Science Fiction Book Haul #4

Book hauls have never stopped being popular on YouTube. But written versions? Somewhat less so. As you can tell from this place's paint job, being fashionable has never been a concern for this blog. And, sadly, these days science fiction is far from the flavour of the month either. Therefore posting about recent SF acquisitions on here is something of an apposite match, and perhaps a waste of time. Not that this bothers me.

Up first is Nevil Schute's On the Beach. I'm sure most readers, even if they're not sf or literary buffs will have heard of this thanks to the Gregory Peck film. A rare exercise in the hopeless everyone-dies-in-the-end scenario, nuclear war in the northern hemisphere has created a radioactive cloud that is slowly enveloping the Earth. Australia has escaped the fall out, but weather patterns mean it's closing in and with it, certain death. How do you cope when the end is nigh, and what happens when a submarine captain receives a radio signal from the irradiated shores of the United States?

Next is John Scalzi's Old Man's War from 2005, the first in a seven book series - the latest of which came out this year. The conceit here is that old people are being enlisted for space war. Their wizened frames are traded in for biochemically and nanotech enhanced soldier bodies that can take the fight to the aliens. It is well thought of and was nominated for the Hugo. Bringing things back to Earth, The Parable of the Talents is the second book in what would have been Octavia E Butler's near future series about the collapse of civilisation and the Mad Max-style fun that entails. Noted because the narrative jumps off in the 2020s as the US crumples beneath the weight of a right wing authoritarian president, this was to be a story of struggle, of overcoming, and building a space faring future away from the ruined Earth.

Arthur C Clarke gets a bit of a bad rap these days for having churned out, by our standards, dull and Whiggish science fiction (though I found his A Fall of Moondust entertaining enough). Does this judgement include Imperial Earth? 150 years from now, citizens from across the solar system are converging on Earth to celebrate 500 years of American independence. The futuristically named Duncan MacKenzie is making the diplomatic pilgrimage from the tunnels of Titan, but is he visiting to just make nice with the locals or are their ulterior motives afoot?

Jumping from the nearish future to the far past, Caspar Geon (AKA Tom Toner) sets The Immeasurable Heaven a long time ago in a galaxy far away. Billions of years back, to be precise, during a time when the universe was smaller and empty space was alive with a rich soup of elementary particles. There are no humans in this story, but we do have a settled galaxy - Yokkun's Depth - and a plot arising from the consequences of puncturing holes in the fabric of reality to reach the younger universes beneath. Immeasurable was published in the summer and comes highly recommended to me via several sf booktubers, so looking forward to digging in before long.

Last is the compilation Nebula Award Stories 5 edited by James Blish. In his intro, Blish takes issue with vote massaging accusations around the 1970 contest. But that's by the by. Included here are two authors' signature shorts. Samuel R Delany's Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones and Harlan Ellison's famous A Boy and His Dog. The "also-rans" are Robert Silverberg's 1969 award winner Passengers, Ursula K Le Guin's Nine Lives, Larry Niven's Not Long Before the End, and The Man Who Learned Loving by Theodore Sturgeon. There are bonus essays about the state of science fiction in 1969 from Darko Suvin and Alexei Panshin. Apart from a touch of sun fade on the spine, this is in very good nick for such an old book/

Have you picked up anything interesting lately, SF or non-sf related?

Another Lost Election

It's getting to be a habit. Keir Starmer lost another election on Saturday. Even the dogs in the street knew Lucy Powell was going to win Labour's deputy leadership contest, and did so with by a convincing margin. With 54.3% of the vote versus "popular with the unions" Bridget Phillipson and her 45.7%, this exercise in democracy had to contend less with each other and more with generalised indifference. The turn out, a shade over 16%, is demonstrative of how the "debate" between the two stirred up nothing but apathy among the ranks. Though one should note this went out to affiliated members, which flatters the party by burying the real membership figures. Which, for now, remain under wraps.

This is another reminder that when put to the electoral test, there is no appetite for open Starmerism. Even among an electorate one might expect to be favourably disposed, thanks to his steering Labour back into office. And so the less-than-optimal scenario has come to pass, an eventuality that wouldn't have happened had Starmer not turfed Powell out. Instead, we might have got a pointless show contest between Phillipson and someone similarly ineffectual, like Alison McGovern. But Powell is savvy enough not to cause much in the way of bother. She knows when to let the leadership dig their own grave, and is only likely to stick her oar in if the government does something stupid. Seeing as Rachel Reeves's next budget is due in a month, the probability of Number 10 and Number 11 standing on another rake is not low.

Flanked by more flags than a far right march, Powell's victory speech was full of the usual platitudes. Labour through-and-through, championing our values, "boldness". She has to say these things because Starmer's claims to them are tenuous at best. She said that "Unity and loyalty comes from collective purpose – not from command and control". A devastating broadside against the last five years, I'm sure you'll agree. If that's her most pointed criticism even this rigidly brittle Labour leadership can cope with that.

It's not Powell hitting the headlines that Starmer and Morgan McSweeney have to worry about. It's what goes on beneath the surface. McSweeney had a lot of fun over the years frustrating Angela Rayner, particularly where it came to blocking her allies in the North West region from getting safe seats. But as Powell has made a point of not wanting to return to cabinet, she more or less has the free run of the party machine. Her "Lucy Listens" initiative "designed" to reconnect the membership to the leaders might, coincidentally, prove to be a handy information gathering exercise for a leadership campaign. As the Westminster chatter about replacing Starmer is getting louder, I'm naively wondering which would-be leader closely associated with Powell could profit from the building of a network of contacts, and having a ringside seat listening to members' complaints? It's a mystery.

Politics After Caerphilly

Let the opening line in yesterday's post be a warning: never make glib forecasts without gripping the fundamentals. But on this occasion, I'm happy to be wrong. As Adam Bienkov gloats, the media circus camped out in Caerphilly were sure the momentum they had built around Reform's Llyr Powell would gift the party its first Senedd victory. Ho hum. Congratulations are due then to Plaid Cymru for defying their expectations and keeping Nigel Farage's fan club out. Laura Anne Jones, the Tory AM who defected to Reform in the summer will have to sit by her lonesome a while longer.

Plaid won for several reasons. By all accounts, Lindsay Whittle was an excellent candidate. A local man who has stood for the party 14 times, his long record of campaigning as an activist and a councillor stands in sharp contrast to the far right carnival that came to town, and won't likely be seen again until next year's Senedd campaign begins. And also against the faceless suits that Labour typically favours as candidates. Also in Plaid's favour is their never having been tested with office, which is married to a centre left platform few would find objectionable. As the party's leader Rhun ap Iorwerth has ruled out pushing for independence, their offering is not that dissimilar to Labour's of the recent past. Which is handy, given Wales is the most Labour of the UK's constituent nations.

Or rather, was. For the other story of the night was the complete collapse of Labour's position. Since Keir Starmer won the general election, Welsh Labour's has nose dived. The dominance of the party, which endured during the Blair, Brown, Miliband, and Corbyn years is perched on a precipice. Recent polling indicates their precarity, and Caerphilly's loss - an unwavering stronghold for a century - underlines it. The 2026 elections are set on being a repeat of Labour's 2015 Scotland wipe out. Yes, Welsh politics has its own dynamic not entirely beholden to Westminster. The scandal around Vaughan Gething's resignation as First Minister, which involved a £200k donation from a businessman convicted of environmental offences, "coincidental" awarding of government loans to his companies, and fibbing to the Covid inquiry about the deletion of messages have all eroded the party's standing. But this crisis was compounded by the hapless, hopeless farce of Labour in Westminster. Polling suggests that Plaid's vote was overwhelmingly composed of former Labour voters, and there's no reason to believe this decomposition won't carry on eating their support. It couldn't happen to a nicer Labour leadership.

