Spanish anarchism and the fight against fascism.

 

Buenaventura Durruti (1896-1936)

In the minds of many people, the word "anarchy" or "anarchism" became a byword for chaos or terrorism.  

Anarchism took root in Spain in the 19th century and Spain is the only country, where they have ever tried to build an anarchist non-governmental society based on workers control, mutual aid and co-operation, and workers self-management. It was particularly strong in Andalusia and in Catalonia. 

In Catalonia, much of industry and agriculture was collectivized and run by the workers themselves, during the period of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). In Barcelona, the anarchists took over the telephone exchange and turned the Ritz Hotel, into a worker's canteen. The Spanish anarchist Durruti, said that they were building libertarian communism in Spain, but it was organized on the principles of anarcho-syndicalism.

The Spanish communists had no time for workers control or Spanish anarchist collectives. The Spanish communist leader, Enrique Lister, is known to have attacked anarchist collective enterprises. The Spanish socialist used to say "vote communist and spare Spain from Marxism." 

In Spain, the anarchists, socialists, and Russian backed communists, did take a stand against Franco and the fascists, even though the Stalinists in Spain, betrayed the Spanish Revolution and sought to liquidate many individuals who were fighting against Franco. Much later, the Soviet Union was to play a heroic role in fighting Hitler and the Nazis, but that was only after Germany invaded Russia in violation of a pact with the Soviet Union. 

In Germany, there never was a communist danger to the fascist conquest of power. Historical determinism, played a key role in the failure of the communist movement to combat Hitler and fascism in Germany. For Marxists, fascism was seen as the last stand of the bourgeoisie, the "death rattle of a capitalist system on the point of extinction." Accordingly, the communists did not fight when the fascists seized power. Nobody expected the Social Democrats to fight and Stalin had denounced the German socialists, as social fascists. The communists were certain that the proletarian revolution was overdue and that the fascist interlude, necessary for its speeding up, could not last longer than a few months. As we know, they certainly got that wrong, and they paid the price for it. 

Dante said that there was no place in Heaven nor in Purgatory - not even a corner in Hell, for the souls that had stood aloof from strife. He called them the "wretches who never lived", "because they'd never felt the pangs of partisanship and wandered homeless on the skirts of limbo." 

We forget, that what we today call Switzerland, functioned as the Old Swiss Confederacy between (1291-1798). For five centuries, Switzerland functioned as a loose confederation of independent cantons coordinated via a diet called the 'Tagsatzung', with no permanent capital, executive, or any central government. 

French government imposes curfew after riots in Paris.

 

The street riots in France, may have started out as an issue about conditions in French schools, but it has escalated to include a range of grievances including the cost of living. It isn't just school students that are involved. There's widespread public frustration in France with high inflation and high prices.

The May 1968 crisis in France, started out as an anti-repression and education protest, but quickly grew into a nationwide general strike involving around 10 million workers. France is a revolutionary country and the French are more inclined to take direct action and are more politically savvy. They tend to vent their spleen on the forces of authority. 

The French see the British as more supine, because they allow the government to walk all over them. There are similar cost of living problems in Britain as there are in France, but the British tend to blame illegal migrants and foreigners for everything. 

The British government are continuing to increase the state retirement age and to cut the value of the state retirement pension. They also want to cut welfare to pay for warfare and to cut taxes for the rich. All this goes on in Britain with hardly a whimper of protests because people are obsessed and distracted by illegal migrants crossing the English Channel in rubber boats.  

If they can't get a decent well paid job, an affordable rented home, or a GP or dental appointment, the Brits tend to blame it all on illegal immigrants rather than government policy and the capitalist market system. Compared to France, there are still more people in trade unions in Britain, but the French are far more politically volatile and always have been. The French government have now imposed a curfew to deal with the riots.

A short history of gun control in Britain.

 

Before WWI, Britain had a quarter of a million licensed firearms and no way to count the unlicensed ones. 

The Russian Revolution of 1917 certainly had an effect on gun control along with WWI. Britain was flooded with military service revolvers brought to Britain by demobilized British soldiers. The 1870 Gun License Act made it a requirement to obtain a gun license if you wanted to carry a weapon outside one's property. The license was obtained at the post office. It was designed to raise money and not to restrict gun ownership. The 1903 Pistols Act required a license for any gun with a barrel shorter than 9" and banned gun ownership to anyone drunk or insane. 

It seems quite extraordinary that even though there were eight attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria during her reign (1837-1901), gun laws in Britain were very lax. Today, Britain has some of the strictest and stringent gun laws in the world, and yet, you have more chance being killed crossing the road, than you have being shot dead. 

