A Window into the Mind of New Labour

I don't regret the post I made last night about the Andy Burnham logo, however, I probably was a little bit mean. After all, it's just a logo. That initial disbelief on seeing it though, lol.

Today I want to talk about something else I saw yesterday. Yesterday morning I watched the following interview, where Camilla Tominey interviews Tony Blair's former Director of Political Operations, John McTernan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa2swxfjb1w&t=1915s

It was incredible to watch, as he seems to embody to perfection the type of person that lives at the heart of New Labour. And not New Labour in the full Blairite sense, but genuine New Labour in the round - i.e. he exists on a spectrum somewhere between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He's the New Labour equivalent of white van man, which is fitting as they talked about white van man a bit in the interview.

If I was better at YouTube I'd do a reaction video, and give my responses blow by blow. As I'm not I'll just make my observations in bullet point. I do urge people to watch it though.

• Firstly, as he's from those New Labour circles you get a bit of inside baseball. He mentions that he thinks Tony Blair is backing Andy Burnham. You get the sense that he's high enough up to know this, but not quite high enough up to know he's not supposed to give the game away. Then later, when the question of Keir Starmer's life after being prime minister pops up, he says maybe he'll do a David Cameron and come back as foreign secretary. Giving another sense: that this is basically a Tony Blair reshuffle, rather than a real Labour revolution. As if the role of PM is just another cabinet position that the actual party leaders can shuffle people in and out of. (I'm being a little cynical and conspiracist again here, but it's hard not to be.)

• Getting to the debate, there was a bit about immigration. He was labelling Reform 'far right' for wanting to 'forcibly' deport 'two million people' [an addendum to this next bullet point]. CT (Camilla Tominey) was pushing back against this. He was very reluctant to concede any ground on the issue, but at the same time he didn't want to just advocate open borders. So he kind of accepted that illegal entrants into the country had to be dealt with, but in a very 'having his cake and eating it way.' CT asked, surely you have to use some force to remove people? What if they refuse to leave? He replied, well then the government can "assist" them. Which is incredibly wormy language. He just couldn't bring himself to use the word force, like it went against his sense of self in some fundamental way and his brain just wouldn't allow it. This is why the video is such an eye opener as to why these people shouldn't be running the country. They can't take responsibility. Obviously, none of us particularly like the idea of forcibly detaining another human being and removing him or her from the country, but someone has to do it at some point or you don't have a border. It's almost insane that someone in a position of power can't acknowledge this basic fact.

• [Addendum] I have to note here that the efforts to push Reform to use more extremist language on immigration, such as "Mass Deportations," has indeed damaged the party. As deporting two million people does just sound crazy to people. It was the one part of the interview where CT couldn't own the position. Again, because it sounds mad. Why put yourself in that position when you can just say, "We want immigration in the tens of thousands, not the hundreds of thousands, and we will completely stop the small boats, sending any illegals who arrive back." Why get into hypotheticals about people that have been here for years before you've even fixed the core problem?

• [Anyway, back to the interview.] Another telling moment came when the issue of Chinese investment into Britain came up. He was pushed to acknowledge China's human rights record, which he did. However, he did it in such a blasé, unemotional way. He basically said, "Yes, they do have a terrible human rights record, and we always raise that with them, but they also have a lot of money." I'm paraphrasing, but that was the vibe. You would admire the pragmatism, were it not for the sentences that followed. As he then said, "China has a lot of capital, but America has a lot of capital." As if, in his mind, America and China are equivalent. The fact that America is a democracy, with the rule of law and free speech, that intimately shares our values, completely absent. Just a, "Well, if it wasn't China, it'd be America investing.. what's the difference," attitude.

• There was another bit where he touted the idea of having a public-private partnership scheme that helped every white van man in the country get a new electric van. The public-private partnership thing is obviously so New Labour. The fixation on green energy a more recent, but equally clichéd theme. I'm not against electric vehicles, but the thing is with this is that it's yet another example of focusing energy and money on things that don't need doing because of ideology, and because these people like the idea of doing something that feels modern. White van men already have vans, they're called white van men because they have the vans. They're not carrying their tools on the tube because they don't have a van. At some point in the future their vans will end up on the scrap heap and they'll have to buy a new van - maybe an electric one. This isn't something we desperately need government involvement in. Of course, I'm sure it would be very nice for the private companies in these public-private partnerships if perfectly fine working vans were prematurely scrapped and some fancy new electric ones prematurely entered the market. It's harder to imagine such an unfrugal use of resources being genuinely good for the environment though.