Returning to Reform, despite putting a brave face on it Farage and friends will be disappointed. Their chair, David Bull, boasted about how they went from nothing to 36% in the blink of an eye. Yes, but with the media pack doing their campaigning for them and their agenda dominating politics, they should have lived up to the hype. Which has led to speculation about the role of tactical voting to keep Reform out. In such a close fought contest, it's reasonable to assume this was a factor. But is this something we're going to see more of? By and large, council by-elections are seen not to matter, and here there is seemingly no evidence of this happening so far. This hasn't stopped the FT from speculating that this might save Labour's bacon. Or at least mitigate future losses.

I think this misunderstands the dynamics of protest voting right now. Because Labour are in government and have prioritised making the rich richer, scapegoating refugees and trans people, starving public services of funds, reinforcing the curbs on protest introduced by the Tories, attacking the most vulnerable, and parading their arrogance while doing so, they have unified a vast ball of opposition. If you don't want Farage or Farage-lite policies, why vote for the Labour candidate now there are viable alternatives? Be it Plaid, or the SNP, or the Liberal Democrats, or the Greens, or Your Party when it finally arrives properly. As Labour support has collapsed almost everywhere, banking on tactical voting to keep them in  and Reform out applies to so few areas that, as strategies go, it's worthless. And that's before even attempting to persuade the voters the party has abandoned that they should come back. Tactical voting isn't going to work during the next round of second order elections, which means Starmer will be toast after May. But if by some horrendous miracle he weathers the fall out, for as long as he, right wing Labour, and their politics rule the party, the fate sure to befall them next Spring will keep repeating year after year, devolved government election after council election after parliamentary by-election. By the time 2029 comes Labour's support will have withered on the vine.

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Why Reform Local Govt Splits Don't Matter

It's likely that Reform are going to win the Caerphilly by-election for the Senedd. Victory will continue demonstrating that Nigel Farage's party is on the up, but to all intents and purposes they've had a rough couple of weeks. Questions over NF's finances. Nathan Gill admitting that he shilled for Russia while an MEP. A backlash against their plans to deport people with indefinite leave to remain. And adding to the drama are issues in local government.

The Graun splashed with leaked footage from Kent County Council's cabinet meeting, which advertised a behind-the-scenes culture of fractiousness, bad language, and non-collegiate behaviour. In the fall out, four suspects/awkwards were turfed out the council group. The problem being that Reform in Kent, as in many other places, were voted in on the back of false promises that they would identify and cut waste without impacting on service delivery. A rather bold if not stupid claim, given the 14-year long butchery of local government. Kent have now gone a step further and has begged their opposition for help in finding savings to avoid putting Council Tax up. I'm sure other parties in the chamber will be falling over themselves to assist.

Kent is but one of several local government difficulties. Northumberland has seen three councillors expelled after notifying the national party about competency concerns. Nottinghamshire council group famously blacklisted the local paper, the Evening Post, and councillors refused to engage with them. They climbed down following legal threats. Reform in Derbyshire are pushing an unpopular care home fire sale, while their SEND cabinet member - an issue Reform professes to care about - has resigned. All over the country there are similar stories. Locals falling out. Councillors ditching their seats. New councils having nary a clue. It's a refraction of the chaos at the top of the party, which is two MPs down on where they should be since the election. And as if to underscore it, Zia Yusuf has resigned again. This time from Reform's pathetic council efficiency unit.

Division and infighting is the lot for Reform. As it was for UKIP before it. And that is why, from his point of view, Farage was wise to keep a firm control over his new personality vehicle. The private ownership model, which has now been superseded by a "democratic" model where Farage's writ runs unchallenged means the anointed one doesn't have to even pay lip service to democratic proprietary. If someone annoys the boss for any reason at all, they're gone. No matter how much sound and fury those on the receiving end kick up.

But does this matter? Chaos is not specific to Reform. It's a feature of all parties of the Farageist type. Yet fallings outs and expulsions have not derailed continental far right parties. And, sadly, it's unlikely council tax rises and other debacles in local government are going to reduce their support because that's not why people vote for them. Reform's standing begins and ends with Farage. And for anyone wanting to successfully overcome the challenge his party presents, political criticisms and attacks have to focus on him.

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The Second Green Surge

Congratulations to the Greens. Doubling the size of the party in two months to 140,000+ members and leaving the Tories in the dust is no mean feat. Especially with politics being as it is, with right wing talking points crowding other views out of the mainstream and Nigel Farage parading around as the establishment-sanctioned anti-establishment alternative. Yes, the Green Party in on an upward trajectory as long forecasted around these parts, but what's driving it?

Since the election of Zack Polanski, no one can fault the Green Party for making the most of him. Polanski is doing a good job of making the most of his fresh face status. His "eco-populism", which emphasises the us vs them populism characteristic of Corbynism at its most successful has leant itself to spiky social media posts and a refusal to play the usual media game. Polanski promised he would be a Farage-like figure, albeit from the left, and he's making a good fist of it. His social media shorts have gone viral, he's earned praise from Alastair Campbell(!) for his easy style and the slogan "make hope normal again", and following a short campaign he was granted a slot on Laura Kuenssberg after he was "overlooked" during party conference season. Less noted but also important is Polanski's new podcast, Bold Politics. Featuring interviews with well known left and radical figures, such as Grace Blakeley, Owen Jones, and Gary Stevenson, this has drawn in a layer who spend less time on your Twitters and Blueskys and more cycling around the politics podcast circuit.

We make our own history, but not under circumstances of our choosing. Polanski and the Greens are fortunate that there are two more things in their favour. Which, interestingly enough, almost repeat what happened a decade ago. Though this time as triumph, rather than tragedy or farce. Obviously, enthusiasm for the Greens is a blowback against the reactionary cul de sac Labour has parked mainstream politics in. In their cynical and reckless fashion, Keir Starmer and galaxy-brained Morgan McSweeney have charged to the right in an effort to dampen any progressive expectations their support might have following 14 wasted years of Tory government. Being racist and posturing hard on immigration is ideal: the lure for Labour is the same as it was for the Tories. Create scapegoats, stir up panics against them, and reap the benefits from clamping down hard. The overall balance of forces in the country remain unchanged, but the government gets to look effective. For Labour, to McSweeney's mind this tees up the support for Reform, but in the absence of any positive sell in 2029 the choice is between Starmer and Farage. That's right, this Labour government would rather risk opening the door to a government of the extreme right than abandoning its present course and tipping toward the centre left.

The Green surge of 2025 is then a larger echo of the Green surge of 2015. Millions of people are sick of this politics. No one voted Labour last year to chip away at social security, starve public services, give NHS data to private corporations, rip up the green belt, arm a genocide, outbid the racists on immigration, demonise trans people, or slavishly kowtow to billionaires at home and abroad. The Greens are well placed to intersect with this discontent, because Polanski is just about the only politician talking about these issues. Had history pivoted the other way and Adrian Ramsey and Ellie Chowns won the leadership, would they have made the most of this? It's doubtful.

I said just about the only politician, because the others who might have capitalised on this are Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. Arguably, as Your Party is going through its founding process and there not being much to join might have counted against their appeal. But undoubtedly, last month's fireworks have put plenty of would-be recruits off. Just the idea that the new party could fudge it on landlords, and could fudge it on trans people, the opaque moves and secrecy, and now the lack of faith in its leading figures because of all this rubbish, why not head to a party that has name recognition, a support base, a ready-made structure that is very democratic, and a seeming absence of the back biting and media leaking some are intent on importing into Your Party from Labour and the trade union movement? The Greens are taking off, in part, because the main player in the new party has dithered and delayed, and then the project was almost tossed into the skip. Politics waits for no one. If there's an opportunity, someone will move on it. Zack Polanski has, and this is why the Greens are surging and Your Party will have to play second fiddle to them. For good or for ill.

Covid, Round Three

A his 'n' hers. Hers, a blunt, rude indicator of a Covid bout in full force. Fatigue, muted senses of taste and smell, feeling off. A most unwelcome intruder in our happy house.