Although in Victorian Liberal England, you were free to starve to death, there seems to have been a more laissez-faire attitude to daily life in general, and British governments seemed to feel no need to have a drugs policy or felt it necessary to have gun control. Many Victorians carried some form of weapon for self-defence. 

I can remember seeing Wilkinson sword sticks on sale in second hand shops and many people carried knives, but they didn't go around stabbing one another. Today, many British people like to be under the thumb of authority and are quite happy for the state to meddle in various aspects of their lives.

Death of Jeffrey Archer.

 

I always considered Jeffrey Archer a prat and an embarrassment.

As a child his mother nicknamed him 'Tuppence'. He led a scandalous life leading to a period of imprisonment for perjury, but he was no Oscar Wilde. Throughout his life there were allegations of lies, dodgy and beefed-up CVs, theft, bankruptcy and embezzlement of charity funds and plagiarism. A play that he wrote for the stage, was said to bear a striking resemblance to a play written by Agatha Christie. Dishonesty seemed to run in his family. His elderly father who died when he was 15, had convictions for fraud and bigamy.

He seems to have become a successful writer very quickly, which is very unusual. When friends told him that he should forget the idea of becoming an author, because he couldn't spell or write properly, he replied that he could tell stories. That was probably right because much of what he said about himself was a total invention. He supposed to have sold 300 million books, but I haven't read one them and have no intention of doing so. They say that he was often rude and demeaning to people who he thought were his social inferiors. Apparently, most of the sales staff at Harper Collins, detested him.

Ringo Star met him while visiting Oxford University. Archer had been fund raising for a charity and had managed to persuade the Beatles to come along to an event. Ringo asked Sheridan Morley who Archer was and he said none of us really know. Ringo told him that he thought Archer seemed a nice bloke, but he thought that he was the type of bloke who would bottle your piss and sell it. 

Is slashing UK welfare benefits the answer to Britain's economic woes?

 

France and Germany are far more productive countries than Britain and also have higher levels of corporation tax and tax in general. Compared to Japan, Britain's national debt pales into insignificance, and Japan is a far richer and more technologically advanced country than Britain. Britain had a much higher national debt after WWII than it does today, but it didn't pay it off, by imposing austerity, it grew the economy. America is also massively in debt. 

Britain has been plagued with low investment and low productivity for decades. During the early 1970s, the Conservatives used to blame everything on Labour and socialism and not welfare spending. They were keen to join the Common Market and so was the Daily Mail. 

The Germans and French can produce more in four days than Britain can in five days. Their state pensions are far more generous than the British New State Pension which is about half the National Minimum Wage or £6 an hour for a 40 hour working week. The Old State Retirement Pension is even less generous. British workers often work longer before they retire than do French workers and have a longer working week. The French and Germans also have a more generous welfare state and so does Sweden and Norway, which have high levels of taxes and corporation tax. They're not what you would call poor countries. The Swedes and Norwegians probably enjoy a better standard of living than many British people. 

How much money have the British government saved by increasing the women's state retirement age from 60 to 67? How much money have they saved by increasing the male state retirement age from 65 to 67? How much money did they save by ending free TV licenses for the over 75s or linking free bus passes to the stage retirement age?  

I think many of us in Britain are quite appalled at the way in which British governments squander public money. During the COVID lockdown, the former Conservative government of Boris Johnson, dished out willy-nilly, tens of millions in government contracts to VIP Tories for faulty PPE equipment that was never used. How many millions have they recovered from PPE Medpro who were awarded £200 million in government contracts? The Conservative peer Baroness Michelle Mone and her husband Douglas Barrowman, were involved in this scandal. When they were ordered by a court to repay money, PPE Modpro, simply declared insolvency.

How many billions did the Johnson government squander on its abortive Rwanda scheme? No illegal migrant was ever sent there. How much public money are the British government spending to house and financially support illegal migrants who have come to Britain who haven't been granted asylum?  

It wasn't long ago that the Labour Chancellor, Rachel 'freeze' Reeves, told us that Britain couldn't afford the pensioners winter fuel allowance and she needed to save £5bn by means testing it. They then found £11bn to help foreign developing countries to cope with climate change. The Ukrainians are always being bunged money by the British government. The Ukrainians have every right to defend themselves, but it doesn't mean that the British have to pay for it or die for it. They're now talking up a war with Russia and telling us that we must do our duty to protect our country and that young people might have to die for their country. I'm sure they'll be happy to hear that.

