Saturday, 15 February 2025
Crescendo - Are You Out There?
Thursday, 13 February 2025
Rachel Reeves and Dishonesty

In November, Guido ran several stories picked up by the media about how Reeves had "massaged" her CV prior to entering the Commons. The right had fun exposing her claim that she worked as an economist for HBOS as bogus and delighted in reporting that Reeves was actually a manager of a retail banking complaints team. Thursday's BBC report looks into her career further, finding that Reeves also exaggerated the amount of time she worked at the Bank of England. Having previously said on several occasions that she'd worked there for a decade or the "best part of a decade", her BoE period was actually five-and-a-half years. Shorter than the six Reeves had put on her LinkedIn profile. Potentially more serious are allegations that while at HBOS she and her colleagues were accused of fiddling expenses by signing off on each other's claims. This was no idle tittle-tattle - it resulted in an investigation in which dozens of pages of evidence was submitted. This was, apparently, to "fund a lifestyle". The submission was compelling enough for the Internal Audit department to conclude there was enough evidence of "wrongdoing" and was referred to the next stage of the process. But there the investigation stalled and Reeves was not interviewed, which was at odds with procedure. Reeves left afterwards but there's no evidence this was because of the allegations. Indeed, the BBC report indicates she was not aware that a suspicious eye had been cast in her direction, and far from leaving under a cloud HBOS allowed her use of a company car for a further six months beyond the end of her contract. Also, in the interests of accuracy, it does appear that spending the bank's money on gifts for subordinates and superiors was part of the works culture. Her infractions were not that she'd done wrong per se, but that the cash was splashed a little too readily.
Considering Covid procurement and how Boris Johnson normalised institutional corruption during his tenure, Reeves palming a few gifts here and there before she was an MP is the smallest of beers. But that isn't to say this doesn't matter, because with the Chancellor it fits a pattern of behaviour. She's lied about her career, lied about political opponents, and has lied about her latest book - which is full of other people's work. Her political approach to matters economic is an exercise in deceit, and her elevation to Number 11 is off the back of the most dishonest Labour leader since ... forever. Reeves, Keir Starmer, and the rest of the lying bunch are well suited to one another. And will undoubtedly come undone together too.
Let's not kid ourselves that those having a pop at Reeves are motivated by ethics in political life. It's interesting that the BBC decided to publish their expose on the day the revised growth figures for the last quarter were published. News that was expected to be bad but were, in fact, just about positive. An attempted hit job you might say. But why when Starmer and friends have done everything to bend over backwards for capital? It's still worth noting that while most of the British ruling class are on board the Starmerist project, such as it is, there are those who are not - a nexus of the disgruntled rich that parasite off labour intensive, landed and financialised interests. For this hyper class conscious section of British capital, whose views are usually amplified by the right wing press, Reeves has committed the deadly sin of taxing unearned income. Closing inheritance loop holes and increasing employers' NI contributions have shattered the taboo of looking in this direction for revenue raisers. And conceding improvements to workers' rights, as watered down these commitments have become, opens the door to a slight tilt against capital's collective class interests. For them, at a minimum Labour need curbing to ensure they don't go any further down this road. What they perceive today as a slightly edging out of their interests is extrapolated forward to further grabs at the expense of their wealth and class power. If preventing this means destabilising a fundamentally weak government by blowing up low level misdemeanours into full on felonies, this is among the least of what they'll do.
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Tuesday, 11 February 2025
The Politics of Noticing

Another noticing is happening right now. Unsurprisingly, the over-hyping of Nigel Farage from all quarters of pundit opinion has helped put Reform in the lead in several polls. And now commentators from The Sun to mainstream political science are writing about how Keir Starmer's strategy is undermining the Labour Party.
Take Rob Ford for example. Discussing the rise of Reform, he notes that for Labour "wooing back Reform voters with red meat on Farage’s favourite issues is a strategy with low prospects of success and high risks." And what is the nature of this risk? "A populist Labour campaign for Reform votes may be the last straw for many in this socially liberal, viscerally anti-Farage group, putting at risk hundreds of marginal seats where Reform is out of the running, but where Labour needs a united progressive front to prevail next time." At the risk of tooting the old horn, the problem Rob identifies was something I identified in a 2021 special issue of Political Quarterly. A more respectable organ where polite opinion is concerned than this corner of the internet. But I'm not pretending originality. Plenty of other left wingers were making similar arguments at the time.