Mine, a barely-there mark befitting a fading illness that, on the third time of asking, has been milder than previous memberships of the Covid club. Enough to keep me away from work, going out, and doing most normal things. Tragically, no lawn mowing last weekend for me. I also had to put down the threads I would have weaved into tapestries of political comment this last week, so apologies for the brief interlude of silence. Having munched through my weight in decongestants, paracetemol, and downed a vat's worth of Nightnurse (other respiratory remedies are available), the blighter is almost finished. No word marathons ahoy in the immediate recovery period then, but a few canters around the block should start reappearing hereabouts.

Labour's Dreary Deputy Leadership Contest

Even by the dull standards of the form, Labour's deputy leadership contest has been a doze fest. The pair of interviews Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell did for LabourList are recommended reading for insomniacs everywhere. But this suits the Labour leadership just fine. Having suffered a very bumpy September, the last thing Keir Starmer needed was one current and one very recent cabinet member firing up the Big Berthas and pounding each other's positions. Seeing as it's a proxy skirmish between the beleaguered Starmerist camp and the approaching columns of Andy Burnham.

As with most things that have gone wrong with this Labour government, the leadership only has itself to blame. Starmer and/or his genius henchman have created the dynamic where Burnham is unsubtly presenting himself as Labour's saviour, and Powell's campaign is the vehicle for his rise. In the aftermath of the Angela Rayner debacle, the Prime Minister didn't have to purge the cabinet of everyone else with links to Burnham's manse, but he did anyway leaving the top of government unusually politically narrow. Sect-like, some might say. And because the new "radical realist" soft left faction Mainstream was launching a couple of days later, Powell's campaign could not have asked for a better start. Not that it needed this boost. As polling has demonstrated, Powell's lead over Phillipson has widened since the starting gun fired. Though Phillipson's people point to her trade union nominations, pretending this indicates some sort of grass roots enthusiasm rather than a few officials here and there engineering a helpful favour.

Substantively, there isn't much between the two campaigns. Phillipson's talks up her coming from a "tough" street, because nice places never exist on council estates. There's her bringing in the breakfast clubs, which as we have seen is now Labour's signature policy achievement since coming to office. Other parts of her record, such as overseeing the loss of 15,000 jobs in higher education without any expression of regret, let alone a plan for fixing the sector don't get a mention. In her LabourList interview, she talks about the "truth telling" and "members' voice" she would bring to cabinet. How she's independent-minded, and has copped hostile briefings because of it. Phillipson goes on to say you can't out-Reform Reform, and that causing division in our communities is anti-British, and that the flag is "our flag too". A few prompts on ChatGPT could have written a more attractive pitch, it's a miracle that 26% of members polled are planning to vote for her.

Not that Powell's pitch is tonally different. But what she does say, as per her LabourList interview, is that Labour has lost its way, it's flat-footed when it comes to politics, and its managerialism is alienating. Reorienting the party, for her, means being outside of cabinet. Rather than insisting on Rayner's old position, she appears to be doing Starmer a favour by not undoing her sacking. She would deliver "difficult messages" from the members publicly, and seek to galvanise the party. She promises "Lucy listens" fora up and down the country to connect the bottom of the party with the top. On her relationship to factional argy-bargy and this being a Starmer/Burnham proxy, "I always think it is pretty sexist. We’re two strong women standing in an open contest. I am completely motivated by my own agenda here." Any alignments with wider party struggles are therefore entirely accidental. As would be the case if Powell uses her mandate to push for party changes in ways uncongenial to the right wing blob of McSweeney and co.

And this is why Powell will win. Despite the rubbish Labour MPs tell themselves, the members are much closer to the public sociologically and politically speaking than they are. Members not only face the same every day pressures, they are also on the sharp end of Labour's policies. Any candidate reflecting their disquiet and dissatisfaction, that causes Starmer some discomfort from the left (albeit the softest left), who might get the leadership to think about the crisis in Labour's support, and perhaps try a strategy that doesn't imitate Reform was bound to attract most votes. It's also a shot across Starmer's boughs. Powell is the most Milquetoast of messengers of discontent this Labour Party could muster, but if the government carries on as it does and next May's results are as catastrophic as the current run of council by-elections, the MPs and trade union leaders that come for Starmer and his cabinet of nodding donkeys won't be so polite.

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Uncovering Starmer's Fraudulent Politics

I was privileged enough to score an invite to Tuesday morning's presser for Paul Holden's The Fraud, a forensic examination of the shenanigans, rules flouting, and, in some cases, potential law breaking by Morgan McSweeney and the people around him. The story of Labour Together and what role it played in capturing the Labour leadership for Keir Starmer is well enough known, but what Holden has done is hunt down the receipts and the emails that lubricated this dishonest enterprise. But this has not happened without personal risk. A malicious complaint against him was made to the National Cyber Security Centre, alleging that he'd accessed hacked emails from Labour Together. He was also called by someone pretending to be a journalist for openDemocracy who tried pumping him for information, and that "reputation management firms" had tried digging up dirt on him and his family.

Holden began at the beginning. Labour Together was founded by Jon Cruddas and was billed as a non-factional organisation looking to bridge the divides inside Labour. He hired McSweeney, and very quickly Steve Reed, now the minister for housing and local government, and Imran Ahmed, now of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, came on board, From that point on it became a front for their factionalising, which was hidden from Cruddas. As we now know, LT was central to Keir Starmer's leadership campaign in early 2020, but McSweeney and friends denied it was any such thing. We also know that LT took over £700k in undeclared donations, and while this was later explained as an admin oversight Holden has email correspondence between McSweeney and the Electoral Commission. McSweeney argued that it didn't need declaring because LT was not a campaigning organisation, whereas the EC said that didn't matter and should be reported as a matter of course. The Morganiser subsequently "forgot" this conversation. Meanwhile, LT figures, such as the new home secretary Shabana Mahmood, was writing articles that said all funding was properly declared.

On Labour's antisemitism crisis, Reed, McSweeney, and Ahmed drove some aspects of the crisis, with the first compiling and submitting lists of his own. Where this painful episode needed to be dealt with with seriousness and care, it was instead factional and toxic. Accusations of racism were, yes, weaponised as part of the right's was against the left. One such example was David Gordstein, who made hundreds of complaints against party members. This identity was an invention of the (non-Jewish) Euan Phillips of Labour Against Antisemitism and targeted the left, including Jewish members.

LT also funded some secret projects, which included the astroturf campaign 'Stop Funding Fake News'. Launched in March 2019, it portrayed itself as a volunteer organisation but worked under the direction of McSweeney and Ahmed. It campaigned to demonetise websites. and the primary target was The Canary, which was seen as an important node in Corbyn-supportive media. They also targetted Westmonster, the right wing Arron Banks vehicle, and Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party. In May 2019, SFFN posted a thread telling people not to vote BXP and made ad hom attacks on Trump. The political problem is this used Russia-style disinfo tactics, and laid open the Prime Minister's right hand man to charges that undeclared money was used to cancel opponents. Farage is far from averse to playing the poor little right winger card, and could make something of this. Also, Starmer is in hot water of the notoriously prickly White House takes notice.

Part two of the book is called the long con, and details the dishonest contrivances around marketing Starmer. He was recreated as an inhabitant of the human rights universe, and employed "shadowing" as a tactic. I.e. Politically, Starmer's campaign tracked closely to the positions of Rebecca Long-Bailey so no meaningful gap could open between the two. Entirely by coincidence, Stop Funding Fake News was resurrected on 8th January and again went after The Canary. Their crime this time? Drawing attention to Starmer's time as Director of Public Prosecutions, a record that sits somewhat uneasily with his human rights glossing.

