I have published this video this morning. In it, I argue that England's football team might get by on last-minute equalisers after 90 clueless minutes, but that's not the way to run a country, and yet Starmer seems to be going into government with that game plan.
The audio version of this video is here:
The transcript is:
Extra time equalisers work for no one.
I am not, I am quite sure, the only person with at least a passing interest in football who went through the agonies of Sunday evening and watched England playing Slovakia.
Okay, Jude Bellingham did save the day in the fourth minute of extra time.
And Harry Kane then delivered the goal that won the match a couple of minutes, effectively, later.
But is that the way to really run a football game? No.
Is that what a manager would want to do? No.
Is that the way that fans want to watch their football? I don't think so, because 90 minutes were not highly entertaining.
But is that the way that Keir Starmer's going to run a government? I fear it is.
I draw the analogy deliberately because I don't know what Keir Starmer's going to do. It appears he's clueless, and if you listen to the football commentators, and they know more about football than I do, and you use your own experience of watching football over many years, and I've been watching for 50 years or more, you realise that this was a very strange game plan by Gareth Southgate.
And if you've been watching for politics as long, and I have been, you realise that Keir Starmer's game plan for running a government is, well, at least as weird, if not worse.
Gareth Southgate clearly had an objective - winning.
It's not even clear what Keir Starmer's objective is. Why does he want power? I don't know, nor does anybody else it would seem.
But is he going to leave it until a last-minute equaliser to try to win the election in 2029 and hold the far right at bay in the UK? I fear he will.
I know that he has said that he will hold the far right at bay by his deeds and not his words.
Well, his words certainly aren't working so we have to hope for his deeds. But, as yet ,none of us know what those deeds will be either.
He cannot, must not, wait until the last minute to try to hold back what is happening with the right wing in the UK.
We've seen what has now happened in France.
We've seen what happens when centre-right parties facilitate fascism by simply not taking the actions necessary to protect the interests of ordinary people in the country that they are meant to serve.
We know the consequence because Marie Le Pen and her party are riding high, even if they don't form a government after the completion of the French general election.
That is the risk that Keir Starmer faces here. We cannot afford it.
He cannot manage the next government the way in which Gareth Southgate managed the English football team to secure an equaliser and then a win in extra time. That option is not available to Keir Starmer. He has to hit the ground running to beat the right in 2029. There's no other option available, but right now it doesn't appear that he understands that this has to be his game plan.
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Which is why those of us in the stands need to do everything in our power to make sure Starmer works in the interest of everyone at the club and not just his wealthy backers.
My viewpoint is simple. If you care enough about others (bi-caring as opposed to uni-caring, fixated on your needs only) you’ll make every effort to understand how your country’s systems (and other countries) work especially if you’re a politician. You’d especially take an interest in how your country’s monetary system really works because spending money is a major way of delivering caring. Starmer is a politician who is more at the spectrum end of uni-caring than bi-caring. Unfortunately, so are many UK voters and especially after four decades plus of Thatcherism (Neoliberalism). Now they’re floundering as things go from bad to worse with this general election predicted to have a very low turn-out!
My viewpoint is not original just the use of the terms uni-caring and bi-caring:-
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247759661_Evolution_of_Parental_Caregiving
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3471369/pdf/nihms401950.pdf
Using slightly different jargon, the system we have operates on transactionalism, where there is no duty of care or wider responsibility between those involved in relations and actions.
This mindset applies equally in interactions between man and environment.
There is no required duty of care in transactional relationships.
It is why externalities are ignored, and have been for over 200 years.
That is ‘uni-care’ – highly individualistic, and environmentally exploitative.
Pre-capitalism we had a social and economic system more based on reciprocity, whereby there were mutual duties between participants.
In terms of societies it might have been highly stratified, but there were obligations, however imbalanced these were.
These distinctions also applied to man/environment relationships.
This equates broadly with bi-care – individual within a communal and collective setting.
One accepts interconnectedness, the other is philosophically dualistic where we are separated from ourselves and each other.
Polanyi then took this further into substantivism, a system whereby people make a living interacting within their social and natural environments.
Those interactions relate to how societies adapt to their environment and material conditions, and this process may or may not be based on maximising utility or efficiency, as capitalism demands.
Economics as a discipline is regarded as how civilisations meet their material needs.
Substantivism offers a way to deal with the climate crisis, and environmental degradation, (as only a total idiot would deny civilisation is in critical overshoot), relations between the global north and south, and how non-capitalist market but post industrial societies can operate.
It does not rule out self interest, but nor does it exclude altruism and collectivist actions.
It seems to me that we already live in a world where reciprocity has survived ‘The Great Transformation” of industrialisation and capitalism, and exists in our current market society, and every day interactions, though corporatism is predominantly transactional, as is much of everyday urban society.
The imperative in dealing with the climate and biodiversity crises requires a re-emergence of reciprocity and substantivism as the dominant forces in society.
It’s all about mindset in how we problem solve.
As others have pointed out on this blog, this is nothing to do with the current right-left duality, and our present absolute dominance of reductionist neoliberalism, but it is everything to do with multidimensional relationships based on reciprocity.
“Pre-capitalism we had a social and economic system more based on reciprocity, whereby there were mutual duties between participants.
In terms of societies it might have been highly stratified, but there were obligations, however imbalanced these were.”
Confucianism is based on five fundamental relationships:
Ruler — Minister
Minister — People
Husband — Wife
Parent — Child
and:
Sibling — Sibling
The rights and duties involved went both ways although often the Confucian text would be distorted to favour one side rather than the other. There was also the idea that in the absence of malign influences these relationships would be naturally harmonious. Indeed the Sanzi Jing, a Confucian text that for centuries was used a to teach reading opens with “All people are born perfect. They only become evil through the acquisition of bad habits.”
Much of this tradition has survived the introduction of capitalism in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and, to a lesser extent, Singapore. The PRC has found it expedient to incorporate many Confucian ideas into its official ideology.
Oliver Eagleton has a book on Labour leader Keir Starmer’s past life as Director of Public Prosecutions, and what it reveals about the kind of politician he is:
‘The widespread notion that Starmer is a political outsider – with no experience in this domain before his election to parliament in 2015 – is therefore mistaken. Actually, Starmer spent much of his time as DPP advancing the government’s overseas agenda, negotiating with world leaders on its behalf, rewriting CPS guidelines to complement its domestic programme, and shielding its allies from investigation. He acted as a Cameron–Osborne mouthpiece on issues from welfare entitlements to public order.
Accompanying this transition was a growing bureaucratic mentality, developed at the CPS and then transplanted to the political sphere…
…Starmer’s technocratic method compensated for an inability to make swift or definitive decisions, allowing him to hide behind official processes and delegate difficult judgements.’
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/keir-starmer-the-lawyer
I bought it when it was published. At the time I posted on here that if 50% of this well-referenced book is correct, we are in trouble. The book appears to be nearer 100% than 50% now.
I bought this book as a result of recommendations herein.
I think the classic summary is encompassed as:
“…Starmer’s technocratic method compensated for an inability to make swift or definitive decisions, allowing him to hide behind official processes and delegate difficult judgements.”
This seems to be the man in a nutshell.
Just when we need more unimaginative technocrats, this fella emerges..
A bit off topic but after seeing Farage insisting we had to leave the ECHR I tried to find out how many deportations were stopped by them. This is what I found. It surprised me.
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/explainers/the-uks-echr-record-how-common-are-rule-39-orders-and-how-often-is-the-uk-found-to-have-violated-rights/
Last year it was one!
Farage would probably say that is one too many.