The question then is why now? Why are sections of establishment opinion not only waking up to Labour's counter-productive positions, but are fretting about it? On the one hand there is the government's refusal to do much to forestall the crises in state institutions. The utter indifference Labour has shown universities has become emblematic of their high-handed neglect, as they hide a lack of leadership behind vague and indefinite reviews. As the professional base of Starmerism was divided going into the election and largely stayed on board to see the Tories defeated, this is an exasperation in frustration. But more than that, Donald Trump is giving a chaotic lesson in what could be visited on the British state if a Reform/Tory coalition won office in 2028/29. Not just a flagrant disregard of the law, but the tearing up of state institutions, NGOs, the charitable sector, environmental protections and sustainable energy projects, and an evisceration of whole swathes of the economy present themselves as a real possibility. It appears significant sections of establishment opinion have learned the lessons of the Democrats' complacently dismal campaign, understand how Joe Biden's administration paved the way for Trump, what that could mean for their future and are - rightly - worried that Starmer's government is on an identical path.
This isn't to say this layer ae champing at the bit for radical solutions to deep seated problems. But they want to see the government prioritising the fixing of institutions, putting money in people's pockets, and going for a sensible economic strategy instead of prioritising the same old interests. More reforming zeal, less scapegoating of people desperate enough to brave the Channel in a dinghy in the winter. Starmerism, if it means anything, was for this layer a take over of the state by the state. In other words, professionals, experts, and technocrats motivated by public service were in charge at last. Tackling problems and presenting solutions was their jam - in marked contrast to the cynical, reckless mess that preceded them. This Labour government therefore comes as a shocking disappointment, best typified by Starmer's defence of the institutionalised acceptance of bungs.
If Labour carries on as they are doing, it won't just be the bulk of the working class that will be deserting the party, the Prime Minister's core constituency will do too. Which makes the nightmare outcome they fear the most more likely. And the blame for this would lie entirely at the feet of Starmer and his lieutenants.
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Sunday, 9 February 2025
The Sacking of Andrew Gwynne

Once again, the culture uncovered by the Forde report is open for all to see. And the reaction is a performative recoil of disgust by the party's establishment. Performative because they well know this is the culture they encourage, preside over, and participate in. Racism, sexism, callous attitudes, cynical language, this is the meat and gristle of informal Labour Party communication. And it has always been thus, though what was once said behind people's backs is now written down and shared among hundreds of informal groups of chummy insiders. Unhappily for Keir Starmer and the Labour right, all it takes is for some local notable or a disgruntled MP to share these contents with the likes of the Mail for more WhatsApp scandals to erupt. The more senior the messenger, the more juicier. Savvy MPs know not to do this, but when the parliamentary party is stuffed with nodding donkeys whose inflated self-opinion is in inverse proportion to their lack of nous there are plenty of liabilities for the right wing press to swoop on.
And this is a headache for party management. The forced resignation of Louise Haigh, ostensibly over a conviction from years ago that the leadership already knew about lowered the bar for accountability and ministerial resignations and sackings. IF, for instance, another round of freebie gate visited British politics and a minister was caught improperly troughing on corporate "hospitality", Starmer would be under real pressure to sack them. Or a trusted lieutenant was caught in a spotlight on other improper conduct, because the Prime Minister lacks a stock of political capital very little can be expended to defend them. Especially with polling in the doldrums and a range of backbenchers jostling to make their mark as ministers sooner rather than later. Perhaps more worryingly for Starmer, the press now know they can bring pressure to bear and cause him to act, meaning they're likely to sit on further revelations until they become strategically useful.
The government must be hoping more Gwynne-style incidents aren't going to surface. Unfortunately for them, considering how the party's culture is riddled with a hierarchy of racism and a preponderance of mouthy blow hards, chances it won't happen again are slight to non-existent.
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Thursday, 6 February 2025
The Limits of Trumpism

Then on Tuesday, he announced the most Trump-brained scheme imaginable. Welcoming indicted war criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu to the Oval Office the president announced his scheme for lasting peace in the Middle East: expel all Palestinians from Gaza. Under this "initiative", Israeli troops would withdraw and US troops would come in to facilitate the relocation of the remaining population to neighbouring Arab states. Not having consulted the governments of these countries, and Amman making it clear that such an expulsion would mean Jordan going to war with Israel, it's fair to say the proposal hasn't landed well. White House pressers and Trump's State Department stooge, the ultra-Zionist Marco Rubio, found this too much to stomach. Any transfer would be "temporary", he said and wouldn't involve any American troops. Unfortunately for little Marco, the boss has other ideas.
On his Truth Social vanity site, Trump restated his support for removing Palestinians. Gaza should be turned over to the US after they've been resettled. And how is this going to happen? Presumably, by Israel. Which would can the pause in the massacre and the exchange of hostages and spark off another round of bloodletting. But all Trump can see are the beach front real estate opportunities, of turning the site of this century's live-streamed genocide into a tourist trap. What a moral blank of a man. And one unlikely to get his way.