Part three looks at killing Corbynism. Once the leadership was won, the machinery was quickly recolonised by right wingers, which was epitomised by their response to the leaked dossier of Labour staffers' WhatsApp messages. Despite the racist banter, attacks on other party members, and evidence of a shadow campaign that diverted funds to safe seats held by right wingers in 2017, those at fault were barely admonished while heaven and earth was moved to find the leaker. Eventually the party took five former officials to court on the flimsiest of evidence. But what did they have in common? They were part of the left. This shadow campaign, which Holden calls the Ergon House scandal, saw funds diverted away from swing seats to safe seats, circumventing normal governance procedures. This was a secret office and Holden has documentary proof that six right wingers, Gloria De Piero, Mary Creagh, Margaret Beckett, Angela Eagle, Caroline Flint, and Judith Cummins, benefited from their support. Unite wrote to Starmer about this and suggested it might shade into criminality, but this breaking of Labour rules and electoral law came to nothing.

On the EHRC report on Labour's antisemitism, within half an hour of Starmer saying he would implement its recommendations he had violated them. One of the EHRC's findings was that the party was guilty of "indirect" discrimination because the leader's office under Corbyn was occasionally consulted about the pace and outcomes of complaints. It's worth noting here, which Holden did not, that this "discrimination" was focused on expediting complaints, not delaying them as falsely claimed by right wingers at the time. However, despite pledging to end interference, between May-June 2020 the leader's office and Angela Rayner were copied into all complaints and were regularly briefed on cases. Complaint handlers were also directed as to their findings. Perhaps the most egregious example of this was the suspension of Jeremy Corbyn from the party, with emails and tweets being sent announcing this immediately after Corbyn, rightly, acknowledged that antisemitism was played as a political football. Other interferences involved "VIP lanes" for MPs who wanted to complain against inconvenient activists

Overall, Holden's presser portrayed Labour as a vicious and, at times, lawless party. Their dismissal of the Forde report into factionalism and the issuing of legal threats around non-disclosure against him, the deselection of Anna Rothery as Labour's candidate for Liverpool's mayoralty, the racist profiling of Newham Labour Party, which involved significant data breaches, and - it might ba added- their repeated victimisation of Diane Abbott demonstrates a systematic problem with racism. But one that gets a free pass because it's the right wing that are doing it.

In all, what Holden has accomplished is a detailed, meticulous exposure of right wing perfidy. It sounds like a dossier of damnation, and one whose evidence could form the basis of civil and legal cases against the Labour Party in general, and McSweeney and his boys in particular. Matters not helped by the fact these right wingers have boasted about their genius dark arts moves to any journalist willing to be their stenographer. As Holden concluded, their fraudulent approach to politics marked the 2024 election campaign and helps explain the alienation and antipathy Starmer has engendered in government. Who can disagree?

What about the Little Lenins?

Last Thursday, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition urged its supporters to take out Your Party membership. This is despite the bar on the signing up page that says "you cannot be a member of another national political party". TUSC, for electoral purposes being another party - though it definitely isn't in reality - should not be allowed in on these grounds. Nor, for that matter, should other left outfits that have boarded the YP express train. Yet the Socialist Workers Party have set up and run YP meetings. The Socialist Party, TUSC's mother ship, has urged its members to join, and as for the Revolutionary Communist Party it's a case of support them but join us!. Thanks, but no thanks.

Barring other organisations at the outset is wrong, but understandable. This country's revolutionary left, which fancies itself as the most clear-eyed and class conscious of us haven't covered themselves in glory in the 21st century. Theirs is a history of splits, sometimes over points of principle, but more often than not because self-styled leaderships would rather see their organisations damaged or destroyed than submit themselves to accountability, or suffer the indignity of being democratically replaced by junior cadre. And theirs is a history of sabotage as well. The SWP are notorious for wrecking or derailing campaigns they don't control, or dropping them like a hot potato when paper sales and new recruits have been peeled off. The record of far left parties working with other far left parties is similarly poor. Watching the SP walk out of the Socialist Alliance because they could not bear to be a minority. The SWP trying to eviscerate and wreck Respect when they fell out with George Galloway. Both organisations' disgusting binning off their opponents in the Scottish Socialist Party when they backed (subsequently) convicted perjurer Tommy Sheridan and his ill-fated efforts at swindling money out of the Murdoch press. And should we even mention the episodes of sex assault cover ups all three organisations are guilty of, especially the Comrade Delta case. Who'd want such a bunch in a new left party?

I don't, but bouncers on the door is not the way to do it. I recall the farcical scenes, though thankfully was not party to them, of Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party. A promising left regroupment project that squandered its potential and energy in witch hunt after purge, chasing out small left groups like Workers' Power, the Communist Party of Great Britain (Weekly Worker), and the International Bolshevik Tendency, before cliques of witch-finder generals turned on one another. In short order, even more obscure sectlets - the Fourth International Supporters' Caucus, the Economic and Philosophic Science Review, and Harpal Brar/Lalkar, who went on to form the comedically ultra-Stalinist Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), got expelled. If the no-parties-allowed rule is allowed to stand now, are we going to let history repeat itself as tragedy as the most promising breakthrough for working class politics since the Poll Tax toppled Thatcher is skipped in a sectarian pique?

The solution is obvious. Let the left's little Lenins join. Give each party the right to form its own platform with the freedom of its own press. Let them run their own slates for election, let them make the case for their politics in front of the mass membership, let them become subsumed by the rhythms and life of a broader living, breathing political movement. The far left have turned other campaigns and projects into ashes because these were small efforts of no consequence where social weight was concerned. Despite the recent crisis in Your Party and the huge surge in Green Party membership and support, YP has the potential to reach more and organise more, and as such swamp them. The chances of their winning over swathes of members is unlikely because they have proven incapable of undertaking mass recruitment from active and politicised social movements, like Palestine solidarity. And also, to a tee, all of them are brittle organisations. They work because they create small, semi-autonomous worlds that insulate their members from the pressures that bear down on "ordinary" trade unionists and activists, and thrive on cultures of hyper-activity usually focused on petty party promotion. Being fully exposed to a proper political process of organising our class as a mass party is likely to have the opposite effect. Their contact with masses of our people is likely to erode them, a point underlined by the crudity, unreadability and faux naivete of much of their output. It's probably fair to say that, regardless of their politics, the Weekly Worker remains the only weekly publication on the British left that treats its readers as grown ups. But even then, it uses an idiom and saddles hobby horses far removed from the realities of mobilising our class for itself.

And if I'm wrong? If YP is able to politicise class relations and mobilises hundreds of thousands, if not millions, and they collectively, democratically decide that some sort of revolutionary politics is the necessary solution to decaying capitalism, that's democracy.

Therefore, no to bans on organisations, or so-called parties-within-a-party, or their presses, and yes to a carnival of ideas, political education, and a mature tradition of debate. Not because discussions are jolly good fun, but because without such basic democracy our class cannot hope to organise itself, let alone set about winning a world.

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What Happened to One Nation Conservatism?

The jamboree of delusion and extremism that was Conservative Party conference birthed a small, fleeting genre of political centrist-to-soft-left commentary about them. Columns by Zoe Williams, Polly Toynbee, and "The Bear" more or less make the same point. The Tories utterly deserve their miserable fate, but at the same time this is bad news. Keir Starmer needs to be held to account at the dispatch box to ensure good governance. Lack of scrutiny leads to bad decision-making. Second, a weak Tory party cannot be a bulwark against the racist right. If it was a viable party, the low instincts of reactionary voters would be sublimated and moderated. Instead, what we have is their free expression, all the consequences that entails, and the Tories acting as permissive peddlers of this rubbish.