Nowadays, many British people don't feel that they've got a country or one that's worth defending. They feel alienated and abandoned. And how are we going to pay for a war, if Britain's got no money and is massively in debt?

Margaret Thatcher and Irish economics.

 

Maggie Thatcher

The people in Britain are fed a lot of bullshit when it comes to economics, which most of them barely understand. How many times have we heard the saying there's no magic money tree or that Britain has run out of money?

Margaret Thatcher used what was called the "Household Myth" to compare the national economy with a domestic household or small business. She used to say that governments were no different than households or small businesses, in that they can't spend more than they can earn, or borrow. It was complete rubbish. The pound is a fiat currency and is not linked to precious metals or a currency regime like the Euro. You can run out of money, but there's a big difference between businesses, households, individuals and the national economy. The British government can print money or to be more precise, it orders the Bank of England to print it. If you tried to do it, you get locked up. Therefore, it can't run out money, or fail to pay its debts. 

If the British government wants to go to war, it will always find the money to do so, and it doesn't need to build up a war chest to pay for it. So why do politicians keep talking about there's no magic money tree or saying the country is running out of money as though there's only so much money in the pot? They do so because they're conning people and telling lies.

To a great extent money is an illusion. In itself it’s really a worthless piece of paper. What gives it value, is that it is endorsed by the head of state, and the government, as coin of the realm. It's merely a unit of account, a store of value and a means of exchange. 

Adam Smith, who wrote the book 'The Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations' in 1776, was convinced of the unimportance of money as such for the wealth of nations. He argued that there was no virtue in its accumulation as a commodity, but he believed that the real riches of a country lay in its raw materials, its people and their skills, all of which money merely measures as value. Money was not the wheels of trade but the oil that rendered the wheels smoother and easy. 

Smith points out that the Tartars were generally ignorant about the use of money. When the King of France sent an ambassador called Plano Carpino to meet one of the sons of Genghis Khan, he was asked if the Kingdom of France had plenty of sheep and oxen because that's how they measured wealth and determined whether a country was worth conquering. The Spanish conquistadors when they invaded Peru went there looking for gold and silver which they considered wealth but completely overlooked that the countries real wealth, lay in its natural resources, like fruits and vegetables. The humble potato has managed to feed a multitude since it arrived in Britain and Ireland. Gold and silver fed nobody but it drove up inflation.

Why is customer service in Britain so abysmal?

 

Kemi Badenoch

Welcome to the Tory nanny state. 

Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, wants to stop the unemployed having a fag and a pint and wants to cut their benefits, if they don't get back into work within six months. Kemi calls this "tough love." I think people receiving state benefits, have been keeping the tobacco industry going for years. The higher you go up the income groups, the less likely they are to smoke cigarettes. 

Customer service in Britain is abysmal, appallingly bad, and the Americans would never stand for it. What I see in Britain today, is a lot of under-employment. I often leave food in supermarkets because they won't pay people to man the checkouts and I am loath to use self-service tills. It's a sort of protest against piss poor customer service. What supermarkets are aiming for is a completely automated supermarket that doesn't employ any floor staff. It will be a shop lifters paradise. 

Yesterday, I spent most of the morning failing to make contact by telephone with a human being at British Gas so I could query an electric bill. I found it impossible to get past the android or robot who was asking me totally irrelevant questions. I tried using their chat line and got no response. Unless I can get to speak somebody about this electric bill to query it, British Gas won't be getting paid. Capitalism is so inefficient.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist.

 

It was an engineer who was a member of the CPGB, who advised me to read the Ragged Trousered Philanthropist by Robert Tressell, many years ago. Over the years, I have the read the book several times.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist was a book that was read by many British soldiers in the trenches in WWI. It probably as the same standing as Tom Paine's 'Rights of Man' or Robert Blatchford's book 'Merrie England', which have all been influential. The book is set in the fictional town of Mugsborough (Hastings), and is centred around a group of men, who work for a firm called Rushton & Co. The discussions that those Edwardian working men have amongst one another, are still being played out today in pubs and clubs across the country, and it is said that you can identify some of the characters in the book, with people that you know. Those working men also blame foreigners for most of their misfortunes in life, rather than the political system, but they vent their spleen on French onion sellers.

There's no doubt that the books ideological hero, the socialist Frank Owen, is Robert Tressell. It's also clear that Owen is largely contemptuous about many of his work mates and this is reflected in the title of the book and the name of the town. He basically thinks they're mugs and he's right.

