Posts by Nick Russell
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Polity: In defence of the centre, in reply to Tom Semmens,
What is happening in England right now is in some ways a replay of the Scottish independence referendum. The intervention of the English establishment politicised Scotland and while the referendum failed, the dominant establishment party – Labour – was routed and it increasingly looks like a Phyrric victory. Corbyn could easily spark a similar politicisation of England, which is why the establishment is so terrified.
Two points: first, the major beneficiary of the election in Scotland was not a defeat for the establishment. It was the Tory Party. Vote SNP, get Cameron. Secondly, the establishment is not terrified at the prospect of Corbyn winning the leadership. The Tories are laughing so hard they can barely stand. Go read the Telegraph or the Spectator if you don't believe me.
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Polity: In defence of the centre, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Also, I really doubt you will ever have a radical popular left. I'd have thought it would have to be one or the other...
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Polity: In defence of the centre, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Pitching for the youth vote in this day and age is a waste of time. There are too few of them and they don't turn out to vote. Danyl McLauchlan has blogged on this point repeatedly and he is right. Admittedly that was in the NZ context but I would be astonished if Britain were different.
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Polity: In defence of the centre, in reply to Tom Semmens,
400,000 people have joined up to support Corbyn.
190,000 since the 2015 general election according to the guardian - that was at 9 August. Mostly union members. Look, this is great and all, but it reminds me of the Milifans before the last general election. They formed a lovely little echo chamber and the Tories won the election.
My only point is this. The Labour Party has offered Britain the same choice and hope that Corbyn is offering before, notably in 1983. Britain said no thanks. One definition of insanity is said to be doing the same thing and expecting a different result. But hey, maybe you're right. Maybe everything is different now and Corbyn will romp home at the next election. I'm not holding my breath.
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Polity: In defence of the centre, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
How did he deliver different policies to those which John Major would have pursued in those years? If anything Major might have been less likely to ally himself with the United States’ most extreme right president since the 1930s to take part in an illegal war? Or to criminalise teenagers for arbitrary offences on the whim of a magistrate?
It's a good question. You could argue that Blair provided the ultimate vindication of conservative hegemony: he could only win by becoming a de facto Tory. But what is the alternative? The left in Britain has a long and painful history of arguing that the voters don't know what is good for them and will eventually see the light etc. This has been successful precisely never. It will not be successful now. It is politically illiterate. You either appeal to mainstream voters who actually vote, or you fail.
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Polity: In defence of the centre, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I don't buy the "Labour failed" argument at all. Blair won 3 straight general elections. Name me another Labour leader who did that.
The real failure is the succession of Labour leaders who each went down in a hail of ideologically correct bullets. But that's the left for you. Better to lose gloriously than be tainted by victory. Winning elections is what Tories do.
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Polity: In defence of the centre, in reply to 81stcolumn,
With respect to the graph you present it conflates political views with actual voting patterns. I understand there is quite a lot of concern that many of the 7% that haven’t turned out NZ after 1999 election are those on the left who don’t have anything to vote for. This situation is complicated by the MMP threshold where it is quite possible to vote on the left and not have your vote represented in parliament. Mine was one of those votes in the last election.
Labour and the Greens have repeatedly demonstrated that chasing the votes of people who don't vote is a good way of losing elections. I wonder if Corbyn is making the same mistake in the UK.
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Polity: In defence of the centre, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Somehow 2015 doesn’t feel like the 1980s. Different times call for different solutions
Corbyn isn't offering new solutions. He is a fossil. As far as I can see he is promising to wind the clock back to Labour's 1983 manifesto, aka the longest suicide note in political history (copyright G Kaufman). This seems to appeal mainly to people who were not around in 1983 and who think that the voting public secretly yearn to renationalise the railways, abandon nuclear weapons, etc, etc, and that the big problem with Ed Miliband was that he just wasn't left wing enough. I think the technical term for such people is "deluded". Or possibly "non-voters".
I grew up in England in the late 70s and early 80s. All I can say is that anyone who thinks of that time as the good old days is not someone I would vote for. Although some of the music and TV was good. But hey, who knows, maybe Michael Foot was a man ahead of his time and the voting public will flock to the banner this time around. Personally, I would put this in the "snowball-furnace" field of probability. More likely we get a solid 15-20 years of Tory government.
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I think we are watching history repeat itself in the UK Labour Party. Blair got to win elections because (a) Foote, and the Militant group, took the party left, split it (remember the SDP?) and into electoral oblivion; (b) Kinnock led a more centrist fightback but paid the price in terms of his own leadership; and (c) this left the way open for John Smith and Tony Blair. In the meantime, Britain got 4 consecutive terms of Conservative government. I think with Corbyn we are back at (a). Which suggests Labour might get another shot at Government in about 2030 or 2035 or something.
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This is a cheap shot. New Zealand is tiny and is not essential to any trade deal involving large countries like the US or Japan. We are a very small fish in a big pond, and this is what happens to small fish, no matter who is running the Government.
I think the real mistake here was allowing the US and Japan to become part of the TPP in the first place. If the original agreement between NZ and Singapore etc had been concluded first, other countries could have been presented with the option of joining or not on a take it or leave it basis, rather than trying to impose their own terms. I just hope that whatever the Government ends up negotiating is better than nothing, because I cannot see them walking away now. They have invested too much time and effort for that.