There is some truth to these arguments. During the mid-late 1970s, the toxic brew of a popular, authoritarian moralism, anti-immigration politics, and racist moral panics around inner city violence and mugging - against the backdrop of rising class consciousness, a powerful labour movement, and a flailing Labour government - powered the rise of the National Front. But come the 1979 general election, by leaning into these issues the Tories snuffed out the NF's support. The price was, however, the breaking of the labour movement, the defeat of collectivist politics, and a long period of more-or-less untrammelled dominance of labour by capital. A period, some might say, we've yet to emerge from. Another more localist example comes from my old stomping ground of Stoke-on-Trent. During the 00s, the British National Party came within a whisker of winning the elected mayoralty and had nine council seats. Fuhrer Nick Griffin referred to Stoke as the jewel in the BNP's crown, among other things. While the BNP were ultimately defeated by the joint efforts of the local anti-fascist movement and the Labour Party, they were able to get an opening because the Tory organisation in the city was but a rumour. In many wards the Tories didn't bother standing, so part of the BNP coalition were right wing voters for whom the fascists were the only option.

But also, there is a dollop of nostalgia. One nation conservatism appears attractive because it offers something for everyone. In contrast to the zero-sum class conflict Benjamin Disraeli plays out in his famous Sybil, or The Two Nations, what we all share is the nation. We are either born into or become members of a national community, and this forms an essential (if not essentialised) commonality between us. Racial difference, class location, gender identity, sexual preferences, we might not be equal but we are all Britons. We are equal before the law, are free to acquire property, but most importantly we all have a place and make a valuable contribution. One nation conservatism also believes that the institutions cohering and constituting us as a national community have evolved slowly out of the accumulation of historical experience, and as such are embodiments of generations of wisdom. This is exemplified by the state, in which the crown, the church, and the commons exist in partnership - one where, rightly, the people via their parliamentary representatives are sovereign but are at times guided and tempered by the wealth of experience and moral rectitude upheld by the monarchy and the clergy. And in practice, what does one nation conservatism mean? A party that self-consciously governs for everyone, that protects the social fabric and therefore the ties that bind our country as a community. Social problems are occasions for moral improvement and judicious intervention. Inequality, though inevitable, cannot be allowed to get out of hand. The obligation to work by the many is matched by paternalism, respect, reciprocity, and charity on the part of the wealthy few. One nation conservatism is therefore frightful of rapid social change, which can ride roughshod over delicate equilibria painstakingly forged over centuries. It is deeply suspicious of any politics, particularly left wing politics, that seeks to remould society according to radical blueprints. That way tyranny lies.

Harold Macmillan is the Tory leader and Prime Minister most associated with one nationism. At the height of the post-war boom, following his immediate predecessors the Conservatives were committed to the class compact struck by the 1945 Labour government. Council homes were built, the capacity of the welfare state expanded, public services adequately funded, and full employment maintained. Macmillan emerged from a youthful attraction to moderate conservatism, liberalism, and Fabianism, and was further imbued with a social conscience during the depression. Unlike most of his Tory colleagues, he was exercised by and campaigned against mass unemployment - reinforced by his Stockton constituency being badly blighted. He went on to serve in the war time government, and in Churchill's post war administration was the minister for housing. Macmillan understood that for his class to maintain itself in the long-term, the lower orders needed a stake and therefore a place within it. As such, well into his retirement he criticised Margaret Thatcher and her characterisation of the miners as the enemy within, but other aspects of her programme, such as privatising state industry, was something he supported. But ultimately, one nationism didn't prevail - for a time - because of Macmillan. Between the late 1940s and late 1960s, there were over two million members of the party. Association bars were common sights across the country, and the Tories had strong roots among sections of the working class. As late as the 1970s, the Tories organised tens of thousands of trade unionists. As Jeremy Corbyn today embodies a radical movement against capitalism, so Macmillan personified a mass defence of a system that then shared the goods. He was at the head of a conservative social movement with real mass appeal.

That age is long gone, and from the two-nation Toryism of the Thatcher and Major years through to the war of all-against-all hellscape proffered by the Conservatives today, there's no sign of it ever coming back. At least through the offices of that party. As if to underline the one nationism's flatline, in her piece Polly Toynbee musters a single 20-year-old student with a website as the only sign something resembling a return to Macmillanism is in the offing. One nation has gone because the Tories buried its political economy and inflicted a strategic defeat on the labour movement. It was they that decided the "solution" to the crisis of the 1970s was to do away with the postwar compromise and rebalance class relations with capital firmly in the saddle. The only problem was that this also undermined first the mass presence the Conservatives had in the country, and then, after a long, drawn out process, their passive support at the ballot box. A moderate, sensible Tory party, however much such a creature is preferable to the gateway to the far right that exists today, is not going to happen. What we see with the gruesome Badenoch-Jenrick double act, and the Putin-friendly chums of the oil lobby in Nigel Farage and Reform is where right wing politics is right now: as a naked and open defence of class relations and oligarchical interests. For the first time the right are open and honest about what they're about, and it's best for us to face them as they are. Willing back a time when they stated their interests with more circumspection is not helpful. There are no good Tories. Only class conscious defenders of a decaying system.

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Tory Watching at the End of the Conservatives

What do you mean you didn't watch Kemi Badenoch's keynote speech at Conservative Party conference? Why, what a treat you missed out on. There were innovative and original policies like abolishing "mickey mouse" degrees, throwing bungs at rich landowners by reversing Labour's land tax, promising to spend half of her welfare cuts on paying off the public debt, abolishing stamp duty, clamping down on workers' rights, and subsidising private schools. An exciting policy agenda I'm sure you'll agree, and one that would very definitely reverse the long Tory slide.

Luckily, if you're one of the few people that have wondered about whatever happened to the Tory party, I sat down with Alex of Politics Theory Other fame to discuss all things Conservative. I guarantee it's more informative and entertaining than any amount of conference and fringe events that have streamed this week.

Politics Theory Other · When the party's over w/ Phil Burton-Cartledge

Olivia Newton John/ELO - Xanadu

The few press attending Conservative conference have noted the party's Margaret Thatcher exhibition. On show are some of her most famous outfits, life sized cut outs, and a gift shop kitted out with the sort of merch you'd only find in a Tory council group's shared office. Don't let anyone tell you they are a party living in the past.

Here, we have no time for the politics of nostalgia. But tunes are another matter. If the Tories want to relive their greatest hits from 40 or so years ago, than so can I. Except my choice hasn't led to a polarised society where a far right party is a contender for government.

The Unreality of Tory Economics

How was your lunch time? I spent mine catching snippets of Mel Stride's speech at Tory conference. He's the shadow chancellor in case you've stopped listening/watching the doings of the Conservative Party. But I couldn't resist. Some people collect stamps. Others tour the country visiting every Wetherspoon's on the map. Me? Seeing if there's any sign the Tories have become conscious of their worst ever crisis and if they've cobbled together a ladder that can get them out of their hole. If Stride's address is anything to go by, my advice to the Tories would be to start furnishing said pit. They are going to be there for a long time.

If Kemi Badenoch is supposed to be doing the showy stuff, then Stride is the unglamorous details man. Suspend your disbelief and buy in to the science fictional conceit that the Tories can win an election. Their next government would make £47bn worth of cuts. £23bn would come from cutting sickness-related social security support. Stride has decided that people with mental health conditions like depression, ADHD, and anxiety merit deserve no support at all. Presumably, work is the silver bullet that would vanquish these illnesses. Our old friend civil service cuts are back for another tour of duty, sacking 132,000 people and returning the state bureaucracy to the size it was in 2016. You know, when it was so stretched it famously did less planning for Brexit than the Japanese government. This represents an "evolution" of Badenoch's deep thoughts, who last year was merely interested in more efficient admin. This would yield £8bn in "savings", with the rest coming from reducing overseas aid further, tying benefit eligibility to citizenship, cutting environmental commitments, and scrapping hotel accommodation for refugees.

