Mailwatch(ed) Forum

NevTheSweeper wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2025 7:09 pm

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2025 9:38 pm Also what is this fake fascism that Starmer is practicing? Does the rentier's bill fall under this umbrella?

I see you haven't seen TV pictures of *failed* asylum seekers being put on flights, have you?

FTFY
People who have no right to be here because they have no need of asylum are being sent back to where they came from.
What do you think we should do with them?

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2025 7:53 pm
Honestly I tend to find that people on Bluesky are a lot more hostile to the government than I had hoped.

I expect lots of criticism on points of liberalism, and Labour's taken the position that it's happy with that. But this 'budget disaster" stuff is swallowing the Tory stuff. Plus some of them only read headlines.

That poster's actually OK on lots of stuff.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2025 8:40 pm

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2025 7:53 pm
Honestly I tend to find that people on Bluesky are a lot more hostile to the government than I had hoped.

I expect lots of criticism on points of liberalism, and Labour's taken the position that it's happy with that. But this 'budget disaster" stuff is swallowing the Tory stuff. Plus some of them only read headlines.

That poster's actually OK on lots of stuff.

There's a couple of people who I used to follow on twitter who can be gits towards the government especially over Europe. One seems convinced that should a Tory/Reform coalition win in 2029 then it will be an authoritarian takeover and this is the centre-left's last chance. Therefore the best strategy he chooses is to attack the government half the time and moan about Morgan McSweeney. Maybe you've come across him.

https://bsky.app/profile/jwsidders.bsky.social

Seriously thinking of unfollowing him.

Unfollow anyone who gets on your nerves. I follow him too, don't mind him too much.

Some of the Continuity Remain people are annoying. I think control (via visas) is here to stay. And Customs Union (like Turkey) is pretty shit.

I just find him really frustating all he does is seem to moan about the government not rejoining the single market plus his constant fucking pessism is really getting me down as well. So yeah I've unfollowed him.

I think this provide a useful perspective on the government not doing anything.

https://takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/odds-and-ends-57

The slow pace of change?
It’s now 222 days since the 2024 election took place. The good one I mean – that happened last July, not the one in November. Keir Starmer has now been in power for over seven months, and I get a sense that people are feeling a little disillusioned with what they see as the slow pace of change.

At least, that’s certainly a common topic amongst the people I hang out with, and it’s a sentiment shared by a few good pieces I read this week. First, there was this from PommyLee, who argues that it should be possible for the government to change the country in five years:

In 5 years, Clement Attlee, while helping a nation recover from WW2, with large swathes of its industrial cities and the capital having to be rebuilt, he created the NHS, Nationalised Coal, Steel, the Railways, Telecommunications, Electricity, Gas and other key segments of the economy. At the same time, he developed the basis of the Welfare State that endures to this day, Social Security, National Insurance, Child Benefit were all enduring benefits created in those 5 years. This barely touches on the full impact of this 5 year Government, I haven’t even mentioned Housing for example but not only were hundreds of thousands of homes built but the policy was so popular that the Torys under Eden and McMillan built millions more and didn’t dare touch the welfare and social policies enacted by Attlee’s government.

As you can see, you can change a country in 5 years (and in much tougher circumstances than faced by UK Labour today – recovering from war, reversing a century of segregation, these were challenges at the very least the equal of Labours much touted 28 Billion Pound Black Hole. Nobody denies that the Tories not only left a mess but also deliberately set out to poison the well on the way out the door, but it’s not exactly needing to rebuild Coventry and London, is it?

Then there was this from Jonn Elledge, who laments that the Labour government, elected with a huge majority, are not doing anything progressive:

No one of any seniority seems willing to say anything in defence of the welfare state, that immigrants are people, or to express the minute possibility that Britain will be better off working with Europe than getting pushed around by Trump. They’re not making arguments in favour of duty or solidarity, or a national mission to rebuild what the Tories destroyed. All too often the pitch seems to be slightly more competent management of the rubble.

I’m far from the first to ask this, but – what do they think we elected them for, exactly?

Leaving myself open to another wallet inspection, I can see a couple of possible reasons for this terror that somebody, somewhere, might think a government by an ostensibly progressive party could be seen as doing something progressive. The one favoured by the left is: they don’t want to. This is always who they were. Maybe. There are few in the Labour party of whom I think that’s true, but that doesn’t rule out the possibility that the clique around the leadership is entirely from that group.

And finally, Emma Burnell has written about this feeling of malaise too:

There has to be something to be seen between now and then. Something for those of us who want it NOW. Something tangible that tells us that not only is the government going in the right direction but that it is delivering day to day today.

I don’t disagree with them entirely. In fact, I broadly share their frustrations. It’s especially annoying to look across the Atlantic and witness the speed and enthusiasm with which Donald Trump and Elon Musk are tearing apart the federal government and driving towards what appears to be their goal of ending eighty years of American hegemony. Keir Starmer’s government just looks sleepy in comparison.

