The far right have been banging on about the "coming race war" since at least the 70s.
I think there are a coupla songs by The Clash which reference that then-popular prophecy? White Riot, anyway.
Also clearly recall as a kid in the 1970s seeing a Goodies episode based on the idea of violent racial warfare(*). My Beautiful Laundrette alludes to the era retrospectively, from the mid-1980s perspective of its characters.
(*) My memories of that episode are clear enough to say that it should probably be considered NSFW, if not outright offensive.
@Gamma Gamaliel equally one could say that you're pretty far removed from things out in the sticks in Wales. It's not exactly Portsmouth or Sunderland or wherever.
There is far less racially-motivated violence around nowadays than there was in the 70s and 80s. The far-right have switched to stochastic terrorism instead.
Also I note that you haven't responded to my question asking you to actually define what you mean by "hard left" and "hard right".
@TurquoiseTastic it's easy to think that everything is basically fine when you're not a member of a group being targeted by the government and media. I don't think asylum seekers or trans people would agree with you for eg.
@TurquoiseTastic it's easy to think that everything is basically fine when you're not a member of a group being targeted by the government and media. I don't think asylum seekers or trans people would agree with you for eg.
@Pomona my point is that the intensity of the current targetting is precisely part of a "disruption" of the establisment, in this case powered by the radical right but facilitated by a widespread and bipartisan (but unjust and incorrect) sense that "the system/country is broken/failing and 'they're all as bad as each other' " (my least favourite political phrase). Not that everything was peachy and perfect in 2000, but we are now seeing - as your example illustrates - how much worse things can get.
@TurquoiseTastic it's easy to think that everything is basically fine when you're not a member of a group being targeted by the government and media. I don't think asylum seekers or trans people would agree with you for eg.
@Pomona my point is that the intensity of the current targetting is precisely part of a "disruption" of the establisment, in this case powered by the radical right but facilitated by a widespread and bipartisan (but unjust and incorrect) sense that "the system/country is broken/failing and 'they're all as bad as each other'
Okay, but the UK has been experiencing wage stagnation since 2008. Due to the spread of things like zero hours contracts, the working conditions for the young and less well educated has simultaneously got worse. There's been a rise in in-work poverty over the same period. Post-Covid inflation has led to a cost of living crisis. Asset price inflation has meant that housing is less affordable than ever.
Underlying all of that is a decaying public realm and then the effects and threat of climate change.
These are all real and measurable effects and reasons why people don't think "things mostly fine as they are" and that all that is needed is just more of the same.
@TurquoiseTastic it's easy to think that everything is basically fine when you're not a member of a group being targeted by the government and media. I don't think asylum seekers or trans people would agree with you for eg.
@Pomona my point is that the intensity of the current targetting is precisely part of a "disruption" of the establisment, in this case powered by the radical right but facilitated by a widespread and bipartisan (but unjust and incorrect) sense that "the system/country is broken/failing and 'they're all as bad as each other'
Okay, but the UK has been experiencing wage stagnation since 2008. Due to the spread of things like zero hours contracts, the working conditions for the young and less well educated has simultaneously got worse. There's been a rise in in-work poverty over the same period. Post-Covid inflation has led to a cost of living crisis. Asset price inflation has meant that housing is less affordable than ever.
Underlying all of that is a decaying public realm and then the effects and threat of climate change.
These are all real and measurable effects and reasons why people don't think "things mostly fine as they are" and that all that is needed is just more of the same.
The things you list re-enforce my growing sense that the things that effect and exercise people the most are largely outside the control of politicians.
@TurquoiseTastic it's easy to think that everything is basically fine when you're not a member of a group being targeted by the government and media. I don't think asylum seekers or trans people would agree with you for eg.
@Pomona my point is that the intensity of the current targetting is precisely part of a "disruption" of the establisment, in this case powered by the radical right but facilitated by a widespread and bipartisan (but unjust and incorrect) sense that "the system/country is broken/failing and 'they're all as bad as each other'
Okay, but the UK has been experiencing wage stagnation since 2008. Due to the spread of things like zero hours contracts, the working conditions for the young and less well educated has simultaneously got worse. There's been a rise in in-work poverty over the same period. Post-Covid inflation has led to a cost of living crisis. Asset price inflation has meant that housing is less affordable than ever.
Underlying all of that is a decaying public realm and then the effects and threat of climate change.
These are all real and measurable effects and reasons why people don't think "things mostly fine as they are" and that all that is needed is just more of the same.
The things you list re-enforce my growing sense that the things that effect and exercise people the most are largely outside the control of politicians.
They are downstream of the very political decisions to deindustrialise, deregulate, privatise and shrink the scope of government.
@TurquoiseTastic it's easy to think that everything is basically fine when you're not a member of a group being targeted by the government and media. I don't think asylum seekers or trans people would agree with you for eg.
@Pomona my point is that the intensity of the current targetting is precisely part of a "disruption" of the establisment, in this case powered by the radical right but facilitated by a widespread and bipartisan (but unjust and incorrect) sense that "the system/country is broken/failing and 'they're all as bad as each other'
Okay, but the UK has been experiencing wage stagnation since 2008. Due to the spread of things like zero hours contracts, the working conditions for the young and less well educated has simultaneously got worse. There's been a rise in in-work poverty over the same period. Post-Covid inflation has led to a cost of living crisis. Asset price inflation has meant that housing is less affordable than ever.
Underlying all of that is a decaying public realm and then the effects and threat of climate change.
These are all real and measurable effects and reasons why people don't think "things mostly fine as they are" and that all that is needed is just more of the same.