And this hodgepodge pays for what carrots? The reversal of Rachel Reeves's increase in employers' National Insurance contributions is front and centre. Allied to this is a promise to scrap business rates up to a limit of £110k/year for retail, hospitality, and leisure. Taken together I'm sure small independent traders would welcome this so don't be surprised if Labour half-inches some of this, especially nearer to the next general election. And what about young people? The Tories have spent years scratching their heads and wondering how to attract layers of younger people to whom they are repulsive. And their answer is ... a £5,000 cash hand out. This would be a tax rebate for new workers in their first job. What would have been NI payments can be cashed in after five years and spent as they see fit. Don't ask what this could mean for state pension eligibility later on.

At the end of his speech, Stride got a bit overexcited, castigating the doom-mongering of the other parties and claiming the mantle of hope for the Tories. Which was as audacious as it was a waste of time, seeing as no one was watching. While Badenoch and co. have gone off the war on woke deep end, the shadow chancellor has stayed firmly on the ground of traditional Tory economics. A little something here for small business, an eye-catching bribe for a wider constituency - in this case, young people. And all paid for by robbing the futures of the beneficiaries of this policy, stripping out state capacity, and promising to govern like Rishi Sunak. If you remember him. Unfortunately for the Tories, conservatism here means being out of step with political realities. British capital needs a stronger, more reliable state that can do things. And despite the best efforts of Labour to dampen expectations, this is what its diminishing support and expanding former voters want to see. As does the bulk of Reform's support when the racist circus orchestrated by ringmaster Farage isn't at the forefront of their minds. The Conservatives are nowhere near where the punters are.

You could make the case that Stride's speech was as much about consolidating the Tory base as whatever rubbish Badenoch has stored away for her main conference address. But all the same, while the Tories are party to the racist and anti-democratic consensus uniting Labour and Reform on immigration and "social conservatism", they are outsiders on the economic questions of the day. So no, Stride didn't offer any credible salve for his severely wounded party. Compounded by an inability to see how and why the Tories are broken.

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Kemi Badenoch's Attention Seeking

Do you remember the Conservative Party? For much of this year, they hung around like a half-remembered memory. It's difficult to recall when they were the centre of political life, and I write that as someone who wrote a book and has expended hundreds of thousands of words about them. Are we living in a Britain after the Tories? It certainly feels like it. The current crop of polls has them hovering around the 16-17% mark, and they are entirely marginal to a discourse geared around the Labour/Reform face off. It seems even the Liberal Democrats and Greens are attracting more coverage and comment these days. More than any other party, this is the world the Tories have shaped. And they're absent from it.

When the Tories were dumped out of office last year, there were two strategic directions available to them. The first, which was an outside shot, was learning from their experience of trying to be a right wing "populist" party, how this positioning alienated the broader constituency they depended on, and that this committed them to promises they could not deliver. Such as the Rwanda scheme and their war against the boats. The solution? Reinvent themselves as a moderate centre right outfit that eschews the politics of division and begin constructing an appealing project that might get a hearing outside its shrinking heartland of reactionary pensioners. What with the composition of the parliamentary party and the membership being as it is, such a transformation would be as difficult as it is painful, but the party's long-term viability depended on it.

And so the Tories chose the easier path. To those for whom politics is a tussle between ideologies and vibes, this appeared as an illogical retreat into their "comfort zone" where the party can feel safe. As per its 1997 drubbing. In fact, from the standpoint of the party's two leaders this did make sense. Having suffered an earth shattering defeat, consolidating one's base by turning further to the right is a reasonable, if mistaken, response. Once the base is firmed up they could then sally forth and contest Labour for votes. This was reflected in Kemi Badenoch's oft-stated timetable for her leadership: spend a couple of years getting the philosophy right before making policy. But there is a problem. A Nigel Farage-sized problem.

Before Farage decided to re-enter British politics, Reform were barely of any consequence. But since he has become a lightning rod of disaffection, being able to prey on right wing voters for whom the uselessness of the Conservatives was amply demonstrated over five years, and the layer of Reform-curious Labour support repelled by the cruelty and incompetence of Keir Starmer's "grown-ups" and are game for giving someone else a go. Wall-to-wall media coverage hasn't hurt Farage either, with his political pronouncements burying the Russia links, not declaring earnings, and questions over who purchased his home. As such, Reform's rise has severely disrupted Conservative regroupment and making consolidation difficult, if not impossible. Matters are not helped by the fact that neither Badenoch, nor Robert Jenrick, the man who would be king, are up to the task. As they have been eclipsed in the polls, media attention, including coverage provided by what Tim Bale helpfully calls 'the party in the media', has moved on. Unaccustomed to playing second fiddle in British politics, to be relegated to third party status in the attention economy is a reduced circumstance the Tories have never endured before. How can they make waves again?

They have decided that a mixture of stunts and policy extremism can catch the media's eye. Though obviously a self-serving effort to try and secure the leadership for himself, Jenrick's ridiculous rail ticket vigilantism earned the Tories at least one item on Newsnight, but dismissal from everyone else. It demonstrated an unpopulist touch, as most rail passengers despise the money grubbing of train operators, and coming across as a plummy accented tube station Blakey could only invite ridicule. And then as small bands of fascists, egged on by the press and Reform, tried desperately to stir up a repeat of last summer's riots, Jenrick joined the protest in Epping outside the Bell Hotel, which was hosting refugees. I doubt many of the racists there knew, or for that matter cared, that this arch opportunist was rallying against a policy that he developed and implemented. Still, the media were there and it reminded the Tory press that their traditional party still existed and was trying to dance to their tunes.

Jenrick has his own approach to attention-seeking, and Badenoch has hers. With attendance well down on last year's party conference and adrift in the polls, how can she capture the headlines and turn heads? The first part of her gambit was pledging to abolish the climate change act, thereby aligning her party with fossil fuel profit margins. This will do nothing to appeal outside of the Tory core, meaning dozens of Lib Dem MPs across southern England's new yellow wall can sleep a touch more soundly. It is something Tory and Reform supporters have an opinion about, but climate change denial is not the reason why Reform supporters support Reform.

Not fussed with those opinions? Badenoch has others. The Sunday press splashed with her promise to deport 150,000 people every year. Challenged by Laura Kuenssberg, the Tory leader disassembled into stamping her foot and exclaiming "they should not be here", "send them back to where they came from", and making clumsy elisions between refugees and criminality. This pitch to the Reform faithful would include an ICE-style "removals force", which Badenoch describes as a "successful approach". As Donald Trump's goon squad, lest we forget that ICE goes out of its way to terrorise mixed ethnicity working class communities, and will scoop up anyone it doesn't like the look of. Badenoch is too stupid and too reckless to realise that their racial profiling means that members of her own family are theoretically at risk of the state-sponsored thuggery she would unleash on others.

This means getting rid of legal blockages that may hamper such work. On Saturday, Badenoch also confirmed she would withdraw the country from the European Convention on Human Rights. This would also mean leaving the convention on human trafficking, something the Tories might at least want to pay lip service too. The plan is a system where making asylum claims is virtually impossible, and legal oversight and accountability pared back. Effectively a design for one, two, many Windrush scandals. And something the Tories would welcome as a metric for how tough they are. How this would impact on the Good Friday Agreement and the post-Brexit settlement with the EU doesn't impinge on their thinking. As per the Boris Johnson way of doing things, these are problems for another time.

What else might Badenoch have up her sleeves this week? Flat taxes? The abolition of inheritance tax? Banning trade unions? Her problem is that for that tiny minority of the electorate that get switched on by the cruelty of mass deportations, the Tories can be - and already are - outbid by Reform. In addition to platforming someone jailed for saying refugees should burn, Farage has said he would abolish Indefinite Leave to Remain and promise to deport 750,000 people. Do Tory strategists, such as they are, think diet versions of Reform's full fat offerings will satisfy their appetites? This can only lead to one of two conclusions. That they are as clueless as they appear, are resigned to never winning back the 249 seats lost to parties to their left, and that they cannot orientate themselves in a political landscape where their privileged position has gone. Or, that to survive, they're making themselves into a party not a million miles away from Reform so they look like a viable coalition partner. You decide.

