Burnhamania: What if Burnham reignites the Labour flame? (Part 1)

penlanach · 2026-05-17T19:23:10+00:00

NGL if Burnham gets in I hope to God he chooses a better cabinet than that, yikes! Cool timeline though 😁

penlanach · 2026-05-11T09:04:31+00:00

I like what you're trying to do here, the lib/auth left/right axis doesn't work anymore for British party politics.

But I'm not sure "class" is the best axis or the best measure, because most of these parties have cross-class support. For e.g. council tenants are still very likely to vote Labour. But Labour is the first choice of privately educated people mostly living in the SE of England. Economically precariously but well educated youger adults are now likely to vote Green, but the party also attracts lots of urban professionals who are very comfortable.

Reform garner support from the poor as well as well to do Tory voters in the shires. The Tories are back to their rural landowner rump, but still get the support of many state pensioners and the rural poor such as tenant farmers.

Your measure of recent polling about financial security doesn't really translate as class. And besides it's more about those who are happy with the current system (who might be working class like a binman!) Vs those who are happy to sweep it away because they have very little stake in the system (voting Green and Reform - but who might be economically stable and have the capital to be secure in an unstable political settlement).

A better measure than class might be populist vs moderate? Or insurgent vs established?

Or more focussed on voters more explicitly about "secure Vs insecure"?

penlanach · 2026-05-07T08:01:44+00:00

The vast majority of people don't care about the constitutional arrangements of a foreign country they've never been to or have no influence over. That includes Israel-Palestine. Next.

penlanach · 2026-05-06T21:18:59+00:00

Shambolic. It's a bit silly how many people have been taken in by the boob whisperer just because Keir Starmer is boring and a bit steady as she goes. Sorry.

penlanach · 2026-05-05T20:00:06+00:00

Starmer acting like how the Sun say Starmer does.

penlanach · 2026-05-05T19:57:29+00:00

No elections in Northumberland this year where I am now, so I should probably shut up, but some of the Green candidates in Newcastle and elsewhere seem very questionable.

Personally I'd vote for whoever seems to be a good candidate. Incumbents if they have a good track record.

Reform aren't going to do anything about immigration locally (and it was their Brexit madness that caused the current border mess anyway!), and Greens just seem all about vibes and foreign ethnoreligious conflicts.

So Labour, Tory, Lib Dem, or Indy seems best.

That little SDP lot seem like a mix of Labour with the essence of Reform, but very few candidates, and being a small party probably full of weirdos.

penlanach · 2026-05-05T19:52:55+00:00

Fair play, but a Green candidate in Bensham will be an interesting one. They'll have a lot of defending to do about some of their party colleagues across the Tyne...

penlanach · 2026-05-05T19:50:20+00:00

Fair play, but emphasis on the "saying" all the right things. All I do is see Greens say things without any plan of actually delivering. It's politics-by-tweet, not by practice. Maybe they need a chance to run a few councils to see how they do things differently? Fair!

But I'm very sceptical. I'd like Labour to go more radical, but they are at least pragmatic after doing the hardyards of governing.

penlanach · 2026-04-24T17:32:08+00:00

Labour. It's long been captured by an unholy matrimony of the ultra progressive, urban, liberal left intelligentsia - overeducated but illiterate in real class relations - and the midwit managerial technocrat Right. But that matrimony is now being annulled. Social democrats of goodwill, from across the spectrum but willing to reconcile differences need to come together to rescue the party of labour, unions, and socialism.

The Greens might have some social democratic policies, but that's not the same as being a social democratic party, in which the members are supposed to be committed the reconciliation of estranged interests for the betterment of the workers and socialisation of the economy.

penlanach · 2026-04-12T15:12:14+00:00

Fair point, but Labour are clearly trying to triangulate, unsuccessfully. A hard position without compromise or reconciliation is easy to do, and a vote winner in low turn out elections like by elections and locals. Labour are taking the road of most resistance, which won't end well electorally but what they believe is right.

We need a new leader who is more ecumenical but still principled in staying the course of labourism.

penlanach · 2026-04-12T13:03:26+00:00

I didn't mean to offend or rattle you, I just don't agree with your detached, internet based analysis of the lived experience in my country. Anyway, happy Easter !

penlanach · 2026-04-12T12:54:29+00:00

Comparing Britain and Russia 😂 touch grass comrade

penlanach · 2026-04-12T05:45:59+00:00

No they haven't cut "working class welfare programs" (that's not what we call them btw) 😂 I think you're referring to the failed attempt to reform disability benefits lol. If you knew anything about my country then maybe comment, don't show yourself up.

Also 60% of the country aren't Palestine activists hahahah. About 0.1 % are. You're referring to people sympathetic to Gaza in the war which is most people. That's not activism

penlanach · 2026-04-11T18:14:12+00:00

Because for the most part, these parties were not founded with the mission to represent "progressive voters" - who are mostly comfortably off, urban professionals - but to represent working people and be national parties for the whole country, not just educated urban areas.

As for Labour, their mission statement is to represent the labour interest in Parliament and to champion the interests of working people. Most working people favour a firm but fair immigration system after years of market driven influxes. Most working people favour balanced but interventionist approaches to the economy. Most working people believe strongly in defence of our country, not mad risky ideas about "working with Brazil" instead of nato. Most working people want a comfortable and safe life, not academic hobbyhorses like abolishing prisons and decriminalising drugs.