The things you list re-enforce my growing sense that the things that effect and exercise people the most are largely outside the control of politicians.
They are downstream of the very political decisions to deindustrialise, deregulate, privatise and shrink the scope of government.
And those decisions were made as a result of pressures beyond UK politicians' control.
@TurquoiseTastic it's easy to think that everything is basically fine when you're not a member of a group being targeted by the government and media. I don't think asylum seekers or trans people would agree with you for eg.
@Pomona my point is that the intensity of the current targetting is precisely part of a "disruption" of the establisment, in this case powered by the radical right but facilitated by a widespread and bipartisan (but unjust and incorrect) sense that "the system/country is broken/failing and 'they're all as bad as each other'
Okay, but the UK has been experiencing wage stagnation since 2008. Due to the spread of things like zero hours contracts, the working conditions for the young and less well educated has simultaneously got worse. There's been a rise in in-work poverty over the same period. Post-Covid inflation has led to a cost of living crisis. Asset price inflation has meant that housing is less affordable than ever.
Underlying all of that is a decaying public realm and then the effects and threat of climate change.
These are all real and measurable effects and reasons why people don't think "things mostly fine as they are" and that all that is needed is just more of the same.
The things you list re-enforce my growing sense that the things that effect and exercise people the most are largely outside the control of politicians.
They are downstream of the very political decisions to deindustrialise, deregulate, privatise and shrink the scope of government.
And, the claim that these "are largely outside the control of politicians" seems to be an effect of the change in the Overton window in regard to what role and powers government (ie politicians) have.
In work poverty generally has two causes - low wages and rising costs of living. Low wages can be addressed by, for example, changing income tax rates and thresholds to reduce the taxes paid by the lowest waged (and, to compensate, increase taxes paid by those on higher wages), as well as raising minimum wage. That should be within the ability of politicians, and would have seemed normal a few decades ago, but we have developed a myth that the rich deserve their wealth and will stop investing in the UK if they pay back more of what they've got (a myth because it's unclear how much they invest, and also where taxes have risen there's been no sign of the wealthy leaving).
Cost of living has multiple factors, all of which politicians could address. Lack of affordable child care, energy costs (why, for example, does the UK still maintain a wholesale electricity pricing structure that pegs prices to the most expensive generation modes, gas and nuclear, so that the people don't benefit from cheap renewables?), inflation driven by many factors (including a load related to Brexit and increased costs of trading with the rest of Europe, as well as loss of skilled agricultural workers etc), housing costs etc.
Housing costs are driven basically by a lack of housing, and hence a high demand driving up prices because those who can afford to pay more do so (and, those who can't really afford to pay more still pay those higher prices, making cuts elsewhere). The political decision to stop building council houses in any substantial number reduces the availability of affordable rental properties (in turn increasing the demand for private rentals, boosting the market rent and profits for private letters), and the political decision to put building homes in the hands of private construction firms means that they will never build enough homes (because, while there aren't enough homes there will be demand that boosts the prices people will pay, and hence their profits - build enough homes to meet demand and sale prices and profits will drop) and the homes that are built are likely to be those that they can make most money on rather than what's actually needed. A political decision to spend government money on building homes, recovered from rents paid on those in coming years, could relatively rapidly address housing needs - and, also to heavily tax people holding onto empty properties as investments (or, just very occasional use for holidays) so those properties get back onto the market for people to live in.
@TurquoiseTastic it's easy to think that everything is basically fine when you're not a member of a group being targeted by the government and media. I don't think asylum seekers or trans people would agree with you for eg.
@Pomona my point is that the intensity of the current targetting is precisely part of a "disruption" of the establisment, in this case powered by the radical right but facilitated by a widespread and bipartisan (but unjust and incorrect) sense that "the system/country is broken/failing and 'they're all as bad as each other'
Okay, but the UK has been experiencing wage stagnation since 2008. Due to the spread of things like zero hours contracts, the working conditions for the young and less well educated has simultaneously got worse. There's been a rise in in-work poverty over the same period. Post-Covid inflation has led to a cost of living crisis. Asset price inflation has meant that housing is less affordable than ever.
Underlying all of that is a decaying public realm and then the effects and threat of climate change.
These are all real and measurable effects and reasons why people don't think "things mostly fine as they are" and that all that is needed is just more of the same.
The things you list re-enforce my growing sense that the things that effect and exercise people the most are largely outside the control of politicians.
They are downstream of the very political decisions to deindustrialise, deregulate, privatise and shrink the scope of government.
And those decisions were made as a result of pressures beyond UK politicians' control.
One can just look around the countries in Europe to see that even within the constraints of a mixed economy, this is not the case.
Austerity was a political choice, Osborne admits as much. The intellectual justifications for austerity were based on a spreadsheet error, the author of which (Rogoff) was in the FT a few years later questioning why the UK government had cut spending in the way it did.
There's no iron law of economics that forced the UK to privatise all its utilities and then regulate them weakly so that decades later bills would have to be put up to correct years of underinvestment and profit taking (often by loading up the companies with debt).
There's no economic necessity to force councils to sell off housing at a discount and then forbid them from building new housing with the proceeds.
We have access to documents like the Ridley Plan - we know that Reaganonmics was a political rather than economic project on both sides of the Atlantic.
I note that the discussion has gone from; "Everything is fine" through "Everything may not be fine but there's nothing that can be done about it" to "Perhaps there's something that could have been done, but we weren't able to do it". Very reminiscent of the "4 Stage Strategy"
But one can also look around the countries of Europe and see that far-right disruptors and cynicism about "mainstream" parties have made at least as much progress there as they have in the UK.