Unfortunately, the decomposition of the Tories continues to toxify politics. Along with Labour, Badenoch is using the small media opening she has to reinforce racist and anti-immigration politics. Their rhetoric is the background to increased racist attacks, the justification of more state violence, and an authoritarian charge to the gutter that only Reform can win. While some in the party think it would be nice for the Tories to continue all of them would be okay with Farage in Number 10 because, ultimately, the class interests both of them serve are largely identical. A Reform government would buttress corporate power with the brutality and attacks on democracy we've seen wherever their ilk get into office. The Tories, even as a spent ginger group on the margins of politics would be fine with this. The rest of us cannot afford to be as sanguine.

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What I've Been Reading Recently

Proper blogging resumes tomorrow. In the mean time, I'm looking back over recent reads. As it's been a while since the the last round up, I'm not listing everything I've read since early July as it's quite a lot. So I'm sticking to September's tally, which is plenty big enough!

Get In by Patrick Maguire and Gabrield Pogrund
Declaration by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri
Grass by Sheri S Tepper
The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
The Wild Shore by Kim Stanley Robinson
Agonistics by Chantal Mouffe
Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Birthright: The Book of Man by Mike Resnick
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
For a Left Populism by Chantal Mouffe
New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos edited by Ramsey Campbell
Toward a Green Democratic Revolution by Chantal Mouffe
Intrusion by Ken MacLeod
Light by M John Harrison

Some of my reading is groping toward issues around hegemony and anti-hegemony, hence the Hardt and Negri and the Mouffe. Re: her work on hegemony, like many socialists of a certain vintage Mouffe's famous/infamous Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, authored with Ernesto Laclau, never sat well with me. As a good Althusserian I enjoy a textual expunging of essentialisms as much as anyone else, in their case against treating politics as simple expressions of class. They argue there isn't a necessary correspondence, let alone a guarantee that ensures our class takes up socialist politics. Instead politics has to be articulated by organisations and parties through the formation of hegemonies and hegemonic blocs. While this latter point is true, there is obviously a relation between class and politics, which we see when classes and strata always tend toward certain parties. This is empirical fact, and is a pattern we see repeated across all liberal democracies. The explanation lies not in essential relations and simple correspondences, but the inertia of history and life experience. I.e. Broadly similar experiences of living in capitalist societies spontaneously produces broadly similar and shared outlooks, which inculcates certain dispositions and tendencies towards certain kinds of politics. Don't get me wrong, there is much that is valuable in Mouffe's work and I find it persuasive, but the autonomy of the political is not something I can get on board with.

More of that another time. Novels-wise, there were plenty of highlights. Tepper's Grass was a slow burn, unlike the fires that rip through the book. The world building was spot on, the characterisation well done, and the story compelling. Tchaikovsky's sequel to Children of Time was a worthy successor. As inventive as that celebrated book, it doubles down on the multiplicity vs oneness dynamic, the speculative sociology and psychology, and also is a white knuckle ride of a novel. Excellent stuff. Our Ken's meditation on New Labour-y nanny state authoritarianism was a timely read now that a worn out tribute act is in office. Intrusion is a paranoid classic, and the Kafkaesque climax is as gripping as it is technically brilliant. Lastly, Harrison's Light, the first of his I've read, was remarkable. Some of the best writing and character work you'll find anywhere, not just several thousand light years from Earth. A serial killing protagonist, shades of eldritch horror, mind games, and hard physics are seamlessly blended together. One of the best sf novels of this century.

Alas, there were downers too. I know The Wild Shore was well reviewed on release, but is very YA without realising it and, even worse, is quite boring. Not one of KSR's best. Also disappointing was the Cthulhu collection. The key note story, Stephen King's Crouch End was too heavy handed in my view. Attanasio's The Star Pools was a short of two halves, with the latter half being excellent while the first didn't work. And the others were a mixed bag, a hybrid of entertaining and try hard. Apologies if I've trodden on the toe/flippers of Old Ones fans. But truly terrible was Resnick's Birthright, a series of linked vignettes taken from his future history sequence about the rise and fall of our species. Nothing more need be said - I'm saving my venom for the end-of-year worst books list.

What have you been reading recently?

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Five Most Popular Posts in September

The posts have been flowing this month following the extended summer break. And, as it happens, so have the audience numbers! Here are the top five.

1. The Crisis in Your Party
2. Over for Ovenden
3. Chamberlain Labour
4. Unravelling McSweeney
5. Reluctant Corbynism Revisited

I did lament last month that this place's stats were somewhat unreliable, and this month's were no different. But there has been a discernible boost to individual post counts that does not suggest an invasion by LLMs. Maybe, just maybe, the blog is refracting a renewed interest in politics. That this coincides with what we might crudely call Corbynism's second coming pretty much mirrors what happened 10 years ago when the audience then took off.

Anyway, on with the posts. The splits in Your Party got top billing, and now membership is open it's just daft that this ever came to a head. What's going on with Labour these days occupied the next three posts. The fact Diane Abbot has rent-free accommodation in the Labour right's collective heads claimed the career of Starmerite acolyte Paul Ovenden earlier in the month. How will the labour movement prosper without his services? Then came my analysis of the cowardly approach the Prime Minister has taken vis a vis racism and "real concerns", and who benefits from their Reform-lite rubbish. A few quick notes on the under-siege Morgan McSweeney strode into fourth, and in a close fight for top five entry was my - unenthusiastic - justification for sticking with the Your Party project.

Who wants a second chance? Let's have my piece on Zack Polanski's Green leadership win, and last night's overview of Keir Starmer's declaration of war against Reform.

What might feature next month? I can't read the entrails of October to come, but if I write anything on Your Party I'm sure it will be here. As well as anything on Labour's politics. Maybe I'll get around to writing something about other parties too, or get back on my science fiction kick. 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 bung a few quid and 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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Keir Starmer's Declaration of War

"If you say or imply that people cannot be English or British because of the colour of their skin, that mixed-heritage families owe you an explanation... If you say that they should now be deported, then mark my words - we will fight you with everything we have". After a summer of more or less excusing fascist-organised protests against refugees, Keir Starmer's Labour conference speech has demonstrated a rediscovery of anti-racist principles. He attacked Nigel Farage, not always by name, for spivving about the United States and making money from talking the country down. He asked his audience if they could recall a time when Reform said anything positive about or praised British achievements? This was before reeling off examples of everyday people contributing to their community, laying to rest the much misused broken Britain rhetoric. Defences of multiculturalism were applauded. Attacks on Farage's plan to deport our neighbours raised cheers. Hope got a look-in, happy vibes, and the promise of a super soaraway future. Change ... with the promise of something better.

Most of what's left of the Labour Party would have lapped up Starmer's speech. It was a morale booster that offered a rare thing as Labourism goes: political clarity. He set out what Labour is against, which is the division Reform thrives upon. And for good measure, the "extremes ... of the left" were lumped in with them too. Farage was labelled directly and unambiguously as Labour's "enemy". There was also the concession that calling people racist was not enough. In his usual, wooden-topped way Starmer argued that economic growth, the "pound in the pocket" was the best antidote to the far right. That's why it's Labour's top priority. As such, he issued a rallying cry of sorts, a message directed at his own narrow divided base among the professional/managerial caste, and one that might placate the disgruntled who have had their heads turned by Andy Burnham.

Number 10 will be pleased with the response they've drawn from Farage. He has accused Starmer of "descending into the gutter" and, playing the poor little right-winger card, said "this language will incite and encourage the radical Left, I’m thinking of Antifa and other organisations like that. It directly threatens the safety of our elected officials and our campaigners." The worst Reform representatives and activists have had to put up with are people replying to their bullshit in kind. What are you supposed to do in the kitchen if it gets too hot, Nigel?

