Is this what adulting looks like? After straying outside of his comfort zone at the weekend for saying "no" to the United States, Keir Starmer rowed back in familiar surrounds on Monday morning. At a press conference the Prime Minister said tariffs are in no one's interests and allies should sit down and calmly discuss differences. This was why the UK would not be meeting US tariffs over Greenland with counter-measures of its own. A position somewhat at odds with the European Union, and one unlikely to endear London to EU capitals - dspite the warm words of mutual support and protecting sovereignty.
In his speech, because no occasion is too important to punch leftwards, he condemned "grandstanding" and "performative" commentary, saying this "may make politicians feel good, but it does nothing for working people whose jobs, livelihoods and security rely on the relationships we build across the world." Or, just perhaps, the leaders of the Greens and the Liberal Democrats know that if the government does nothing that would be read by Trump as a sign to pressure the UK for future concessions, such as binning food standards. This is nothing but an appeasement strategy - something this government has experience of. Number 10's hope is that doing nothing now will invite favourable treatment later.
The political problems are obvious. In the UK, Trump is marginally less popular than diphtheria and most find his aggressive language over Greenland bewildering, stupid, and scary. Views very common among US punters, incidentally. So yes, Starmer is right that this should be "moment for the whole country to pull together". But not one where we, collectively, raise the white flag and hope for better treatment than an EU seemingly standing up to White House bullying. Those Starmer attacked for "grandstanding" are likely to politically benefit, as they are more in tune with the fear and growing frustrations of public opinion. Meanwhile, our "grown up" PM will be awarded for his "maturity" in due course - an ever-plummeting personal rating that this ridiculous crisis will deepen. How low will it go before his hapless party administers the coup de grâce?
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15 comments:
Starmer obviously thought it was time to put on his leaders suit and glasses and address the nations of the UK and Mr Trump. Problem was he could not say anything meaningful. All he could do was repeat a set of phrases - long term partners, special relationship, pramgmatism, working people, no tariffs, private conversation - and hope listners would take them as a strategic position rather than a Hail Mary for divine intevention to get him out of the mess.
Trouble is Trump sees him as a patsy who does as he is told. After all he failed to condemn the kidnapping of Maduro and implicitly supported it because Maduro was not a nice man. And the Russian's now see him and Europe as pathetic in the face of might.
It seems his strategy for 'handling' Trump has fallen apart.. His claim to being grown up was that he could speak to Trump and make him rational on Ukraine, Tariffs, UK internal policies unlike the leaders of the EU - except Italy's Trump whisperer/mediator. Now his claims are seen to be wishful thinking, all those trips to the US a waste of time, tea with the King an embaressment and picking up Trump's papers gave no credit.
Carney has outlined the position middling powers are in and a strategic response. Fascinating to see if catatonic Starmer can adapt or whether he will offer the Western Isles to the US for favours - there is plenty of oil in those waters - and his Mammy's old house could be made a shrine.
This isn't left vs right this is feminised vs masculine politics. Feminised politics seeks to avoid all risks, as it believes the individual or state is unable to navigate risks successfully, so subordinates itself to more powerful forces in the hope those powerful forces will reward their loyalty by protecting them. Hence slavishly following 'international law' and slavishly meeting our 'international commitments' even at the expense of the native population is regarded as being the price we must pay for security.
Masculine politics believes in building up the individual or state's strength and capability in the confidence that risks are opportunities that can be exploited.
Lots of 'international order' devotees now in meltdown as the international order to which they had completely submitted now looks to be abandoning us.
"Feminised vs masculine politics". Would you listen to yourself, christ
Isn't it strange how all these devotees of "masculinised politics", who profess to be all about building up the strength of the individual, and explicitly not "subordinating themselves to more powerful forces in the hope those powerful forces will reward their loyalty by protecting them", are so keen to toady up to the biggest bully that they can see in the room...?
They want to capitulate to Putin in Ukraine, to Netanyahu in Israel, and to Trump in tearing up the "rules-based international order". They believe that "risks are opportunities" in exactly the same way that a pirate does - and more importantly, they only believe that because they see pirates getting away with it.
It's almost as if they've made a transparently weak attempt to disguise their real beliefs - which would win them no friends if stated plainly out loud! - with a ridiculous dogma that has no internal consistency. Much as with religious fanaticism, they can test the loyalty of potential allies by the willingness of those potential allies to repeat the illogical mantras.
What on earth did you do to suddenly attract Tater Tots to your blog, Phil...?!
Surely nobody who didn't go through puberty whilst being served manosphere videos on YouTube - or who doesn't at least have a mental age equivalent to people who did that - could possibly write "feminised vs masculine politics" and appear to be serious.
Anon re: masculine/feminine
Cop yourself on. Away with, and take your manosphere slop with you.
It reads like something off the Frank Furudi blog to me ! Remembered as the guru behind both the bonkers 1980 's Revolutionary Communist Party and more recently the extreme libertarian neoliberal Spiked Online lot. Strange folk - and a pain contributing to this blog. A significant, reactionary, viewpoint though nowadays in our strange times.
Mark Carney gave the sort of speech at Davos that I wish one of our leaders could make. He was frank and clear about the fact that what we are facing is a "rupture not a transition". He said: "For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.
We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim."
He continued:
""It seems that every day we're reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry. That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.
This aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable — as the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself. And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along. To accommodate. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety.
It won't."...
Starmer is trapped in the mindset of compliance and toadying up to the biggest, nastiest bully. But isn't one of the first life lessons that you have to stand up to bullies, and if you don't, as Carney said:
""Middle powers must act together because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu."
