On Monday I called Peak Green and by now, the by-election lost, it looks almost like we're going to see a re-run of Your Party: hundreds of thousands of members but so dysfunctional, and split so comprehensively, it ain't going anywhere.
One need have no sympathies whatever for the charlatan "Polanski": but the MSM pile-on is really quite extreme, and merits a moment's analysis. I have to believe the London-based, Labour-supporting meejah classes saw him as a genuine threat on the left; the Israel lobby saw him simply as a threat (the Auld Alliance back in action again); and they have both decided to bury him here and now, Corbyn-style. He provided the shovels, and by last weekend had already dug his own grave. It's not a pretty sight.
Does he really deserve all this? "Deserve", as Clint Eastwood's William Munny famously said in Unforgiven "got nothing to do with it". Live by the entryist surge, die by the care-nothing entryists' toxic baggage. Can't imagine he'll go down without a lot more of his trademark motormouth interviews, but we'll just have to put up with it for a while.
Funnily enough, neither of the Green factions really care about becoming a major Parliamentary force. The traditional sandal-wearing Greens were happy with one MP, delirious with 4. They don't much mind going back to their eco-protest roots in Bristol, Brighton and the shires, if becoming Big means they must accommodate the 'progressive' dregs of bedsit London Labour by the tens of thousand. Likewise, the dregs care not for Parliamentary success if it means they must give up their fevered foreign policy fantasies. Those who do care are a smaller, strategically-minded metropolitan motley of fence-sitters whose relatively sophisticated dream is of plain-speaking Polanski fearlessly shifting the Overton window decisively leftwards, in a way that no Labour politician is able to. Then Burnham and his genuine party-of-government can safely occupy the newly-liberated ground and win an election on terms they like.
Well let's see if this strategy is gaining any traction. The Budget looms, and there are a lot more issues making calls on the public purse than to leave much left for the big causes progressives are interested in.
ND
6 comments:
That's why conferences no longer make policy. In many ways a pity.
Difficult choice for Holborn Woman in her hijab. Polanski, right policy but unfortunate surname and ethnicity, or Fodumbi, proper Muslim like me but representing Starmer policies? Oh no, that's all gone and Andy is much better on these things. Tick !
PS - Trump has finally united the Mail and Guardian commentariat with his diesel deal. I must say (when not being murderous) he's very entertaining.
Journalist: Zelensky said you showed weakness over your fuel supply deal with Russia.
Trump: Who said that?
Journalist: Zelensky.
Trump: Okay
So Jerk Palooka will linger in people's minds as a big tit. Fitting!
The entertaining thing with the diesel deal is that the amount announced equates to around half a day's demand in the US IIRC.
The desperation over how badly he's sunk his own support base is quite astonishing, although not as much as his refusal to make a deal with Canada over it.
CH
Interesting theory. Labour's main problem is surviving the next election. Not until Aug 29, just under 3 years hence. Many a slip etc. Bit of a poisoned chalice for anyone. A lot depends on what happens over the pond.
Looked at the Conservative factions and you can see why Redwood et al are making a noise about EU. Getting panties in a wad. I doubt very much Burnham has any serious plans to 'rejoin'. Maybe a few more alliances. Seems the Tories are content to leave their own mouthfoamers to stew in their own juice so long as they don't upset the 2029 apple cart.
Labour seems less well defined. The far left kept well suppressed and the Jewish lobby keeps the rest fearful and thus in line.
Economically neither side seems to have much to offer. A bit of a disaster was jumping the gun over renewable electricity supply. Got captured by poor regulation and misguided economic incentives for something we had no real rush to get into. And no, we didn't make a pile flogging windmills or fancy economic modelling.
Can't see shifting the Overton window leftwards is going to help get elected, which is all that matters. But it might be useful to give that impression.
As for deserving, yes Polanski deserves it.
He knew what he was getting into, and felt he had the skills, he got to enjoy the smooth, he now gets to endure the rough.
I doubt he had any sympathy for when Farage got his deserved media roughhousing, and that should have shown him what happens when the media turns.
CH
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