The first half of this is a decent summary of the Labour leadership's current rationale: the back half - "will LOTO even engage with the left policies of 2017/19?" is the wrong question. Thread 1/ (read it first!) newsocialist.org.uk/transmissions/…
2/ We are facing a solid voting bloc of people who will vote for the Tories - no matter how incompetent or corrupt - so long as they validate racism. It's a new situation. It needs Labour to a) be a bigger tent b) form new political alliances...
3/ The Labour Together election report outlines the de facto strategy: big change offer on economics combined with an attempt to reconnect on Ainsley's 4x values: "family, fairness, decency and hard work" - see my essay medium.com/@paulmasonnews…
4/ The point for the left is how to intersect with that strategy to a) boost the self-activity of both sections of the working class b) fight fascism c) draw lines across which the neoliberals and warmongers cannot cross...
5/ What's lacking right now is not a bunch of policies - it's a concrete vision: you can't just "see it in your mind's eye" because we are in a battle for the soul of small town Britain, fighting a racist Utopia... this from my column newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
6/ And here's the choice facing the Labour left: "this won't work, we're off to do something else" or to engage with the strategy and the attempt to build on the ground something that can resist authoritarian nationalism with a strong, emotional narrative
7/ Finally, though Ainsley's analysis of class is superficial (based on GBCS) , sub-theoretical nostalgia is no antidote: there is a materialist analysis of the cultural split and - in Gramsci's PN - the basis for a Marxist solution to it ... see here: medium.com/@paulmasonnews…
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I'm a China hawk but I am sick of Tory duplicity and 💩 Fleet Street commentary on "why don't we designate China a threat"? Neither Johnson, Sunak nor Truss did so, despite Truss threatening... and here's why: 1/ This is what a "threat" to National Security looks like...
2/ ... it's a nuclear capable Russian aircraft with a missile that can travel at Mach 10: three of them spent 12 minutes in NATO airspace last month... and the RAF regularly has to intercept these and other Russian threats...
3/ In 2021 the Tory govt recognised China as a "systemic competitor" - that is, a country determined to compete with us over economic interests, values and geopolitical influence... then, in 2022, China overtly backed the Russian invasion of Ukraine....
I just used my fingerprint to log into my Apple computer; I used facial recognition to pay for an e-bike on my Apple phone; I ordered a repeat prescription on the NHS app that holds every detail of every illness I have ever been treated for on a central server...1/
2/ ... I had to show my drivers' licence to get into a briefing from a civil servant; I used the e-gates at LCY to cross the border without having to speak to a human being... why would I object to "the state" issuing me with digital proof of ID?...
3/... Labour must of course address privacy concerns and the possibility of cyberattacks on a single digital ID - but there are massive libertarian and economic upsides to a society where *everybody is who they say they are*...
Labour's reshuffle was deftly completed and has rewarded competence and narrative skill. Task now is to start not just delivering but telling a story of who we are - I am proud of what Labour is achieving... here's one example... 1/
What happened in D.C.? 🧵1/ We, outside the classified zone, won't know for a while - because the European leaders pulled of something surreal: they pulled Trump back from getting sucked in to Putin's mental framework ... but...
2/ ... look at this: diplomats with PhDs, security analysts with years in the field, aircrew risking their lives to surveil the Russia/Iran threat... all that expertise and dedication keeping us safe ... for this? The White House of Kennedy and Roosevelt turned into a trashy gift shop....
2/ ... look at this: diplomats with PhDs, security analysts with years in the field, aircrew risking their lives to surveil the Russia/Iran threat... all that expertise and dedication keeping us safe ... for this? The White House of Kennedy and Roosevelt turned into a trashy gift shop....
There are 3 historical reference points for Trump's Alaska disgrace ... Munich '38, Berlin '40, Moscow '41... which is closest? 1/🧵we've had no readout from an honest source...
2/ At Munich democracies signed up to dismembering Czechoslovakia, sidelining USSR with which it had a mutual defence pact ... so this wasn't Munich, yet...
3/ The Aug 1941 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact dismembered Poland and started WW2...
Global investors are selling US stocks because they know Trump's tariffs will kill globalisation and trigger recession 1/... but why are they selling bonds at the same time? 🧵
2/ ....They're selling US bonds - which they would normally buy as a safe haven - because bonds have become gambling chips for hedge funds who are gambling on massive credit ... as @FT explains
@FT 3/ ... what comes next is financial contagion. After 2008 all banks required to keep a stock of capital to cushion instability ... that's rapidly eroded... sudden stop in trade plus massive losses in financial markets is bound to take down some bank somewhere...