Revolt of the Rural Rich

There's been a lot of rubbish written in the right wing press about the budget and the changes made to farmers' inheritance liabilities. Taking to their tractors for a demonstration in London on Monday, there were joined by self-confessed tax dodger Jeremy Clarkson and, among other things, drove one of their machines through a police barrier. Needless to say, Just Stop Oil activists have been handed hefty sentences for less. On the substance of the changes, the National Farmers' Union and its wealthier patrons are acting like the sky's about to fall in. Whereas other analyses, not just those proffered by the government, are in agreement that only a small minority of farmers will be required to cough up under the new rules. This, predominantly, is a revolt of the rural rich.

Thinking back over the future of the Tories last year, I argued that with a Commons wipe out we were bound to see extra-parliamentary movements of the right mobilise against the new Labour government around real and imagined grievances. This happened far quicker than anyone expected in the summer, but it had been glowing and flaring in the embers of the dying Tory government. There were, for instance, the anti-ultra low emission zone protests and the attendant "direct action" of vandalising and ripping up enforcement cameras in London. And we don't have to look too far back in the past to recall the blockade of refineries in 2000 and the Countryside Alliance march a couple of years later. Ostensibly against the ban on hunting with hounds this was a coat peg for a cagoule full of anti-townie grievances. Not all of which were unwarranted.

The coverage of the "plight" of wealthy land owners reminds us whose mouthpiece the media is, but it's a warning. It's easy to mock the likes of Clarkson and James Dyson, for whom their investments in agricultural land is to save their well heeled offspring from a tax bill when their clogs are popped, but what Labour and the left have to be wary of is the capacity of capital to mobilise a wider constituency. Rachel Reeves's taxes on unearned income has already driven the right to apoplexy because she has dared touch the lynchpin of their class power. But this is enough to stir up petit bourgeois layers as well, even though they're not caught by the inheritance tax take nor likely to ever be. For them it's a statement of intent, a declaration that the government might come for their more modest incomes next - in much the same way pledges to raise income tax on the highest earners sends jitters through the next layer down. It plays into their fears, and despite promising to be the most pro-business government ever, there are sections of capital, big and small, that are instinctively worried about a Labour government because of its class basis.

Therefore, as wealthy landowners mobilise their well of concerns - tax, subsidies, minimum prices, DEFRA regulations and inspections, townie arrogance - it's like casting seed onto particularly fertile soil when Labour are in office. Contrast this with how the Tories shafted farmers without any blowback from the right wing press, or self-appointed celebrity friends of farmers, nor much action from the NFU itself beyond strongly worded lobbying.

Labour and the labour movement aren't necessarily helpless, but they are if the ground is ceded to the rural rich. Already, the government have decided to push managerial over political messaging when it comes to controversial issues, a decision that renders it vulnerable in the medium to long-term. But there are advantages to be accrued from driving a wedge, which the inheritance tax changes are, between the majority of farmers and the layer of wealthy land owners. One would be the disincentive of the tax dodging rich to pile up agricultural holdings and encouraging sales, sending the ever increasing value of land into reverse and freeing up more for farming at the expense of land banking. The unionisation of agricultural workers, of which several drives are ongoing, is another, of making the presence of organised labour felt in the countryside - particularly among migrant workers who are often at the sharp end of the most exploitative contracts and employer abuses, could also work against the political influence the rural rich enjoy in their manors.

The art of politics is not just about winning, but demobilising one's opponents and preventing them from taking a lead on issues under your control. The handling of the so-called farmers' protest suggests that the ruthlessness the Labour leadership has shown its internal opponents is conspicuously lacking where those outwith its ranks are concerned. But with only a thin layer of votes to fall back on, if they want to be in for at least a decade to fulfil Keir Starmer's "missions" they're going to have to take this more seriously.

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Hacking the State

Writing in the Sunday Times, Kemi Badenoch has set out her vision of what government would look like if she becomes Prime Minister. The principles, which she calls "reprogramming the state" could be more accurately described as hacking it. Into smaller and smaller pieces.

In her argument, Badenoch does not attack the people who work for the state. Her target is bureaucratic process. Drawing on her time as business secretary, she says the inability to pay out compensation to the victims of the sub postmasters Horizons debacle in a timely fashion was symptomatic of the problems afflicting the state. Every decision has to be backed by x number of reviews, y gaggles of consultations, and z quantities of impact assessments. Attempts to abbreviate the process would find ministerial decisions subject to court challenge and, therefore, more delay. The risk averse culture afflicting the civil service, she concludes, is not a case of the mindset of staff but their experience of having to satisfy all the reporting requirements. These, Badenoch acknowledges, might have grown out of sensible concerns for accountability and transparency but in practice they only lengthen administrative processes and make them more opaque. The more laws that are passed, the more the state grows, the more the prospect of litigation enlarges, and with it the risk averse culture. A perfect doom loop.

If this is her problem ("I made this diagnosis the central plank of my campaign to become leader"), the solution is reprogramming the state. Government must stop rewarding managerialism among ministers, and every level of the state needs looking at afresh - but "box ticking" and "judicial review" must be avoided if the problem is to go away. In all likelihood improving "accountability", Badenoch style, will be the subject of suggestions churned out by the Tufton Street think tank complex. As well as the churn from Elon Musk's anticipated evisceration of the federal state in the US.

