Conceiving the Alien

Caspar Geon (AKA Tom Toner)'s The Immeasurable Heaven set off ripples of interest with its promise of a 100% alien cast of characters. Something few other science fiction authors have attempted. The other thing going for this novel is the utterly luscious, life-suffused universe of Yokkun's Depth - the teeming galaxy of the setting. To convey not just the flavour of a galaxy, but of multiple realities sets a new bar for world building in SF, but is that all there is to it?

Set a couple of billion years ago in a galaxy far, far away, the inhabitants of Yokkun's Depth - humanoidish and otherwise - are long used to a more or less peaceful co-existence. In the heart of every star resides the immensely powerful post-machine intelligences, the Throlken. They have manipulated and shaped the galaxy's biological species for over 300m years, and have given it a common language, a light touch governance structure, and a unified economy. There is no war, nor any violence. For Yokkun's Depth is a hyper-Foucauldian space. With swarms of their microscopic servants inhabiting every litre of air and not a few volumes of vacuum, violent acts are stopped by liquefying the perpetrator's brain.

The galaxy has another feature. A well that leads to layers of reality beneath the surface. These can be accessed by falling into the well, or coating oneself in iliquin, a special mineral that punctures the membrance between realities. Messages can be sent up and down the realities, or phaslairs, and they have been variously colonised by what passes for the powers of Yokkun's Depth. The Throlken, for example, are omnipresent in many of them. But the physics of sliding between the layers is one-way. Someone can travel down, but they cannot come up again. Consternation verges on panic when there is a suggestion of someone, or something, has found their way around the laws of reality and are ascending through the phaslairs. How, and more importantly, why, is a complete unknown. Even the all-powerful Throlken are disturbed and none-the-wiser.

This is the set up. A world that heaps one novum on to another in quick succession. The plot revolves around three people. Yib'Wor, who begins the novel scratching an existence out of and trying to escape a dead world, Whirazomar (Whira), an agent sent to the well to investigate and, if needs be, stop the rising entity, and Draebol, a surveyor of phaslairs and the maker of a map of the realities - something that would be sought after, if it was ever to be put up for sale. They are three characters whose paths are sure to cross eventually.

The Immeasurable Heaven is certainly a flavoursome novel. Perhaps too flavoursome given the funky, gunky habits of many of the species we're introduced too. It's well written and has that good-humoured vibe common among contemporary British science fiction writers. The dialogue is spot on, and there are some memorable characters. Such as Gnumph, a "megaspore" who swallows its passengers and stows them in its stomach as it zips about the galaxy. I do think the plot, however, could have been better defined and it is sometimes lost among the verdant prose. Also in common with much current UK SF, multiplicity has a strong presence. But unlike Adrian Tchaikovsky and MR Carey, the plot does not hinge upon it. While the aforementioned draw dynamism from the struggle between, I suppose, territoriality and deterritorialisation, of trying to force everything into a mould versus live-and-let-live, Yokkun's Depth has none of this. The Throlken police violence and they have fenced off sections of the galaxy, but that's more or less the extent of their contemporary involvement. The rising entity certainly conducts its relations with others through a strictly instrumental lens, but its ultimate goal is not about imposing a straitjacket or a prison on the galaxy.

Geon/Toner is forced to impose some reterritorialisation of his own to make a novel out of his book. The aliens are varied and weird, but their cultures and psychologies much less so. Whether an eight-winged monstrosity, a be-slippered centipede analogue, or sentient parasites inhabiting the nostrils of their host, these characters are very human. Only the Throlken remain inscrutable. Compared, again, with Tchaikovsky whose work can be characterised as posthumanist SF thanks to the level of detail that goes into constructing psychologically-convincing non-human protagonists, there perhaps could have been room here for some similar exploration. Second, for all the wonderful weirdness, the socioeconomic system that unites Yokkun's Depth and other civilised phaslairs is ... capitalism. Characters want to be wealthy. Characters have to buy things. Characters have to rent out rooms (and, on one occasion, a floating junkberg on the edge of a solar system). It's easier to imagine alternative biologies than alternatives to capitalism, to put a spin on Fredric Jameson. As such the world building only goes so far, and not far enough into the truly alien. Lastly, for a seething novel bursting with life forms, the publisher - Solaris - could not have cranked out a more boring cover. Do they not believe in catching the buying public's eye?