It was far from intentional, but Israel's indiscriminate "revenge" for the 7th October Hamas offensive sparked off a series of events that consolidated the State Department's Middle Eastern objectives. Hamas and Hezbollah, severely weakened. Iran's military capacities diminished. Supply routes from Tehran to Beirut curtailed. Al-Assad gone. Russian bases removed. And client Arab regimes safe from the backlash against their craven acceptance of the massacre, for the moment. Trump's comment alone threaten to reverse the strong US position by uniting Arab publics and governments against America. And the only way such an operation could be achieved is by a US occupation, which would lead to hundreds if not thousands of US soldiers heading home in body bags, an even more febrile Middle East, and undoubtedly a turn away from America to China. And, for that matter, a global distancing from the US. It would be an unparalleled and grimly ludicrous failure of statecraft.
And there's the home front too. No one among the MAGA base are keen to see American lives expended in Palestine. No Republican member of Congress wants to bleed votes. And that's before we get to the humongous anti-war movement Trump's stupidity would touch off. The new White House might want to bury politics-as-usual under a blizzard of unhinged and vindictive executive orders, but not even the Donald's tangerine dream world can ignore political realities.
Following the Steve Bannan play book of "flooding the zone with shit", the into-everywhere-at-once chaos of Trump's presidency has discombobulated and demoralised swathes of bourgeois opposition that fashionably associated with "the resistance" between 2016-2020. Which itself takes advantage of the zero preparation the Democrats have undertaken for life in opposition to Trump since their miserable failure in November. But doing so much at once threatens opposition on all fronts too. Despite this, the administration cannot help itself. That having re-won the presidency by something of a sliver, different sections of the Trump coalition are going fast and hard on meeting their own individual objectives. It's every oligarch for themselves with little sense of a common project or for things like maintaining popular consent for their rule. In Musk's case, it's dismantling regulators and shaking down the state, and smashing up other agencies as red meat for the base. Presently, this behaviour has stunned domestic politics and has left America's allies/satraps aghast and consequences there will be for the US in general and Trump's presidency in particular. The retreats on tariffs and welfare cheques, and the speed at which decisions are made are demonstrative of a fundamental weakness in the Trump project. It is not time for opponents to give up or, worse, bend the knee. Amid the razzmatazz of reaction lies a regime vulnerable to elite and mass opposition. Trump and his acolytes are testing their limits, which makes now the best and potentially most decisive moment for fighting back.
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Tuesday, 4 February 2025
Blue Labour and the Working Class

Writing at the weekend, Sienna Rodgers and Tom Scotson have profiled its second coming. We learn that among its neophyte adherents are Dan Carden, formerly of the Socialist Campaign Group, and now a "left wing" supporter of the project. He's attracted to Blue Labour because of the importance it attaches to community and the place of working class institutions within it, such as trade unions. Jonathan Hinder, the Westminster group's room booking monitor says he wants to see "bold, left-wing economic policies", lower immigration, and an end to "divisive identity politics". His counterpart Jonathan Brash from Hartlepool more or less says the same thing, saying on crime and punishment and immigration he's "right-of-centre". But again, he wants "big government" and more intervention to help working class people.
How have these chaps stood up for our class during this parliament so far? They refrained from rebelling over the child benefit cap, nor could they even bring themselves to sign an Early Day Motion on the subject. No doubt they've sagely nodded along to older people on their doorsteps moaning about immigration. But they were less inclined to hear their views on scrapping the Winter Fuel Allowance. Precisely none of our champions of the working class so much as abstained.
Two of them are not reticent about stirring up division. Hinder, for example, has made his name known as a transphobe. And David Smith, the fourth in the new Blue Labour quartet, got himself in the papers for playing beggar-thy-neighbour politics with Scotland. This is not down to individual foibles, but is a characteristic of Blue Labour behaviour. When its leading light Jon Cruddas was in the Commons, for all his "economic radicalism" he was hardly known as a doughty defender of trade unions or sticking up for working class people. Though apprenticed to him at one point was Morgan McSweeney who, along with Keir Starmer, have done more to gut the Labour Party of working class representation and working class politics than Tony Blair ever managed. The same can be said of Maurice Glasman, the "founder", who had absolutely nothing to say about the economic radicalism of the Corbyn years (or much else for that matter), only to resurface with a 2022 book on Blue Labour that was almost as thin as the ideas it contained.