This suggests that the phenomenon is not directly tied to the particular political and economic decisions made in the UK.
I think it is more to do with the way ideas propagate and where people look for sources of truth and identity.
I guess a classic Marxist view would be that capitalism is in shock, and therefore right wing solutions are being refurbished. Well, when has it ever not been in shock? But this flows from "material conditions".
But one can also look around the countries of Europe and see that far-right disruptors and cynicism about "mainstream" parties have made at least as much progress there as they have in the UK.
This suggests that the phenomenon is not directly tied to the particular political and economic decisions made in the UK.
Hang on though -- your starting point was that 'that things are mostly fine as they are' - not that things were bad economically, but that this had little connection with the rise of the right.
There are two inter-related things going on; Austerity politics, which affected the popularity of mainstream parties throughout Europe, which meant that under a PR system parties of the right could quickly gain power. The particular politics of UK, struggling under the explosion of its particular model of an overly financialized economy, which mean that even under a FPTP system, parties of the right are able to gain power.
I think it is more to do with the way ideas propagate and where people look for sources of truth and identity.
There is a concerted attempt to push right wing ideas internationally, but the mass popularity of such ideas *has* waxed and waned with the economy (e.g Golden Dawn in Greece, the left in Spain, the pink tide in South America or the defeat of Bolsonaro).
I'd see "Centrism" as meaning the belief that the Government/Law should apply equally to all and not favour anyone. I would contrast that with the Left and Right, who both believe that the Government/Law should favour certain people but differ on which people those are.
Ah yes, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."
Yes. And it also, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike from employing someone at less than minimum wage or failing to provide adequate health and safety protections for their employees. It can even provide a minimum weekly allowance for all people who have no job, or for that matter a "mincome" that gets paid to everyone.
The point is that such restrictions and provisions apply equally to all rather than being specifically targeted at those the government deems to be deserving of them.
I'd see "Centrism" as meaning the belief that the Government/Law should apply equally to all and not favour anyone. I would contrast that with the Left and Right, who both believe that the Government/Law should favour certain people but differ on which people those are.
Ah yes, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."
Yes. And it also, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike from employing someone at less than minimum wage or failing to provide adequate health and safety protections for their employees. It can even provide a minimum weekly allowance for all people who have no job, or for that matter a "mincome" that gets paid to everyone.
The point is that such restrictions and provisions apply equally to all rather than being specifically targeted at those the government deems to be deserving of them.
But that's utterly facile, because governments (including centrist ones) can and do make laws to specifically target certain groups, just couched in (mostly) non-specific language. Obvious example being the Caravan Sites Act 1968, which is firmly targeted (both good and bad) at GRT communities.
@Gamma Gamaliel equally one could say that you're pretty far removed from things out in the sticks in Wales. It's not exactly Portsmouth or Sunderland or wherever.
There is far less racially-motivated violence around nowadays than there was in the 70s and 80s. The far-right have switched to stochastic terrorism instead.
Also I note that you haven't responded to my question asking you to actually define what you mean by "hard left" and "hard right".
I grew up in the South Wales Valleys, not far from Newport and Cardiff, so hardly 'out in the sticks.' I now live in the north-west of England and although in leafy surburbia I'm close to a city where the right is very much on the rise, as indeed it was when the BNP were active and back in Moseley's day.
I've tried reasoning with people who hold these kind of views.
I do apologise to @Arethosemyfeet and I did not mean to be Hellish.
I am a bit fed-up though of being accused, either implicitly or explicitly of not having any values or convictions because I incline more towards a centrist position - as though these things are the sole preserve of the Labour left.
'If you aren't for us you are against us,' type of thing. Binary thinking.
I've not forgotten the question as to what constitutes 'hard-right' and 'hard-left' @Pomona. The first is easier to define and I think we'd all most likely agree on that one.
The second is harder, I think. I tend to think of the 'extra-Parliamentary left' as the 'hard-left' rather than the left of the Labour Party but there is some over-lap ... as there is on the right.
I get scoffed at when I cite how I've seen intimidation and bullying from some very hard-left types within the Labour Party towards their political rivals within the Party itself.
I've always added the caveat that I don't believe such things can only be found towards that end of the spectrum and I'm sure our Labour activists here can cite instances of that from the right of the Party.
Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't envisage organised self-appointed 'militia' and so on
So not actually a civil war then? I've not known Marr to be particularly insightful.
Perhaps not but given the way things are going across the Pond I wouldn't put it past someone like Musk to bankroll violent right-wing extremists in a similar way to how both NorAid and Gaddafi supported the Provisionals or right-wing South African groups supported Unionist terrorism in Northern Ireland.
There are community tensions that these kinds of people could exploit for their own ends.
You will note that I reported what Marr has been saying for some time, not agreeing with him necessarily.
That said, I do think serious civil unrest in the US is a distinct possibility and that it could spread here too given the right (or wrong) circumstances and interference from certain quarters.
On another thread, @KarlLB mentions LBGT+ people talking about 'tooling up' to defend themselves. I've not heard that sort of talk before. They clearly feel that they are under threat and that mobs might come for them.
The fact that people are even saying that in a hypothetical way is a cause of concern. There have also been racially motivated attacks including a particularly concerning instance of what may have been a racially-motivated rape recently.
I hope Marr is wrong but I think there is certainly some cause for concern.
@Gamma Gamaliel ah, apologies for getting your location wrong.