A cloth cap Tory like Lee Anderson, of Reform UK, could have fallen straight out of the pages of the Ragged Trousered Philanthropist and so could many of the constituents of Clacton-on-Sea - one of the most socially deprived parts of England - who voted for the grifter Nigel Farage and Reform UK, who want to slash state benefits that many of his constituents rely on.

People often say that the book should be compulsory reading in British schools, but it's unlikely that the book will ever be put on the school curriculum because of its socialist content. I think two other books that should be on the curriculum for British schools is "News from Nowhere' by William Morris and 'Candide' by Voltaire. 

Reynolds refuses to rule out UK state pensioners paying income tax in October budget.

 

Jonathan Reynolds

The Labour MP, Jonathan Reynolds, voted to remove the winter fuel allowance for 14,270 local pensioners in his constituency of Stalybridge & Hyde. A staunch ally of the disgraced former Labour minister, Peter Mandelson, Reynolds defended Labour MPs taking 'freebies' from wealthy individuals like Lord Waheed Alli, arguing that freebies weren't a perk of the job but were an essential part of the job of being an MP in Parliament.

It was reported in the press that Lord Waheed Alli had been buying clothing for the Prime Ministers' wife, Lady Victoria Sponger. It was also reported that Angela Rayner and her 'soul mate' and lover, Sam Tarry, had stayed buckshee in a Manhattan penthouse owned by Lord Alli. Rayner also voted to means-test the winter fuel allowance. Rayner said that Lord Alli asked for nothing in return and got nothing in return. Reynolds served as a business minister in the government of Sir Keir Starmeroid, who when in opposition, had pledged to clean up British politics.

The former Chancellor, Rachel freeze Reeves, who took the winter fuel allowance off 10 million UK pensioners to save £5bn, did say publicly that people who had only the UK state pension, would not be expected to pay income tax even if their state pension exceeded the lower income tax threshold.

British pensioners do turn out and vote, but they don't generally vote for political parties that stuff them. Labour had to do a partial U-turn on the winter fuel allowance and reinstated it, after Labour lost councils and council seats to Reform UK. From the moment that Labour removed the winter fuel allowance, it was all downhill for Sir Keir Starmeroid. He never really recovered from this serious blunder. 

Is Lucy Letby a victim of a miscarriage of justice?

 

Most of us weren't at the trial of Lucy Letby so we haven't heard all the evidence that was presented at the trial. The trial lasted 10 months and she had legal representation. At the end of the trial the jury found her guilty of killing babies. If she did kill the babies, I don't think any motive has been established for why she did so.

I spent a number of years in an hospital action group and I learned a great deal about how hospital management connives, manipulate, intimidate, to cover things up to protect the hospital and their own jobs.

The Kennedy Breast Care Review that was carried out by Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, was set up to investigate the breast and vascular surgeon Ian Paterson, who worked at Solihull Hospital. Paterson was given a 20-year jail sentence in 2017, after being convicted of 17 counts of wounding with intent and 3 counts of unlawful wounding. In his report, Professor Kennedy wrote:

 "In reading this Review, you will see and recognise themes which have figured in a number of reports on the NHS over the years. Indeed, it has been said more than once, that, as regards reviews of the NHS, the place may be different, the date may be different, the details may be different, but the underlying issues are all too familiar. They include challenges in managing difficult and powerful staff, difficulties in raising concerns, inter-professional animosities, dysfunctional organisation, failures of communication, lack of openness, a particular style of leadership, lack of engagement by the Board in the quality and safety of care."

What Professor Kennedy found was that medical staff at Solihull Hospital were very wary of raising concerns about other medical colleagues which one described as "raising his head above the parapet." The Hospital Trust was trying to become a Foundation Trust and they didn't want any concerns about Ian Paterson to negatively impact. The Review found that senior managers at Solihull were in thrall to confidentiality and found refuge in it as a way of managing an increasingly difficult problem, keeping control of it and containing it. Professor Kennedy wrote that one of the major indictments of management in the NHS, was that it is inward looking, over defensive, and prone to destroy by a variety of means, those who suggest that the emperor has no clothes. "This is not unique to this Review. It is a blight on the NHS and one of the principal areas where lessons must be learned."

There are similarities with the way in which the Lucy Letby case was handled by the Countess of Chester Hospital and the deaths of babies at Bristol Royal Infirmary, who died after botched open heart surgery by incompetent surgeons. There's a pattern of trying to cover hospital failings up, intimidating whistle-blowers, and kicking things into the long grass. It's possible that there may have been other reasons why these babies in the Lucy Letby case died, and I understand that her defence team are trying to establish that and prove that Letby is a victim of a miscarriage of justice. 

