Feeling a bit blocked on the writing front to be honest. Which isn't great when a book chapter about the crisis of the Conservatives is due this Saturday. Ho hum.
Past experience suggests that when I moan about "not feeling it" or having "nothing to say", it's enough to uncork the barrel and watch the torrents of words spill forth. Here's to hoping this is one of those occasions.
On the radar of things I'd like to talk about is the gamed petition calling for a general election, calls on Labour to reverse their tax plans, the decision to let Ukraine use long-range missiles on Russia, the further growth of Bluesky as an alternative to Twitter and the long-unusable Facebook, and something on a rather good science fiction novel I polished off recently. If I can't even manage to write a wee comment on current affairs, weightier pieces or bad tempered evicerations of the government aren't about to land.
Anyway, just to let you know I am alive and this place remains a going concern. But in the mean time, any suggestions for getting the writing flowing again will be gratefully received.
It sounds like you have too many things to write about, so it's difficult to start on one of them. How about: make a list of them, and pick one randomly and write about that? See what happens
ReplyDeleteThe great thing about that petition is that it's only the third-biggest of the system's history, and the two biggest (which were quite a lot bigger) were against Brexit.
ReplyDeleteA good time for everyone to be reminded of that a lot, methinks.
How about how we are in hoc to economists and their way of thinking. I read Dan Davies' unnacountability machine recently. His criticism of economists is that they create a simple model of how the world works, gather the evidence to support it (selectively) and apply it regardless of consequences.
ReplyDeleteOoo what about a pithy guide to ideologies? I'll start you off with two from Chris Dillow:
ReplyDeleteScooby Doo ideology - the notion that the economy would have succeeded if it weren't for those meddling kids. It overlooks an important possible direction of causality - that it is our economic problems that have fuelled the rise of bureaucracy, not just vice versa.
Financial regulation has increased because the 2008 financial crisis showed us that banks cannot regulate themselves. Other industry regulators such as Ofgem and Ofwat (which are in effect agents of the industries they purport to oversee) exist because there's no effective market to regulate the industries. The Food Standards Agency was created in response to fears about food safety: the salmonella and mad cow scares.
Centrist utopianism - an unquestioned belief that society is perfectible if only we had wiser people in charge.
You could conduct a thought experiment to calm your mind. You resigned from Labour before the election. Consider its first 16 weeks in power and the actions it has taken. Which one of them would have caused you to resign - 2 child police, winter fuel, support for Israel, migration policy, tax policy, ignoring P&Os sackings, Lammy calling for one thing in Opposition and renaging in power, rockets in Ukraine. It is a rich field of lost illusions.
ReplyDeleteIf you can't write, play a video game instead (and then write about that, once you have formed opinions about it)?
ReplyDeleteAlright, I have a question for you that might get the juices flowing.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you see as the concrete differences between Tory Party decline and Labour Party decline? Why is one systemic and the other one isn't?