• Finally, there was also a bit where CT suggested that the high immigration levels have put pressure on younger people when it comes to finding jobs. McTernan was asked how Labour should help these younger people. He completely avoided answering the actual question and went off on a long-winded speech that ended with him sharing an anecdote about how a doctor he knows is using AI to help take notes on consultations with patients. Saving time and making things more efficient. It was another example of not being able to focus on the real world and instead wanting to stroll off into talking points that the political class find fashionable. In the last example it was green technology. In this case AI.

I think that's it. I don't want to be too harsh. I don't think these people are evil, or have bad intentions or anything. They're just very secluded in some weird, modern ivory tower, that makes it impossible for them to get to grips with actual reality. And it's eye-opening when you see it on plain view.

They're Running Their Comms From A Microbrewery

Apparently, (and I can't stress this apparently enough), this is Andy Burnham's logo for the Makerfield by-election.

It's not often I'm genuinely shocked. "Surely this must be a joke," I thought.

I like my music, but I'm not a huge fan of Northern Soul, so it's not something I'm overly familiar with. Still, I vaguely recognised the design the minute I saw it. A quick Google search, up it popped.

So it's not even a subtle reference. It's a full on, "We're leaning into this. This is what we're going with."

(As I type I keep returning to that apparently. It's been tweeted by a Times journalist, and now Beth Rigby. So it must be the logo - unless I'm having some kind of major mental health issue at the moment and this is all some surreal fever dream. Still, it just seems too much like a joke. Like a satire that wouldn't be all that funny if it was just satire. As if a comedian did a bit where he impersonated Andy Burnham and part of the character was that he was into Northern Soul 'cos he's northern. You'd say, "That doesn't really ring true. It's a bit too literal and over the top to be genuinely funny." So if this is really real it's not just beyond satire, but beyond bad satire. It's crazy. Surely this alone rules him out of being prime minister ..and I'm not even joking here.)

The shock and amusement aside, I can't help but think how appropriate it is as a symbol though. As I can easily imagine the type of mind that thought this was a good idea, and the type of people it appeals to. It smacks of trendy (but not dangerously cool) gentrified areas that pop up where government regeneration money has been invested. And Manchester is kind of the poster child for this. Though you'll find it in most big northern towns and cities to some degree - that area of the town centre that's had a taxpayer funded face lift and building spree. (Maybe it's the same in the south too, I don't know, but it's definitely up north.) 

It's trams, micropubs, little boutique pop-up markets; intersecting with local art grants and whatnot. Those types of people. Middle class people, but middle class people that need the government. They're not working class, they're not on benefits, but their job or trendy little local pub or record shop needs some kind of government or council subsidy. Either directly, or just indirectly as they swim in that semi-socialist aquarium. They might be a teacher, or have a partner that's a teacher. They really hate Farage. Their political opinions remain largely uninfluenced by either real life or the internet. They're the audience for Have I Got News For You and Channel 4 alternative comedy shows. They're the sort of people that read reviews. They like and trust things that come through expert filters.

They're also incredibly white. The whitest people you'll ever meet. And I'm saying this as I know how much they'll hate it being pointed out. They believe in diversity, but they don't really live it. Again, this is why the Northern Soul thing is beyond satire, as it actively reaches for connotations of that. Leaning in to this notion that they like black music. When they don't. They like Elbow and the Beta Band. I'm being mean, but I'm also being accurate.

I can totally imagine someone sat in some Manchester micropub thinking this logo is clever. It even has that graphic design cleanness, unlike the grubby original. No doubt printed by the printers that do other microbrewery artwork (apparently the logo's being printed on beermats). What I couldn't at first imagine was someone higher up in the Labour Party giving it the green light. However, seeing the tone of the retweets from Beth Rigby and so forth I'm now thinking they feel it has some earthy allure.