There are a few things of interest here. Or rather, interesting absences. If this is the culture of the state and it's so irksome, the Tories had 14 years to change it so why didn't they? Was it a symptom of talking conservative but governing left? Well, no. There were plenty of changes to governance over that period of time, and all of them embedded the Thatcherite settlement further. I.e. The counter revolution that started under her and was consolidated in the Major and the New Labour years, which saw bits of the state sold off, or forced into debt relationships with private finance, or forced to "compete" in internally constituted "markets" with one another. This was consolidated under the Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition. To put it another way, the proliferation of performance indicators, targets, "market intelligence", and the requisite legal expertise to go alongside them increased the amount of administrative work required. Neoliberalism is the bureaucrat's friend. But this was in the context in which the coalition government slashed at the state. Form filling multiplied as form fillers were laid off. More work was demanded from a shrinking workforce, and so the system was prone to seizing up. This is the first "inefficiency" Badenoch "forgot" to mention in her article.

The paradigm of this consolidation of neoliberal governance was the vandalism committed against the NHS during the first term of the Tories' long stint in office. Effectively, Andrew Lansley abolished the NHS as was and replaced it with a market, underwritten by state money, in which NHS organisations and "any willing provider" competed for contracts handed out by the hundreds of fund-holding Clinical Commissioning Groups. This meant huge sums diverted from health care to the maintenance of a wasteful and needless internal market, and rampant profiteering as private health concerns won contracts and subcontracted them to NHS organisations, creaming off layers of profit in the process. This was supposed to run autonomously of government and, formally, responsibility for the NHS no longer lay with the health secretary. As it happened, increasingly CCGs and NHS trusts found ways around the market and established cooperative relationships contrary to the designs of the legislation. With the immediate first wave of Covid out the way, the Tories belatedly discovered this and returned sweeping powers to the health secretary - then Matt Hancock - with unprecedented range to intervene and micromanage. The kind of model Badenoch seems to be hinting at. I.e. Ministerial direction unchecked by established procedures and remits to enhance accountability. And how has the NHS looked since this innovation was introduced? Yet another slice of pertinent recent experience from government the leader of the opposition chose not to dwell upon.

Lastly, completely by coincidence her "reprogramming" of the state is consistent with Tory efforts to wind down its capacity to do things. It bears comparison that Badenoch's view is a reskinned version of Jacob Rees-Mogg's planned civil service cull. In short, the state has not failed because of a magic theory of bureaucracy. It has virtually collapsed because under the Tories this was the policy objective. It has been starved of resources, saddled with extra responsibilities, and forced into a governance strait jacket that could only produce sub-optimal outcomes. And Badenoch's answer is to make this crisis of capacity the desired goal of the next Tory government. Her big idea is the regurgitated pap of the recent past, a programme and an agenda that saw the Tories crash to their heaviest ever defeat.

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Trump's Tory Fifth Column

Already a veritable industry has sprung up advising Keir Starmer how his government might cultivate the second coming of Donald Trump. Should he pivot toward America, get the trade deal signed, and attempt to mitigate the White House's dysfunctions and excesses through the offices of the special relationship? Should the Prime Minister seek instead a closer relationship with the EU, considering the tariffs Trump has vowed to impose on imported goods to tackle inflation helped win him the election. Or should Number 10 try both these things at once, as the Bank's former chief wonk Andy Haldane counsels? Wherever Starmer steers to tread, he has something else to contend with: the yapping of the Tories and the other runts of the right.

Despite suffering their worst result ever, what should have felt like a cataclysm has been received by the Tories as a slap on the wrist by the electorate. They were buoyed up by the fact Labour's popular vote was far from spectacular, and have convinced themselves that to win again they have to turn right and scoop up the support lost to Reform while watching Labour combust in government. The consequences of which will take care of the rest. But one way Labour's immolation might be sped up is by the Tories stirring mischief and trying to cultivate difficulties for Starmer vis a vis the White House.

Not content with destroying Twitter, for some time now Elon Musk has criticised Starmer and Labour. For instance, inside the last month he's said Rachel Reeves's closure of the agricultural land tax loophole is "wrong", and of the investigation into the Telegraph's Allison Pearson over an alleged racist tweet said "This is insane. Make Orwell Fiction Again!!”. Obviously ignorant that the probe is under the direction of social media legislation drafted and implemented by the Tories. Nevertheless, this presents them with an opportunity: lever Trump into opposing UK government policy to undermine its credibility and room for manoeuvre at home and abroad.

An example is the "debate" about the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands. In the summer, the government announced it was formally handing the islands over to Mauritius. The United States would sign a further lease with them on Diego Garcia for its strategically useful air base. In other words, to all intents and purposes nothing changes. The Tories, however, are opposed to the transfer despite negotiating it in the first place. And so, the Telegraph reports, Tory peers are looking at blocking it in the Lords so Trump can come in and veto the decision, thereby thwarting China's schemes for the region - apparently. The real reason is to put Starmer at loggerheads with Trump and force a humiliating climb down that the Tories would politically profit from.

This is how it's going to be for the next four years. For all the froth about "sovereignty" that underpinned the "long-held" and "genuinely felt" principles behind Brexit, and the denunciations of "foreign courts" and the European Convention during the Tory leadership contest, this goes out of the window for the Tories and their cultivation of Trump. Yes it's hypocritical and, in conservatism's own terms, arguably anti-British if not treasonous. But this isn't because of ideology, of a congruence of ideas between the Tories here and the extremism of Trump's Republicans. More important is the perceived commonality of interests.

