1. Following up on my point that parties need not to be hated, here, from before the election is some data on the ongoing de-toxification of the Conservative Party in some parts of the Midlands and the North. "Around 80-90% of why certain seats vote for certain parties is explained by the demographics of the area e.g. – how many graduates are there, how rich is the seat, how many people have gone to university, what is the ethnic composition and what type of jobs do people have". But some seats stand out (or did before the last election): they 'should' be Tory but, for historical/cultural reasons they are/were not: "the leave voting 55yr old plumber living in a detached house is more likely to vote Tory in Bournemouth than Wigan, even on the same salary. If the Tories manage to culturally de-toxify in certain seats there is a huge unlocked vote there". And Johnson managed, with help from Corbyn, to unlock that vote. (There are even people who did not vote Conservative who now wish they had.) I don't have the data to hand but it is not hard to think that one of Blair's great successes (with help from Major's failures in Government) was de-toxifying the Labour Party among people historically disinclined to vote Labour.
2. This is a tweet-storm from (what appears to be) a Labour Party member that is getting some publicity. The writer sets out the policies he would like. Some excerpts: "A ban on all foreign home/property ownership. Criminal sentences for landbankers. Then build an absolute shitload of council houses - but nice ones, terraces, with gardens, not Barrett-built lego sets made out of reconstituted cardboard", "A nice bit of military Keynesianism, uncompromising on security. A strong fleet, a strong RAF - all new military hardware to be built in Britain, by British workers. Make Barrow what it was 50 years ago. Renew Trident, and put a bloody Union Jack on it", "No more patronising nannying. Cut duty on fags and booze and stop lecturing people. Revive the Great British Pub and two fingers to the middle class Public Health Nazis". You get the picture. Speaking as someone who lives in London, he does not at all sound like a Labour supporter: in London terms, he sounds like a funny kind of Tory.
3. It seems that Lisa Nandy is the best hope for the Labour Party. I take it back about Jess Phillips: she is Matthew d'Ancona choice. Do you remember when Jacob Rees-Mogg and Jess Phillips used to pal around on TV together? Well, just as JRM is what an old northern socialist thinks a real Tory is like, JP is what a London softy like myself thinks a real Labourite is like. Sorry for the confusion.
Saturday 21 December 2019
Friday 20 December 2019
Tuesday 17 December 2019
A way forward for the British Left?
Everyone has diagnosed the problem for the British Left: it is a coalition between upper middle class social liberals and poor people, and that coalition has broken down. Here's a good little piece on the problem, but you'll have seen plenty of others in a similar vein, many quoting Orwell.
Fine. But how is that problem to be solved? Answers below.
Fine. But how is that problem to be solved? Answers below.
Saturday 14 December 2019
The 2017 election versus the 2019 election
Thursday 5 December 2019
Some interesting things
1. Do you remember when Nixon gave his eulogy for the tragic loss of the astronauts on Apollo 11? No? But it's here. (Brilliant deepfake.)
2. "It’s been a long time now since, at age 53, I became a woman." The inimitable Deirdre McCloskey of course. Happy? Sad? Honest, anyway. "My daughter still lives in the Midwest; she is married and has a child. I’ve told in Crossing about how, a year later, when she was still in college, I saw her that one time, very early in my transition, a weeping father in a dress begging for a hug. ... Her lone letter in reply said “Thanks for the money. I still don’t want you in my life.” ... My son lives not too far from me. He too won’t speak."
3. Pregnancy reduces criminal behaviour, both for the mother and the father. There is some great economics-speak at the link: "pregnancy reduces discount rates and gives men and women a reason to invest in human capital and work for the future." Also: people should get married and have children earlier.
4. On "liberalism" and liberal societies. Well put.
5. Abortion. Again, well put, I thought, which is quite a feat when the author is an American calmly and sympathetically putting forward both sides of the debate.