Wrt hard left and hard right, I meant more in terms of individual policies - I think that is a clearer and more helpful way of distinguishing between "sides" now that the Overton window has shifted so wildly. For instance, I would say that the LDs have actually shifted leftwards (particularly wrt LGBTQ+ issues), but are still overall a centrist party based on policy.
Wrt LGBTQ+ people arming themselves, minorities feeling the need to arm themselves is unfortunately nothing new - look at how quickly Reagan brought in gun control (as governor of California) in response to the Black Panthers.
I can certainly understand people becoming frustrated with the Lib Dems and their tendency to play both sides against the middle as it were - as in @betjemaniac's apposite example of the election pitch 'Vote Lib Dem to keep out the Tories/Vote Lib Dem to keep out Labour' in the same campaign.
I'm not here to promote or defend them though. My experience is that it's a pretty mixed bag. That could be said of most political parties I suspect, but I think it is harder for the Lib Dems to articulate a coherent position other than, 'we are the nice guys, we are the good and decent guys, vote for us.'
The Lib Dems are certainly centrist on fiscal issues and other policy areas but they have been upfront in the past about raising income tax. I'd have no issue with that provided it was levied on those who could afford it and not on those who can't.
Anyway... this isn't a thread about Lib Dems or centrism so I'll shut up.
I am a bit fed-up though of being accused, either implicitly or explicitly of not having any values or convictions because I incline more towards a centrist position - as though these things are the sole preserve of the Labour left.
Well, you have been asked upthread about what actually constitutes centrism and how it 'balances out' the hard right, but there've been no answers forthcoming.
@TurquoiseTastic pretty much said what I would have done, with a few differences on points of detail perhaps.
Without making excuses, I think it's more difficult to distil a 'centrist' argument into a few points than it is a more left-wing or right-wing one. It can be more woolly and difficult to pin down.
What looks 'centrist' to some is going to look more left or right to someone else. I've encountered Americans for instance - not here - who think I'm some kind of extreme radical, whereas here I'm seen as a wishy-washy liberal.
On reflection, I think 'balance out' was probably the wrong term to use. Sir Ed is trying to position the Lib Dems as the 'moral' alternative to Reform. We have a moral duty to oppose Reform, he said in between bouts of beach-cricket for the cameras at Bournemouth.
The question then arises as to why the Lib Dems should be the natural 'moral' alternative rather than Labour, the Greens or 'Your Party' should it ever get off the ground.
The Lib Dems do attract disaffected Tories and I've come across some, but not many, former Labourites. Equally, I've come across Lib Dems who've shifted to Labour too, of course.
They ain't going to attract many far right or even traditional True Blue Conservatives, other than perhaps, as occasional voters in the latter case.
Somehow Ed Davey is going to have to show that the Lib Dems represent a 'more excellent way' - which isn't going to convince those Labour supporters who've never forgiven them for the Coalition, of course.
Nor is it going to play well with those attracted to Reform for socially-conservative reasons.
So yes, the 'centre' is a difficult base to work from but that doesn't mean that those who do so 'lack all conviction' to return to Yeats once more ...
Although given his support for the Irish 'Blue-Shirts' he's probably not the best example ...
But yes, there can be a 'centrist' trope that we are the 'best' insofar as we are decent, moderate and reasonable whilst the worst - the extreme right and extreme left - are 'full of passionate intensity.'
It's similar to the assumption of those on the far left and the far right that they are the 'true believers' and everyone else is some kind of 'heretic.'
The idea that benefits shouldn't be means-tested but should be paid to everyone is also I think largely to the left of the current Overton window.
Paying universal benefits and recovering the cost of paying wealthy people by increased taxes on those wealthy people is two things:
1. Efficient.
2. Increases political support for the benefit (because it's something that everyone gets, rather than a special something for welfare scroungers).
I wouldn't have said that this argument was even slightly "left".
Although given his support for the Irish 'Blue-Shirts' he's probably not the best example ...
Yeats supported the Blue Shirts? I knew he was an Irish nationalist(Maud Gonne and all), and has been viewed by some(eg. Orwell) as proto-fascist in his general worldview, but I'm surprised he'd have supported such an overtly Catholic faction. My understanding is that when he went into politics, one of his big causes was divorce reform, and I know I've seen at least one quote from him mocking Catholic conservatism on the issue.
I wouldn't have said that this argument was even slightly "left".
Right, but the only people advocating for it at this point are the 'left' and a few wonkish economists of various persuasions. Self defined centrists are on the means testing bus.
A universal income that's paid to all, with it being taxed away from those who are wealthy and don't need it, is similar in effect to a negative income tax on the first £x of income, again with higher tax on the wealthy - though a negative income tax is possibly easier to administer where filing tax returns is more common. A negative income tax was proposed by that reknowned Commie Richard Nixon; if he hadn't decided he needed to bug hotels and lie about it we may have had a practical demonstration of how it would work in the US.
That it's now an idea only in favour among the left is another example of Overton windows shifting.
That it's now an idea only in favour among the left is another example of Overton windows shifting.
I think it may be about the Overton window shifting in the direction of perception rather than reality. You can construct an almost identical fiscal structure with means-tested benefits or with universal benefits and taxation. In terms of actual effect, they are the same, except the means-tested benefit is more expensive to administer, and therefore worse.
But to stupid people, universal benefit looks like the government giving money to people who don't need it.
Although given his support for the Irish 'Blue-Shirts' he's probably not the best example ...