Trump is set on shredding the federal state for the profit of America's oligarchs, and his appointments - as irrational and as crazy as they appear - reflect this ambition. The sum total of all "small state" politics is the same: run down state capacity in everything but law and order and the military, force people to provide for themselves if they can or somehow survive if they cannot, and the horizon of politics is levelled down. Why demand anything from the state if it simply cannot deliver what meagre social responsibilities it has left? This was Rishi Sunak's project, and is now Trump's. Though this being the USA everything has to be bigger. While Labour with Reeves in Number 11 is never going to nationalise the top 100 monopolies nor, for that matter, break with business-centric politics, for the Tories her taxation of unearned income is a step too far. It's not that the people the Tories represent can't afford it, they fret that any measure, no matter how modest, that touches the core of class relations in British capitalism can only lead to more demands. If capital gains tax is increased now, what's to stop if from going up tomorrow? And having implemented one set of tax rises, what's going to stop Labour from introducing more aimed at property, share income, rentals etc. in the future? That way, they fear, lies a shift in the balance of forces that the Tories have done so much to right after the shocks of Brexit, Corbynism, and Covid.

Let's not over egg the pudding. Most of business are broadly supportive of Starmer's modernisation project. But the rump Tory party, the most conscious, far-sighted, but paranoid section of their class worry that Labour might uncork all manner of genies with political consequences that will echo down the years. That's why this government has to be brought to heel. If that means constantly sucking up to and petitioning Trump and his allies to do Britain down, put pressure on diluting or abandoning the mildest of social democratic policies, and showing up this country's claims to sovereignty as a joke, this is what they will do. The national interest, their national interest demands no less.

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Why the Migration to Bluesky Matters

Is this the end? Since the result of the US presidential elections, people leaving Twitter has reached a torrent and those signing up to Bluesky has exploded. 611m active users vs 15m shows the newcomer has a way to go before Elon Musk's plaything is eclipsed, but for many people - the very active users who are the core holding Twitter together - their defection has a disproportionate disaggregating effect. Not unlike those so-called "hero voters", the defectors from the Tories to Labour, that got Morgan McSweeney and friends excited. And if all the interesting content creators are migrating, their following will take wing too.

It couldn't have happened to a nicer billionaire. When Musk took Twitter over, its descent into dysfunctionality was rapid as he ripped out the staff and the infrastructure that made it a viable platform for big business advertisers. Instead, Musk substituted them for the peppercorn income of opt-in subscriptions and AI photo enhancement adverts. A year later, it was clear which direction the site under his stewardship was heading, and now what was previously Twitter's dark underbelly is the side it always shows to the sun.

Some have argued that as far as Musk was concerned, the site has served its purpose. He levered it to hand himself a plum position directing the oligarchical shakedown of the United States, but to argue that this was why he acquired Twitter in the first place affords him too much credit. He tried pulling out of the purchase, and was only able to carry through with it after getting Gulf oil interests and sundry banks on board. One might assume they would like a return on their investment. You could say they have with the most openly ecocidal president ever elected due to take office, but the point is none of this was pre-ordained or part of a master game plan. Like all billionaires and their toys, Musk found a way to get Twitter to serve his class interests, and that's how it will be until forever, or to the time when the site winks out.

No one can be blamed for not wanting a part of this. Even more so seeing as the new terms of service means that in two days' time, all messages posted to Twitter will be tossed into the data-hungry maw of Grok - Musk's AI/fancy plagiarism effort. It looks like I'll be spending a bit more time at the new place. This has, of course, invited some whingeing and moaning about the abandonment of Twitter. Dan Hodges, who if I recall correctly, was the first British politics commentator to marry performative 'just asking questions' stupidity with deep cynicism on the site, chides "the left" on leaving a platform it deemed influential on the outcome of the US election. And then we have Nick Tyrone who reckons the left is ceding Twitter to the right, thereby setting up the conditions for further defeats.

This is to not understand how Twitter is, or rather was, used. For Britain, like for many countries, its appeal was never generalised in relative terms as per Facebook but grew up catering for already connected communities of interest. It was, and for the moment remains essential infrastructure for how politics is done, for communicating lines to take, information exchange, and the breaking of news stories. With the Graun's announcement that it's downgrading its presence, that's the first sign this ecosystem is under pressure. As it and others begin their drift from Twitter to Bluesky, these channels of networked communication will have to spread across and keep a foot on both platforms. In other words, Musk's devastation of Twitter and the corresponding reaction has meant he's made a direct competitor for his site viable and one that can only become increasingly essential to pay attention to as British politics sets more of its shop up there. The "staying and fighting" perspective is therefore obsolete. This is not like the left and the Labour Party, it's a shift in the digital architecture of how politics is done. If you want to carry on getting attention in the attention economy, staying on Twitter only won't cut the mustard from this moment on.

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The Awful Dissonance of Orbital Resonance

When the world is maddening, why not sublimate that anger into a critique of an obscure science fiction novel from 33 years ago? Okay, but as it happens John Barnes's Orbital Resonance did not pass the SF reading public by at the time. Far from being one that got away, it was in the running for a James Tiptree Jr award and a Nebula in 1991 and 1992, was plastered with blurb from the likes of Poul Anderson and Orson Scott Card, and was variously and favourably compared by reviewers with Robert A Heinlein's juvenile novels. That should make for a good, or at least an interesting book, right?

Apart from the the two Donaldsons earlier this year, this is the worst novel I've read since embarking on the SF quest. On paper, Barnes's book sounds intriguing. In the far off future of 2025, the world has been devastated by the "Eurowar", resource depletion, and a megadeath "mutAIDS" pandemic. On the plus side, a new spirit of cooperation is abroad. All nations have scrapped their arms, and an international effort is underway to colonise the solar system with a view to rebuilding society on Earth. Instead of being at loggerheads, humanity is pulling in one direction.