It doesn't matter how many words Blue Labour has crafted, their record says a great deal more. Glasman was at Trump's inauguration a couple of weeks ago hobbing and nobbing with GOP luminaries. The well-known Twitter troll Paul Embery always had more time for attacking anti-racist, anti-sexist, and environmental initiatives instead of promoting the solidarity you'd have thought would come naturally to a trade union official. The examples are legion. At best, Blue Labour could be described as a manifestation of negative working class politics, but it's worse than that. It's telling that Blue Labour's origin as a semi-coherent body of thought emerged ... from a series of seminars involving academics, politicians, and policy wonks. As relayed in Rowenna Davis's semi-official history, Tangled Up in Blue. Far from being an expression of working class politics, Blue Labour is based on a simulacrum of what it means to be working class. A middle class idea of the lower orders as blunt and bigoted. Something that reflects their own prejudices.
Blue Labour is an effort at trying to construct an identity politics of our class as a subaltern class. It gains ground in elite circles because it has enough truthiness to them, even though the realities of class today are far different from their narrow imaginings. But there's more to it than prejudice. There is the political utility. As a party of the establishment, Labour has to mobilise a loyal constituency for elections. But the danger of being a party whose roots are in the workers' movement is this might go too far and politicise workers as independent political actors conscious and capable of acting in their own interests. Hence one reason why Corbynism had to be shut down - it pushed at the limits of Labourism and its traditional role as the political cap on and manager of the labour movement. Starmerism response to this problem is interpellating its support as "working people", a political fiction they want voters to fit into. A signal they would respond to with a "yes, that's me" but not mobilising them beyond that because any other political content is evacuated. Blue Labour's SW1 caricature of the working class is an effort at the same. It pretends salt-of-the-earth authenticity and radicalism, while appropriating a conservative politics of division to arrest solidarity and hamper the consciousness of collective class interests. It's not for nothing that women, ethnic and sexual minorities are absent from their cynically drawn picture of class. However, the reason why Blue Labour hasn't taken off - yet - is because its crudity if off-putting to other sections of the party, and it's surplus to requirements right now.
That might not always be the case, but there's one thing we can be sure of. The greater Labour invests in a Blue Labour strategy, the less successful they will be and the faster they bury their chances of winning the next election.
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Sunday, 2 February 2025
Revisiting Brexit and Corbynism

The piece argues that Cummings had seen the focus group data for the Midlands and what trouble Labour were storing up for themselves if they refused to go along with Brexit. But, by the same token, Get Brexit Done voters would look afresh at Corbyn and support Labour on that basis. Was this is a missed opportunity? I don't think so.
The problem was that by this point - early 2019 - Labour was split on Brexit and had become entrenched. The big mistake took place two years earlier when Corbyn was basking in the glow of Labour's unexpected surge in the polls and the torpedoing of May's Commons majority. That was the moment for not just getting through mandatory reselection for all Labour MPs and making the left's revolution permanent in the party's structures, but to also consolidate the position around leaving the European Union. Making it clear this was the line to be held, was part of why Labour performed so well in the election, and that the party would be developing its own negotiating position on the basis of the kind of Brexit deal that was least damaging. And, crucially, our class wouldn't pick up the bill for Dave's folly. After 2017's conference season, and particularly following the Skripal poisonings in early 2018, sections of the Labour right latched on to the second referendum position as a means of undermining Corbyn's leadership and winning back control of the party.
This isn't to say everyone who took this position were so motivated. At the time, it was obvious to some that the second referendum campaigns were not primarily motivated by campaigning for a second referendum. The vast majority of those turning up to the huge pro-EU marches were entirely genuine in their desires, which in the main was a mix of liberal internationalism and well-founded fears for the economic and political consequences of leaving. The problem was that not only was the majority of Labour's membership aligned with these views, so was the bulk of the party's base. There was a tension then between about two-thirds of Labour's constituency, and the position of the leadership which remained signed up to seeing Brexit done. It would have been remiss in light of the Labour right's eternal quest against the left not to have employed this to drive a wedge between the leadership on the one hand, and the membership and its support in the country on the other.
This is something few if any Labour's mid-late 2019 opponents of the second referendum appreciate, unfortunately. The EU elections that the UK had to take part in that summer annihilated the Tories, but dealt Labour a comprehensive drubbing too. Its constituency was prised apart by the Liberal Democrats and Greens on the one hand, and to the Brexit Party on the other. The last hurt the Tories the most, and so when Johnson came to office his strategy was clear. Champion the ending of the political paralysis by sorting Brexit once and for all, and he set about demonstrating his single-mindedness of purpose. Labour needed to bring its coalition together too, but theirs was a more difficult task. The hard remain positioning of the Lib Dems and Greens and firmed up enough support that were never going to vote for any party that kept Brexit on the table. But more numerous than this relative sliver were Labour leavers and who, as we saw, punished their party in significant numbers by either voting Tory or the Brexit Party - letting some Tories sneak through the middle.