Yeats supported the Blue Shirts? I knew he was an Irish nationalist(Maud Gonne and all), and has been viewed by some(eg. Orwell) as proto-fascist in his general worldview, but I'm surprised he'd have supported such an overtly Catholic faction. My understanding is that when he went into politics, one of his big causes was divorce reform, and I know I've seen at least one quote from him mocking Catholic conservatism on the issue.
I get the impression that Yeats's wife was more taken with the Blue Shirts than he was but they were both enthusiastic about them for a while.
It soon wore off.
It's a good while since I read the whopping big biography of him I have in two capacious volumes.
I can't be arsed to look it up now but I think that was the gist.
The pair of them were given to short-lived enthusiasms of one form or other. Yeats himself tended to be the instigator more often than not though.
Meanwhile, in other news, I'm not in favour of means-tested benefits so does that mean I'm not a 'centrist' heretic?
I'd be in favour of a scheme though where wealthy recipients would be able to say, 'Hey, I don't need this benefit so I'd rather you gave it to someone else who does.'
But they could always do that voluntarily once they'd received the benefit of course.
I don’t know how you could administrate something like that and I'm only floating it as a thought-experiment.
Although given his support for the Irish 'Blue-Shirts' he's probably not the best example ...
Yeats supported the Blue Shirts? I knew he was an Irish nationalist(Maud Gonne and all), and has been viewed by some(eg. Orwell) as proto-fascist in his general worldview, but I'm surprised he'd have supported such an overtly Catholic faction. My understanding is that when he went into politics, one of his big causes was divorce reform, and I know I've seen at least one quote from him mocking Catholic conservatism on the issue.
I get the impression that Yeats's wife was more taken with the Blue Shirts than he was but they were both enthusiastic about them for a while.
It soon wore off.
It's a good while since I read the whopping big biography of him I have in two capacious volumes.
I can't be arsed to look it up now but I think that was the gist.
The pair of them were given to short-lived enthusiasms of one form or other. Yeats himself tended to be the instigator more often than not though.
Meanwhile, in other news, I'm not in favour of means-tested benefits so does that mean I'm not a 'centrist' heretic?
I'd be in favour of a scheme though where wealthy recipients would be able to say, 'Hey, I don't need this benefit so I'd rather you gave it to someone else who does.'
But they could always do that voluntarily once they'd received the benefit of course.
I don’t know how you could administrate something like that and I'm only floating it as a thought-experiment.
You can already donate money to the exchequer, or to charity if you'd rather choose where it goes.
Although given his support for the Irish 'Blue-Shirts' he's probably not the best example ...
Yeats supported the Blue Shirts? I knew he was an Irish nationalist(Maud Gonne and all), and has been viewed by some(eg. Orwell) as proto-fascist in his general worldview, but I'm surprised he'd have supported such an overtly Catholic faction. My understanding is that when he went into politics, one of his big causes was divorce reform, and I know I've seen at least one quote from him mocking Catholic conservatism on the issue.
I get the impression that Yeats's wife was more taken with the Blue Shirts than he was but they were both enthusiastic about them for a while.
It soon wore off.
It's a good while since I read the whopping big biography of him I have in two capacious volumes.
I can't be arsed to look it up now but I think that was the gist.
The pair of them were given to short-lived enthusiasms of one form or other. Yeats himself tended to be the instigator more often than not though.
It seems you are right about Yeats and the Blueshirts, at least according to a 2023 Jacobin article entitled W.B. Yeats Was A Conservative Opponent of Liberal Democracy, Not The Bard of Liberal Centrism.
The article takes as its initial foil the over-quoted lines from The Second Coming, which I was glad to see because, just on aesthetic grounds alone, I've long grown sick of that poem being quoted for cheap gravitas by people lamenting the rise political extremism.
Apparently, he actually composed the lyrics to a marching song for the Blueshirts. Orwell described Yeats as having "an attitude typical of those who come to fascism via the aristocratic route", and I suppose it makes sense that someone who envisioned a hierarchical, anti-democratic social order would see a Catholic movement as the way to achieve that in Ireland.
That it's now an idea only in favour among the left is another example of Overton windows shifting.
I think it may be about the Overton window shifting in the direction of perception rather than reality. You can construct an almost identical fiscal structure with means-tested benefits or with universal benefits and taxation. In terms of actual effect, they are the same, except the means-tested benefit is more expensive to administer, and therefore worse.
But to stupid people, universal benefit looks like the government giving money to people who don't need it.
Universal benefits give what everyone needs to all, and draws back what's not needed by the wealthy through taxation. Means testing costs more to administer, to get benefits to some of those who need it. The greatest issue with means testing isn't the cost to the state in administration but the cost to the poor who need benefits but don't receive them (because they don't fill forms in correctly, they don't know what they can apply for, etc). Universal benefits are better for the state, costing less than means testing, and far better for the poor.
The idea that benefits shouldn't be means-tested but should be paid to everyone is also I think largely to the left of the current Overton window.
Paying universal benefits and recovering the cost of paying wealthy people by increased taxes on those wealthy people is two things:
1. Efficient.
2. Increases political support for the benefit (because it's something that everyone gets, rather than a special something for welfare scroungers).
I wouldn't have said that this argument was even slightly "left".
You would think Leorning Cniht - and it was until quite recently fairly well accepted in Scotland that universal benefits were good but then Labour started attacking that with the 'it gives to the undeserving rich' / what about those millionaire pensioners, eh?' lines.
The SNP has held the line on those universal benefits we have but hasn't been ambitious enough to take them further.
Although given his support for the Irish 'Blue-Shirts' he's probably not the best example ...