A lot of the replies on Twitter are also pointing out how communist it looks. Which adds another element of comedy. They've somehow managed to perfectly marry the aesthetics of Northern Soul and communism in one single image. I was thinking that Burnham, with his leftist rhetoric, might win back some of the Green Party voters that Labour have lost. However, this might all be a bit too dated for the greens. They're a bit too blue haired and modern to be swayed by Northern Soul.

Anyway, it's nearly 2:00 am in the morning, so I better call it a night. I felt I had to pen my thoughts on this one instantly. Perhaps I'll regret it in the morning.

Conservatives wooed by 'hint' of ankle.

I've just got home from work. It's warm, I'm tired. Far too tired to be a fiery conspiracist. So I'm resigned once again to the fact that ..I just don't really know what's going on. Today Starmer published a response to Blair on SubStack. The title suggested confrontation: "Blair might not like my plan, but he's wrong." The first few paragraphs suggested synthesis. "Ah," I confidently thought, "..more Punch and Judy."

However, as I read on (or rather scanned on, as I half-heartedly speed-read it on the bus home), it did appear to be a defence of his term so far. Meaning, if I'm being honest, it kind of rang true. Like there was a genuine underlying division.

(Incidentally, I also saw footage of Keir Starmer taking a penalty on Twitter. He's a left footer. Bottom corner. Nicely taken.)

These are the things I saw on my bus ride home. They're not why I'm posting though. What I want to note is how people on the right, especially conservatives, are all swooning over Tony Blair again, following his mildly right-leaning essay. He only has to show a flash of ankle and they get all giddy. In fact, in the essay he hints at leaving the ECHR. He doesn't actually say it. He says that Britain needs to do whatever it takes to stop the small boats (I think, I didn't actually read it fully. It's way longer than the Starmer substack and I'm not going back to check.)

Either way, I've seen right-leaning commentators say, "He even hinted at leaving the ECHR !😍" They didn't include the exclamation mark and the heart-eyed emoji, they were my additions, but that was the vibe. Showing that he does indeed only have to show a hint of flesh to get them swooning.

It's so funny to me.

Especially when the wider context is apparent. Back in 1997, when Blair first became PM, conservatives at the time thought, "It won't be so bad, he's kind of a Tory anyway."

This was because Blair presented himself as an heir to Thatcher. Of course, that wasn't really the case, and his government turned out to be quite radical. So radical that people are now saying we have to literally reverse half the changes he made just to do something as basic as manage the border.

Yet, after all this, in the year 2026, conservatives somehow manage to find themselves thinking the exact same thing.

"He's kind of a Tory really."

It's like watching Satan give Saddam Hussein yet another chance in an episode of South Park. 

We already had a mini version of this two years ago when Starmer was elected. He was Blair's protégé, and Zero Seats "wouldn't be so bad," as at least the pragmatic (non-Corbynist) Blair regime would get the potholes fixed. This is partly why I was initially so sceptical of Starmer's substack rebuke. Starmer is Blair's creature, isn't he? He probably told him to hire Mandelson, lol.

So why are people applauding Blair for attacking a government he helped bring to power just two years ago?

(Though I must remember that we had the whole Sue Gray issue at the start of Starmer's term. Suggesting there are indeed factions within Labour.)

Whatever's going on it's quite the spectacle when taken on face value. Why are these people so dumb? They have goldfish brains.

Okay, maybe if there's some 4D chess type thing going on, I might be the dumb one. But if all these people really are just genuinely wooed this easily, heaven help us.

Again, it is funny though. Watching people that have made hours of content saying we need to upend every constitutional change that's happened since 1997 suddenly join Team Blair because they've been presented with a left/right dichotomy of Blair versus Burnham. Which, in reality, is Blair versus a Blairite. Or, at best, two very slightly different shades of New Labour red.

I Know I'm Paranoid

I'm now at the scrawling graffiti stage.

Last night we had the poll. Today it's all been about Tony Blair's intervention. Basically, he's published a report where he's said Labour need to be more based. Focus on the economy, put rejoining the EU on the backburner, ditch some of the net zero stuff. Lots of juicy red meat for people on the right. Along with some criticism of Labour's lurch towards the left.

And now the leadership hopefuls are hitting back.

