#SwindonsSundaySermon: Keir Starmer, a one-term Tory with a Labour minority? Surely not?
I probably won’t be the first person to say this, and I expect it won’t be the last time I say this, but if I was a gambler I would be taking my NatWest piggy bank (circa 1984) — containing £6.46 and a few hair bands — down to the nearest betting shop and putting every single penny on the next general election resulting in a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party. Just.
Sure, it’s a long way out. Both establishment parties could well have new leadership, and the occasional surge in popularity for Reform UK, the Lib Dems, the SNP, and the Green Party could well fall by the wayside.
Then we are left with the same two failed, broken parties offering the same failed, broken ideology going toe-to-toe once again.
Starmer versus Badenoch: that non-Einstein quote again
It may well be one of the most overused cliches of all time, particularly in the political arena and often wrongly attributed to Albert Einstein, but “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and getting the same result, but expecting a different one”, has been true of the brainwashed British electorate for as long as I can remember.
Failing Keir Starmer performing a U-turn on a U-turn, and using his large, undeserved parliamentary majority to deliver a fairer way of ensuring the seats in parliament are reflective of the votes cast, such as proportional representation, we are stuck with the corporate elites wet dream, neoliberal Labour or hard-right Conservatism under the stewardship of Kemi Badenoch and whatever is left of the Tory cabal following their humiliating demise, earlier this year.
I would imagine Badenoch will be delighted to see her Tories ahead of the Labour government in the first opinion poll since she was crowned leader of the opposition.
At the same time, Badenoch must realise that she is simply the current beneficiary of the general public’s deep and burning hatred for Keir Starmer and his more-of-the-same politics that he promised to “change”, when seeking the votes of the general public back in July.
It’s not much different to the way Labour gained power. Nobody was particularly enthused by the prospect of a Labour government under the leadership of Keir Starmer, but after fourteen years of utter carnage you could’ve pinned a red rosette on Philip Schofield’s chest and still returned a Labour majority.
The only real difference with this lot is it has taken less than fourteen weeks for the public to find Keir Starmer undeniably guilty of being a lying, freeloading hypocrite of the very highest order.
A perpetual doom cycle under Labour?
Are we really now in a perpetual cycle of the least hated party taking power, every five years? I’m sure you will tell me that’s roughly how democracy works, but I am saying the lesser of two evils, Tory or Labour, is still evil.
Would it really be too much to hope for a government that the people want to vote into power because they have got something to offer, rather than a government the people want to vote out of power because they are so blatantly corrupt, dangerously inept, and somewhat detestable?
There is absolutely no doubt that apathy plays a huge part in the outcome of our general elections. Without apathy we could change the direction of this miserable country overnight, but the ruling classes that continue to spoon feed neoliberalism to the British people rely on your apathy to remain in power.
I’m not sure what it is about quotes today, but “one of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors”, has just popped up in my head.
I think that was Plato, the Brazilian centre forward that plays for Arsenal. Never let it be said that I don’t know my Plato’s from my plateau’s.
Didn’t he also say “the price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men”? This Plato guy makes Nostradamus look like Mystic Meg!
Vocal Starmerites are… entertaining…
The Starmerites have been particularly vocal over the past few days. One of the popular complaints from the slavishly servile right-of-centre recovering FBPEites (yes editor, I know that’s not a word) is some old nonsense about the media misrepresenting their prime minister.
What? The media not being entirely honest? This has shocked me to my core. If only somebody warned them that this might happen, then perhaps Keir Starmer would be detested for the lying worm that he is, rather than the lying worm that the media claim he is.
I’m just eternally grateful we had the unswerving and unequivocal support of Keir Starmer’s bought-and-paid-for careerist carpetbaggers during the Corbyn years, rather than ultimately ineffective timed resignations, designed to remove the democratically-elected Islington North MP and return the Labour Party to the corporate elite that we see so deeply ingrained in the genuinely rancid Labour Party of today.