Yeats supported the Blue Shirts? I knew he was an Irish nationalist(Maud Gonne and all), and has been viewed by some(eg. Orwell) as proto-fascist in his general worldview, but I'm surprised he'd have supported such an overtly Catholic faction. My understanding is that when he went into politics, one of his big causes was divorce reform, and I know I've seen at least one quote from him mocking Catholic conservatism on the issue.
I get the impression that Yeats's wife was more taken with the Blue Shirts than he was but they were both enthusiastic about them for a while.
It soon wore off.
It's a good while since I read the whopping big biography of him I have in two capacious volumes.
I can't be arsed to look it up now but I think that was the gist.
The pair of them were given to short-lived enthusiasms of one form or other. Yeats himself tended to be the instigator more often than not though.
It seems you are right about Yeats and the Blueshirts, at least according to a 2023 Jacobin article entitled W.B. Yeats Was A Conservative Opponent of Liberal Democracy, Not The Bard of Liberal Centrism.
The article takes as its initial foil the over-quoted lines from The Second Coming, which I was glad to see because, just on aesthetic grounds alone, I've long grown sick of that poem being quoted for cheap gravitas by people lamenting the rise political extremism.
Apparently, he actually composed the lyrics to a marching song for the Blueshirts. Orwell described Yeats as having "an attitude typical of those who come to fascism via the aristocratic route", and I suppose it makes sense that someone who envisioned a hierarchical, anti-democratic social order would see a Catholic movement as the way to achieve that in Ireland.
Sure and, sadly, there's 'Ortho-fascism' as well as its RC and extreme US right-wing Protestant fundamentalist equivalents.
Yeats was very elitist of course with his 'Protestant Ascendancy' background. I'm not sure it's possible to detect any coherent political position from his poetry and DIY esoteric philosophy but he wasn't alone in that.
T S Eliot had some dubious views and as for Pound ...
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I think there are a coupla songs by The Clash which reference that then-popular prophecy? White Riot, anyway.
Also clearly recall as a kid in the 1970s seeing a Goodies episode based on the idea of violent racial warfare(*). My Beautiful Laundrette alludes to the era retrospectively, from the mid-1980s perspective of its characters.
(*) My memories of that episode are clear enough to say that it should probably be considered NSFW, if not outright offensive.
There is far less racially-motivated violence around nowadays than there was in the 70s and 80s. The far-right have switched to stochastic terrorism instead.
Also I note that you haven't responded to my question asking you to actually define what you mean by "hard left" and "hard right".
la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
@Pomona my point is that the intensity of the current targetting is precisely part of a "disruption" of the establisment, in this case powered by the radical right but facilitated by a widespread and bipartisan (but unjust and incorrect) sense that "the system/country is broken/failing and 'they're all as bad as each other' " (my least favourite political phrase). Not that everything was peachy and perfect in 2000, but we are now seeing - as your example illustrates - how much worse things can get.
Okay, but the UK has been experiencing wage stagnation since 2008. Due to the spread of things like zero hours contracts, the working conditions for the young and less well educated has simultaneously got worse. There's been a rise in in-work poverty over the same period. Post-Covid inflation has led to a cost of living crisis. Asset price inflation has meant that housing is less affordable than ever.
Underlying all of that is a decaying public realm and then the effects and threat of climate change.
These are all real and measurable effects and reasons why people don't think "things mostly fine as they are" and that all that is needed is just more of the same.
The things you list re-enforce my growing sense that the things that effect and exercise people the most are largely outside the control of politicians.
They are downstream of the very political decisions to deindustrialise, deregulate, privatise and shrink the scope of government.
And those decisions were made as a result of pressures beyond UK politicians' control.
In work poverty generally has two causes - low wages and rising costs of living. Low wages can be addressed by, for example, changing income tax rates and thresholds to reduce the taxes paid by the lowest waged (and, to compensate, increase taxes paid by those on higher wages), as well as raising minimum wage. That should be within the ability of politicians, and would have seemed normal a few decades ago, but we have developed a myth that the rich deserve their wealth and will stop investing in the UK if they pay back more of what they've got (a myth because it's unclear how much they invest, and also where taxes have risen there's been no sign of the wealthy leaving).
Cost of living has multiple factors, all of which politicians could address. Lack of affordable child care, energy costs (why, for example, does the UK still maintain a wholesale electricity pricing structure that pegs prices to the most expensive generation modes, gas and nuclear, so that the people don't benefit from cheap renewables?), inflation driven by many factors (including a load related to Brexit and increased costs of trading with the rest of Europe, as well as loss of skilled agricultural workers etc), housing costs etc.
Housing costs are driven basically by a lack of housing, and hence a high demand driving up prices because those who can afford to pay more do so (and, those who can't really afford to pay more still pay those higher prices, making cuts elsewhere). The political decision to stop building council houses in any substantial number reduces the availability of affordable rental properties (in turn increasing the demand for private rentals, boosting the market rent and profits for private letters), and the political decision to put building homes in the hands of private construction firms means that they will never build enough homes (because, while there aren't enough homes there will be demand that boosts the prices people will pay, and hence their profits - build enough homes to meet demand and sale prices and profits will drop) and the homes that are built are likely to be those that they can make most money on rather than what's actually needed. A political decision to spend government money on building homes, recovered from rents paid on those in coming years, could relatively rapidly address housing needs - and, also to heavily tax people holding onto empty properties as investments (or, just very occasional use for holidays) so those properties get back onto the market for people to live in.
One can just look around the countries in Europe to see that even within the constraints of a mixed economy, this is not the case.
