Phew, what a month! The five most read posts were:
1. On the Doors in Stoke Central
2. Is the Corbyn Moment Over?
3. At the Stoke Central Hustings
4. On Labour's Victorious Campaign in Stoke
5. Lies, Damned Lies, and Paul Nuttall
Crazy horses! Last month recorded 118,000 page views, making it the second highest on record. Would the blog like a base of 4,200 page views a day from here on in? You bet it would. As the story of the battle of Stoke-on-Trent Central fades from the memory and becomes the preserve of ragged trousered oral historians in the local party, and skinny jeaned politics geeks elsewhere, the normal service of calmly commenting on Britain's chaotic politics - among other things - continues.
Amid February's hurly burly, there are probably a few posts you missed. But the one I think you should read, and I hope to expand on in the future, is this on Labour and insecurity. Until we sort that problem out we can look forward to the Tories walking all over us, regardless of who is sitting in the leader's office.
Of course the great big fat tartam elephant in our room is the PLP's collective dismissive and arrogant attitudes towards Labour members, the unions, the working class, voters, and Keynesian economics. This party is going absolutely nowhere until we achieve unity in Parliament. Absolutely nowhere. Everything else is mere detail.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I think Ken Loach speaks a lot of good sense as regards post-industrial insecurity:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/28/dont-blame-corbyn-sins-blair-brown-new-labour?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
He seems to believe that economic insecurity trumps everything though. From my time on the doors in Sheffield last year: it doesn't. Labour has to get the identity stuff right. We are a divided party; and the Tories are simply much better at rhetorical messaging directed towards the Ds and Es at the emotional level. It's big a problem for both the left and right of the party.
Look forward to reading your posts.
Phil your blog has become essential reading, it was a wonderful source during Stoke Central by election campaign. Cheers comrade, by the way saw you in a video recently you’re a handsome young man to ;-)
ReplyDeleteIt's general insecurity and anxiety *underpinned* by rapid economic change that's key - it's not a straight one-on-one correspondence.
ReplyDeleteAnd Mick ... what are you after? ;)