Britain's Next Prime Minister Has Shown Us Who He Is, and It's Not Good.

[elleng]

(Sorry about my 'need' to share.)

'The outcome seems predestined. The British Conservative Party, moribund after 14 years in office and struggling to defend its record of routine corruption and economic mismanagement, is heading into Thursday’s general election with the backing of just 20 percent of the electorate. The opposition Labour Party, having run a colorless campaign whose main aim was to channel frustration with the government, is projected to win a huge parliamentary majority. That means that Labour’s leader, Keir Starmer, will be the country’s next prime minister.

How is he likely to govern? A former lawyer with a bland rhetorical style and a tendency to modify his policies, Mr. Starmer is accused by critics on the left and right alike of lacking conviction. He is labeled an enigma, a man who stands for nothing, with no plans and no principles. His election manifesto, which The Telegraph hailed as “the dullest on record,” appears to confirm the sense that he is a void and that the character of his administration defies prediction.

But a closer look at Mr. Starmer’s back story belies this narrative. His politics are, in fact, relatively coherent and consistent. Their cardinal feature is loyalty to the British state. In practice, this often means coming down hard on those who threaten it. Throughout his legal and political career, Mr. Starmer has displayed a deeply authoritarian impulse, acting on behalf of the powerful. He is now set to carry that instinct into government. The implications for Britain, a country in need of renewal not retrenchment, are dire.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/opinion/britain-election-keir-starmer.html

[OnDoutside]

1. It's behind the paywall, so what do the NYT believe is so dire ?

[elleng]

2. *Fortune has often smiled on Mr. Starmer. The government praised his performance

at the Crown Prosecution Service. The media celebrated his remaking of the Labour Party. Now, thanks to the Conservatives’ implosion, he is set to inherit the country. Yet contemporary Britain is not well. It is afflicted by stagnant growth and gutted public services, its work force is shrinking, its prisons are overcrowded, and more than a fifth of its population lives in poverty.

Solving such problems requires more than reverence for established institutions and small-minded attempts to silence their critics. But this, seemingly, is all the incoming prime minister has to offer.'

[OnDoutside]

3. Thanks.

Starmer is clearly an intelligent man, a genius compared to Johnson and Truss !

It MAY be pure dumb luck but he stands on the precipice of the greatest victory, or one of the greatest, in living memory. And all that from offering very little on anything in his manifesto. It potentially leaves him a free hand to govern.

I believe ultimately this Labour government are economically boxed in unless they move closer to the EU, that's what will determine their next 5 years and reelection.

If you remember when Starmer was elected leader, the Labour red wall was shattered by the Tories, and he inherited a divided party from Corbyn. His Brexit stance neutralised the topic as a Corbynite stick to beat him with, and has allowed him to squeeze a lot of them out, including Corbyn himself.

Whatever Starmer turns out to be, he is so much better than the Tories and his cabinet appears to be far better than any of the Tory Muppets.

There have been a number of hit piece anti Labour/Starmer articles in the last week, presumably in an effort to bring Labour's numbers down, but we should remember that this GE is a referendum on the most corrupt and incompetent British government in living memory.

[Layzeebeaver]

4. NYTimes predicting doom again

The countries in a mess. We need stalwart to see through to rebuilding a lot of things the Tories convinced the nation were boring.

Give the guy and the party he rebuilt a chance.

Plus he’s going to be the prime minister in multi-party parliamentary system. He’s not a president or a king.

[carpetbagger]

5. A UK socialist Hawking his book has a sad. Bfd.

I don't make much of it. It's like if Chomsky called Obama or Biden bland and disappointing.

No pony for Oliver Eagleton.

[regnaD kciN]

6. So, Tony Blair 2.0, except without the charisma?

[musicblind]

7. The UK has had five Prime Ministers since Brexit.

Let that sink in.

Brexit was a disastrous decision based on emotions rather than facts.

[brush]

8. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. At lease Labor doesn't have to defeat a neo-fascist like we do here.

[BlueMTexpat]

9. Given how the NYT has

harried Biden and lauded MAGAts, Starmer might not be all that bad.

[Pototan]

10. the NY Times has no credibility with me

both at home and abroad.

First it was the false claims about WMD and the cheerleading for the war in Iraq. Then Hillary's emails and the Comey letter. They started the Dems in Disarray bullshit. Biden's age and gaffes, ignoring the fucking utter lying danger of a wannabe dictator, Donald Trump. I could go on and on, but they are not knowledgeable and objective about the news in this country. Why would I believe them about their assessment in another?

Fuck The New York Time.

[mwooldri]

11. I'm in the truck, listening to LBC

Talk radio station, initially for London but now UK wide on digital radio.

They paint a very different picture. The Tories wheeling out Boris Johnson, looking like a cross between Les Patterson and Father Jack... Reminding us that BoJo was partying while people were dying of Covid... Folks aren't too worried about Keir Starmer, they think they're gonna get a blander Tony Blair Labour government... Oh and plenty of references to the "Client Media" (media in the bag for the Conservatives or Labour, but mainly Conservatives).

