Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[garbon]

On the topic of Britain fighting the battles of American politics, we have this front-page opinion peace on the Guardian:
"George Floyd's murder should have been a watershed, but Britain has learned nothing"

I mean, there's plenty of racism in the UK which should be addressed, but we do NOT have police officers gunning down black people as a matter of daily routine, and racism in Britain is of a different composition than the US, especially considering the sizeable Asian population. It feels like we should fight and address Britain-specific racism before we go and solve America's for them.

Did you actually look at the article in question or is this outrage at a headline?

[Tamas]

On the topic of Britain fighting the battles of American politics, we have this front-page opinion peace on the Guardian:
"George Floyd's murder should have been a watershed, but Britain has learned nothing"

I mean, there's plenty of racism in the UK which should be addressed, but we do NOT have police officers gunning down black people as a matter of daily routine, and racism in Britain is of a different composition than the US, especially considering the sizeable Asian population. It feels like we should fight and address Britain-specific racism before we go and solve America's for them.

Did you actually look at the article in question or is this outrage at a headline?

I don't care how much more nuanced articles are. If we want the age of outrage to end, clickbait must end.

[garbon]

Okay so no.

[Sheilbh]

I don't care how much more nuanced articles are. If we want the age of outrage to end, clickbait must end.

I don't really buy that. A good provocative even challenging headline is clickbait. That's just good journalism - provoke a response/challenge your readers and get them to read the article. It's a polemic piece which is strong I think - though there's points I disagree with and frustrations I have with it. In fairness I don't mind robust, provocative, challenging headlines in the right-wing press either. What pisses me off are ones that are misleading/don't really connect to the article.

On what frustrated me is to Owolade's point about the use of "Black" and the rise of talk about "black and brown bodies", "queer bodies", "female bodies" - which I think comes from queer theory and is linked to Foulcault's ideas on discipline. I can understand the point that is making I'm just not sure it's helpful as I think it comes across as exclusionary to people who are not in activist or academic circles and many people who use it necessarily know what they mean by it. Which I think is a particularly relevant point given the last line of the article: "it's great that people are more fluent in the language of anti-racism, allyship and racial equity, but the cultural compartmentalisation of events such as this are the tests we continue to fail". Part of the problem, in my view, is that a lot has become about the language and that is how you display your support/awareness of issues even if you don't understand why you're referring to violence against "black and brown bodies".

It reminds me a bit of that awful list of dos and don'ts for Democrats in talking about abortion where every suggested phrase makes sense in the context of an academic seminar but either make nuanced, shifts that won't be understood outside that context and go against all the trends in political (or commercial) comms. I love Judith Butler as much as the next middle-aged gay man, but I think if political movements aspire to her style they will fail

I absolutely get the theory and thinking between talking about abortion as being about "decisions" rather than "choice". I just don't think it's worth up-ending 50 years of campaigning and activism around a now commonly understood phrase and will actually be distracting as people who absolutely want to support worry if they're using the right language or if they mean something else.

[garbon]

I don't care how much more nuanced articles are. If we want the age of outrage to end, clickbait must end.

I don't really buy that. A good provocative even challenging headline is clickbait. That's just good journalism - provoke a response/challenge your readers and get them to read the article. It's a polemic piece which is strong I think - though there's points I disagree with and frustrations I have with it. In fairness I don't mind robust, provocative, challenging headlines in the right-wing press either. What pisses me off are ones that are misleading/don't really connect to the article.

On what frustrated me is to Owolade's point about the use of "Black" and the rise of talk about "black and brown bodies", "queer bodies", "female bodies" - which I think comes from queer theory and is linked to Foulcault's ideas on discipline. I can understand the point that is making I'm just not sure it's helpful as I think it comes across as exclusionary to people who are not in activist or academic circles and many people who use it necessarily know what they mean by it. Which I think is a particularly relevant point given the last line of the article: "it's great that people are more fluent in the language of anti-racism, allyship and racial equity, but the cultural compartmentalisation of events such as this are the tests we continue to fail". Part of the problem, in my view, is that a lot has become about the language and that is how you display your support/awareness of issues even if you don't understand why you're referring to violence against "black and brown bodies".