Meanwhile, I'm in full conspiracist mode. My reading of all this is as follows.

• Burnham is the planned Labour saviour.
• (If something goes wrong in Makerfield, they'll have to make do with Wes Streeting.)
• Blair's intervention is basically a call for the Labour Party to pivot towards policies more appealing to the general public.
• The spat with 'the leftist hopefuls' gives them an allure of representing something new.
• However, once Burnham (or Streeting) is installed he'll adopt the Blair manifesto, and reposition towards the middle.
• By this time the rest of the party (at least the cabinet level types) will have been primed by this Blair push to know which way the wind is blowing.
• Then it's election time.

Further more.

• This puts them closer to alignment with the Tory Party repositioning on such issues.
• After the election, if it's a messy hung parliament, the possibility of Labour and Tories working together (purely in the national interest, of course) becomes an option.

This last one is very conspiracist. In fact, I call it the unthinkable. As it is unthinkable to most people. It's like Cowboys and Indians working together. They're just on different sides. That's how the movies work. Even though people now use the phrase 'uniparty,' the outward duopoly of it - the unwritten rule of the theatre - remains sacrosanct. Though I have seen the possibility mentioned a tiny, tiny bit recently.

I'm out on a limb, but I just feel the uniparty will do anything to keep Reform out.

People reading may opine, "But Reform are the Tories! Look at all the bloody Tories in there!!"

However, they're the Brexiting Tories. The faction that got pushed out with Boris. You need to ignore the label and sort the individuals by vibe. The "I agree with Nick," uniparty types don't really like the brexity types. This is not to say that some uniparty types haven't genuinely shifted opinion on some issues. It's perfectly possible that Blair himself has came around to the idea that Britain needs to get a grip on the border and start digging energy out of the ground. The pivot may not just be cynical. After all, we all swim in the same social currents. However, the fundamental differences must surely remain. It wouldn't have taken them this long to get to these positions otherwise.

Again, I'm being very suspicious in my thinking. Perhaps I'm just underestimating how messy and truly factional politics is. Maybe this current split in the Labour Party is as genuine as the split over the EU was in the Tory Party. The timing is so convenient though.

I guess only time will tell.

////

Actually, a little addendum to my earlier post about Restore looking clownish. I've seen a lot of that today as well. For instance, Steve Laws - who kind of plays the, "I'm the most openly racist person," role in UK politics - is publicly associating with Restore. Which suggests Restore do have the unelectable clown role. Though I guess you could read it in other ways. Maybe if they're just stealing votes to hurt Reform looking edgily racist is enough?

I'm returning to my uncertainty of earlier now, aren't I. Again, time will tell. We'll see what happens.

Now I'm going to watch a few episodes of The X-Files before I go to bed (fittingly). Actually, maybe just one, I've spent far too long typing this nonsense.

I Think I'm Paranoid

I'm up very early today. 7:00 am. It's one of these rare early morning posts. Let's crack on..

We had this poll about the Makerfield by-election doing the rounds on Twitter last night.

It shows Restore Britain on 17%, which just seems a bit silly. 5% would be nearer the mark, 7% at a push. But what do I know. I'm not there, and prominent media-type talking heads have been sharing this poll. So maybe it is right. Likewise, (again I only know this from Twitter), it seems Restore have a busy ground campaign in Makerfield, with lots of leafletting, door-knocking, etc.

Reform have also been openly attacking Restore, which is always a risky move, as whatever the line of attack you're still essentially using your platform to advertise a much less well known party.

On top of all this, I'm paranoid.

I'm worried this is deliberate sabotage to split the vote, to open up the red sea for Andy Burnham.

(Yet, I'm also worried my ego may be sabotaged if I get into a tizz about all this. Again, Restore seem silly. So maybe I'm being silly?)

The Clear Clownishness of Restore

The brings me to the clown-like nature of Restore. It's so bad it could be scripted. For instance, the current story is that Rupert Lowe's son has married a Libyan woman, and that halal food was an option at the wedding. Given Lowe's outward edicts against halal this is like being hit in the face with a custard pie for his supporters. Restore were supposed to be the 'Mass Deportation' whiter-than-white, hardcore alternative to Reform. Now the royal house is marrying the infidel

I'd like to watch some of the bigger accounts squirm as they justify this stuff, but sadly I can't as most of them have blocked me, lol. Seeing the little minnow accounts make excuses is pretty pitiful though. You almost feel sorry for them, assuming they're not bots.

