Five Most Popular Posts in April

Some might find the 25th anniversary of New Labour's famous election victory worth celebrating. To be honest, as a government that moved with alacrity to introduce tuition fees and cut social security for single parents, you'd be better off remembering the most popular comings and goings on this blog for the last week.

1. Talk About a Revolution
2. How Boris Johnson Can Be Forced to Quit
3. Propaganda and Ukraine
4. The Assassination of Rishi Sunak
5. Privatising Channel 4

We begin our retrospective of April with Keir Starmer's unforced remarks about how it's "not revolutionary" to ask (not even demand) for support to help with the cost of living. Why even use this language? Why was he almost apologising for going on rising food and fuel prices? This was followed by a quick reflection on what might force the Prime Minister from office. The answer would have been the resignation of Rishi Sunak. But as he didn't fall on his sword the window has closed on this route for seeing Johnson off. But with two tricky by-elections, council elections, and more fixed penalty notices to look forward to the moment of peril isn't over yet. We then moved to the more serious business of the war in Ukraine and thinking through the fog of war and the propaganda that aids it. Sadly, for too many on the left, their tendency to goodie and baddie politics, of putting an anti-imperialist plus wherever NATO, the US, and the British government put a plus leads then into cheerleading for Putin. And at the foot of the table this month was a consideration of Nadine Dorries's plan to privatise Channel 4 to own the libs.

A couple for the second chance saloon today, and they're both to do with France. There's a look at the first round of the presidential election results in light of the theory of immaterial labour as bandied about these parts. Did the numbers confound the theory? No. But for added stress testing we had a butcher's at last Sunday's results too in case they offered a possible refutation. After all, the old and the very young went for the "liberal candidate" while working age people didn't. And the answer is ... they didn't. Read more.

Thanks muchly for reading this blog. Feel free to recommend to friends, acquaintances, comrades, and colleagues. I'm not a bad follow on social media either. And if you're inclined to, there is now a Patreon page. Pledges begin at £1/month, so there's never any need to break the bank. Unless you're Mackenzie Scott and fancy bankrolling this place to the tune of hundreds of thousands.

Next month there's going to be more Tory scandal, stupidity and cunning. More than likely the same from the Labour Party as well. Eurovision is happening in May so expect the preview next weekend, and - in nine posts' time - we'll be hitting the magic 4,000th post. Now that's a lot of lost evenings. Watch out for the special post to mark the occasion.

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