These criticism aside, The Immeasurable Heaven will probably benefit from a reread. There is a lot going on here away from the plot line, and there are details that could be savoured on the second trip through. It is a recommend to SF readers, certainly, and it will be getting a nomination from me for the longlist of the British Science Fiction Association awards this year. And I hope there are more adventures and explorations of this setting to come.

Bon Voyage, Iqbal Mohamed

And off he goes. Following the departure of Adnan Hussein on 14th November from Your Party, resignation watchers' eyes were on Iqbal Mohamed. There was his conversation with Hussein on this very topic. And he prepped the ground for leaving by taking to social media to repeat the same tired transphobic talking points. An action Mohamed knew would provoke a reaction from YP supporters, as well as sharp criticism from Zarah Sultana, his erstwhile colleague. And, what do you know, his resignation statement references "false allegations and smears". How very unexpected.

You could see it coming from a mile off. Yet this caps off another row, this time about Sultana hosting her own rally prior to the founding conference next weekend. Apparently, there was no guarantee that she would address the main gathering and is, therefore, having a pro-democracy meeting to rally left wingers fed up with the Labour-esque control-freakery that has disfigured YP from the beginning. The background to this is the demand with menaces that she hand over the cash from her ill-starred unilateral launch of the YP membership portal, and her being kept away from the conference organising committee. Which, of course, is taking place in utmost secrecy and without any accountability whatsoever. And now there's news Jeremy Corbyn will host his own rally, replete with "special guests". With leading figures like these, it's a wonder the process has got as far as it has.

But back to the resignation. Some will take this as more evidence of the new party's instability and chaotic start. I'm inclined to a more positive view. As argued previously on the relationship between the new left party and the Independent Alliance MPs, this should be one of respect, continued dialogue, and joint actions where appropriate. But because of their politics, they should not have been invited to take leading roles in founding a left alternative to Labour. The rows that have happened are testament to this and, again, do not speak well of Corbyn's acumen. Nevertheless, Mohamed's departure is welcome as it underlines what the party should be - a party of our class in all its diversity.

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The Uses of Farage's Schoolboy Racism

Have you seen the latest revelations about Nigel Farage? Brace yourselves. He was, apparently, a bit racist at school. According to an expose from The Graun, while a day boy at Dulwich he made no secret of his admiration for Adolf Hitler, happily capered about with antisemitic banter, to the point of making up a ditty called "Gas 'em all", and put at least one pupil on detention for having the wrong skin colour. What a charmer.

None of these allegations are new, having first surfaced in 2013 when teachers' letters at Dulwich came to light. One of them observing that Farage was "a fascist, but that was no reason why he would not make a good prefect." A flailing Keir Starmer happily seized on them at Prime Minister's Questions. "These are disturbing allegations and it is vital that Nigel Farage urgently explains himself", said the chief presser to the lobby hack huddle afterwards. Does it really matter what the Reform leader said while he was a kid almost 50 years ago? For Starmer and his team, as a recent convert to calling racism racism, they're hoping the label will stick. And if it does, it could cause the softer edges of Farage's coalition to think twice. Something that might have a stronger chance of working if the messenger bearing these attacks was held in higher regard.

However, the real political tell comes in the criticism of Farage. Or rather, its focus. Obviously, there's a link between racist young Farage and 61-year-old Farage who's done very well out of spouting anti-immigration drivel. His campaign was pivotal for helping Leave get over the referendum line in 2016. But dwelling on the past alibis the present. Starmer can't attack Farage now as a racist as, quite deliberately, Labour's attacks on refugees leapfrog Reform. Neither can Kemi Badenoch's Tories, who've also dabbled in overt racism - not that anyone cares enough to notice. The idea is to use whatever the press can dredge up about Farage, and then pin the racist label on him in a manner akin to the Anti-Nazi League's/Unite Against Fascism campaigning against the BNP in the 00s. And this, they hope, deflects from Labour's own scapegoating, its own racism, its own moral depravity. In other words, another cynical ploy unlikely to stymie Reform's support while doing nothing to rebuild Labour's own.

