their lives. As such, more people take an interest and turn out to vote. Second order elections are those that are not a general election: by-elections of all kinds, local elections, Police and Crime Commissioner elections, mayoralties, Welsh Assembly and GLA elections, arguably elections to Holyrood. Because these "don't matter" for most people, voting numbers are lower. Because the stakes aren't as high those who do turn out are more likely to register a protest vote. Recall the special case of the 2019 EU elections, in which the Brexit Party topped the poll while the Liberal Democrats came second and the Tories limped in at fifth in their worst ever nation wide electoral performance. How did that play out in December's general election?
Extrapolating from local election results is a bit of fun, so only clowns take these exercises seriously. In the Sky numbers we read that 'others' can expect to occupy 66 seats in Westminster. As these are England-only results, are we supposed to believe that the Greens (who are targeting four seats and can reasonably expect two), the pro-Palestine independents (who might win a couple), George Galloway, and a whole host of residents associations and localists are going to win these seats. That will not happen because, again, people are voting for a government. A better guage of what's likely to happen are polls that ask for general election voting intention, and the periodic MRP polls that undertake seat-by-seat field work. And what they consistently report is Labour are going to win a big majority, and the Tories are on for a defeat of historic proportions.
None of this is to say all is peachy for Labour. As long forecast and argued, Keir Starmer is chipping away at the party's base. If there is something to take away for Starmer supporters and Labour strategists to chew on, it's that these elections are suggestive of the significant opposition the party can expect when it's in office.
There were two results that stood out, one that has received plenty of coverage. One hardly any. The first is the ousting of Andy Street from the West Midlands by Richard Parker. Labour should have scooped this with ease, but the margins were exceedingly tight thanks to the impressive result of Akhmed Yakoob, the pro-Palestinian independent who came third and, to a lesser extent, Street's own personal vote. Because, like Houchen, he was able to defy the doldrums affecting the Tories nationally, but only up to a point. Yet in Tory land, this is being treated like a cataclysm to end all cataclysms. And in so doing, they're overlooking what they should see as the real disaster. For the new York and North Yorkshire combined authority, Labour swooped in and saw David Skaith returned by an eight point margin over the Tories. This isn't just another region. It is home to some of the safest Conservative constituencies in the country. Skipton and Ripon (23,694 maj), Thirsk and Malton (25,154), and Rishi Sunak's own Richmond (27,210) are here, along with three others with majorities hovering around the 10,000 mark. The Tories should have been able to rely on this rock solid support to gift them the mayoralty. That they didn't suggests the hole they're in is much deeper than even their critics appreciate.
Why is a marginal mayoralty being treated as if pregnant with existential menace while the loss of a safe heartland gets a shrug of the shoulders? There are a few reasons. The first is expectations. Despite North Yorkshire being ultra safe, the loss was already priced in. A regional poll undertaken at the end of April reported a 14-point lead for Labour. In the head of those Tory MPs who follow public opinion, the contest was a write off. This was not the case in the WestMids where the polling put Labour and the Conservatives quite close. It offered MPs and activists a bit of hope, which was cruelly snatched away by the fates. The second is precisely because of the marginal nature of the WestMids. Had the Tories won there, they might have convinced themselves that matters aren't as bleak in the country as the polls keep saying. North Yorkshire, you might suppose, would stay Tory come what may when the election comes. And lastly, MPs wanted to see proof that name recognition can out perform party identity. Why? A surprising amount of MPs fancy themselves as someone who got into Westminster because of their character, abilities, and campaigning profile. The colour of the rosette, to their mind, was incidental. If Street had won, some Tories would have felt they too could buck the trend by marketing themselves as arms length local Conservatives whose fantastic personalities and constituency following might escape the toxicity of the party label. This is why a pall of dread has descended over so many of them. The good people of the WestMids region have closed off their slight ray of hope.
1. Wes Streeting and Ideology
2. Routing the Tories is Good, Actually
3. The Hounding of Alan Duncan
4. The Tory Obsession with Angela Rayner
5. The Defection of Dan Poulter
In at one was Our Wes and his inability to get over his left baiting student past after likening his left wing critiques to ideologues. As the piece argues, the frequency with which politicians deploy "ideology" as a term of abuse covers the essential truth about politics. That it is a field of struggle structured by interests, not jolly nice ideas about how best to run things. In at two is a reminder that despite Keir Starmer and the road to rack and ruin he's taking the Labour Party along, it is still in the interests of our people - the working class - to see the Tories smashed utterly. In at three is a rejoinder to all the conspiracy-adjacent stuff found on social media about Israel driving British politics. It doesn't, and an explanation of what the Israel lobby are doing in this country is located in the dependent relationship Tel Aviv has on the Western powers. In at four was Angela Rayner's troubles over her tax affairs from before when she was an MP. But, as ever with the Tories, their reasons for targeting her are bound up in class politics. And sneaking into the rear is a quick piece on Labour's newest MP and what this says about Starmer's state modernisation project.
I'm going to abuse this place's nominal status as a politics blog by plugging April's two science fiction posts. The first is on Robert A Heinlein's celebrated The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and the second is Ian Watson's less well known novel, Alien Embassy.
What's on in May? Chances a piece on Starmer's further dilution of workers' rights will appear after he's made his speech on Saturday defending pathetic abandonment. There will be reflections on tomorrow's elections, some SF, and who knows what else the fates throw at us. As ever, if you haven't already don't forget to follow the monthly newsletter, and if you like what I do (and you're not skint), you can help support the blog. Following me on Twitter and Facebook are cost-free ways of showing your backing for this corner of the internet.