Melpomene is a 13 year old girl whose family has moved onto The Flying Dutchman, a hollowed out asteroid that plies the trading route to Mars. Free from the constraints of Earth, the crew are tasked with building a new society. Families were screened beforehand to admit certain personality types, who would end up raising children best suited for a particular niche in the burgeoning interplanetary society. Melpomene, for instance, finds out during the course of the book that she's being groomed for some kind of mayoral role while Randy, her sort-of boyfriend is primed for the officer ranks. Education consists of constant testing and being shuffled around temporary teams. This applies whether one is taking maths, Earth history, or playing aerocrosse - a low gravity sport where four teams compete but can (and do) make temporary alliances with one another. This, it is subsequently revealed, is to try and build a post-capitalist society by digging out the root of generalised commodity production: individualism. After scrapes arising from bullying, rivalries, flunking tests, and parental tension, the adult crew abruptly decide to get off the ship at Mars and leave - having decided their Earth-bound neuroses were drags on and causing dysfunctions among their children. The kids are so alright they can build socialism without their folks around.

That is all there is to the book. If it wasn't for the aerocrosse scenes, which read like badly bowdlerised and diluted battle sphere scene from Ender's Game, a race her Melpomene's brother wins on the outside of the rock, and the jarring insertion of future speak, this could easily be a twee high school drama. And nothing ever happens. The Heinlein comparisons are understandable (some might day because of his clumsy characterisation), but unlike Citizen of the Galaxy or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, where the SF contrivances are central to the plotting, in Orbital Resonance they read like badly sutured grafts. This could, be forgiven if the rendering of dialogue and relationships were any good, but they're not. The cast is wooden and not believable, and that's fatal if the work wants the whizz bangs of cognitive estrangement to play second fiddle to the exploration of the human condition and character study. Melpomene, as a 13 year old school girl, is probably the least convincing viewpoint character I've ever read.

What really grates is the poor effort Barnes makes to address adult themes. The not infrequent swearing suggests this is not really aimed at youngsters. But piling on the cringe, if not the shudders, is the purient treatment of burgeoning sexuality. A few times Melpomene sees girls her age around her age naked, and Barnes has her pondering when she's going to start developing like her ample contemporaries. If that wasn't bad enough, this clearly pre-pubescent 13 year-old has a couple of masturbation scenes slotted int without any warning The past is a foreign country, not an alien planet. This was not acceptable in the early 90s, so what was Barnes, his publishers, and those who penned the sparkling reviews thinking it was fine to include them? These creepy asides make the book much worse and far from appropriate to the age groups this was aimed at.

There are three more books in this setting, with its sequel - Kaleidoscope Century - containing rape and murder, despite also being marketed at kids. Start as you mean to go on, I suppose. Of course, awful things happen and believable fictional universes often reflect the world to say something about it. Here, Barnes is saying nothing. This is a 198-page trudge through the humdrum lives of school children who never do anything interesting. As if to make up for it, Barnes turns authorial sex pest and we get voyeuristic glimpses a young girl's body. One to leave on the shelf unopened with, by the sounds of it, the rest of his Century Next Door series.

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Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike & Tiësto & Dido & W&W - Thank You (Not So Bad)

This is great, but please explain to me how it took five people to come up with such a straightforward remix of Dido's tune?

Amsterdamned

Since Israel began its genocide against the Palestinians, Western politicians and their slavish media have gone out of the way to prettify the crimes of their client. This has meant bucke tloads of hypocrisy, outright lying, and tanking their election hopes in defence of state interests. But amid the butchery and the cowardly defences of war crimes, there has never been a more distorted, openly propagandistic piece of reporting about and reaction to what happened in Amsterdam last night.

In case you haven't been on social media today, for the last three days footy hooligans attached to Maccabi Tel Aviv have rampaged through the Dutch capital. They have attacked Arab and Arab-looking passers-bys, caved in the windows of buildings flying Palestinian flags, and sought at every turn to provoke fights with locals. At the match they disrupted the minute's silence for victims of the flooding in Valencia, and before and after tore through Amsterdam shouting "death to Arabs!" and mocked the bombing of children in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. And so fists and boots of the away fans were met by the boots and fists of the home end. A common or garden tale of football-related violence from a team that has a far right firm, and no more newsworthy than that. Until it became something else.

On Friday morning, the Israeli press reported the IDF were sending a team to Amsterdam to rescue citizens from a "pogrom". Taking the cue, virtually the entire West European media followed suit, describing shocking levels of "antisemitism" and the "hunting down" of Israelis. This BBC report is typical, describing how "youths" used scooters in hit-and-run attacks on innocent footy fans. The Dutch king typified the one-sided denunciation of the violence, siding with foreign thugs over his subject's right to self-defence. The rest of establishment politics have weighed in, with David Lammy denouncing "last night’s antisemitic attacks on Israeli citizens in Amsterdam." The Holocaust Education Trust invoked the memory of Kristallnacht, a phrase Benjamin Netanyahu also used in an address this evening. To put things into context, the complete twisting of what's happened was so bad that even the Daily Mail couldn't go along with it.

Israel is a dependent of the West, and knows how to play its patrons to keep the flow of weapons and money coming. In the UK's case, while the government has acknowledged that a catastrophe has unfolded they've framed it in such as if they were talking about a natural disaster. They have not attached any blame to Netanyahu's actions, nor the mass enthusiasm there is in Israel for the Palestinian genocide. Having been partners in supporting Israeli operations since it launched its first air strikes, they can't go back on the crimes they are now associated with. Admitting hesitancy in backing Israel on anything threatens to open the damming operation official politics has erected around the aftermath of the 7th October attacks. So far the political damage of supporting Israel resulted in the loss of one Tory home secretary and Labour's underperformance at the general election, including losses to the Greens and the left. The last thing the government and the official opposition want are the full facts splayed across broadcast news programmes, opening up a new avenue of political pressure. The consequences could be strengthening Palestinian solidarity mobilisations and the moving of their complicity in murder up the range of salient issues. Not a place they want to be in because they know it's completely indefensible, which is why they don't bother to try.

