Things can only get better?

Those Newark election results in full, lovingly pilfered from the Grauniad website:

Robert Jenrick (C) 17,431 (45.03%, -8.82%)
Roger Helmer (Ukip) 10,028 (25.91%, +22.09%)
Michael Payne (Lab) 6,842 (17.68%, -4.65%)
Paul Baggaley (Ind) 1,891 (4.89%)
David Kirwan (Green) 1,057 (2.73%)
David Watts (LD) 1,004 (2.59%, -17.41%)
Nick The Flying Brick (Loony) 168 (0.43%)
Andy Hayes (Ind) 117 (0.30%)
David Bishop (BP Elvis) 87 (0.22%)
Dick Rodgers (Stop Banks) 64 (0.17%)
Lee Woods (Pat Soc) 18 (0.05%)
C maj 7,403 (19.13%)
15.46% swing C to UKIP
Electorate 73,486; Turnout 38,707 (52.67%, -18.69%)

Contrary to the line that we reached peak-UKIP a couple of weeks ago, the beyond-yucky prospect of UKIP sex scandals doesn't seem to have done the acceptable face of electoral racism any harm whatsoever. And that UKIP swing didn't just come from Tory voters, and I strongly suspect that the true extent of Labour's trouble here is concealed by 2010 Lib Dem voters switching to Labour.

Labour won Newark in 1997.

Friday Video Corner

Good riddance

Ordinary people in Spain have suffered more than many others in the aftermath of the financial crisis. I suppose, then, that it is some comfort that their Parasite-in-Chief has abdicated.

Right now, however, I want to call shenanigans on the 'man who oversaw the transition to democracy' narrative being weaved by the press. The simple truth about the Spanish monarchy is that it would not exist were it not for Franco. That dictator, himself a monarchist (in classically fascist fashion, the Spanish State was an emergency measure, for a state of exception), stole Spain from the Republic, and made it once again safe for its aristocracy.

All monarchy is drenched in blood. In the case of Spain, the blood is barely dry.

Sunday Quicky - Answer this

A question for you. The London Borough of Barnet has one of the nastiest Tory Councils in the country, intent on privatisation and social cleansing. The Tories have just held it by the narrowest of margins*. Here are the results from the key Childs Hill ward:

Local election results 22 May 2014- Childs Hill

Name of candidate	Description (if any)	Number of votes recorded
AJAKAIYE Ade	Labour Party Candidate	1408
COHEN Jack Bernard	Liberal Democrat	1509 (elected)
DAVIES Jonathan Maurice	Liberal Democrat	1198
GROVER Rohit Roshyan	Conservative Party Candidate	1500
HENRY Charlotte Alexandra	Liberal Democrat	1222
MARASCO Francesco Edoardo	Green Party	501
PATEL Nila	Labour Party Candidate	1381
RYDE Shimon	Conservative Party Candidate	1544 (elected)
SMITH Andrew	Labour Party Candidate	1463
ZINKIN Peter	Conservative Party Candidate	1536 (elected)

You'll note that the difference between the highest Labour vote and the lowest Tory vote is easily less than the Green candidate's vote.

Now, tell me this - I'm particularly interested in the views of those leftists who advocated a Greeen vote - what was achieved by voting Green in this ward? Or indeed by the Greens standing at all?

This post is really just a forerunner of a more thorough discussion of why I think it is still right for socialists to vote Labour, and for that matter to be in Labour, but this kind of thing really annoys me.




*One seat. Voting in a safe Labour ward was delayed because of the death of a candidate.

An Open Letter to Sadiq Khan

I know that you are bricking yourself after the Euro results. You are worried that Ed's not going to get into office, and that you're not going to get that red box you've always dreamed about. 

I understand that and I feel sorry for you.

We've all made mistakes in the past. I know I have.

I myself haven't put nearly enough effort into denouncing you and your friends for having sold out the labour movement to capital and for risking Labour's electoral fortunes by being generally useless.

But we can move on from our mistakes.

I can get better at denouncing you. And you can get better at not pandering to racists.

You say, to the working class voter imagined by your public school educated Progress intern with a bad sociology degree, that "immigration has driven down local wages."

I think I know what you mean. And I'm all for talking about immigration. I said so earlier.

But you know what? The only people who can 'drive' down wages are bosses. You can do something about that: you can support a statutory living wage. 

