L P Hartley once wrote “the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there”. Everyone in politics is trying to express the same, but it might be an idea for all to visit it occasionally and say ‘you know what? We got that wrong’.
Breaking the doom-loop of depressing political narrative – harnessed and driven by parties’ agendas- to look different, sound different and offer something new, would, in fact, be a welcome change.
The strong suspicion is Starmer bought his ticket to China by his government putting their thumb on the scales on a number of issues where the eventual outcome was of benefit to the Chinese. Moreover will any deal actually be worth what it promises?
Badenoch insists the Tories aren’t going to walk off the pitch or pivot to the left, but they should avoid looking complacent. Jenrick’s challenge should be met not with tit-for-tat soundbites but treating it as the mother of all ‘red team’ exercises.
Badenoch takes 52 per cent of the vote more than double that given to Jenrick who was voted second before his sacking and defection to Reform
Has Jenrick now gone to Reform? Farage has said nothing yet, either. Will he take him? In August last year he said of Jenrick “This man is a fraud, this man is not to be trusted”
The Tories should stick to their strategy of firing at Labour, as the job of the official opposition. We know Reform want a fight, because it’s in their game plan. Perhaps don’t give them one. It’s one they want, and according to Arron Banks, they need.
Starmer can try to bring the focus back to the cost of living in Britain, but with dubious solutions and the volatility of world affairs, having been criticised for being too focused on the international stage, he may find he’s going to be dragged back on it.
Any plan to fix the broken state is a time consuming project with few votes in it. But if Government is to do ‘less, but brilliantly’ it needs a parliamentary party fully on board with what that’ll take to fix it.
If you are desperate to hear the defining judgement of any party leader in twenty four hours on unfolding world affairs, I suspect it’s largely so you can enthusiastically condone or condemn the response for political purposes, and not much more.
It’s never a waste of time to ask yourselves privately ‘are we getting this right? Is the political prism we’ve tended to view things through, actually right for today’s problems and those coming down the track?
Alaa Abd el-Fattah might want to consider publicly denouncing those 2011 tweets. In any event someone soon is going to ask him, to his face if he still stands by them or sent them, unless he decides to imprison himself in a house in Brighton, rather than a cell in Cairo.
There’s a clear political advantage for any who adopt language that frames their vision in a positive way. It’s simple psychology. People want something to believe in more than they want something that will give them Schadenfreude.
Let our opponents claim we’re done, I think they’ve over played that, but if the Conservatives underplay their efforts to prove them wrong, they’ll end up being right.