I seem to have upset a lot of folks with my feminine versus masculine politics. I didn't say one was good or one was bad. Just different approaches which I think inform different groups philosophies. The strength of the reaction combined with the complete lack of analysis makes me like the idea more. Protesting a little too much.
«After straying outside of his comfort zone at the weekend for saying "no" to the United States, Keir Starmer rowed back in familiar surrounds on Monday morning.»
The political issue is that the UK and EU governing elites are vassals not so much of the USA government but of the USA globalist/expansionist faction and are acting on behalf of that faction in attacking Trump who is the frontman for the USA nationalist/consolidationist faction by pretending to want to detach from the USA. The moment Trump were replaced by a frontman of the globalist/expansionist faction they would go back to be the most zealous vassals again.
That is the problem that Starmer has: he is one of the UK frontmen for the USA globalist/expansionist faction so he must follow the same line as his EU equivalent but at the same time he is keenly aware (as is the UK ruling class after Suez 1956 in particular) that the UK is even more dependent than they are on the goodwill of the USA regardless of who in in power there.
For the left the task should be not to be drawn in the Trump/anti-Trump fight between two factions of the right just as it would be not to be drawn in the "wokeism" splittist strategy of all factions of the right, but the temptation to take the side of the globalist/expansionist faction seems irresistible to many.
«the UK would not be meeting US tariffs over Greenland with counter-measures of its own. A position somewhat at odds with the European Union»
The EU position is largely anti-Trump grandstanding. Neither the UK nor the EU "have the cards" to challenge the USA elites, and it is only because a faction of the USA elites is supporting them that some of the EU governing class dares to voice some defiance.
Neither the UK nor any EU country can afford to be "sanctioned" or "color-revolutioned" by the USA government no matter who is in office and very few voters in the UK and the EU are looking with envy at the glorious independence of Iran or Venezuela or Cuba.
«Carney has outlined the position middling powers are in»
That was a load of verbiage: the middling powers are in a quite different position where their governing class has been "sponsored" by the USA expansionist faction of the right-wing and now the USA consolidationist faction is in power and the expansionist faction is telling them to pretend to want to turn their back on the USA to create trouble for the consolidationist faction.
My impression is that Carney like Sunak or Starmer or Macron have no political base of their own and got to the top thanks to the support of their "sponsors" so they will say whatever needs to be said.
«whether he will offer the Western Isles to the US»
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3667997/How-victory-spelt-the-end-of-empire.html
«“Churchill was reduced to a subordinate position in the Grand Alliance as early the Teheran Conference in 1943, when he "realised for the first time what a very small country this is". By Yalta in February 1945, he was "weaker than ever before". Roosevelt was concerned with Stalin – he "wasted little time on pandering to Churchill, a vaudeville act with which he was becoming bored". By that time, Clarke writes, "a well-briefed and prudently calculating leader" would have realised "what limited options were realistic... for Great Britain as a bantam in a heavyweight league, for the Anglo-American alliance as an expedient relationship premised on subordination...”»
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZSIdHeug6g4C&pg=PA24
David Cannadine, Roland Quinault "Winston Churchill in the Twenty First Century" (2004)
«The irony was, of course, that one of the war aims of the Roosevelt administration was the liquidation of the British Empire, and the expansion of American power and influence at the expense of Britain.
By the end of 1943 it was clear to Churchill that he could no longer rely on American co-operation. As he explained to Violet Bonham Carter: "When I was at Teheran I realized for the first time what a very small country this is. [...]".»
Andrew Marr "History of modern Britain" (2008)
«Yet when one country, the United States, is both leader of a large alliance of other countries, and has strong national interests which may conflict with those of her allies, there is bound to be friction. [...] In practice this meant sharing intelligence with the Pentagon and CIA, the intertwining of nuclear strategy, large US bases on British soil, the leasing of British bases to America, and a posture towards American presidents that is nearer that of salaried adviser than independent ally.»
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/Jeremy_Corbyn/12127403/If-Jeremy-Corbyn-were-a-proper-politician-heres-what-hed-be-saying-about-Trident.html
«"It is true that it is frankly inconceivable we would use our nuclear deterrent alone, without the US"»
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/06/with-you-whatever-tony-blair-letters-george-w-bush-chilcot
Blair to Bush, Letter (2002-07-28)
«I will be with you, whatever.»
Anybody home?
You're keen on analysis?
Well, I imagine that a "masculinised politics" would necessarily contain a strong element of that reckless self-destructiveness which results in every nation's prison population being around 99% male. Perhaps this is the very element which drove Anon 19:28's wounded pride, and attempt to row back whilst displaying petulant defiance.
A "masculinised politics" which has been purged of all things that bullies and wannabe bullies regard as "feminine weakness" would surely look a lot like the politics of Nazi Germany or Trumpist USA. To willingly and knowingly join such a political movement, you'd certainly need a lot of personality traits in common with the petty criminals who typically land themselves in prison.
You have spectacularly missed the point Anon - masc vs fem. You are also disingenuous. You say you didn't say one was good or one was bad, but you certainly framed one as abject, pathetic and weak. How else can you interpret this: "Feminised politics seeks to avoid all risks, ...so subordinates itself to more powerful forces in the hope those powerful forces will reward their loyalty by protecting them."
Why feminised? Unless you think that women subordinate themselves to "more powerful forces" i.e. 'men' (like you, or like how you imagine yourself to be) in the hope those powerful forces, i.e. men. will reward their loyalty by protecting them." How more grotesquely sexist can you get?
Of course, in your fantasy macho world, men are strong and confident risk takers, secure in their own masculinity. You might not be using the words bad or good, but it's hardly subtle.
If you have to be a cave dwelling sexist, at least be an honest one.
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