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Science Fiction Book Haul #5

There's some A-format goodness for the discerning genre fiction fan.

Starting at the bottom, it's another collaboration between Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. I did enjoy Lucifer's Hammer last year, which was a romp unnecessarily blighted by right wing and racist asides. Footfall apparently is of a similar cast, except our beautiful green Earth gets assailed by elephantine aliens. I'm sure there will be absurd moments, but nothing can top their Lucifer silliness of having a throwaway character surfing a mile-high tsunami.

Adam Roberts's Salt isn't only the newest book in this selection, it's his debut novel! To be honest, I don't know much about it. Except it's well thought of. A colony ship treks across space to a new Earth, and finds a stark, eerily beautiful world. Unfortunately, old rivalries are no respecters of new beginnings and the cracks in the mission soon show. Up next is Jody Scott's I, Vampire in the classic Women's Press line. The sequel to Passing for Human, which I also have, this features a vampire called O'Blivion who strikes up a relationship with Virginia Woolf. Who is really a dolphin-like alien, and adventures ensue. Sounds weird in a fantastically good way.

Next up is the don, Robert Silverberg. I've got loads of his books but, to date, have only read two of his novels. I'll keep collecting them though. The people of the 25th century are fed up with a crowded, hungry Earth, and have decided to chance on happiness by skipping back in time. More aposite now than the publication date (1967), seeing as too much politics plucks at the nostalgia strings. Clifford Simak's City is probably his best known, and is often considered his best book. The human race has either died out or fled the Earth for the stars, and we didn't take our best friends with us. Abandoned to fend for themselves among our ruins, a new civilisation starts its rise - a society of very good boys.

I recently had my first encounter with AE van Vogt, he of Voyage of the Space Beagle fame, and his Darkness on Diamondia didn't land with me. But his early work is generally considered first rate, among which is the second of his Weapons books, The Weapon Makers. The blurb promises a titanic galaxy-spanning scrap, and the hype suggests some of the best writing in genre sf. Something to look forward to. Richard Cowper (pronounced Cooper)'s Time Out of Mind is a story of future drugs cops, illicit substances that give users the power to teleport objects, and a conspiracy by a "fascist megalomaniac" to use all this for evil. What japes.

Final two. I recently enjoyed M John Harrison's Light, an underappreciated and seldom-acknowledged space opera. And here we have a collection of his early short fiction. One of the stories recounts the adventures of a galactic pimp. I'm sure the old beards of hard SF would not have approved. And as coincidence would have it, the final title in this wee haul comes from Arthur C Clarke. In The Songs of Distant Earth, our pearl of a planet has been consumed by a nova, and the colony ship Magellan is all that's left. We're off to find a new home, then. We happen upon the friendly aliens of the planet Thalassa but - oh no - some interspecies intimacy brings issues to light.

These are my recent pick ups. What about yours?

From Reform-Lite to Reform-Plus

Do you remember the lies Keir Starmer told to secure Labour's leadership? Under pledge six, 'Defend immigrants' rights', among other things he committed himself to "An immigration system based on compassion and dignity". A little over five years later, the government he leads has promised to confiscate the jewellery of refugees that arrive on these shores. And so, when Shabana Mahmood got up at the dispatch box on Monday, we knew the home secretary was going to perform a theatre of cruelty.

Mahmood's measures, that were splashed across the Sunday press, are well known by now. On top of stealing people's keepsakes, a refugee will only be allowed to settle permanently after 20 years, with periodic checks on their status. I.e. If the country they fled is deemed safe, they will be expected to return. There will be an increase in (capped) "legal" refugee routes that, confusingly, are dubbed 'work' and 'study'. Which sounds more appropriate to conventional migration than people fleeing war and persecution. Also in are "return hubs" for people who have their applications rejected, legislation will be brought forward to narrowly define "family" to get around the European Convention's article on refugees having a right to family life, and recourse to public funds will be further restricted.