The Labour leadership's difficulty was that if by this stage they had taken Cummings's advice, a much greater catastrophe would likely have been in the offing. Yes, sure, the Labour leavers by and large might have stayed on board. But with Brexit through, why would the Tories have split? We saw Johnson easily dispose of his remain-supporting back benchers prior to the election, and there's little suggesting they would have been in a stronger position had Labour whipped the PLP to support May's deal. No, it was much more likely that Labour would have split. More MPs would have walked out of the parliamentary party, finding succour with Change UK (remember them?) or the Lib Dems. But even more damaging would have been a likely mass desertion of Labour's support. The battlelines were drawn by 2019. Labour could only choose a second referendum or Brexit and all the consequences that flowed from that. Despite Corbyn's best efforts, there was no third way.
Returning to that dinner, what Cummings was pointing to on the menu was not salvation and victory, but the sort of ruin Labour experienced in Scotland in 2015. A terrible gutting defeat that might have put the party's existence as the Tories' primary competitor in jeopardy, and rejuvenated the Lib Dems far beyond the renaissance they enjoyed last year. In the end, because of the way politics played out between the summer of 2017 and the winter of 2019, the terrible result inflicted on Labour was, in all likelihood, the least worst outcome.
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New Left Media February 2025

1. In Solidarity (Podcast) (Bluesky)
2. The Left Lane (Blog)
3. The Good Fight (Blog) (Bluesky)
4. What Can We Do? (Blog) (Bluesky)
If you know of any new(ish) blogs, podcasts, channels, Facebook pages, resources, spin offs from existing projects, campaign websites or whatever that haven't featured before then drop me a line via the comments, email, Bluesky, Facebook, or Twitter. Please note I'm looking for new media that has started within the last 12 months, give or take. The round up appears hereabouts when there are enough new entrants to justify a post!
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Saturday, 1 February 2025
Five Most Popular Posts in January

January is now history, and the world has survived the first fortnight of Donald Trump's second presidency. So what were the items that excited and delighted the internet-travelling public who gave this site their patronage?
1. The Class Politics of Reform
2. Donald Trump's Expansionist Threats
3. The Tories' Terrible Truth
4. Bullshit and Bravado
5. Hyping Farage
Top of this month's heap was our friend Nigel Farage or, to b more precise, a reflection on where the company he owns sits in the web of Britain's class relationships. Reform is considered from the standpoint of the ruling class, and we ask whether it's the working class party a cottage industry of experts and commentators have asserted it is. The TL;DR answer is no. Coming in second is the tangerine terror across the sea and his promise to expand American territory. I.e. the threats issued particularly toward Denmark/Greenland and Panama. In third place are the travails of the Conservative Party in light of Kemi Badenoch's speech where she conceded that her party let the electorate down. Their problems are a bit more involved than an episodic lack of trust, I'd wager, and it appears the new Tory leader has scant awareness of the hole her party is in. Coming in fourth was Trump again, who will probably become a fixture of these round ups for the next four years. This was on the boosterism that occasioned his inauguration. And lastly, it's Farage again. This time on the "left wing" turn Reform has made to scoop up Labour voters, and the over-hyping of this threat by people who know better but do so for their own political reasons.
This time three (count 'em) posts deserve a second chance, so let's line them up. There is looking at AI in the context of contemporary formations of capitalist exploitation. What a cheery topic. There's last night's missive marking the five years since Brexit. Again, with the shape of this country's class relations in sharp focus. And lastly, I only had the wherewithal to write one piece on science fiction last month so here it is, an appreciation of Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity.
What might February bring? More Trump outrages, certainly. That's nailed on. Hopefully some skiffy and a social theory book review. Westminster's comings and goings will provide some opportunities, and who knows? Perhaps there will be some movement on a new left wing party. But I won't be betting the house on it. As ever, if you haven't already don't forget to follow the (very) occasional newsletter, and if you like what I do (and you're not skint), you can help support the blog. Following me on Bluesky, Facebook, and for what it's worth Twitter, are cost-free ways of showing your backing for this corner of the internet.