Marshal Ney.

 

It was said of Napoleon's Grande Armee, that every soldier carried a Field Marshals baton in is knapsack.

Marshal Michel Ney was the son of a cooper from the Saar, who had married one of Marie Antoinette's chambermaids. Many of Napoleon's marshals were of working-class origin and had risen through the ranks. Ney was to gain a reputation for being insanely brave. Napoleon said of Ney that he "was good for a command of ten thousand men, but beyond that he was out of his depth."

Napoleon felt that Ney had betrayed him at Fontainebleau in April 1814. He told Gourgaud that "Ney got no more than he deserved. I regret him because he was inestimable on a field of battle, but was too hot-headed and too stupid to succeed in anything but a fight."

The Prussians and Bourbons wanted to execute Napoleon but he always seems to have been treated leniently, having been exiled first to Elba and then to St. Helena by the British and the Duke of Wellington. The Duke seems to have regarded Napoleon as a military genius but also thought him a Corsican upstart. Napoleon called Wellington a Sepoy General because he'd served in India. In his will, Napoleon left a bequest of 100,000 francs to Cantillon, Wellington's would-be assassin, who he said, "had as much right to kill that oligarch as the latter had to send me to die on the rock of St. Helena."

John Wroe's virgins.

 

I have walked through the Moravian Settlement in Droylsden many a time. The Moravians also had a community in Dukinfield.

Religious dissenters came to this area of East Manchester, because it was known for religious toleration. Another dissenting faction, were the Christian Israelites or 'Joanna's' who were led by Joanna Southcott, a prophetess from Devon and locally, by the charlatan, John Wroe, from Bradford, who travelled about on the back of a donkey. Wroe, a hunchback, is said to have circumcised himself in public and had retained a menagerie of young virgins. He publicly claimed that he was commanded by heaven to take seven young virgins to "comfort and cherish" him. He faced trials, beatings, and rejection in various towns due to a public backlash against his behaviour.

Wroe's leadership was marked by severe financial and sexual scandals. He died in Australia in 1863.

UK state benefits are too high says former newspaper editor.

 

Kelvin MacKenzie

The tabloid newspaper hack, Kelvin Mackenzie, talks a lot of horseshit when it comes to Britain's benefit system. He's another one of those social pundits, who thinks that people are living a cushy life in Britain on state benefits and that they need to be cut. He says that in the U. S., nobody talks about state benefits because they're that low, so people are incentivized to work. 

If you're receiving Universal Credit (UC), and are over 25, you will currently receive about £98 a week. Try living on £98 a week in Britain today. Nearly 40%, of people who claim UC, are in work. They claim UC because their wages are so low that they need to be topped by UC payments. Others who claim UC may have caring responsibilities. If you claim UC because your unemployed, you have to be available for work and demonstrate that you are actively seeking work. If you fail to do so, you will be sanctioned, and your benefits can be suspended. 

The point about the unemployment benefit system in Britain, was always about insuring you against loss of employment, through no fault of your own. It wasn't designed for people to live a life of dignified otiosity at the public's expense. That only applies to the British Royal Family. If you gave up your job without just cause or lost it through gross misconduct, you didn't get unemployment benefit. There is also a benefit cap. 

America is one of the most inegalitarian countries in the world. In a speech that he made to a liberal funding event, Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, yelled: "I don't need Bush's tax cut! I have never worked a fucking day in my life." The average income for a black American is 61% less per year than the average white income. That is the same percentage difference as it was in 1880. Black women are four times more likely than white women to die while giving birth. Black levels of unemployment have been roughly twice those of whites since 1954. African Americans have been on the lowest rung of the economic ladder since the day they were beaten and dragged to the country in chains. 

In his book 'Capital in the 21st Century', the economist Thomas Picketty, says the average income of the parents of Harvard students is $450,000 dollars which corresponds to the average income of the top 2% of the U.S. income hierarchy. He adds, "Such findings do not seem compatible with the idea of selection by merit." In the U.S. parents in the top 1% income level are overrepresented in elite colleges.

Ideology and Nazism.

 

Hitler and the Nazis may well have appropriated both the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and the Bible to justify their horrors, but I don't think that you can blame either Nietzsche or Christianity for what Hitler did. 

Many German Jehovah's Witnesses were executed for refusing to serve in the German army or finished up in concentration camps, and they were Christians. Not all Roman Catholics colluded with the Nazis. 