Why? The government have spun a tissue of lies. The home secretary says this country is a des res while playing into the right wing narrative that Britain is a soft touch. As the figures show, in Western Europe the UK is fifth behind Italy, France, Spain, and Germany for applications - coincidentally the other four big, rich countries in our part of the world. Still, this exercise in depravity was never about the truth or actually taking right wing arguments on. Labour are quite happy to cultivate their own scapegoats. That this is likely to create new opportunities for bosses who would exploit illegal working is not a problem either. Just as Suella Braverman dreamed of chartered jets taking plane loads of refugees to Rwanda, so Mahmood, Starmer, and their creatures think ICE-style raids and busts make for great PR.

How has it been taken? In the Commons debate following the statement, Karen Bradley asked about putting refugees into life-long debt as a means of securing their cooperation. Mahmood's reply was "I'll think about it." Recent recruit to the Nigel Farage personality cult, Danny "Freddy" Kruger welcomed the initiatives and invited her to follow him into Reform. Also happy is Elon Musk's fully purchased fascist, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who took to social media to congratulate "patriots" for "smashing the Overton Window." Also a fan is far right grifter and failed UKIP candidate, Carl Benjamin, who thanked Labour for "introducing the infrastructure for mass deportations" that a future Reform government would use.

At any point up until it took office, Labour would have attacked these proposals had the Tories advanced them. Though, their congenital cowardice would have opined about "costs" and "impracticalities", just as they did with the foul Rwanda scheme. And had Reform offered it up, this would have been dubbed evidence of their extremism. Yet it's Labour, an ostensible centre left government doing these things. Why then? Going full bore on asylum, leapfrogging both the Tories and Reform is supposed to signal this government's seriousness and determination. The performative cruelty of picking refugees' pockets will appeal to the layers of Reform support motivated by spite, and get off on spectacles of punching down. The upset among liberal opinion and Labour backbenchers is something Morgan McSweeney and his strategy bros will be cheering. Such opposition shows that Number 10 are a million miles from wishy-washy politics, or the compassion Starmer once spoke cynically of. And it puts the right on the spot. The Tories have said they would support, not that they're relevant. But what of Reform? Kruger's joshing aside, Farage said he supported the government's language but was "undecided" at this stage because the ECHR remains. Instantly, Labour's shift from Reform-lite to Reform-plus has left Farage dithering in the dust. Another reason glasses will be clinked in Downing Street tonight. They think they've pulled off a political coup.

They have done nothing of the sort. Starmer, Mahmood, and McSweeney are testing to destruction the idea that stealing the far right's clothes will win them far right votes. They are about to be disappointed. But what it will certainly do is alienate further Labour's fast declining reservoir of support. If the strategy is now 'it's us or Farage', to stand a chance Labour has to consolidate its support. Instead, this is another moment in its dispersal. Pitching from gaming First-Past-the-Post to holding seats by mobilising voters can only work if you haven't repeatedly stated in the language of policy how much you hate them and disregard their views and interests. Given the damage this Labour leadership has done to the party's coalition, it's difficult to see how it can come back from this new abysmal low.

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What I've Been Reading Recently

It's been over a month since the last one, so here are the books that have kept me ticking over since.