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Friday, 31 January 2025
Reflecting on Brexit

Contrary to the myths spun about the Leave vote in the nine years since the referendum, this was no working class revolt - as recent research makes plain. Those shielded by property wealth, who tended to be of pensionable age, were more likely to support Brexit because they were shielded from its risks. Thy were not the ones who would face its consequences of falling order books, barriers to trade, and uncertain business outlooks. But these layers didn't see things that way. If they thought about the fates of their children and grand children at all, they were voting for a familiar, sepia-tinged Britain of the past that evinced feelings of security and familiarity, a place where everyone knew their place. There were no strange accents and languages in the bus queue, men and women were content with their stations in life, and you could say what you wanted and be greeted with laughter, not offence. If it was good enough for them, it was good enough for their kids.
This wasn't the only reason why millions voted to leave the EU, but it's part of the emotional economy that underpinned the ugly xenophobia and racism Brexit's elite congregants whipped up with much success. As we know, Boris Johnson's decision to campaign for Brexit and lead the leave campaign was probably decisive in what was always going to be a close result, and that this was motivated by ambition more than principle. Does he think his mercifully brief stint in Number 10 was worth it? As were those sections of capital that threw their lot in with the Brexit. To be crudely reductionist about it, the divisions among commercial and financial capital - the City - more or less broke along the lines of those individuals and firms whose interests were tied to the near abroad versus those oriented further afield. But there was more to it than economics as conventionally conceived.
Since Thatcher came to office, the Tories have gradually run down the capacities of the state. Their supporters have made money from the subsidised selling off of crucial public infrastructure, and have fully colonised those bits of the public sector that remain but are forced to work "in partnership" with business. The effect of the Tory counter revolution - perfected and deepened by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and the Tory and Labour governments since - has been most startling on class relations themselves. After the state was used to smash up and shackle the labour movement in the 1980s, successive governments have asserted the primacy of the executive over all aspects of this sprawling apparatus. The Tory assault on expertise curbed the relative autonomy of public institutions, and the use of market mechanisms for managing the public sector and the population at large saw a gradual removal of obstacles that block government from doing what it wants to do. The authoritarian state that has always enabled and accompanied the neoliberalisation of every day life is a project for making the centre, the Prime Minister's office and their satraps, fully sovereign. They are free to manage the class relations of this country as they see fit.
Except this was not enough for the most class conscious sections of the right. Their waffle about taking back control and restoring British sovereignty was the culmination of the Thatcherite offensive. They can never be fully sovereign if the British state is bound by laws and regulations made across the Channel. There was always the implicit threat that rulings from Strasbourg and Brussels could constitutionally bind their hands. Not that EU membership prevented the horror show of the Tory-led coalition government's further attacks on the most vulnerable. As far as they were concerned, a hit to GDP figures was a price worth paying for securing the untrammelled sway of a government apparatus over British society that, more often than not, they had controlled over the last century. Hence why Brexit was a thoroughly bourgeois project, and a particularly authoritarian, reactionary one at that.
That the present government has released a lukewarm statement is not a surprise. Brexit is a blight of Rachel Reeves's growth ambitions, but they have spent the best part of the last five years assuring all the right people that little will change. At least where the broad pattern of class relations are concerned. And part of that means leaving Brexit alone too. Just as New Labour accepted the class settlement of the Thatcher/Major years, the Starmerist project is about perfecting what they inherited without fundamentally altering it. On top of that, there is the political fear that any backsliding on Brexit would allow the Tories or Farage a way into serious contention and therefore 2028/9 could see a repeat of the 2019 calamity. It follows that no matter how sensible rejoining the customs union might be, or getting into the single market, or offering concessions in return for better trading terms, Starmer will say no. The politics of the settlement, and the politics of facing down the right wing opposition to Labour does not allow for it.
Reflecting on Brexit, its main outcome has been a further tilting of the balance of forces in capital's favour. And as that's the side this government are on, despite their affectations of being above such things, there is no way they're going to wind the Brexit film back.
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Wednesday, 29 January 2025
Living Her Best Life

On Wednesday Reeves made an avalanche of infrastructure announcements. Heathrow's long-awaited third runway, the Oxford/Cambridge silicon corridor, the redevelopment of Old Trafford, reservoirs, airports, train lines, houses, new towns, a tunnel!. There were changes to planning rules that are meant to speed things up, which include "investment zones" that bypass some regulations (as per the Tory freeport idea, which has been retained by Labour and is now as much their idea), yes as the default position for new homes in the vicinity of railway stations, changing pension rules for allowing funds to make productive investments, and a more can-do attitude for infrastructural development outside the South East. Reeves was living the best life of every managerialist politician: the privilege of announcing dozens of megaprojects and basking in the resultant glow.