It reminds me a bit of that awful list of dos and don'ts for Democrats in talking about abortion where every suggested phrase makes sense in the context of an academic seminar but either make nuanced, shifts that won't be understood outside that context and go against all the trends in political (or commercial) comms. I love Judith Butler as much as the next middle-aged gay man, but I think if political movements aspire to her style they will fail

I absolutely get the theory and thinking between talking about abortion as being about "decisions" rather than "choice". I just don't think it's worth up-ending 50 years of campaigning and activism around a now commonly understood phrase and will actually be distracting as people who absolutely want to support worry if they're using the right language or if they mean something else.

Isn't the word 'bodies' only mentioned once in that opinion piece?

[garbon]

John Harris
@johnharris1969
This is just grim. Johnson défends leaving drinks for staff as something close to his moral duty, at a time when being with people as they died - died! - was forbidden

Sky News
@SkyNews
 · 1h
The PM says some events identified in Sue Gray's report were held for the purpose of "saying goodbye to valued colleagues".

He adds that "some people will think it was wrong even to do that" but "I respectfully disagree."

[Sheilbh]

Isn't the word 'bodies' only mentioned once in that opinion piece?

Yes - but Black throughout which has the same issue. Owolade explained the issue with "Black", but I think there's something similar with the phrases "black and brown bodies", "queer bodies", "female bodies" which basically come up in more left and activist articles than just this one. Although more in the US than here.

[Sheilbh]

In another reason of why I'm glad Labour have moved on from Corbyn - not really keen on the pictures of Corbyn, Abbot and Sultana's meetings with the Sinn Fein leadership praising their plans to "deliver social justice across Ireland" and "the democratic struggle in the North of Ireland".

All absolutely fair things to say about the SDLP, Labour's sister party, and the huge struggle of Catholic civil rights activists and many nationalist activists - not really true about Sinn Fein who are the political wing of a paramilitary organisation (to this day according to the Gardai, PSNI and MI5) who targeted many of those people. I'm not sure an organisation that was committed to the violent struggle deserves any credit for the democratic struggle

And it is one of those "lol nothing matters" things that have been normalised and we should all stop caring about.  But as I say Irish and British security services still think the Army Council have the ultimate say over Sinn Fein, not any democratic process and it isn't an exaggeration to say there are people in and around the Sinn Fein leadership who literally know where bodies are buried or could give some closure to families (in both communities) in unsolved murders. And it feels important not to forget that - they are an essential part of Northern Ireland's political process who are normally part of the government there. But they're not a great party in any other respect.

Again fairly glad the people doing this aren't the people Labour is proposing as Prime Minister and Home Secretary any more.

[Sheilbh]

Oh and incidentally, on race, this organisation launched today with some very high-profile backers/trustees like David Olusoga and David Lammy. Not quite clear what they'll do but it looks like a really interesting and worth following:
https://blackequityorg.com/

Launched on the second anniversary of George Floyd's death as Tamas mentioned but I think it also flags that actually part of this is the other side of being in the US orbit. It's not just in the UK, but France, Brazil, Germany that had protests inspired after his death and in relation to BLM which all took on different local focuses and issues. The US - through its protest movements - provides a language and an inspiration globally on these issues but certainly in the UK.

It is the reason that the major LGBT+ activist group and charity in the UK is called Stonewall and the first London pride happened on the anniversary of the Stonewall riot. It's why BLM has kicked off activism in this country though on a slightly different set of issues. But even the Catholic civil rights movement in Northern Ireland - John Hume was consciously inspired by and modeled his protests on African-American activists in the civil rights movement. That, I think, is the bit I mean when I say the US is 20 years ahead of us on many issues.

I also had many issues with the Good Law Project - but they're becoming a law firm with a focus on public interest litigation particularly focused on housing, protest law and civil rights. Which I think is a really good idea and again the type of thing that exists in the US but is really underdeveloped in the UK (more broadly the whole approach to pro-bono here is, from my undersatnding, very different from the US).