You can unshackle trade unions from Thatcher-era legislation. You can publicly talk about how racism is used to divide us, to the detrminent of everyone's pay-packet.

You're also talking about overseas people claiming Child Benefit and about kids in schools not being able to speak English.

Nobody else is doing that. Except the far Right. 

And there's absolutely no evidence that these are genuine, real, things in the world.

Please stop doing this.

Oh, and please start writing in paragraphs. We all mistakes, yadayada, but you just look stupid.

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Original here

It's just a step to the left, and then a jump to the right

The FN victory in the French popular vote is the story of these Euro-polls, and something which ought to frighten us. It's also worth minuting likely gains for Sinn Fein in the RoI and Syriza in Greece as at least some evidence that austerity in 21st century needn't push an electorate into the hands of the right.

In our own lacklustre way the Brits have provided a story too. Suffice it to say that the  "UKIP are nothing to worry about. They're being talked up by the BBC, and the council elections were nothing special" line now looks a bit daft. Nor is it just an English shire counties thing.

I have no intention spending a bank holiday writing a long blog about all of this. But a few things:

• Before we even get on to politics or morality, or that sort of thing, it would be an unmitigated electoral disaster for Labour to attempt to steal UKIP's clothes by talking up 'tough' policies on immigration. 
• It's the economy, stupid. The discontent which leads to (most) UKIP votes or (more significantly) low turnout is rooted in the failure of a political elite to do anything about bread and butter issues. Action on housing costs and supply, on stable, full-time, employment, on wages and on pensions would be the priorities for even a moderate social democratic party hoping to win in 2015.
• The disconnection of the electorate from party politics isn't just about policies. How about some more candidates who are not career politicians, and come from backgrounds which could reasonably be described as working class? 
• Labour can and should talk about immigration. It can do this without appealing for clampdowns. It is possible to win arguments on immigration from the Left. This cannot be done simply by spouting liberal truisms about how diversity makes everyone happier, or capitalist truisms about how immigration makes for a dynamic economy. We need to talk about how racism is used to divide and distract, we need to say that. We need to talk about securing decent pay, conditions and representation for all workers, so neutralising the 'cheap labour taking our jobs' line. And we need to actually start telling stories about the reality of immigrant experience, about detention and deportation. Labour could do that.

The European issue also can and should be neutralised. Labour should support an in/ out referendum.

Right, I'm off to sun myself before Nigel Farage tries to deport me somewhere.

That London

Nurtured in the bosom of that most talked about of fictional entities, the white working class, away from large urban centres, I have spent my entire adult life in London. I therefore straddle the electoral divide of the moment, in the eyes of the commentariat, that between London and, um, absolutely everywhere else in England.

London, which is "educated and civilised", doesn't vote for UKIPers and returns Labour councils. Everywhere else is brimful of racist yokels who hang on Nigel Farage's every word, have abandoned classical political allegiances, and who would no doubt be described using the phrase "sea-change" if journalists hadn't stopped using the phrase "sea-change" about a decade ago.

Now, don't get me wrong, against the Pollyannaish line being pushed by the liberal-left, the UKIP results yesterday are significant. As I said. But the whole "it's a crazy world outside London" explanation of Farageism is less than adequate. For reasons including, but not limited to, the following:

• The rush to paint London as some kind of leftist paradise that inevitably keeps its head whilst the rest of the country wraps itself in the union jack has to reckon with the fact that Boris Johnson twice beat Ken Livingstone in a straight contest.
• It is pretty much to be expected the Labour will do proportionately better in (a) large urban centres, and (b) places with significant minority ethnic populations. Thus, not just the results in London, but also in Manchester and Liverpool.
• It is absolutely true that there is disillusionment with Labour, and a widespread sense of abandonment amongst its traditional working class base. The factors giving rise to this are equally present in London. The difference in London is that there are counteracting forces preventing a peel-off to UKIP or apathy: notably more radical Labour programmes in key boroughs (Camden, Islington), strong left/ green alternatives and/ or community groups to absorb dissent in places where Labour are shit (Newham/ Lewisham). None of these things are entirely unique to London.

There remains a serious crisis of working class representation in England, and the rest of the UK. It is compounded by an immediate housing crisis and an economic 'recovery' that is having zero impact on peoples' actual well-being. These are the issues Labour needs to address; sidelining the persisting reality of class in favour of a supposed fissure between London and the provinces is the kind of politics that belongs in Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch. It has nothing to offer.