In all, the speech was a confident performance. On businesses concerned about NICs, Reeves was asked if there was going to be any wriggle room here. She said no, but added her October statement was a once-in-a-generation event. Stability was back in the public finances, and it was there in the economy too. Business can take it as read that, notwithstanding some disaster, they won't be charged for further contributions while she resides in Number 11. It was a theme Kemi Badenoch picked up on in Prime Minister's Questions as well, but going harder on the £5bn "cost" of Labour's employment rights agenda. Reeves and Starmer sang from the same hymn sheet when asked separately about it, but they might have gone further and said this estimated figure doesn't simply disappear from business balance sheets. It's extra confidence and extra money in workers' pockets, which will feed through into growth via their improved spending power.
The combined effect of these projects are bound to put figures on GDP. The IMF's growth forecast, which has uprated the economic outlook for Britain, specifically says this is the case. But there are some issues. Having observed Donald Trump's bravado, there were some Trumpesque flirtations - though Reeves didn't quite say make Britain great again. Government is a knight on a white charger, hacking away and doomer attitudes, nimbyism, and unnecessary regulation that has held the country back for decades. A pseudo-populist construction of a serious party, on behalf of working people, doing battle with an unnamed, sclerotic and complacent elite. But that was not all. Having paid lip service to net zero in the context of the third runway announcement, and new developments at Doncaster and East Midlands airports, she specifically declared bats and newts persona non grata in the new planning regime. So much for Karel ÄŒapek's warning about going to war with the newts. And so, despite saying many times there is no contradiction between the environment and economic growth, Reeves's habit of showing herself up struck yet again.
There is an additional serious problem. On top of this, the government has already set a target of 1.5m new build houses by the end of this parliament. If you tour around Derby, for instance, it's a hive of building activity and a microcosm of what Reeves wants to see. Two housing estates have started, five or six huge blocks of new flats are due over the next few years, more offices and new homes around the railway station, a hotel and leisure complex to replace the derelict Assembly Rooms, and new university buildings due to start on the outskirts of the city centre. Great stuff, you might say. But where are the workers and the engineers going to come from to meet Labour's plans? We know Liz Kendall wants to expel as many people as possible from health and disability-related social security and getting them into work, but they're not going to fill the shortfall in construction. As PBC Today observed last summer, construction workers fell by 14% between 2019 and 2024 and there would need to be an extra 250,000 workers, more or less doubling the workforce, in the next five years to meet the government's ambitions. Training can only make an impact toward the end of the target date, so this means immigration - something Starmer has stupidly caved to the right on and will face some degree of punishment seeing as he's pledged to get the number of new arrivals down. A political problem needlessly of their own making.
Ultimately, as far as British capital is concerned, despite the chuntering over taxes on unearned income the common affairs of the bourgeoisie are happy with what Reeves had to say. The CBI have endorsed it. The big finance houses, foreign investors, and domestic property development are on board. The FT gave it a warm write up. The promise of guaranteed state money and the later productivity boost improved infrastructure is forecast to bring offers a bonanza of profit-making opportunities. Reeves doesn't have to worry about the press whispers about her position. She's safe because she's inviting all and sundry to partake of the public trough, which leaves to the Tories and Reform the most unrepresentative and backward-looking sections of capital. For now.
Image Credit
Tuesday, 28 January 2025
AI as an Apparatus of Capture

America, the self-proclaimed home of buccaneering entrepreneurship and freedom stopped exporting advanced chips to China and showered the techbros with staggering sums. The ludicrous resources at their disposal brute-forced the pace of innovation. Think of all the money that has gone into producing applications less accurate than internet search engines, creates its own "facts" through "hallucinations", and has trouble drawing hands. A hell-for-leather effort that wanted to cement an unassailable technological lead. And that's been shown up by a network of Chinese coders using open source software, no state backing, and little but their skill and ingenuity. They have produced a better model with nowhere near the same demands on chips and energy. The tech oligarchs have got to be hoping the PhD-level language models, which according to the much-publicised rumour mill is weeks away, is more than a case of their getting high on their own supply. If not, some are looking at significant dips in their fortunes.
Yet none of this changes the fundamentals about so-called AI. It is a technology designed not to speed things up and make life easier. Like the vast majority of innovations in production, it's designed to deskill and disempower labour, forestalling the looming threat of a long-term shift in the balance of capital and labour in labour's favour. As discussed many times here, capital accumulation, particularly in the most advanced industrial countries, has become increasingly dependent on immaterial labour: the knowledge, skills, personalities, and social aptitudes. This is because capital itself is directly dependent on the production of information and relationships to sell a service of some description. However, the main force of production that counts is the brain, or rather the person of the worker. And it's inherently leaky. Despite the stringencies of copyright, industrial secrets, non-disclosure agreements, whatever competencies someone builds working with one employer remains with the worker, and can be the basis for future work elsewhere - be it for other employers (competitors), their own business, or outside the economy entirely. Capital ponces off the commons and whatever is produced "leaks" back into and builds the commons, leaving capital revealed as a parasitic social relationship. Whereas previous waves of technological development have increasingly done away with the masses of people production required and, more importantly, the knowledge of production that gave labour some leverage over the capital that employed them; the creativity, the ability to produce new information and maintain relationships appeared impervious, except around the edges where repetitive tasks were concerned.