[Sheilbh]

John Harris
@johnharris1969
This is just grim. Johnson défends leaving drinks for staff as something close to his moral duty, at a time when being with people as they died - died! - was forbidden
He adds that "some people will think it was wrong even to do that" but "I respectfully disagree."

On exactly this point - the Lib Dems already out with this brutally effective poster in the Tiverton and Honiton by election:


Won't be the last like this. To think people are going to move on when, since January, 60-70% of people want him to resign and only around 25% want him to stay as PM is delusional.

[Josquius]

Pathetic response in the commons, "Beer starmer". Johnson becomes increasingly punch worthy.

[Tamas]

It is kind of incredible, though, how we have government by soundbites. The whole windfall thing was rejected for months as terrible idea, then, there comes a single day when it is important to switch public discourse and BAM! we have windfall tax.

[Gups]

Extraordinary use of the passive voice here

George Osborne
@George_Osborne
Wonderful to see the Elizabeth line open today. One of the first decisions in the Coalition 12 years ago was to build it - it was a close run thing: when budgets were being cut, it would have been easy to shelve something that hadn't been built. But long term thinking prevailed

In fairness to Osborne he did decide to keep HS2 and Crossrail when lots of Tory MPs wanted them cancelled; on the other hand he cancelled every other bit of capital spending so....

It's only partially true though and although construction hadn't started a lot of the land had been acquired and enabling works were under way.  It had already secured Parliamentary approval in 2008 and a funding settlement had been agreed for £15.9bn, 70% of which was contributed by London not Central Govt. Of the £5bn or so contribution from Central Govt agreed by Brown, the Coalition pulled out £1.1bn.

[Sheilbh]

It's only partially true though and although construction hadn't started a lot of the land had been acquired and enabling works were under way.  It had already secured Parliamentary approval in 2008 and a funding settlement had been agreed for £15.9bn, 70% of which was contributed by London not Central Govt. Of the £5bn or so contribution from Central Govt agreed by Brown, the Coalition pulled out £1.1bn.

Really pleased that I can give even less credit to Osborne

It is kind of incredible, though, how we have government by soundbites. The whole windfall thing was rejected for months as terrible idea, then, there comes a single day when it is important to switch public discourse and BAM! we have windfall tax.

Yeah that was Starmer's joke yesterday: "what was it about the Sue Gray report that first attracted you to u-turning on a windfall tax?"

Apparently the shadow Chancellor was heckling Sunak as he was going through the announcement, shouting "u-turn" at each one and then starting her response by saying "you're welcome" for all those policy ideas. She also welcomed that the SNP went from voting against a windfall tax last week to supporting one this week.

Johnson has form - I can't think of a government that has u-turned as much as this one in the face of the least bit of resistance. The Guardian did a list in November and it is long:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/04/charge-retreat-boris-johnsons-top-u-turns-in-no-10

I think it's part of the reason so many Tory MPs are frustrated. You get an 80 seat majority which is the biggest for your party in 30 years and instead of spending that political capital doing things that might be unpopular but you think will work out/are the right thing to do (the Thatcher/Blair model), it's been frittered on not very much. There's a real habit of government announces x, it is widely attacked and lots of MPs dutifully do turns in the media defending the policy and then the government cancels it - which must just destroy morale. It's a bit like Germany on Ukraine - they take a position for long enough to get all the criticism and are then so late to u-turn that they get no credit for showing flexibility.

I often think about the line you see a lot about Johnson from Tories that he always gives the impression of absolutely agreeing with people in meetings and then not following through. But basically he agrees with everyone when he's in the room. The last PM who had that criticism a lot was John Major which is maybe another 90s throwback.

Edit: And on brutal ads - Labour's bought up a tonne of online space and is basically re-purposing all the government's covid measure adverts from the first wave. E.g. on ConservativeHome:

[Tamas]

So we will start doing what helped kickstart inflation in the US (one time big welfare payments) when inflation is already petty high? Noice.