Keir Starmer’s own popularity continues to head south, which isn’t a great shock following his nauseating Trump backpedaling and the clumsy attempt to out-Clegg the Tories on tuition fees, which was a rather spectacular own goal, even by the Labour newbies appalling standards
Keir Starmer still has less favourable personal approval ratings than the Tory with the racist donors, Badenoch, and the racist with the Tory donors, Farage, which really is a staggering achievement when you consider the Tory and Reform UK leaders have the combined charm of a vicar, furiously masturbating graveside while some poor old soul — most likely a victim of Starmer’s Winter Fuel Allowance cuts — has their coffin lowered into the ground.
Labour: a one-term Tory under Starmer?
Does Starmer have the potential to be a one-term-Tory?
The early signs are not pointing in a positive direction for the Poundshop Cameron, Keir Starmer. If the man just had something that even slightly resembled a charisma he would have a Plan B to fall back on when all else fails.
Rishi Sunak had similar problems, and a Liz Truss speech always had me thinking of a Most Haunted Live Ouija board trying to spiritually connect with Margaret Thatcher, somewhere in the darkest pits of hell.
If one of the Labour cabinet’s private healthcare lobbyist donors can book Starmer in for some sort of charisma bypass, Labour may well have a sniff of a chance of a workable majority in 2029.
Keir Starmer, the one-term-Tory? I honestly wouldn’t bet against it. Stranger things have happened before, and even stranger things will happen in the future.
Featured image via Rachael Swindon
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I’d be interested to know precisely how the electorate are supposed to engage in politics to make it different, after all, voting is a transfer of power away from the voter. The electorate cannot participate in decision-making, the best they can hope for is some kind of persuasive influence, but ultimately the decisions reside either with govt, or with MPs in parliament. If the electorate did attempt to somehow force a decision, the govt would use violence against those people. The electorate could set up a parallel system, I suppose, but then the govt would use the police and likely the military to bring it to an end. If your answer is to vote differently, to write more letters, to speak with your MP, join a protest, maybe start a new party, then your criticism of the “brainwashed electorate”, which must include your readers, yourselves (and me), is pretty appalling. The “electorate”, that faceless mass that is always to be found elsewhere, and which, when invoked, is always with “present company excepted”, has no option but, as you do, to go along with a system that dominates them, said domination underpinned by violence. I would love to bring a permanent end to parliamentary “democracy” (for it is anything but democratic), however, I have no idea how to even begin to achieve this, (and neither do you). In the meantime I, as for many others, knowing how shit it all is, have to get on with living. I look forward to the day when MPs past and present face charges for their crimes against humanity, for their duplicitousness and social murder policies, for the millions of lives they’ve damaged and brought to an end, even over just the last four decades. But they have the guns, the bombs, the prisons and the mercenary personnel. The reason things are so shit is not the electorate’s fault, that is so lazy, you need to post an apology. The fault lies with parliament, with the media, with the lawyers, and the bureaucratic systems of enforcement. Unless you have some solid ideas that include clear and feasible plans for implementation, you need to quit with the insults.
That is most eloquently stated and mostly correct, but I have to disagree that the electorate are not to blame.
Their apathy and, often, their ignorance allow these rich bastards to lord it over the country.
The fault does indeed lie with parliament, the media, the lawyers, and the bureaucratic systems of enforcement, but they too are the electorate and should be held to account by the electorate.
This country would be happier with Proportional Representation. That way we would not have a government ruling the country with only 33% of the votes. Having said that I am hoping that the rise of the fascist Farage and his bunch of neo-Nazis are only a flash in the pan.