Hence they'll be glad Israel has led the way in portraying the aggressors as the victims. It's not as though it hasn't had plenty of practice. And, handily, this exercise in crude propaganda occasioned Israel's announcement that the residents of northern Gaza will not be allowed to return to their homes. What a coincidence. By entirely distorting what has happened in Amsterdam and confecting a pogrom where none existed, Israel benefits from its continuing efforts at equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism, and Western foreign policy establishments and their political masters gain from having their support for Israel put beyond reproach. Though, as they know, the desperation of running this sort of interference cannot stand indefinitely in the age of social media. They are putting off today what they will have to answer for tomorrow.

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Kemi Badenoch at Prime Minister's Questions

Because of events, dear boy, people could be forgiven for missing Kemi Badenoch's debut at Prime Minister's Questions. Some of us didn't though and took one foe the team. The questions going into the session were how might she introduce herself to a wider public, and would she set the tone for her leadership of the Conservative Party?

The answer to both questions was yes. To give Badenoch her due, she appeared to genuinely relish the moment - even if her jibes were easily batted away by Keir Starmer, not known for being fleet of foot and given to rhetorical flourishes. Going with yesterday's US presidential results, Badenoch pledged her commitment to "constructive opposition" and then ham-fistedly needled Starmer about David Lammy's recent past disparaging remarks about Donald Trump. "Will he be apologising?" she asked. The Prime Minister replied with mention of the constructive dinner they'd both had with the president (re-)elect and almost chastised her for trying to point score where there is traditionally consensus. Badenoch wasted three of her questions without landing a glove. She then moved on to military spending, and claimed it did not merit a mention in the budget - a demonstrable untruth. And she finished off attacking the changes to farmers' inheritance tax, which does not affect most farmers and is designed to close a tax loophole. One that Jeremy Clarkson proudly announced he was taking advantage of a decade ago, and is upset he can't carry on his fiddle.

In fairness, Badenoch has a tough gig. But this first outing showed zero deviation from the right wing path she took through the leadership race. When Trump's ratings among the British public are on the floor, it seems few would expect anything from Starmer other than a pragmatic approach to the incoming administration. There is nothing to be gained domestically from championing the egregious sucking up approach that Badenoch touted. Her false claims about military spending were a clumsy missive trying to tie Labour - a loyal party of forever wars - to perceptions of weakness, if not outright pacifism. And from her final shot championing the farmers, she committed the Tories to her second policy - reversing Rachel Reeves's measure and granting rich landowners a generous tax cut.

There were no clever politics here or new thinking. Given the choices available to her party, it's beyond any doubt that she thinks going right, peeling off supporters from Reform, and somehow attracting disgruntled punters on Labour's margins is the way back after one term in opposition. It's not totally mad, but nor does it do anything to address the Tories' long term problems of decline and the shrinking base of mass conservatism. If Badenoch has started as she means to go on, chances are Labour have very little to worry about when election time swings around again.

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The Failure of the Democrats

Up until the votes were counted, things were looking positive for the Democrats. According to early voting, demographics that were predisposed toward Kamala Harris were turning out in record numbers. And those straws in the wind, the positive polling and encouraging rumours, that all ended with the counting. With over 10% of ballots to be counted at the time of writing, Trump easily got over the electoral college votes despite his popular vote standing still. The Democrats, however, are on track for losing well over 10 million votes. So many congratulations to them for failing against the worst presidential candidate who ran, technically speaking, the worst campaign in American political history.

Unsurprisingly, social media is awash with recrimination. Most of which attacks American voters as thick, evil, misogynistic, racist, and so on. Voting for Trump and Republican candidates is a character flaw up there with KKK hoods and membership of the NRA. It's irredeemable, the world isn't what it should be, and everything is doomed to get worse. What is absent is a willingness on the part of the Democrats and their cheerleaders either side of the Atlantic to deal seriously with the causes of defeat.

Three things are obvious when it comes to explaining this result. The first is an apparent reassertion of the old adage that oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them. For all Trump's awfulness, he wasn't the one on trial here. Joe Biden, Harris, and the Democrats were, and a majority of voters found them wanting. For one, the Democrats are the party of forever wars. The appeal of MAGA isolationism is an extrication from foreign entanglements and using billions expended in arming US clients for priorities closer to home. Trump is likely to withdraw support from Ukraine, as promised, while continuing to give Israel a free hand - or attempting to impose a peace that recognises the annexation of the occupied territories as reward for continuing to be the State Department's loyal gendarme. Either way it's the deal-making/war-ending/peace-through-strength vibes that matter. Relatedly, the disgusting assistance Biden's government has rendered Israel's genocide did, as forecast, demobilise Arab-heritage and left-progressive voters when the US could have decided otherwise. Just as anyone who voted for the Harris ticket because it was the lesser of two evils cannot be blamed for doing so, likewise no one can be criticised for not having the stomach for supporting hand wringing participants in a terrible and ongoing crime.

And there is our old friend the economy. On the surface, Biden has a good story to tell what with stimulus cheques and the job growth following the Inflation Reduction Act. But the problem, as the Tories found here, is how people feel now about their prospects. This is where the Democrats are on shaky ground. Americans faced an inflationary tide as well, and it's only in the last few months that real wages have risen above the rate. In other words, too short a time to feel the difference and certainly not enough to offset the price increases of the last couple of years. Yet the Democrats were content to waffle on about numbers and GDP without appreciating the cost-of-living concerns that persuaded millions of punters to give the tangerine crook another shot. Why? Again, Trump is no friend of the workers, but at least he pantomimed a concern for the lot of ordinary people and recognised incomes were stretched for millions. Had the Democrats allowed Tim Waltz a longer leash as someone who did have the charisma and common touch to connect with those concerns, it could have had an effect. But no, briefcase sensiblism and flattery toward American's middle class was what the smart politics demanded.