Nietzsche was well aware of the connection between demagoguery and stupidity. He viewed political parties with deep skepticism, arguing that they rely on manipulation, destroy independent thinking, and reduce complex ideas into simplistic dogma. To appeal to the crowd, he said that political parties are forced to "transform their principles into great frescoes of stupidity." No ideology is wholly absorbed by its adherents. It breaks down in practice in a thousand different ways under the criticism of impulse and of experience. 

The Russia writer Fyodor Dostoevsky seems to have believed that any plan that was aimed at changing or perfecting human nature, was likely to end in failure because man's main defect was his chronic perversity. He thought that man's desires were not reasonable and that he often acted contrary to his own interest and common sense, but that is what made him human.

Britain's gun laws.

 

How do gun deaths in Britain compare with deaths arising from industrial accidents or deaths on the road or knife crime, or street violence? They pale into insignificance, even though there are many people who own legal firearms in Britain.

You have more chance of being killed crossing the road in Britain than you have being shot by a gun. So why are the police being so alarmist? Basically, because the police and the government don't like the hoi polloi having access to firearms. The constant tightening up of gun laws in Britain has more to do with social class than it has to do with preventing gun deaths or any war against people living in the countryside.

There's a presumption in Britain that hunting and shooting should be the preserve of aristocrats, wealthy landowners and the green welly brigade. Britain already has the strictest and most complicated gun laws in the world. It's not easy to own a legal firearm in Britain and it shouldn't be easy.

Unless you are a member of a gun club, you will have no chance of getting a Section 1 Firearms Certificate. You have to show good reason for wanting a gun and all gun clubs run section 21 police checks if you apply to be a member. If you have served a 3 year or more term of imprisonment, you are prohibited from owning or possessing a firearm for life. This also applies to suspended sentences. If you have served less than 3 years in prison, you are prohibited from owning or possessing a gun for five years after leaving prison. If you lie when 

Blue Labour - left wing economics missing in action?

 

Blue Labour – left wing economics missing in action?

(Andrew Wallace, 30/08/2026)

In so far as the Blair and Brown governments (1997-2010) attempted to define their political ideas, they attempted a syncretic embrace of market liberal economics and social progressivism. This rightist turn on economics would arguably be compensated in the non-economic realm of cultural liberalism and the meritocratic elevation of equality of opportunity and the proscription of discriminations in regard to race, sex, gender, sexuality and disability. Anthony Giddens (Blair’s in-house sociologist) heralded the new syncretic era in his books Beyond Left and Right (1994) and The Third Way (1998). Arguably it was Blair’s ‘modernising’ rightism that provided the accelerant for the ‘new left’ recourse to identity politics, if only as a sop to placate left wing critics and maintain the performative vacuity of faux progressive radicalism. Thatcherism with enhanced LGTB rights and diversity quotas would inevitably irritate an older cadre of paleo-leftists who preferred the material certitudes of class politics over the distractions of intersectionality.

Blue Labour

The Blue Labour campaign group emerged during the fag end of Brown’s government as a riposte to Giddens’s twin social and economic liberalisms. Founded by academic Maurice Glasman, Blue Labour attempted to promote what it took as the hitherto unrealised sweet spot of British politics, with a settlement that was both economically left wing and aligned to cultural conservatism. As critics of globalisation and market fundamentalism Blue Labour came with intimations of protectionism and sympathy for Brexit. This played out in public as a conspicuous rupture with New Labour (Wintour, 2011). Yet for all disavowals between the respective camps, Glasman aligned with the right-wing factionalists of Labour Together under the direction of Mandelson protégé Morgan McSweeney and future Chief of Staff to Starmer.

Glasman presents a thin-gruelled communitarian critique of the post-war Keynesian welfare state. The top-down statism of old is castigated for its bureaucratic inefficiencies and remoteness from the communities it was ostensibly designed to serve. Whilst there is undoubtedly more than a kernel of truth here there is also a danger such views can also be easily co-opted into a Hayekian narrative of old-fashioned resilience and personal responsibilities (Cooke, 2025). Glasman compounds his belligerence with a generous helping of invective (‘bed wetters’ and ‘lanyard classes’) directed at those Labour rebel MPs with the temerity to contest controversial welfare cuts targeted at disabled claimants (Newman, 2025, Channel 4 news).