Austerity was a political choice, Osborne admits as much. The intellectual justifications for austerity were based on a spreadsheet error, the author of which (Rogoff) was in the FT a few years later questioning why the UK government had cut spending in the way it did.
There's no iron law of economics that forced the UK to privatise all its utilities and then regulate them weakly so that decades later bills would have to be put up to correct years of underinvestment and profit taking (often by loading up the companies with debt).
There's no economic necessity to force councils to sell off housing at a discount and then forbid them from building new housing with the proceeds.
We have access to documents like the Ridley Plan - we know that Reaganonmics was a political rather than economic project on both sides of the Atlantic.
I note that the discussion has gone from; "Everything is fine" through "Everything may not be fine but there's nothing that can be done about it" to "Perhaps there's something that could have been done, but we weren't able to do it". Very reminiscent of the "4 Stage Strategy"
This suggests that the phenomenon is not directly tied to the particular political and economic decisions made in the UK.
I think it is more to do with the way ideas propagate and where people look for sources of truth and identity.
Hang on though -- your starting point was that 'that things are mostly fine as they are' - not that things were bad economically, but that this had little connection with the rise of the right.
There are two inter-related things going on; Austerity politics, which affected the popularity of mainstream parties throughout Europe, which meant that under a PR system parties of the right could quickly gain power. The particular politics of UK, struggling under the explosion of its particular model of an overly financialized economy, which mean that even under a FPTP system, parties of the right are able to gain power.
There is a concerted attempt to push right wing ideas internationally, but the mass popularity of such ideas *has* waxed and waned with the economy (e.g Golden Dawn in Greece, the left in Spain, the pink tide in South America or the defeat of Bolsonaro).
Yes. And it also, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike from employing someone at less than minimum wage or failing to provide adequate health and safety protections for their employees. It can even provide a minimum weekly allowance for all people who have no job, or for that matter a "mincome" that gets paid to everyone.
The point is that such restrictions and provisions apply equally to all rather than being specifically targeted at those the government deems to be deserving of them.
The idea that benefits shouldn't be means-tested but should be paid to everyone is also I think largely to the left of the current Overton window.
But that's utterly facile, because governments (including centrist ones) can and do make laws to specifically target certain groups, just couched in (mostly) non-specific language. Obvious example being the Caravan Sites Act 1968, which is firmly targeted (both good and bad) at GRT communities.
I grew up in the South Wales Valleys, not far from Newport and Cardiff, so hardly 'out in the sticks.' I now live in the north-west of England and although in leafy surburbia I'm close to a city where the right is very much on the rise, as indeed it was when the BNP were active and back in Moseley's day.
I've tried reasoning with people who hold these kind of views.
I do apologise to @Arethosemyfeet and I did not mean to be Hellish.
I am a bit fed-up though of being accused, either implicitly or explicitly of not having any values or convictions because I incline more towards a centrist position - as though these things are the sole preserve of the Labour left.
'If you aren't for us you are against us,' type of thing. Binary thinking.
I've not forgotten the question as to what constitutes 'hard-right' and 'hard-left' @Pomona. The first is easier to define and I think we'd all most likely agree on that one.
The second is harder, I think. I tend to think of the 'extra-Parliamentary left' as the 'hard-left' rather than the left of the Labour Party but there is some over-lap ... as there is on the right.
I get scoffed at when I cite how I've seen intimidation and bullying from some very hard-left types within the Labour Party towards their political rivals within the Party itself.
I've always added the caveat that I don't believe such things can only be found towards that end of the spectrum and I'm sure our Labour activists here can cite instances of that from the right of the Party.
Anyhow ... as you were.
Perhaps not but given the way things are going across the Pond I wouldn't put it past someone like Musk to bankroll violent right-wing extremists in a similar way to how both NorAid and Gaddafi supported the Provisionals or right-wing South African groups supported Unionist terrorism in Northern Ireland.
There are community tensions that these kinds of people could exploit for their own ends.
You will note that I reported what Marr has been saying for some time, not agreeing with him necessarily.
That said, I do think serious civil unrest in the US is a distinct possibility and that it could spread here too given the right (or wrong) circumstances and interference from certain quarters.
On another thread, @KarlLB mentions LBGT+ people talking about 'tooling up' to defend themselves. I've not heard that sort of talk before. They clearly feel that they are under threat and that mobs might come for them.
The fact that people are even saying that in a hypothetical way is a cause of concern. There have also been racially motivated attacks including a particularly concerning instance of what may have been a racially-motivated rape recently.
I hope Marr is wrong but I think there is certainly some cause for concern.
Wrt hard left and hard right, I meant more in terms of individual policies - I think that is a clearer and more helpful way of distinguishing between "sides" now that the Overton window has shifted so wildly. For instance, I would say that the LDs have actually shifted leftwards (particularly wrt LGBTQ+ issues), but are still overall a centrist party based on policy.
Wrt LGBTQ+ people arming themselves, minorities feeling the need to arm themselves is unfortunately nothing new - look at how quickly Reagan brought in gun control (as governor of California) in response to the Black Panthers.
I'm not here to promote or defend them though. My experience is that it's a pretty mixed bag. That could be said of most political parties I suspect, but I think it is harder for the Lib Dems to articulate a coherent position other than, 'we are the nice guys, we are the good and decent guys, vote for us.'
The Lib Dems are certainly centrist on fiscal issues and other policy areas but they have been upfront in the past about raising income tax. I'd have no issue with that provided it was levied on those who could afford it and not on those who can't.