Thirdly, there is The Men. A lot has been made of Trump's misogyny and how that won over not insignificant numbers of Latino and African-American men. But this wasn't simply a matter of hurling insults at Harris, denigrating women, and going hard on abortion. It demonstrated the successful exploitation of the class dimension of gender politics. The crisis in masculinity is less a consequence of women claiming theirs and making men pay, but more a matter of the changed political economy. In contemporary capitalism, the shift in the ideal-typical or "hegemonic" worker from the (masculine) industrial worker to the networked socialised worker whose immaterial labour produces knowledge, data, care, and services is not without consequences for gender. It was and is the case that normative femininity and masculinity has been foisted on children long after the political economy of the advanced states, including the USA, decisively shifted away from industrial to post-industrial economies. This has meant generations of men coming into a world where the privileged wages of masculinity are not as readily available in the labour market. The dominance of immaterial labour has proceeded alongside a certain "feminisation" of work, which has meant younger men have to compete with women on increasingly equal terms for jobs, and that women are better equipped for the emotional labour and sociability that is part and parcel of work today.

As such, the promises of masculine privilege many men expect have gone unmet. Most men growing into this accept the changed reality, but significant minorities do not. Hence the explosion of misogynistic communities online, along with mass audiences for influencers that demand the return of masculine entitlements. The Trump campaign has leaned into this, but there's a more subtle appeal at work here. In places like Pennsylvania and other rust belt states, the rhetoric about repatriating manufacturing and creating "real jobs" is a call back to the industrial, masculine mass worker of the assembly line and steel mill. It's about a promise of restoring the old gendered political economy where the men went to work in manly jobs, and brought home enough money to provide for a family. It's where socialism meets social conservatism, where good jobs meant fixed gender roles and a strong purpose for men. Again, it doesn't matter that Trump will bring none of this back. What's gone is gone, and most re shored manufacturing is highly automated and relatively jobless. But this is the interplay of vibes the right are adept at playing with, and Trump's team are no different. They won't deliver, but it was a promise that helped see off the Democrats and returned The Donald to the White House.

Taken in sum, none of this is groundbreaking stuff. Political science is not rocket science. A government going out of its way to demobilise its base never ends well. Angering natural supporters and dumping on liberal and humanitarian values while pretending to be the custodian of constitutionalism and the rules-based international order is mind-searingly stupid. Presiding over galloping inflation and flatlining wages, and carrying on as if they don't matter is more insane than anything Trump has said on the campaign trail. If the Democrats were serious about winning, they should have looked into the recent past and remembered how it was done in 2020. Instead of going for the repeat, they told left wing and progressive voters to vote for them or else, and gave every impression they didn't care for how tough millions of Americans have found life since Covid and the cost of living crisis. The Democrats lost the election on their own terms, and they're guaranteed not to draw a single lesson from the experience.

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The Insanity of American Politics

Kamala Harris and the Democrats should be sailing their way to a second term in the White House. Especially when faced with the unhinged Donald Trump campaign, easily the most racist and misogynistic effort mounted by the Republicans in recent times. Here in Britain, when a party last presented itself as the representative of capital in its naked glory it was sent packing. In the United States, the same is within spitting distance of winning. The polls, naturally, are no help. Early voting projections, MRPs, and polls by reputable local surveys suggest anything from a narrow to a handy lead for Harris with boosted turn outs from constituencies one would expect to lean the Democrats' way. And there are others suggesting Trump will just about edge it. In 48 hours we'll have a good idea which way the electorate jumped.

There shouldn't be any doubt, but there is. It is often said the Democrats do a bad job of talking up their achievements, and you would think that under Joe Biden, before his forced retirement they would have a good story to tell. The US economy is expanding faster than any other major advanced industrial nation. Biden has got inflation back under control and real wages are growing again. Unemployment has decreased since the summer and vacancies are on the rise. Yet, clearly, "it's the economy, stupid" isn't working as it should.

The Democrats got themselves into two difficulties. Just like the so-called centre left across Europe, they've tried leaning into immigration. The Trump-era walls, detention areas, cages, and border militias have got through the last four years untouched, and none of it has stopped people from coming. Their adoption of a Fortress America approach is on a hiding to nothing. They could have moved to neutralise the issue by, again, challenging the assumptions that right wing anti-immigration politics rests on. It wouldn't be a panacea, but the job is to diffuse it as an issue and limit its mobilising appeal for the right. Treating it as a technocratic, managerial issue only invites accusations of failure or, at worst, feed racist great replacement narratives. A lesson Labour here would do well to heed, but it won't.

And then on the left has been the utter disgrace and hypocrisy over Gaza and Israel's massacre of the Palestinians. Or, to be more accurate, the US State Department's attacks on civilians in the occupied territories and Lebanon. That you have celebrities, such as Michael Moore, running around the rust belt states pleading with left wingers and Arab-Americans not to vote for third party candidates demonstrates the unerring ability of the Democrats to put the US state's interest before those of their political careers. You would never catch anyone on team Trump being so foolish. Luckily for Harris, as forecast the Democrats haven't put a woman's right to an abortion on a legislative footing because, in the absence of positive messaging, they needed it in the tack to power progressive voters to the ballot box. And the early forecasts seem to indicate this cynical delay has worked out as intended. Early voting reports suggest bigger than usual turnouts from women.