Matt Goodwin, the former academic and analysist of national populism also provided an ongoing commentary in the last decade which provided ballast to the Blue Labour narrative. As a persistent critic of Thatcherism he championed the realisation of “what he has long prophesised as the “great realignment” — the potent combination of social conservatism with economic interventionism.” (Rubenstein, 2026). Goodwin repeatedly stressed his anti-Thatcherite worldview:

“He also once described his party’s (Reform) economic plans as an “utterly toxic combination”, explaining that he “cannot stress enough how UNPOPULAR slashing taxes and cutting spending on public services is” in a post on LinkedIn three years ago.” (Devlin, 2026)

Now that Goodwin has formally boarded the Reform UK flotilla his previous support for economic intervention has been replaced by free market boilerplate axioms of low taxation and deregulation and a corresponding populist anti-welfarism (Goodwin, 2025). This is in keeping with the idea that much of the supposed post-Brexit postliberal realignment is fictitious. It is merely the latest re-iteration of neoliberal normalcy with a pivot into cultural protectionism and amelioration of concerns with the sustainability of mass migration.

Cooke, R (2025) ‘Maurice Glasman: Labour’s trump card’

Available at: https://observer.co.uk/news/politics/article/labours-trump-card

(Accessed 31 August 2026)

Devlin, K (2026) ‘Reform by-election candidate said it was ‘insane’ to jail man who said ‘burn asylum hotels’ ’

Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-matt-goodwin-nigel-farage-election-b2920781.html

(Accessed 31 August 2026)

Giddens, A (1994) Beyond Left and Right: The Future of Radical Politics. Cambridge. Polity Press

Giddens, A (1998) The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy. Polity

Goodwin, M (2025) ‘The hard working majority are seen by Labour as second class citizens’

Available at: https://www.gbnews.com/opinion/matthew-goodwin-hard-working-labour-second-class-citizens

(Accessed 31 August 2026)

Newman, C (2025) ‘ “Bed wetting MPs” protecting benefits for “lanyard class” ’

Available at: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/19SoeTLm7F/

(Accessed 31 August 2026)

Rubenstein, S (2026) ‘Matt Goodwin’s road to Reform Politics is just as sordid as academia’

Available at: https://unherd.com/2026/02/matt-goodwins-road-to-reform/

(Accessed 31 August 2026)

Wikipedia (2026) Blue Labour

Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Labour

(Accessed 31 August 2026)

Wintour, P (2011) ‘Peter Mandelson lambasts 'anti–immigrant, Europhobic' Blue Labour’

Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/jul/26/lord-mandelson-blue-labour-edl

(Accessed 31 August 2026)

Jury acquits Tony Greenstein in terrorism trial.

 

The trial of the pro-Palestine activist, Tony Greenstein, for expressing his opinions on social media, is not unique. There are in excess of over 10,000 people a year being arrested or questioned by the British police for comments that they have made on social media. Some of these have received lengthy prison sentences.

 Sir Keir Starmer, the former UK Labour Prime Minister, told the Trump administration when he was in America, that Britain was proud of its record on free speech. Tony Greenstein was charged under the Terrorism Act and faced up to 14 years’ imprisonment for posting three Tweets and we're led to believe that we have freedom of speech in the UK.

 I'm not surprised the jury took the decision to acquit him. Tony Greenstein denied being a supporter of Hamas and denied inviting support for Hamas, but he was charged and tried for inviting support for a prescribed organisation. He also says that many of the posts on his blog substantiate this, but the Judge wouldn't allow this to be used in evidence, for the defence. The defence asked the judge if she intended to "micro-manage" the whole trial when she wanted to know what questions the defence were going to ask police witnesses. They also accused Sussex police of redacting much of what Tony Greenstein had said in an interview. The country is fast becoming a police state. 

Is immigration causing an housing crisis?

 

In parts of Greater Manchester like Tameside, Serco are offering landlords in the private sector up to three times the going rental market rate, to offer housing to asylum seekers, on five-year contracts. Serco recently acquired seven properties on Fairfield Road, Droylsden, which they turned into Houses of Multiple Occupation (HMOs), to house asylum seekers. For many private landlords and Serco, it is more financially lucrative these days to house asylum seekers than local indigenous people.

The housing crisis in Britain has more to do with government policy than with illegal immigrants. It comes down to the mismatch between supply and demand. Immigrants are a handy card to play when politicians are trying to deflect attention from their own failings. In the last 20 years the population of the UK has risen by 9 million, largely due to immigration and housing supply has not kept up. Margaret Thatcher virtually put an end to councils building new housing in the 1980s. She believed that the private sector would step in to fill the gap, but that didn't happen. The number of houses built by councils slumped from 100,000 a year to almost nothing. Her Right to Buy scheme took a lot of council housing out of the system.