The Conservative Party after Brexit by Tim Bale
Fools by Pat Cadigan
Our Bloc: How We Win by James Schneider
Far from the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson
The Reader by Bernard Schlink
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
Wifedom by Anna Funder
The Darkness on Diamondia by AE van Vogt
The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini
Azanian Bridges by Nick Wood
The Agony of Power by Jean Baudrillard
Count Zero by William Gibson
We Do Not Part by Han Kang

Shall we get the non-fiction out the way with first? Many thanks to Tim Bale for kindly sending me a review copy of the second edition of his latest book on the Tories. I will write about it soon, promise! The appearance on this list of Baudrillard's final book marks not a descent into nihilism, but a side project that has quite a bit to do with hegemony. In The Agony of Power, he refers to simulation, simulacra, and their logics as hegemony. But untangling it meant going back to Symbolic Exchange and Death and his other key subsequent works. They will get featured on the next round up, but I will say they were all enjoyable as well as useful reads. On the subject of the H-word, I also read James Schneider's short book answering the perennial 'what is to be done?' question. And his argument was for a coordinating organisation that could network across and facilitate solidarity between an array of protest and social movements. Apparently this influenced Jeremy Corbyn enough to set up the Peace and Justice project, and you can see parallels between his remarks on what the new party should look like and the arguments in this book. Though, as we know, the practice has fallen somewhat short. Last here is Anna Funder's Wifedom, an excoriating expose of how George Orwell and his biographers have suppressed Eileen Blair, his wife, out of his writing and accounts of his life. It somewhat undermines the saintly pedestal sundry centrist writers have put him on.

Two works of mainstream fiction cropped up thanks to book club commitments. The Reader is probably best known for the 2008 Kate Winslet flick, and it was good group fodder. Plenty in there about post-war trauma, war crime blindness and forgiveness. It was a very easy rid. On a not dissimilar theme, Han Kang's We Do Not Part was dreamlike, chilling, melancholic, and beautiful. A meditation on a series of massacres that prefaced the Korean War, it is an elegant piece of writing.

On the science fiction, at the bottom was van Vogt's tedious tale of slow-burn alien rebellion in Darkness on Diamondia. Do not recommend, and not ideal for a first foray into his oeuvre. Better but not great was Tade Thompson's Far from the Light of Heaven. I do like Tade and follow him on social media, but this - again a first try of his work - did not sit with me. Pat Cadigan's Fools began with promise and fizzled out amid a mess of melding personalities and confused memories. And, I'm sorry to say, William Gibson's follow up to Neuromancer didn't leave much of a lasting impression. I remember Count Zero being entertaining enough, but it didn't stick. Nick Woods's Azanian Bridges had promise: an alternative South Africa where apartheid had persisted to the mid-2010s, someone invents an empathy/mind-reading machine. A well-constructed piece but, I don't know, it just missed something. Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves, with a lovely Ken MacLeod intro doing the contextualising, was also interesting but I didn't find the speculative dimensional physics babble in the last third that gripping. Perhaps I'm getting harder to please and going off hard SF? To Sleep in a Sea of Stars was a thick chonker of a space opera, and paused before giving it a go. And it was a bit mid. Christopher Paolini's background as a fantasy writer shows through with SF analogues of magic items and lich lords, but also dump in Cthulhu-style aliens, mutated zombie hordes, periodic down times for exposition, and the sorts of battles that read like a first person shooter/end boss fight narration - that should give you a flavour of what to expect. Only one SF novel properly stood out, and that was Peter Heller's The Dog Stars. The plague has come and gone, nearly everyone is dead, and what's left has to get by in a brutal and nasty world. Somewhere between The Road and Station Eleven in the violence/brutality department, it was well written enough to earn a recommend.

The highlights then? Undoubtedly the two mainstream novels, and the Baudrillard. What have you been reading recently?

Juliet Roberts - So Good

I do not understand why the video of this unsung house gem is not available in full anywhere. A crime!

The Your Party Debacle

The left in this country doesn't need agents provocateurs to stuff things up, it's more then capable of doing that itself. And here are two more etchings for the incompetence ledger. A public briefing in the name of the Independent Alliance MPs against Zarah Sultana, a parliamentary group she's apparently a member of. And the resignation of Blackburn's Adnan Hussein from the "steering process" of Your Party. A favourable contrast to the Greens these latest developments do not make.