The obvious problem with Starmer's tough new rhetoric is that's all it is. His speech talks about the concerns working class people have about immigration, and how one woman showed him photos of her at her Indian neighbour's wedding before complaining about the young men from overseas who sat on her wall and spat in the street. There's a world of difference between such concerns that and the rubbish Farage is peddling, he said. But what is his own government doing? Straight out of the playbook that saw Priti Patel/Suella Braverman cynically front up anti-immigration politics, but avoiding their over-the-top incendiary rhetoric, the new home secretary Shabana Mahmood has extended the qualification period for indefinite leave to remain, and wants its confirmation contingent on undertaking voluntary work. This straight away casts migrants as problem people who have to be forced through a punitive civilising process before they're accepted by this country. And who, exactly, benefits from this framing? Certainly not a Labour Party that claims to be "against division". If Starmer and Mahmood were really serious about stopping the boats instead of cultivating their own scapegoats, the safe routes for refugees would have been expanded by now, and an asylum processing centre in Calais be up and running.

Then there is "delivery". Starmer rightly slammed the complacency of the Tories and their 14 years of failure. But lest we forget, while they are responsible for the choices they made, every policy decision was filtered through a class war frame. I.e. How can this divide people up? How can this create new folk devils? How can this keep people from lifting their eyes to the horizon? After the stock markets cratered, the Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition used the moment to turn a crisis of capital into a crisis of public finances. Their aim was to offload the bail out costs onto labour, thereby undoing further the post-war settlement and strengthening business at our expense. During and after the Covid crisis, their politics was a management of expectations, a collective effort to close off aspirations raised by the huge expansion of state capacity during the pandemic's acute phase. Now Labour are masters of the state, their approach to governing and governance isn't much different. Though for them, it's the hauntology of Corbynism that must be dispelled. Starmer and Reeves want to manage the class politics, and therefore capping the expectations of the hoi polloi is of paramount concern. Hence thimblefuls of gruels are heralded as lavish banquets.

In practice, if Starmer wants to leverage his record in government in his offensive against Reform, his achievements are like so many imaginary battalions pushed around a map. Breakfast clubs and GDP stats versus the lived experience of the cost of living crisis, and a situation-fitting narrative of grievance and scapegoating cranked up by a media-saturated charlatan. All of a sudden Starmer's war declaration looks more like The Mouse that Roared. Though unlike that old flick this ending tends toward tragedy, not farce.

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Vapid by Her Own Empty Standards

What was the point of Rachel Reeves's speech? Okay, it's Labour Party conference so it's expected that the chancellor/shadow chancellor should have a turn in the spotlight. But that doesn't let her off the hook for saying nothing. Reeves isn't normally wordless, and in the past she has "borrowed" other people's when dead air needs to be filled. Though for someone desperate to throw shapes proving she's a bone fide wonkish technocrat and not a chancer who misrepresented her career history, Reeves's address was vapid by her own empty standards.

You can measure how much trouble this government is in by their invocations of Liz Truss. So naturally, her happy time in office merited a mention. In fact, curiously so considering how absent the Tories are from mainstream political discourse these days, Reeves kept spinning the old record of "don't let anyone tell you there's no difference between a Labour government and a Tory government". Desperate stuff. There was also an attack on those who might dispense with her fiscal rules, which she venerates as if a child of her genius. Her credibility on this issue - with whom exactly? - might have been aimed at Andy Burnham, who late last week shockingly suggested that the bond markets shouldn't be the be-all and end-all of economic management. But with Zack Polanski's eco-populism making waves on social media, and the return of Corbynism, it might easily have been aimed at them too.

On her achievements, school breakfast clubs got a mention. Which is the government's new get-out-of-jail-free card in the manner Sure Start centres used to excuse New Labour's record in office. To be honest, any normal person would be embarrassed offering that up after taking money off pensioners, attacking the disabled, declaring war on trans people, and guaranteeing arms shipments and military intelligence to a military undertaking a genocide.

In the last fortnight, the Labour leadership have discovered it's a good idea to criticise Reform. Which Reeves duly did. Nigel Farage is the "single greatest threat to the way of life and to the living standards of working people." Who, apart from Farage aficionados would disagree? They "are not on the side of working people" she said. Yes, but neither is Labour - unless by "working people" the chancellor meant Peter Thiel, Euan Blair, etcetera ad nauseam. And if they want to see Farage off, it's going to require something more than just saying he's racist. Delivery, delivery, delivery is supposed to switch off the Reform-curious. Socialism is the language of priorities, right? It's a good job Reeves had a policy broadside ready to blow Farage out of the water. She cheerily reeled off new forced work placement schemes for young unemployed people, promised more Covid fraud investigators, and announced enough money to fund an extra shelf of books in every school. An agenda whose ambition future historians of Labourism can only marvel at. Meanwhile, Farage must have spent the day pinching himself.

Reeves is clearly living her best life. She's the first female chancellor in history, in case you haven't heard her say so. But despite this accolade, she will always be remembered as the politician whose alacrity for cruelty sent her party's polling into a death spiral within a month of winning a landslide. Still, the consequences of her actions are for other people to bear, be they at the sharp end of her policies or current and future Labour activists and politicians that have to clean up after her mess.

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The Banality of Morgan McSweeney

I see there was a strange effort to rehabilitate Labour Together, the right wing think tank/pressure group set up by Morgan McSweeney as his vehicle to organise against Jeremy Corbyn and the left. It's black and white in the book he co-wrote with Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire. Yet, in Sienna Rodgers's piece for PoliticsHome, we hear claims this was not the case at all.

Labour Together was set up as a fluffy broad front, and not asan overtly factional vehicle for the right as (apparently) portrayed. We're reminded that "Lisa Nandy – Starmer’s leadership rival – was a Labour Together director. Rachel Reeves, Shabana Mahmood, Wes Streeting, Steve Reed and Bridget Phillipson partook, yet so did Jon Cruddas, Jim McMahon, Ed Miliband and Lucy Powell." These characters all went their separate ways when the leadership contest began. Keir Starmer, for his part, was nowhere to be seen where Labour Together was concerned. Rodgers goes on to quote Neal Lawson, chair of Compass and one of the main movers behind the new Mainstream initiative, as labelling Labour Together as the most cynical political operation he's ever witnessed. It looked open and welcoming, but it only had factionalism in mind. This invites an anonymous response that the levels of bad faith involved was "not feasible". Has this person spent any time in politics? "McSweeney is simply a talented organiser who was genuinely interested in bridge-building before figures such as Peter Mandelson reshaped his thinking."

Naivete or yet more dishonesty? The argument against this credulous drivel is, at that time, 20 years working in and around the Labour right, McSweeney's chastening experience as the organiser of Liz Kendall's openly Blairite leadership campaign in 2015 amply demonstrates that he was the man he is today then. We know from multiple accounts, not just the Pogrund and Maguire, that he concluded underhanded methods were the only way Labour could be returned to its rightful owners. The pluralism of Labour Together was only part of the deception. It drew in different strands because, by his own admission, at launch he had no idea who the standard bearer for the right was going to be. Indeed, in this initial period, for McSweeney even a soft left figure might have fit the bill. Like Lisa Nandy who was considered as such at that point. However, by the time of Labour's defeat Starmer had presented himself as a figure that could be steered, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I know the illusio of politics presents itself as a public service, politicians are motivated as such, and that disagreements arise from the tension between different traditions and ideas. But once politics is apprehended for what it is, i.e. the clash of contradictory and often antagonistic interests that are variously contained and constrained - and sometimes not - by the constitutional rules of the game, the sorts of skulduggery McSweeney has pulled off is entirely explicable. It is not a stretch to believe industrial scale lying and deception takes place. Indeed, one only needs to open a newspaper and glance at the politics coverage to know this is the case. Rather, the behaviour of the Prime Minister's right hand man in the Labour Party is simultaneously outrageous and utterly banal.

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