The housing charity Shelter, say the number of new social rent homes built annually has fallen by 64% the past 15 years. In 20% of council areas in England, not one social home has been built in the last 20 years. More than 1.3 million households in Britain are waiting for social housing. British house builders operate like cartels by hoarding land (ransom plots/land banks) and by constricting the supply of housing, to drive up housing prices and profits. Housebuilding in Britain has become a lucrative cash cow for builders. Rents in the private sector are astronomical and house prices have rocketed. 

Weathfareism: socialism for the rich and the free market for the rest of us.

 

Sir Jim Ratcliffe

During the manmade financial crisis, during 2008 to 2012, the Bank of England simply created £445 billion in digital money to bail out the banks by buying assets from pension funds and banks. This was called Quantitative Easing (QE). It was supposed to stimulate the economy, but it was a scam for the wealthy. It inflated share prices and those with assets got richer, but the asset poor, did not.

This was paid for by imposing austerity. Budgets for public services were slashed; a public sector pay cap was imposed and welfare benefits were cut or axed. At the same time, capital gains tax and inheritance tax were cut and corporations were given tax breaks.

Based on reports, companies owned by the billionaire tax exile, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, primarily INEOS, have received over £190 million in direct UK government grants and subsidies between 2020 and late 2025, alongside hundreds of millions in financial guarantees. Ratcliffe is estimated to be worth £17bn and while he takes handouts from the British taxpayer, he also wants to slash welfare spending. It's socialism and handouts for the rich and austerity and the free market for the rest of us.

NHS Hospital Cover Ups.

 

Dr Stephen Bolsin

Historically, there have been a number of doctors and nurses who have been killers, but I wouldn't tar them all with same brush. Many of them do their best for their patients. It was a Hyde GP who had strong suspicions about Dr Harold Shipman and she made her views known to the authorities.

For a number of years, I was involved in an hospital action group and I learned a lot about how hospital management tries to cover things up, or spin their way out of things. My local hospital had a high mortality rate, and the hospital tried to dismiss this as something called the "Shipman Effect." What they meant by this, is that many care homes were reluctant to have elderly residents die in their care homes, because they didn't want to come under suspicion, like Harold Shipman. Therefore, they sent them to hospital to die.  Whether this was true or not is a moot point, but it was used as an excuse to explain the high death rate at the hospital and some people fell for it. It was whitewash by the bucketful and excuses on tap. Staff at the hospital were also afraid to speak out or identify hazards because they feared they would lose their jobs. NHS hospitals are well known for blacklisting and excluding people who rock the boat.

I remember the case of the anaesthetist Dr Stephen Bolsin, who turned whistle-blower. He was responsible for exposing the scandal of the babies who had died at the  Bristol Royal Infirmary  after open heart surgery by incompetent surgeons. It was said that the babies had been “slaughtered on the altar of surgical pride.” Dr Bolson said that he couldn't bear putting children to sleep knowing that they were likely to die in the operating theatre because of incompetent surgeons. He eventually left Bristol and tried to get other work within another NHS hospital.

At one interview, a panel member actually told him that she thought that he'd never work again within the NHS. He finished up emigrating to Australia. When he was asked at one interview for an hospital job why he had left England and was seeking to work in an Australian hospital, he told them about his experiences at Bristol. After listening to him, the chair of the panel told him that she thought he was just the right kind of person that they were looking for.

Reform UK to rob disabled of their disability benefits.

 

Robert Jenrick & Richard Tice - Reform UK

There are around 20,488 people receiving Personal Independence Payments (PIP) in Tameside. Across Greater Manchester, there are roughly 235,000 active PIP claimants. Many of these now stand to lose their PIP if Reform UK form a government at the next general election.

Don't believe Reform UK's bullshit that they are just targeting welfare spending on illegal migrants. This is all a smokescreen. It stands to reason that if Reform UK wants to cut welfare spending by £50bm, then this is going to affect a lot more people than illegal migrants.

In Nigel Farage's constituency of Clacton, 10,440 of his constituents receive PIP. In Robert Jenrick's constituency of Newark, 6,010 of his constituents receive PIP. Research suggests that in Lee Anderson's constituency of Ashfield, 13.3% of the working age population in Ashfield, are receiving PIP payments or LWCRA benefits. In Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, which is led by Reform UK, 32,000 people are receiving PIP. In all these areas many of these people receiving PIP, will have voted for Reform UK, who have just repaid them, by kicking them in the arse.

Many of the people who receive PIP are in work. Almost 40% of people claiming Universal Credit, are also in work or have caring responsibilities. Those in work, claim UC to top up their low pay.

There's something positively disgusting about former Tory multimillionaires and spivs, like Nigel Farage and Richard Tice, wanting to rob the disabled of their disability benefits.