If a week is a long time in politics, as British Prime Minister Harold Wilson is supposed to have quipped to lobby journalists in 1964, then a month is an eternity. In mid-February, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Party was riding high, topping electoral polls and threatening both main wings of the British uniparty, Labour and Conservative. (more…)
Tag: Labour Party
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Government Efficiency
Sir Keir Starmer and his Labour government have taken far too much flak for my liking, and it’s time to defend the old school tie and point out Labour’s successes since a handful of people tore themselves away from daytime TV to vote them into office in July. After a string of electoral losses to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK at local level, Labour were facing another round of defeats in similar elections next May, and have come up with a foolproof plan to avoid these drubbings at the ballot box. Like all the best plans, it is brilliantly simple. Don’t have the elections. (more…)
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Here was a population not convinced that old England was as good as possible.
George Eliot, Felix Holt, the RadicalIn October, 2009, I was ranked No. 41 in a list of the 100 most powerful right-wingers in Britain. I am not sure about the “right winger” bit, preferring to consider myself a Whig.
Nigel Farage, Flying Free (more…) -
To be born an Englishman is to win first prize in God’s lottery. It’s a phrase often misattributed to Dr. Johnson or Rudyard Kipling, but in fact it was Sir Cecil Rhodes, the English mining magnate who discovered and lent his name to an African territory, Rhodesia, before that nation became Zimbabwe in 1980. As is so often the case when whites are no longer in charge of black people, Zimbabwe went rapidly downhill, with societal breakdown followed by hyper-inflation. At one time, there was a billion-dollar banknote in Zimbabwe. (more…)
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On the latest broadcast of Counter-Currents Radio, Greg Johnson and Angelo Plume discussed the unrest and populist uprising in the United Kingdom, which was caused after an African stabbed three little girls to death. It is now available for download and online listening. (more…)
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David Lammy, the UK’s new Foreign Secretary, who made sure to mention in his very first speech in the post that he is “a descendant of enslaved people.” (Image source; UK Parliament website)
David Lammy, the UK’s new Foreign Secretary, who made sure to mention in his very first speech in the post that he is “a descendant of enslaved people.” (Image source; UK Parliament website)
2,607 words
England swings like a pendulum do.
Bobbies on bicycles two by two.
Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben.
The rosy red cheeks of the little children.
— Roger Miller, “England Swings”And so, as they say, it begins. Labour’s predicted landslide in last week’s United Kingdom general election proved to be just that, with the party winning 412 seats out of the parliamentary total of 650. It is the second-largest Labour majority in history in a general election which had the second-lowest voter turnout (a pathetic 52%) in that same history. (more…)
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Election special
There is only one game in town at the moment in the Disunited Kingdom, and it’s the imminent General Election. Until a month ago it was as dull as ditchwater, with Labour expected to trounce that loose collective still inexplicably using the name “Conservative Party” and take the uniparty baton from the oldest political party in the world. There was nothing of interest other than the scale of the drubbing. (more…)
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The team was reminiscing and talking about 1990s British pop culture and what it says about the state of Britain today on the most recent broadcast of Counter-Currents Radio. Host Greg Johnson was joined by Brits Millennial Woes (official website here) and Morgoth (Substack, Odysee), as well as Counter-Currents’ resident expert on all things pop, Travis LeBlanc, for a lively discussion, and it is now available for download and online listening. (more…)
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Sir Keir Starmer, the likely next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and also the author’s former schoolmate. (Photo courtesy of the World Economic Forum’s Flickr)
Sir Keir Starmer, the likely next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and also the author’s former schoolmate. (Photo courtesy of the World Economic Forum’s Flickr)
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It is the run-in to a British General Election in which the Labour Party is certain to replace a Conservative Party which has been in power for almost 15 years. The charismatic Labour leader is warning his party against what he calls “triumphalism,” although he knows almost to a certainty that in half a year’s time the keys to 10 Downing Street will be in his expensively-tailored pocket. (more…)
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Katharine Birbalsingh (photo from the UK government website).
Katharine Birbalsingh (photo from the UK government website).
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The Jesuits famously pronounced, after Aristotle, “Give me the child and I will give you the man.” This maxim, or a version of it, reappears throughout the history of education, and by the time it reaches Vladimir Illyich Lenin, it has taken on a more sinister tone, as you might expect: “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” The modern Western state has accepted the baton, and effectively says the same thing.
I am not a parent, but I have to feel for those who are. (more…)
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Moby Dick, courtesy of ianbeverdge on Deviantart.
Moby Dick, courtesy of ianbeverdge on Deviantart.
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There’s a meme about the upcoming election in Britain involving the simple slogan “Zero Seats.” The slogan relates to the impending wipeout of the Tory Party. It isn’t being used by British liberals, but by politically engaged people on the Right. Naturally, such a statement and goal immediately invites the counter-proposition: “Labour will be even worse.” Labour could very well be even worse than the Tory government, but the impetus to utterly ruin the Tory Party once and for all remains regardless. Similarly, given that we live under a “uni-party” system, the claim can also be made that it makes no difference which “cheek of the arse” sits in power, to quote George Galloway. (more…)
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2,110 words
You can’t appease everyone
When Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was paying attention at Reigate Grammar School in the 1970s and I wasn’t, he may have come across that old conundrum; What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? (It’s an illegitimate question, by the way, due to its inappropriate use of temporality, but that’s for another day.) If he was not previously aware of this intellectual teaser, he will be now. (more…)
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This year’s run-up to the British General Election is reminiscent of 1997, when Tony Blair was so spooked by the enthusiastic backing he was getting from the media that he warned his party about “triumphalism” in the weeks leading up to the ballot. That election was a forgone conclusion, and this year’s looks much the same. (more…)