Looking over at Trump, no candidate anywhere has ever run such a disastrous campaign and still remained within a shout of winning. Never underestimate the power of blowjob mimes and rambling delivery, I guess. Racism and misogyny is the glue that keeps his effort together, though one would think his anti-politics edge was blunted by the disastrous years spent in the White House. Not least his negligence during the initial wave of the Covid pandemic, which disproportionately impacted the conspiracy-tinged base of the Republican party and killed them off in their tens of thousands. But what is also interesting is his pull among fellow oligarchs. If fascism is the terroristic and open dictatorship of capital over labour, Trump's programme - often revealed on the hoof - is the closest to it we've seen so far in American politics. He might be incompetent and incapable, but those around him and the billionaires supporting him are looking at using the state to shake down the body politic for billions, if not trillions of dollars. Regulations are to be ripped up, the power of the law circumscribed. The most unhinged American conservatism preaching authoritarian moralism while it ignores the subordination of everything to the cold, hard cash nexus is the dystopic vision of the United States Trump is offering.

Weighing the two up, it's not difficult to see why millions will, again, be fastening on the nose pegs and trudging along to vote for the lesser evil. And given such insanity and without viable alternatives, who can blame them?

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Kemi Badenoch's Precarious Victory

As forecast, Kemi Badenoch won the leadership contest. It's fitting that a politician noted for peddling poisonous politics should grasp the poisoned chalice that is the Conservative Party. If there was any consolation for outside observers to this most abysmal (some might say abyssal) of contests and who care about transparency and honesty in politics, it's that Tory party members saw through Jackanory Jenrick's cynical posturing. He ran the most dishonest and right wing campaign ever run by a Tory leadership candidate, and it got rejected. Albeit in favour of the contender that genuinely believes this drivel.

During the campaign Badenoch repeatedly disgraced herself and her party by thinking aloud ridiculous positions guaranteed to keep the Tories in the slow lane. A reminder that she described maternity pay as a burden, questioned the minimum wage and made disparaging remarks about carers, suggested conservative students were victimised by our red base universities, and that she became working class after a brief stint working at McDonald's. She's almost a case of Nigel Farage meets Walter Mitty. Contrast this with her tone when she took to the podium to accept her victory, she served up the usual waffle about unity, holding Labour to account, winning back voters lost, being honest about "mistakes", and becoming the next government. On the surface a more reasonable, conciliatory approach. Though one doesn't have to spend much time guessing what Badenoch meant by "defending our principles". She rounded off her address by saying the party and the country needed a "new start". And how did this come over in her first interview on Sunday's Laura Kuenssberg? Very much like the old start. Her first policy commitment: reversing the levying of VAT on private school fees.

We know the Conservatives have troubles, but immediately Badenoch has some unique difficulties. Winning 56% to 44% among the membership meant her win was the narrowest since the Tories moved to their present method of electing leaders in 2001 - not the most overwhelming of mandates. More pressing is the parliamentary party arithmetic. In the final round of voting, 42 MPs of the 121 survivors of July's wipe out chose her. 41 went for Jenrick, and 39 for James Cleverly. Going back to the first round she came second with just 22 supporters - about a sixth of the selectorate. This latter figure suggests a very small base of genuine supporters, and that if things go wrong this might not be enough to avoid an Iain Duncan Smith-style fate.

The second problem is that third of the parliamentary party that went for Cleverly. The briefcase wing had their noses put out of joint when their man unexpectedly failed to make it to the final two. I'm not saying they've thrown a fit of pique, but Cleverly and Jeremy Hunt have ruled themselves out from taking a front bench position, and Rishi Sunak and Oliver Dowden are contemplating life outside of politics with resignations expected to land in time for next year's local elections. Having fought and won a campaign to prosecute the culture wars, the centre right-leaning minority in the Commons will be weary of getting too closely involved. Sure, in her Kuenssberg interview Badenoch said she would look at reaching across the party when she appoints her shadow cabinet on Tuesday, and some will be tempted by jobs and the opportunity to try and shape her leadership in a direction they find more congenial. Likewise, because of her position in the party - and the fact just having 121 MPs makes filling all the shadow roles a difficult task. She's going to have to tone down the bullshit to try and keep the party together as a going oppositional concern. But there will be tensions seeing as, throughout the period of the campaign, Badenoch found it irresistible to keep shifting further to the right. With a lengthy period of opposition likely, the prospect of a rapid return to government just isn't there to discipline disgruntled shadow ministers.

And there is the medium term problem of scraping together a coalition that could defeat Labour in four or five years. There is an outside chance that this is possible, but the politics of 2028/9 will have moved on. If this week's budget works and Labour are able to modernise the state further and public sector institutions are properly funded and functioning, then Badenoch's going to have a hard time presenting a coherent alternative that can win over enough of the party's support while also facing down the threat Reform poses the Tories on the right. Doing so requires a certain amount of deft politicking and flexible thinking. Qualities that Badenoch's leadership campaign has shown that the new Tory leader has cavernous deficits in.

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Local Council By-Elections October 2024

This month saw 110,656 votes cast in 61 local authority contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. 27 council seats changed hands. For comparison with October's results, see here.