The fallout from September's public arguments got the Geiger counters twitching last month. Your Party "insiders" briefed the press that it was taking legal action against the directors of MoU Holdings Ltd. This was the company set up by Andrew Feinstein, Beth Winter, and Jamie Driscoll ahead of the launch of Your Party, and was to hold some money and data gathered during the initial phases of the launch. Sultana climbed on board in the summer with her quitting Labour, announcing she would co-lead the founding process of a new left party. This was the occasion she announced a mailing list, attracting about 850,000 sign ups. The starting pistol on the foundation process had been fired, somewhat to the annoyance of Jeremy Corbyn and the people around him. Then Sultana jumped the gun again two months later, announcing Your Party's membership was open. About 20,000 joined inside a day, until Corbyn intervened and said no, this ain't happening. There was a public row with legal threats flying about, reports to the information commissioner, and a great deal of rancour. Then, about two weeks after, the "official" membership portal was launched.

Here lies the problem. The details and monies of the first "launch" sat with MoU Holdings. To be "official", members would need to either join again via the new route, or wait until the information and cash was transferred over. Unfortunately, this is a far from a straightforward matter. Legally, the monies and data can't simply be given. It's not like writing a cheque and sharing the relevant passwords. MoU is liable for bank charges for processing refunds. Second, there are more costs associated with navigating the transfer of the sum, winding up MoU, and settling the resulting legal bills. When YP "sources" threatened legal action against the directors of MoU, claiming they were withholding funds and accusing them of having "gone rogue", that same someone was lying. They knew there were legal complexities, and why Feinstein, Winter, and Driscoll were not prepared to shoulder the costs. I.e. It was not they who initiated the premature membership drive. That was Sultana. To try and resolve the problem, the Independent Alliance MPs were invited to become MoU directors but they turned it down, knowing they'd be on the hook for the costs. The existing directors then resigned, with Sultana becoming the sole director. Undoubtedly an expensive decision for her, but a willingness to take responsibility for the problems her premature membership call caused. Something she deserves credit for.

On Thursday Sultana was able to transfer £200k from MoU to YP, and for this she was targeted for a hostile briefing. Issued in the the name of the IA MPs while she was on BBC Question Time, it was an act of deliberate sabotage. Corbyn has apparently disowned the statement. It says everything that was said previously. All MoUs monies should be ours, we demand an immediate transfer, blah blah, yeah yeah. A move designed to undermine Sultana and throw more discord into the mill of pain the nascent party has become. Who is responsible? One of Corbyn's close allies who want something between a personality cult and Labour mkII, albeit with less democracy? Someone who enjoys being important and at the centre of things, and can rely on Corbyn's indulgence? Or someone else?

The timing of Adnan Hussein's resignation makes for an interesting coincidence. He references "becoming drawn into very serious and damaging internal disputes on matters relating to organisational conduct and governance", a barely-concealed Islamophobia ("I am troubled by the way ... Muslim men have been spoken about and treated ...I witnessed insinuations about capability, dismissive attitudes and language that carried ... veiled prejudice."), and how YP was at odds with its billing - a "movement that welcomed diversity of background and thought." It also came hours after Novara Media put questions to him that he and others in the IA were minded to dump the new party.

To be honest, the independent MPs should be nowhere near this process. As a "source close to Zarah Sultana" was quoted as saying in the New Statesman, "this shows what a stupid idea it was to transfer control of the founding process over from a decision making body, appointed by Jeremy and containing a broad array of left-wing figures, to the six MPs, some of whom do not remotely share the politics of the 800,000 people who signalled an interest in Your Party". Quite.

For example, trans issues are not a shibboleth to be fought over like one's attitude to the dead USSR, but a live issue used by sections of the media in a crude divide-and-rule effort. The government have jumped on the campaign to attack trans health care, and have made the lives of trans people a misery, stoked up prejudice, and driven some to take their lives. These are direct attacks on our class in all its diversity, something Hussein had the cheek to invoke in his Dear John letter. Anyone who alibis this are unsuited to be an elected representative of a class-based left party, never mind play a leading role in its founding. The same is true of MPs who defend first cousin marriages, the criminalisation of abortion after 24 weeks, call on the army to fill in for striking workers, or have significant landlord interests. Collaboration and cooperation in parliament, yes. Friendly relations and persuasion to win them over, also yes. Roll out the red carpet and give them leadership positions in a socialist party? No. This is so obvious that no one should need to say it.