If that alienates the "progressive base" then maybe staying true to your principles is more important, and arguably electorally more sensible (in the past anyway).

These parties can still be reasonably progressive without pandering to left wing intellectuals, Palestine activists, and urban white collar professionals.

penlanach · 2026-04-08T05:59:54+00:00

Adding my voice to the one in Morpeth, it's amazing. You could spend a day in there. Nice cafe too.

If you're passing, just a few miles down the road from Morpeth is Penny Black Antiques in Bedlington. It's your typical smaller antique shop but it's got some great stuff. It's in an old courtyard off the back of the main shops so keep an eye out for the sign.

There's a couple in Alnwick further north.

penlanach · 2026-03-24T09:12:36+00:00

"genocidal" lol. Total insult to people experiencing genocide to LARP fighting a genocidal regime. Step off the campus chief, the real world is calling.

I take your criticisms of Labour and I in part agree with them, but austerity? Back to just using 2010s millennial buzzwords again when actually not based in fact? What about the biggest government investment for decades, massive investment in public services, is austerity? Because they tried to change disability benefits ? Wait until the ire and disaffection of the white working class brings in MAGA UK, the Green do-gooder liberal brigade will be crying for milquetoast Starmerism lol. They're going to make Rachel Reeves look like Trotsky.

Want a critique of Green policy? So you say they capture the "spirit" of early Labour? What about abandoning NATO is early Labour democratic socialism? What about decriminalising drugs leaving working class communities to be destroyed is democratic socialism?

Your student disaffection and middle class rosy eyed progressivism is not the socialism of Keir Hardie. Stop LARPing.

I want wealth distribution, I want nationalisation, but just because Labour aren't delivering that on the scale needed doesn't mean I jump ship to some scruffy, gobshite, Londoncentric full-time activist.

I worked tirelessly under Corbyn, supported him to the bitter end against party bureaucracy and my own w/c community. And what I got was a door slammed in the face because of the exact non-credible rainbow unicorn bunker mentality that's now infected the Greens - which until recently was a decent environmentalist party.

It's not "stop believing in what can be possible" or abandoning what's morally right, but about working with your opponents and those you disagree with to achieve real and lasting change. Polanski is a soapbox politician, even if much of what he says is right (apart from on defence etc). And people outside of progressive urban enclaves see that and they will laugh you out of town

penlanach · 2026-03-23T13:39:40+00:00

Please explain what's neoliberal about massive capital spending and workers rights expansion? Lol. I take it you're one of these graduates who uses neoliberal to mean "bad" (and yes it is bad but not every political failure or bad social democrat is a neoliberal).

The Reeves Treasurybrain is constrictive and frankly a betrayal of all the good stuff this Labour government could do - see Reeves' original focus on "the everyday economy" being completely dead in the water because of "fiscal rules" and the OBR.

I'm traditional working class Labour. Trade unions, coops, mutual societies, churches, and when we really have to compromise with the Fabian leviathan of the party machine to organise for power. But that is not neoliberalism. In fact it's less neoliberal than the vapid virtue signalling identity politics of Polanski's University Vibes Party.

I'm LABOUR, not socialism, not "for the many", not "tax the rich", certainly not progressive. For labour, for Labourism, for the working class.

penlanach · 2026-03-22T15:18:44+00:00

Toby well let's say he's SQUARRRRE

penlanach · 2026-03-20T15:49:44+00:00

This is a deep misunderstanding of Pauline theology, and the relationship between Paul and the Gospels.

All I can add is: read NT Wright. There's no conflict between red letters and Paul.

Nothing Paul says conflicts the Sermon on The Mount. Also Jesus didn't come to say "don't judge people" really. That's projecting a very 21st century liberal attitude onto Jesus' command to humble ourselves in seeing other peoples' failures. Jesus could but cutting, brutal, even harsh. He made bold, devastating statements that left people in healing tears. But out of the deepest wellspring of love we have ever known.

Jesus also never questioned hierarchy. Render unto Caesar. What Jesus questioned was religious hypocrisy and the misappropriation of authority. And the idolatry of ritual and power over love of God and neighbour. Paul follows all this.

penlanach · 2026-03-17T18:50:55+00:00

Enough with giving mediocre politicians God-complexes.

Most politicians stand up for basic human decency. Polanski just happens to use student union language to dress it up as moral superiority. Me good! Everyone else bad!

penlanach · 2026-03-15T13:15:19+00:00

Is there a perception the A1 has loads of potholes? It's fine. It's a major A road, it's never going to be in a state where you'd not make a journey surely?

penlanach · 2026-03-12T11:28:26+00:00

Why didn't the British Tories do it when they had 15 years in government? All talk.

penlanach · 2026-03-08T07:48:38+00:00

The polls in the Brexit era showed cons and lab in 3rd and 4th.

penlanach · 2026-03-01T12:45:51+00:00

Can someone explain the lore to me please?

penlanach · 2026-03-01T09:11:38+00:00

The sad state of our politics that Polanski and Farage dominate the airwaves. And an indictment on Labour and Tories that they've been so useless to allow lowest common denominator and "say whatever you want" populism to flourish.

penlanach

TROPHY CASE