However, perhaps this is just because I’m an apologist for the regime, but I haven’t lost faith yet.

This is because if we look at history, we can see that most new governments do not tend to hit the ground running, and they take a while to get reforming.

For example, take Attlee and the achievements that Lee lists above. He was elected on the 5th July 1945, and it took until the 6th November 1946 – 17 months later – for the National Health Service Act, which created the NHS, to become law. And the service itself didn’t officially begin until 1948 – three years into his term.1

Then there’s the National Insurance Act, which created various benefits, and was only passed in August 1946. And the nationalisations of things like coal, the railways, gas, and electricity happened between 1946 and 1949 – deep into the Attlee government’s term in office.

The same pattern also holds true for Thatcher and Blair. Most of the former’s privatisations happened in her second term – and the “bang bang” that regulated the financial markets was only finalised in 1983 – after she had been in office for over three years.

And as for Blair? All of the significant things we remember now2 took place after the first year, including the National Minimum Wage Act, the Good Friday Agreement, and the creation of Sure Start, and so on.

In other words, as of yet, I don’t think there’s anything historically unusual about this seemingly sluggish start. Perhaps the problem is that we need to better manage our expectations – and assume that the graph of “governments getting stuff done” is not a linear process, but more of an s-curve:

In other words, achievements start slow as the new government takes control of the system and learns to bend the civil service to its will, then pick up speed as policy work starts to pay off – followed by another plateau as the government runs out of ideas and everyone starts to hate each other.

Or perhaps I’m just too full of cope.

Either way, I think if you’re a supporter of the government who is teetering on feeling disappointed, I think there’s a strong argument to hold your nerve a bit longer. If we’re still feeling this vibe this time next year, then perhaps that is the time to start worrying.

I'm old enough to remember the first Thatcher government. Turning stuff around (in their terms, obviously) took years, but they held their nerve. It's more difficult in the 2020s when people have learned to have 20 second attention spans, but (I'm assuming, Westminster's really not my thing) the hard work establishing foundations under the surface is going to be the real story come the next election phase.

No one really needs 24/7 news.

But it’s become somewhat default.i don’t have any news sites sending me updates, i access as I find it. Allows me a filter.

NevTheSweeper wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2025 6:52 pm

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2025 9:46 pm I've seen better cartoons that have been drawn by colour blind hedgehogs.

Don't care about how some of you hate the cartoon. I find it very funny, and more crucially, to the point.

Well this is where we jump the shark into trolling so blatant it can’t be anything else, because it’s very obvious that cartoon is not even remotely funny and to suggest it is is so laughable it can only be the work of someone who is only here to annoy. It’s the sort of joyless approximation of humour that right-wing types often attempt, and has about as much relation to something genuinely witty as the strawberry ice cream you used to get in tubs of cheap Neapolitan in the 1980s has to actual strawberries.

Also, the drawing is dogshit as well. It’s not even the right sort of sodding cat FFS.

It's badly-drawn, unfunny and makes no sense. I can understand why Nev loves it.

Cabinet reshuffle on the way.

davidjay wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2025 12:16 am It's badly-drawn, unfunny and makes no sense.

During the heyday if Viz, a plethora of copycats (ha!) emerged to try to cash in on the newfangled kids-comics-for-adults craze. I remember one called Filth which was absolutely dire. This wouldn't have been out of place in that standard of publication. Laboured (ha! again), wordy, unfunny. Pointless.

davidjay wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2025 12:16 am It's badly-drawn, unfunny and makes no sense. I can understand why Nev loves it.

I have just realised that whoever draws it has drawn (or rather, crudely copied) Tom out of Tom and Jerry.

At least if he’d tried to copy Garfield it’d have been a stripy cat so marginally more accurate.

Shame, really. The concept has potential. Just needs someone with talent to put it into black and white. And a few colours, obviously.

The Weeping Angel wrote:Cabinet reshuffle on the way.

Starmer might be better off reshuffling his own advisors because they seem to be a bit shit. These three ministers haven't come across my radar and I'm confused to what they've actually done wrong. I had hoped that Labour wouldn't go down the Tory route of moving ministers around every couple of months.

The Guardian don't seem to be bothering with that reshuffle talk.

The reasons given in the article are strange Nandy doesn't show up in the commons enough apparently. In some good news the economy grew by 0.1% much to they annoyance of the BBC, Sky and other news outlets.

Luke Tryl seems to be hehind this. He was attacking Education as a mess. presumably because he loves academies.

Big Chaminda hands Tryl his arse:

There is going to a reshuffle after I've written that, isn't there? That would be a mistake.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2025 7:27 pm There is going to a reshuffle after I've written that, isn't there? That would be a mistake.

What makes you say that?