From my perspective, you are part of the electorate, as am I, their apathy includes you (and me). The electorate, for adults, is always “we” the electorate, not “they” the electorate. I think “apathy” is a misdiagnosis. Most adults spend 8 or more hours a day, often working against their own interests (either for the state or some corporation), then have to somehow maintain some semblance of a life beyond those hours. If they don’t put this effort in, they’ll quickly find themselves destitute and isolated. Charges of apathy also ignore spheres of influence: many people donate to charity, participate in events, volunteer, halp out when they can. A parallel world in which these actions did not occur would be unspeakably grim. We don’t accuse the Zapatista of apathy because they don’t try to hold the Mexican govt to account, they’re trying to live free of its toxicity, something the govt refuses to let them do. In a liberal society of sovereign individuals (however deluded this is), the solution is individual action for oneself, and many are trying to mitigate the evils of govt by saving, by making the lives of their families and friends as good as possible, against the certain knowledge that, were they to slip and fall, their will be noone else but those close around to help them up again, only a circling of corporate sharks and vultures. The electorate, in FPTP, has no direct role in decision-making. This is true of all elective govts, and PR is no different in this respect. There is no mechanism for “holding govt to account” – it is a meaningless phrase, always trotted out without explaining how exactly that’s supposed to be done (write a letter, sign a petition? We’re 20+ years into campaigns for nationalising key monopolies and have literally moved backwards), it is an empty phrase intended to misdirect blame from the source of the problem, and those saying it never realise that they’ve been co-opted – since there is no meaningful action that electors can take, since the system provides none, and power, in any electoral system has been given away, so the govt cannot be made to act – it literally has power over the electorate, granted by election. Protest, direct action, although they may prompt a govt to act, are not direct decision-making. The problem is centralised govt, the “apathy” you diagnose is simply the effect of the self-exclusion that voting causes. PR is no solution – PR equally excludes the electorate from meaningful participation in decision-making, and the improvements PR might make are marginal, the problem of elite rule persists. The only route out of apathy is decentralisation, and the direct involvement of all in decision-making. There are many models of how this can be done, generally these are deliberative (versus opinion-based voting for a party/manifesto, which is junk) and directly involve those affected. In a direct system of governance, everyone would be part of “government”, there would be no more sitting around waiting for MPs with “vision” or a manifesto to believe in, no more scrutiny of their hypocrisy, pocket-stuffing, corruption, indifference, cruelty. The media would no longer amplify their divisive, hate-mongering words, since they would have no more voice or power than anyone else. There would be no more pointless conversations about what should be done, no more utterly wasted energy and ideas, since these could all form part of decision-making. If the aim is emancipation, PR won’t get us there. The centre needs dismantling, I’m with Naom Chomsky on that one, as a system of power it cannot justify its necessity, it is dismissive, unresponsive, cruel, pointlessly tribal (I have friends who countenance/excuse Labour’s WFA and benefit cap decisions, and not repealing anti-protest legislation, just because it’s Labour – Russell Jones, author of A Decade in Tory, won’t write a similar book about Labour, because tribalism, this is perverse). The world over, centralised govts are leading to global ecocide, immiserating their populations in poverty, waging war, corrupting everything they touch. Your news site flags up the routine horror that centralised govt visits upon their electors. PR won’t end that. They have to go. Your website is the main one of three that I visit, and it saddens me when something you write has clear been infected by what you oppose. I’d say that seeing the electorate as apathetic is simply part of the “apathy”. And this is what govt wants, it let’s them off the hook, and directs attention away from the issue: a representative govt not representing the electorate.
Sure looks like the UK are caught in the same two party shitshow that has plagued the US for over thirty years i.e. one party that is awful and the other that is horrendous, and both on the right on most issues. Here in Canada our third party, the New Democrats, is more to the left than the UK’s, the Liberal Democrats, as well as electorally stronger, and those two things may be why our political scene isn’t quite as bleak. As for the last two members of the Anglosphere, Australia and New Zealand, it looks like the former thanks to the policy betrayals of its Labour PM and government is in much the same situation as the US and UK. As for New Zealand, for a number of years that country had two parties that were in economics neoliberal Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, until the voters given the chance got rid of the electoral system that maintained the duopoly. Its Labour Party is the most progressive of the labour parties of the Anglosphere and it alternates in power on a regular basis with the conservative National Party, which is likely the least right-wing of the Anglosphere’s conservative parties. Neither thanks to proportional representation can govern on their own but must do so in coalition with one or more, usually more, parties.
” I don’t vote” said the American comedian George Carlin. ” If you want to vote for corrupt, dishonest and incompetent political candidates thats your choice. Don’t blame me when it inevitably goes wrong because I didn’t vote for any of them.” We got 2 cheeks of the same arse here. Red Tory or Blue Labour.