Unfortunately, we know who is responsible for this. And that's Corbyn. He's responsible for the people he's promoted to the heart of the new party, he's responsible for bringing the IA MPs into the fold while overlooking questionable and anti-working class aspects of their politics, and he's responsible for dragging his feet - even having to be bounced into starting a mailing list. The only thing preventing this from being a complete write off is that despite the shenanigans and stupidities, upwards of 50,000 people have joined - in the face of the serious alternative presented by the Greens. By all accounts, where regional assemblies are taking place members are showing up. And across the country, unofficial branches have convened. A dynamic independent of the centre's gatekeeping and the dithering is underway, and is refusing to be snuffed out by the idiocies leading figures keep inflicting on the project. Yes, it's hard to believe right now but this resilience shows Your Party, or whatever it will end up getting called, can come out the other side of these squabbles. It could overcome its over-dependence on Corbyn. It may yet realise its potential and have a great future ahead.

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The Beginning of the End

By now, most politics watchers are habituated to the pratfalls and incompetencies of Keir Starmer's operation. What, just a year ago, was feted as a genius team headed by a once-in-a-generation politics virtuoso has blundered its way to some of Labour's worst-ever poll ratings. And then there was last night.

In case you missed it, the Number 10 briefed The Graun that fortifications have been erected around the Prime Minister. The trigger was tearoom tattle, with grumbling MPs preparing a leadership bid for the obsequiously loyal Wes Streeting. The Health Secretary allegedly has 50 frontbenchers ready to resign to force Starmer from office. Just as a similar strike did for Boris Johnson. This could happen as early as after the budget, if it goes badly. The (anonymous) "allies of Starmer" were quoted as saying that taking him out would ruin Labour for a generation. A silly argument, seeing as the leadership are managing that job themselves. Another Downing Street aide/McSweeney alter ego said if Starmer gets the heave ho, "the public will just think we’re no different from the last lot." You've got to presume they haven't knocked on any doors lately.

I can't speak to whether Streeting has lined up 50 volunteers ready to immolate their careers for his greater glory, but you can understand why the Downing Street bunker is suspicious. They read the same reports as everyone else. Streeting speaks to people. He's seen in the Commons tearooms. He does the CLP rounds, dropping in on special meetings and fundraisers. It's likely December has more than a few party Christmas dinners scheduled for him. And this is in marked contrast to Starmer who does none of this. Folks with long memories might recall how uncomfortable he found the 2020 leadership election, and since becoming leader he's avoided the gladhanding all party leaders have to do. As the dearly departed Angela Rayner happily zipped up and down the country and operated an open door policy for backbenchers, the "insiders" are bound to view Streeting's entirely normal activities for a minister through their own paranoid prism.

Pushing this story out Tuesday night was especially stupid when the media grid had Streeting out doing breakfast TV and morning radio on Wednesday. Though much overrated as a performer, he easily laughed the hostile briefings off. Even more foolish was amplifying Westminster grumblings into national news stories. Nothing says the Prime Minister is vulnerable quite like telling everyone how he's prepared to take on all-comers. It looks desperate, and feeds the impression of chaos and paralysis that supposedly separates them out from the Tories and Reform.

What is new this time was singling Streeting out for the unfriendly briefing treatment. It's worth noting that McSweeney's crew, who normally target prominent women in government, have now branched out to attack an openly gay man. Coincidence or pattern of behaviour? But for anyone who's spent a while following Labour factionalism knows, if there was a political objective behind McSweeney's machinations it was to make the party safe for a Streeting leadership candidacy. Therefore, asking the 11-dimensional question is justified. Was the attack a cynical exercise in creating a groundswell of sympathy toward Streeting ahead of the next leadership election, which now seems inevitable after next year's local elections? I don't think so. They thought boasting about undermining Jeremy Corbyn was a clever thing to do. And then there is idiocy of their Blue Labour strategy, minus the Laboury bits. I don't want to afford them credit for embarking on a plan with many moving parts.