On top of this, the female Restore candidate always has that slightly bewildered look of somehow who's been roped in to take part in something they have no interest in. I'm probably being unfair here. I haven't watched much of her. Still, it all suggests there's nothing to worry about. Restore will get less than 3% of the vote, and they'll make Reform look electable in the process.

But..

But there's that but again. Why the poll showing 17% ?

Such polls have the effect of saying, "Look, it's worth voting Restore. They're building momentum, they could actually win."

Then again, perhaps the Restore supporters are being marched up the hill just to be marched back down again? Another humiliating pie in the face.

They have Elon Musk supporting them though. Plus, they're now getting mentioned in the mainstream media.

So I'm in a bind. Not that it really matters much. It's not like I actually have any influence over what's happening. Still, I'd like to know. I can't shout at people on Twitter if I don't know who to shout at.

I really am in spectator mode. A little pleb watching on.

The New Adventures of Brexit Girl..

One of the latest semi-memeable talking points in rightwards circles is the idea that mixed race people with a white father and a black mother do better in life than those with it the other way round: a black father and a white mother. I don't know if statistics bear this out, but successful sports and music stars with the first combination are often given as an example, such as Jude Bellingham or PinkPantheress - whose father is a white, middle class statistics professor (so perhaps he should know).

Obviously, you can see why the idea has appeal with the right. Either through some genetic alchemy, or just cultural influence, the sensible white father is said to put the child on a better track. In contrast to the feckless black father, and equally feckless white mother for having children with a black man, who raise (or fail to raise) their feckless offspring. It's unsurprising we're here too. We've went from 'we don't want race-mixing' to 'what type of race-mixing do we want.' (Though, to be truthful, the genuine 'we don't want race-maxing' people were always a very tiny minority, even in online right circles. It was always edgy memes and more moderate realities underneath for the most part.) Still, the memes have moved on now to reflect a more nuanced reality. The reality that we're living in a melting pot, whether people like it or not. That it's more a question of what the melting pot looks like. It's interesting to me, as it's one of these things that's racist, but also not racist at the same time. Again, there's a nuance. Like both sides are trying to take ownership of the Yookay cultural scene, or at least the good bits of it.

"Okay, some of the music is good, actually ..but that's the white dad influence."

It's like the talking points have finally caught up to modern Britain. For a long time it felt like we had 1970s talking points (from the left and the right) pasted over a very different 21st century Britain. Now, we're finally talking about now.

Anyway, watching all this made me realise I didn't quite have it fully right with the whole Brexit Girl character. There was an element missing. So she too is mixed-race now. White dad and black mum, naturally. (Yes, I know it's a bit cringe, but it made me happy knocking up my little comic strip yesterday. So that's the main thing.)

There's a continuity error in that last panel, where the background doesn't match, but I was running out of Google Gemini and ChatGPT image credits (and patience) by that point. I actually feel it's quite accurate, if not entertaining. I don't think Andy Burnham's Catholic roots have much bearing on his pro-EU stance, but I really do see it through that lens. In my head Ursula von der Leyen might as well be in a cardinal's outfit. Though I think she'd probably wear it better.

Of course, this whole Makerfield election is quite exciting for political junkies like me. At first I was annoyed by the shenanigans, but now it's just sheer entertainment. What a country.

A Little Bit of Fiction

In more fun news I've finally finished the latest draft of BOOK II of my two book Someone Else's Kingdom fantasy series.

At some point I may do a final edit and publish these books properly. For now they're available for free in PDF form.

BOOK I can be downloaded here: https://drive.google.com

BOOK II here: https://drive.google.com

I'm now just doing artwork for the book (with a lot of help from AI). If I can get the aesthetic for the characters and the scenes down in image form (and AI really does come along over the next few years) I hope to do an anime TV series. That might be a bit beyond me though 😄, so that really is just a hope. Either way, whatever artwork I end up with could help with covers if the books do appear on Amazon.