AI changes this. The tech bro dream are machines that can code the software for other machines, which to a degree is possible now. They want to be able to generate their own images and text without having to bother with human artists and writers. Or the production of films, television, and music that can do without crews, actors, and musicians. In corporate and public sector bureaucracies, it's the automation of clerical tasks and, in some cases, front-facing work involving customers and clients that promises the most, freeing up managers for "strategy". Who themselves will become increasingly replaced by "thinking" machines. Even everyday communication skills, such as how to craft an email, is now something any old AI chatbot will happily do for you. What only a few short years ago was temporarily "captured" to generate surplus value is in the process of becoming absorbed into itself as 21st century fixed capital. AI might seem convenient, but it's first and foremost there at capital's convenience.
Opposition to so-called AI is not reactionary, or anti-technology. It is a healthy response to a power grab that will result in a privately-owned monopoly over creativity. This means, ultimately, to put hundreds of millions out of work globally and secure capital against its dependence on the intellectuality and sociality of human beings. These bots are "trained" by "reading" the sum total of our species' cultural output without any recompense whatsoever. What is presently ours becomes theirs, with the possibility of our common heritage being reduced to regurgitated AI slop that becomes a cultural staple, and one owned by the firms who end up winning the AI race. The loss of, the possibility of the privatisation of social competencies is real. Therefore, the rapid rise of DeepSeek and the humbling of the USA's richest companies, while funny, does not change the dynamics of the situation at all. Because this is capitalism, AI is more than a toy and a liberator of free time: it's the latest, and possibly the most complete means of capturing and imprisoning the soul.
Saturday, 25 January 2025
Local Council By-Elections January 2025

Party
|
Number of Candidates
|
Total Vote
|
%
|
+/- Dec
|
+/- Jan 24
|
Avge/
Contest |
+/-
Seats |
Conservative
|
7
| 3,111 |
21.3%
| -0.8 |
-7.9
|
444
|
0
|
Labour
|
6
| 2,489 |
17.1%
| -7.3 |
-11.8
| 415
|
-1
|
Lib Dem
|
7
| 3,182
|
21.8%
| +5.1 |
-6.0
|
455
|
-1
|
Reform*
|
7
| 1,534
|
10.5%
| -5.2 |
+10.3
|
219
|
0
|
Green
|
5
| 825
|
5.7%
| -1.4
|
-1.7
|
165
|
0
|
SNP**
|
2
| 1,405 |
9.6%
| +3.2 |
+5.8
| 703
|
0
|
PC***
|
0
| | |
0
| |||
Ind****
|
10
| 1,982 |
13.6%
|
+12.1
|
198
|
+2
| |
Other*****
|
1
|
0.4%
| -1.2 |
-1.0
|
65
|
0 |
* Reform's comparison results are based on recomputing their tallies from last year's Others
** There were three by-elections in Scotland
*** There were no by-elections in Wales
**** There were two Independent clashes
***** Others this month consisted of the Scottish Family Party (65)
January is a funny month for by-elections, and 2025 has proven no exception. Abnormally large vote shares for the SNP and Independents have depressed everyone else's vote share. It would therefore be wrong to suppose anything from these results. But let's be foolish. Conservatives and Labour continue to suffer as per the polls, but again and arguably, SNP/Indie caveats aside, Reform continue to underperform their polling. Surely it can't be the case that the media and mainstream politics are over-hyping them, which is feeding through to the pollsters? Likewise, for some time the Liberal Democrats have outperformed polling numbers in actual elections. Is the real politics of elections something going by unseen by those paid to watch such things?
9 January
North Devon, Instow, LDem gain from Con
16 January
Bath & North East Somerset, Ind gain from LDem
Cotswold, Chesterton, LDem hold
23 January
Edinburgh, Colinton/Fairmilehead, Con gain from SNP, Lab gain from LDem
Liverpool, Much Woolton & Hunts, LDem hold
Newcastle-under-Lyme, Town, Lab hold
Shetland, Shetland North, Ind gain from Lab
Stirling, Bannockburn, SNP gain from Lab
Image Credit