NY Times could now be "client media" in the bag for the Conservatives. Or Republicans.

[elleng]

12. Thanks for info.

'Cheerio'

[Emrys]

13. Since many of you don't seem to visit the UK Forum where we discuss issues such as this,

I'll repost an OP of mine from yesterday, which may moderate the enthusiam some of you seem to have about the prospects of a new UK government with Starmer at the helm. Make no mistake, the demise of the Tories can't come soon enough. What will follow looks far from promising.

Labour is putting its plans for Britain in the hands of private finance. It could end badly

Handing vital infrastructure to private investment companies will generate windfalls for investors and leave the rest of us worse off. We need a better plan

Daniela Gabor is professor of economics and macrofinance at UWE Bristol

The Labour party has a plan for returning to power: it will get BlackRock to rebuild Britain. Its reasoning is straightforward. A cash-strapped government that wants to avoid tax increases or austerity has no choice but to partner with big finance, attracting private investment to rebuild the infrastructure that is crumbling after years of Tory underinvestment. Labour has already done the arithmetic: to mobilise £3 of private capital from institutional investors, you need to offer them £1 in public subsidies. But every time you hear Labour announce such an infrastructure partnership, think of the hidden politics. BlackRock will privatise Britain – our housing, education, health, nature and green energy – with our taxpayer money as sweetener.

BlackRock has long peddled the idea of public-private partnerships for infrastructure, climate and development. Yet its political momentum has recently accelerated. When its chair, Larry Fink, the world’s most powerful financier, sat with world leaders at the G7 summit last month, he promised the following: rich countries need growth, infrastructure investment can deliver that growth, but public debt is too high for the state alone to invest the estimated $75tn (£59tn) necessary by 2040. Trillions, however, are available to asset managers who look after our pensions and insurance contributions (BlackRock, the largest of these firms, manages about $10tn, as a shrinking welfare state pushes us – future pensioners – into its arms).

If governments work with big finance, Fink explained, they can unlock these trillions. But to do so, they will need to mint public infrastructure into investable assets that can generate steady returns for investors. Why does BlackRock need the state? Why can’t it deploy trillions without the government’s helping hand? The British public remembers all too well PFIs, the private finance initiatives through which the state ended up paying extortionate amounts to private contractors that designed, built, financed or operated public services such as prisons, schools and hospitals before handing them back to the state, often in poor condition.

But for big finance, there is more now at stake. In this golden age of infrastructure, financiers plan to own our infrastructure outright and transform it into a source of steady revenue. Since buying Global Infrastructure Partners in January 2024, BlackRock holds about $150bn in infrastructure assets, including US renewable energy companies, wastewater services in France and airports in England and Australia. It plans to expand aggressively, just like other private infrastructure funds. Direct ownership is the main game, but not the only one. Big finance can also invest in infrastructure indirectly, by lending to private infrastructure companies. The key is returns. For this, BlackRock wants the state to “derisk” investments. This financial jargon was included in the 2024 Labour manifesto, and it in essence involves the state stepping in to improve the returns on infrastructure assets.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/02/labour-plans-britain-private-finance-blackrock

Many parts of Britain are indeed still paying off the debts resulting from deals arranged under the Private Finance Initiative contracts instigated by the Tories in 1992 and enthusiastically embraced by Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown from 1997 onward to fund infrastructure projects, including roads, hospitals and schools, while keeping the government's books less in the red than they might otherwise be.

The Tories announced in 2018 that they would abandon the use of PFI. The deals currently in force - there are around 700 of them in the UK as a whole - still apply, but the earlier ones are beginning to expire, a major part of that shift beginning next year, meaning the assets will be returned to local authorities or the state. And given the shoddy workmanship in some cases which has seen disasters like whole walls of some schools collapsing, along with unsuitable materials such as reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete now revealed to have been used in a number of public buildings, that may prove even more costly than the already too business-friendly terms of some of the deals.

And now Labour looks set to expand this adventure in capitalism as a desperate attempt to fulfil its latest fetish for out-Torying the Tories and avoiding having to hike taxes by nationalizing the risks involved and privatizing the profits in a pattern that's grown all too familiar over the years.

Originally posted here: https://www.democraticunderground.com/108823124

[elleng]

14. Thanks

[Emrys]

15. You're welcome

Posts about UK politics on GD tend to sink like a stone, so I think a lot of us tend not to bother unless it's about something truly stupid but eyecatching. Thanks for your OP about issues that we'll no doubt have to discuss for some time to come.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. I think you have to read this as a Marxist complaint about Labour ignoring socialism

The New Left Review, which is where Oliver Eagleton mainly writes, is an honest Marxist publication, and so this is written from the point of view of someone who'd rather see Corbyn in charge of Labour. But this bit makes his argument look rather ridiculous:

he played a central role in kiboshing his own party’s position on the European Union, maneuvering to secure Labour’s support for a second referendum rather than accepting the vote to leave the bloc. This stance alienated many Brexit voters and helped ensure his party’s defeat in the 2019 election

If he really thinks Labour's problem in 2019 was Keir Starmer being too pro-EU, he's an idiot.