Party	Number of Candidates	Total Vote	%	+/- Sep	+/- Oct 23	Avge/ Contest	+/- Seats
Conservative	58	30,275	27.4%	+4.4	+4.4	522	+10
Labour	53	24,767	22.4%	-6.3	-6.2	467	-15
Lib Dem	56	23,484	21.2%	+5.6	+1.1	419	+2
Reform*	21	5,933	5.4%	+0.3	+4.9	283	+2
Green	47	12,148	11.0%	-0.9	-5.9	258	+3
SNP**	5	4,467	4.0%	-0.4	+4.0	893	+1
PC***	5	1,618	1.5%	+1.3	+1.5	324	0
Ind****	26	5,473	4.9%	-5.2	+1.8	211	-3
Other*****	22	2,491	2.3%	+1.3	-6.0	113	0

* Reform's comparison results are based on recomputing their tallies from Others over the last month/year
** There were five by-elections in Scotland
*** There were seven by-elections in Wales
**** There were two Independent clashes
***** Others this month consisted of Alba (178), British Unionist (241), Coventry Citizens Party (94), Progressive Change (529), SDP (26, 12), Skegness Urba District Society (79), TUSC (327, 116, 76, 44, 35, 18), UKIP (23, 11), Workers' Party (212, 143, 133, 80, 47, 35, 32)

What a terrible month for Labour. October 2024 is the worst month the party has experienced since May 2021, when all the by-elections postponed during the Covid lockdowns were held. That was at the height of Boris Johnson's powers. This month Labour dropped 15 seats, its worst result outside of that crushing occasion. It's not difficult to see why when the two policies that have had that all-important "cut through" was the winter fuel farce and raising the bus fare cap. Both punitive and mean-spirited, and so local by-election voters have responded as they might. Especially when the elderly disproportionately vote in them. To see the leaderless Tories bounce back in seats gained and winning the popular vote is unconscionable. Naturally, Labour's leadership doesn't care but it should. With its Westminster dominance perched on precarious majaorities, the signs are already there that its precarious foundations are getting eaten away thanks to its arrogance and stupidity. A small gift for Kemi Badenoch then.

Elsewhere, sundry press outlets have got excited by Reform picking up two seats from Labour. This we're supposed to believe heralds a new dawn for British politics. While it is standing in more seats since the general election, its spread so far is less than that enjoyed by UKIP when it was a contender. Despite being better funded, better publicised, and polling slightly better than its predecessor party. And yet again, the fact the Greens performed better and won three seats is ignored by the same.

Next month will probably be a repeat of this month. There are a similar number of by-elections being contested, but with the added effect of 15 of them being in Scotland. That might lead to some interesting distortion effects when it comes to vote share.

3 October
Blackpool, Marton, Ref gain from Lab
Dundee, Lochee, SNP gain from Lab
Dundee, Strathmartine, SNP hold
Lancaster, Scotforth East, Grn gain from Lab

9 October
Powys, Machynlleth, PC gain from Ind

10 October
Coventry, St Michael's, Lab hold
Ealing, Hanger Hill, LDem gain from Con
Ealing, Northolt Mandeville, Lab hold
Ealing, South Acton, Lab hold
Elmbridge, Hersham Village, Con gain from LDem
Elmbridge, Weybridge St George's Hill, Con hold
Fylde, Warton, Con gain from Ind
Harlow, Little Parndon & Town Centre, Lab hold
Leeds, Farnley & Wortley, Grn gain from Lab
Lewes, Wivelsfield, Grn hold
North East Derbyshire, Clay Cross North, Con gain from Lab
North Lanarkshire, Fortissat, Lab hold
North Lanarkshire, Mossend & Holytown, Lab hold
North Northamptonshire, Burton & Broughton, Con hold
Pembrokeshire, The Havens, Con gain from Ind
Runnymede, Addlestone South, Con hold
South Ribble, Bamber Bridge West, Lab hold
Southampton, Shirley, LDem gain from Lab
Suffolk, Hoxne & Eye, Con hold
Worthing, Heene, Con gain from Lab

17 October
Ashford, Aylesford & East Stour, Grn gain from Lab
Bexley, Belvedere, Lab hold
Ceredigion, Tirymynach, LDem hold
Cumberland, Keswick, Lab hold
Cumberland, Wetheral, Con hold
Falkirk, Falkirk South, Lab hold
Greenwich, Eltham Town & Avery Hill, Con gain from Lab
Gwynedd, Llanberis, PC hold
Kirklees, Holme Valley South, Con gain from Lab
North Hertfordshire, Royston Palace, Lab hold
St Albans, Harpenden North & Rural, Con gain from LDem
Stockport, Bredbury Green & Romiley , LDem hold
Stockport, Cheadle West & Gatley, LDem hold
Swindon, Rodbourne Cheney, Con gain from Lab
Westmorland & Furness, Grange & Cartmel, LDem hold
Windsor & Maidenhead, Ascot and Sunninghill, Con hold

24 October
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, Muscliff and Strouden Park, Con gain from Ind
Calderdale, Calder, Lab hold
Crawley, Northgate & West Green, Lab hold
Denbighshire, Prestatyn North, Con gain from Lab
East Lindsey, Croft, Con hold
Gateshead, Whickham North, LDem hold
Isle of Anglesey, Talybolion, Ind gain from PC
Middlesbrough, Hemlington, Lab hold
Monmouthshire, Town, Con gain from Lab
New Forest, Barton & Becton, Con hold
South Cambridgeshire, Histon & Impington, LDem hold
South Ribble, Middleforth, Con gain from Lab
Surrey Heath, Old Dean, LDem gain from Con

31 October
Charnwood, Sileby & Seagrave, Grn hold
Hampshire, Bishops Waltham, LDem gain from Con
Rochdale, North Middleton, Ind hold
Salford, Eccles, Lab hold
Stockport, Bramhall South & Woodhall, Con gain from LDem
Westmorland & Furness, Kirkby Stephen & Tebay, LDem gain from Con
Wolverhampton, Bilston North, Ref gain from Lab

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