6. Rory Sutherland, the Wiki Man. "One avenue that is rarely explored is that a major cause of the rise of populism might be the journalists themselves, and the extent to which the once noble aim of impartiality has led to something ridiculous — where almost everyone in authority is treated as a liar. // For the past three decades, Britain has had centrist governments led by mainstream politicians. And in that period, did we find that journalists devoted much airtime and column inches to reporting this as a good thing? We did not." To be fair, we are always fighting the last war. The "why is this lying liar lying to me?" type of interview is a reaction against the "Prime Minister, is there anything you would like to say?" interview of yesteryear. But I think Sutherland's point is a good one: even if deference is dead, common sense, decency and a sense of proportion ought not to be. And there is a market for long interviews that are not all bash-bash-bash: see podcasts.
7. Cheer up everyone! It's not that bad.
8. More on what happened to New Atheism.
9. Is there a more predictably awkward social interaction than buying the Big Issue? This morning I walked past the vendor, aware that I had no change, then, appreciating that I did have a note, I walked back to him. I gave him £10 and asked if he had change. I'll see, he said. It was cold. He reached into his pocket and brought out a handful of pound coins. The Big Issue costs £3. I had already decided that I would pay £5. I could see that he had 6 £1 coins in his cold hand. He counted them into my gloved hand one by one. His breath condensed in great clouds as he counted the £1 coins. Three. Four. I waited. I took my £5, said thank you and walked away feeling like an idiot. Anyway all of that is just a prelude to this:
Look at the order of the politicians. At the last general election, the LibDems got about 2.4m votes and the SNP got under 1m. (Did you know that more Scottish people voted Leave in the 2016 referendum than voted for the SNP in 2017: 1,018,322 versus 977,568?) And yet there is Sturgeon on the top line, with Swinson sitting at the children's table. Yes I know, number of MPs, percentage of vote in seats contested, yes, yes, yes. But surely, not so long ago, the leader of the third national party would rank above a regional separatist?
10. How humans and other modern animals would look if drawn from their skeletons in the same way dinosaurs are, if you see what I mean.
2. "It’s been a long time now since, at age 53, I became a woman." The inimitable Deirdre McCloskey of course. Happy? Sad? Honest, anyway. "My daughter still lives in the Midwest; she is married and has a child. I’ve told in Crossing about how, a year later, when she was still in college, I saw her that one time, very early in my transition, a weeping father in a dress begging for a hug. ... Her lone letter in reply said “Thanks for the money. I still don’t want you in my life.” ... My son lives not too far from me. He too won’t speak."
3. Pregnancy reduces criminal behaviour, both for the mother and the father. There is some great economics-speak at the link: "pregnancy reduces discount rates and gives men and women a reason to invest in human capital and work for the future." Also: people should get married and have children earlier.
4. On "liberalism" and liberal societies. Well put.
5. Abortion. Again, well put, I thought, which is quite a feat when the author is an American calmly and sympathetically putting forward both sides of the debate.
6. Rory Sutherland, the Wiki Man. "One avenue that is rarely explored is that a major cause of the rise of populism might be the journalists themselves, and the extent to which the once noble aim of impartiality has led to something ridiculous — where almost everyone in authority is treated as a liar. // For the past three decades, Britain has had centrist governments led by mainstream politicians. And in that period, did we find that journalists devoted much airtime and column inches to reporting this as a good thing? We did not." To be fair, we are always fighting the last war. The "why is this lying liar lying to me?" type of interview is a reaction against the "Prime Minister, is there anything you would like to say?" interview of yesteryear. But I think Sutherland's point is a good one: even if deference is dead, common sense, decency and a sense of proportion ought not to be. And there is a market for long interviews that are not all bash-bash-bash: see podcasts.
7. Cheer up everyone! It's not that bad.
8. More on what happened to New Atheism.
9. Is there a more predictably awkward social interaction than buying the Big Issue? This morning I walked past the vendor, aware that I had no change, then, appreciating that I did have a note, I walked back to him. I gave him £10 and asked if he had change. I'll see, he said. It was cold. He reached into his pocket and brought out a handful of pound coins. The Big Issue costs £3. I had already decided that I would pay £5. I could see that he had 6 £1 coins in his cold hand. He counted them into my gloved hand one by one. His breath condensed in great clouds as he counted the £1 coins. Three. Four. I waited. I took my £5, said thank you and walked away feeling like an idiot. Anyway all of that is just a prelude to this:
10. How humans and other modern animals would look if drawn from their skeletons in the same way dinosaurs are, if you see what I mean.
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