Anyway... this isn't a thread about Lib Dems or centrism so I'll shut up.
Well, you have been asked upthread about what actually constitutes centrism and how it 'balances out' the hard right, but there've been no answers forthcoming.
Without making excuses, I think it's more difficult to distil a 'centrist' argument into a few points than it is a more left-wing or right-wing one. It can be more woolly and difficult to pin down.
What looks 'centrist' to some is going to look more left or right to someone else. I've encountered Americans for instance - not here - who think I'm some kind of extreme radical, whereas here I'm seen as a wishy-washy liberal.
On reflection, I think 'balance out' was probably the wrong term to use. Sir Ed is trying to position the Lib Dems as the 'moral' alternative to Reform. We have a moral duty to oppose Reform, he said in between bouts of beach-cricket for the cameras at Bournemouth.
The question then arises as to why the Lib Dems should be the natural 'moral' alternative rather than Labour, the Greens or 'Your Party' should it ever get off the ground.
The Lib Dems do attract disaffected Tories and I've come across some, but not many, former Labourites. Equally, I've come across Lib Dems who've shifted to Labour too, of course.
They ain't going to attract many far right or even traditional True Blue Conservatives, other than perhaps, as occasional voters in the latter case.
Somehow Ed Davey is going to have to show that the Lib Dems represent a 'more excellent way' - which isn't going to convince those Labour supporters who've never forgiven them for the Coalition, of course.
Nor is it going to play well with those attracted to Reform for socially-conservative reasons.
So yes, the 'centre' is a difficult base to work from but that doesn't mean that those who do so 'lack all conviction' to return to Yeats once more ...
Although given his support for the Irish 'Blue-Shirts' he's probably not the best example ...
I did deploy the quote in a tongue in cheek way.
But yes, there can be a 'centrist' trope that we are the 'best' insofar as we are decent, moderate and reasonable whilst the worst - the extreme right and extreme left - are 'full of passionate intensity.'
It's similar to the assumption of those on the far left and the far right that they are the 'true believers' and everyone else is some kind of 'heretic.'
Churches can be like that too. I know mine can.
Paying universal benefits and recovering the cost of paying wealthy people by increased taxes on those wealthy people is two things:
1. Efficient.
2. Increases political support for the benefit (because it's something that everyone gets, rather than a special something for welfare scroungers).
I wouldn't have said that this argument was even slightly "left".
Yeats supported the Blue Shirts? I knew he was an Irish nationalist(Maud Gonne and all), and has been viewed by some(eg. Orwell) as proto-fascist in his general worldview, but I'm surprised he'd have supported such an overtly Catholic faction. My understanding is that when he went into politics, one of his big causes was divorce reform, and I know I've seen at least one quote from him mocking Catholic conservatism on the issue.
Right, but the only people advocating for it at this point are the 'left' and a few wonkish economists of various persuasions. Self defined centrists are on the means testing bus.
That it's now an idea only in favour among the left is another example of Overton windows shifting.
I think it may be about the Overton window shifting in the direction of perception rather than reality. You can construct an almost identical fiscal structure with means-tested benefits or with universal benefits and taxation. In terms of actual effect, they are the same, except the means-tested benefit is more expensive to administer, and therefore worse.
But to stupid people, universal benefit looks like the government giving money to people who don't need it.
I get the impression that Yeats's wife was more taken with the Blue Shirts than he was but they were both enthusiastic about them for a while.
It soon wore off.
It's a good while since I read the whopping big biography of him I have in two capacious volumes.
I can't be arsed to look it up now but I think that was the gist.
The pair of them were given to short-lived enthusiasms of one form or other. Yeats himself tended to be the instigator more often than not though.
Meanwhile, in other news, I'm not in favour of means-tested benefits so does that mean I'm not a 'centrist' heretic?
I'd be in favour of a scheme though where wealthy recipients would be able to say, 'Hey, I don't need this benefit so I'd rather you gave it to someone else who does.'
But they could always do that voluntarily once they'd received the benefit of course.
I don’t know how you could administrate something like that and I'm only floating it as a thought-experiment.
You can already donate money to the exchequer, or to charity if you'd rather choose where it goes.
It seems you are right about Yeats and the Blueshirts, at least according to a 2023 Jacobin article entitled W.B. Yeats Was A Conservative Opponent of Liberal Democracy, Not The Bard of Liberal Centrism.
The article takes as its initial foil the over-quoted lines from The Second Coming, which I was glad to see because, just on aesthetic grounds alone, I've long grown sick of that poem being quoted for cheap gravitas by people lamenting the rise political extremism.
Apparently, he actually composed the lyrics to a marching song for the Blueshirts. Orwell described Yeats as having "an attitude typical of those who come to fascism via the aristocratic route", and I suppose it makes sense that someone who envisioned a hierarchical, anti-democratic social order would see a Catholic movement as the way to achieve that in Ireland.
You would think Leorning Cniht - and it was until quite recently fairly well accepted in Scotland that universal benefits were good but then Labour started attacking that with the 'it gives to the undeserving rich' / what about those millionaire pensioners, eh?' lines.
The SNP has held the line on those universal benefits we have but hasn't been ambitious enough to take them further.
Sure and, sadly, there's 'Ortho-fascism' as well as its RC and extreme US right-wing Protestant fundamentalist equivalents.
Yeats was very elitist of course with his 'Protestant Ascendancy' background. I'm not sure it's possible to detect any coherent political position from his poetry and DIY esoteric philosophy but he wasn't alone in that.
T S Eliot had some dubious views and as for Pound ...