Nevertheless, this is the consequence. Starmer's "defence" has made his position weaker. What was supposed to slap Streeting down has done the impossible and made him into a sympathetic figure. None of it has scotched talk of leadership challenges. And so a new, terminal phase of Starmer's leadership has begin by his own hand. This is all that's going to be talked about in the build up to the budget, after every "inadvertent error", unpopular decision, press briefing, and disagreement. On and on it will go without cease until the crypt finally opens and the corpse of Keir's career is interred.

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Why Won't Labour Take on Elon Musk?

On how many occasions has Elon Musk used Twitter to declare war on Keir Starmer's government? How often has he stoked racism, intervened in British politics, called for civil war, and - not unsubtly - agitated for Labour's overthrow? At this point, enough times to warrant official action and sanctions against his cesspit of a platform you would think. But of the government, there's nary a response. Despite Speaker Lindsay Hoyle urging MPs to delete their accounts because of Musk's repeated failure to tackle abuse and law breaking. Instead, we have a government whose departments, as well as its MPs, continuing to use "X" as if all is fine, thereby feeding its petty hate machine.

Last week, further evidence, as if it was needed, was published by Sky News to highlight the platform's toxicity. Via a content analysis of posts channelled to nine fake accounts set up for the experiment, they found Musk's drivel, and right wing posts generally, elevated by the algorithm. Even when said accounts were crafted as left wing and non-political. Despite these left accounts only following leftist posters, half the material shovelled on to their feeds were from right wingers. For rightist accounts, only 14% of political content came from the left. Non-political/neutral feeds had a two-thirds/one-third split in content, with the right taking the lion's share. They also found prominent left wing posters had nowhere near as much reach as popular right wingers. It's a good piece of work that puts numbers to the algorithmic distortion Musk has built into the system since taking it over.

Yet it's tumbleweed from the government, even though Musk's behaviour constitutes overt interference in British politics that is corrosive of Labour's position. Why aren't they doing anything about it, leaving it to Ed Davey to push back and accrue political capital from doing so? Is it another manifestation of the Labour right's congenital cowardice when challenging racist and extreme right wing politics? Partly. Undoubtedly the politics-free vacuum that is Morgan McSweeney has sucked in advice about not going to war with the press, and especially the right wing press. They will hound you without cease. Inhabiting the zone of non-punishment is what a sensible government should do, whereas attacking editorial lines or, heaven forefend, legislating against ownership concentration in the media is asking for trouble. This courtesy, founded on fear, is extended to social media firms.

There's more to it than that, though. The US right take a keen interest in Britain, and complaints from Trump's team - aided and abetted by fifth columnists of Tories, Farage, and Telegraph hacks - have successfully mounted a serious assault on the BBC. Pushing back against Musk, despite his falling out with the tangerine tyrant, would upset the delicate management of Trump that Starmer has committed his government to. They understand the "special relationship" is all one-way, but cannot do without it. The second more broadly is Labour's relationship to American tech bro capital. They want them to invest heavily in UK state infrastructure because the consequences of doing so helps depoliticise politics to the advantage of Starmer and friends. Embedding such technologies across the state sector also gives that section of capital a reliable partner in Labour on this side of the Atlantic, and - most importantly to the ministers involved - it lets them put "headed up large-scale AI implementation" on their CVs, and from their post-politics opportunities as tech execs, consultants, advisors, etc begin opening up. Nick Clegg's seven-year stint at Facebook is the model, during which he enjoyed a £2.7m annual salary, a £14.8m sum from cashing in his Meta shares, and another £16m of stock he's held on to.

With the chances of netting a similar prize by letting LLM oligarchs run riot with Britain's public services, Labour's curious refusal to enforce the law, criticise Musk, or even take their social media business elsewhere makes a lot more sense than everyday pragmatism. Especially when it's now obvious that the party could reap some much-needed political credibility from doing so.

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