And just like that my constituency disappears. Wrapping like a skeewiff cummerbund around the svelte middle of the Potteries, Stoke-on-Trent Central stretches from a hint of countryside up Stockton Brook way, and snugly grips Baddeley Green, Abbey Hulton, and Bentilee. It takes in Hanley which, confusingly for outsiders, is Stoke's city centre (not Stoke town itself), and scoops downwards to embrace Eaton Park, Etruria, Shelton, before bending towards Newcastle-under-Lyme and making room for Hartshill, Penkhull, Boothen, Oakhill, and Trent Vale. These suburbs, estates, districts aren't going anywhere, but in a Boundary Commission land grab the North will advance South and the South will advance North with a new border settled more or less outside my front door. Stoke-on-Trent Central is set to become a memory that, from 2018, will be recalled only by election geeks and Wikipedia. Life is set to continue, but the Potteries are losing an MP. It won't be pretty either. Making three into two means at least one loses out, and who is that going to be? It might all of the incumbents - others could be waiting in the wings for a chance to acquire a seat for themselves. With high stakes such as these, Labour Party politics for the next couple of years threatens to be interesting, and that's without factoring in Jeremy Corbyn, the hundreds of new local members, and the ongoing battle for the party's soul. This isn't entirely unprecedented. We have been here before. In 2011 and 2012, under Dave's instruction, the Boundary Commission redrew the political map of Britain. Their brief was to equalise the number of electors per constituency and chop down the number of MPs by 50 to, as the government then put it, cut the cost of politics. In reality, it was a feeble attempt to link the "national emergency" posed by the deficit to the gerrymandering of constituency boundaries for Conservative electoral advantage. The LibDems killed it off while they were in Coalition but, unfortunately, with last year's Tory majority the fix was always coming back. And so we have today's first draft, drawn up again on the same principles which, if implemented, will make it much more difficult for Labour to ever win a general election. With fewer marginal seats to fight over it makes them even more important, apparently demanding a Blair-ish triangulation strategy to win over the timid, conservative-leaning voter in the timid, conservative-leaning swing seat. It's almost as if the whole thing is designed that way. This, however, is but the first draft. There's to be a repeat of the consultations and public gnashing of teeth. And, to be fair to the Boundary Commission last time, they did make some pretty big changes after listening to thousands of submissions. I recall previous proposals feeding Stoke Central anabolic steroids and swelling to a silly size, biting chunks out of the North and South constituencies now poised to share its unloved carcass. This followed the first draft in which Central reached out and nicked a bit of Staffordshire Moorlands around Werrington. As a large, relatively well-to-do village, I was privy to one or two snobby letters dead set against to the proposal, claiming this leafy dormitory for folk who mainly work and shop in the city "had nothing to do with Stoke-on-Trent". I digress. Once representations are made, I expect there will be more changes. But ultimately, the outcome is the same" the Potteries loses an MP, and Labour gets stiffed. There are many more problems with the boundary review as presently constituted. Chief among which is constituencies are getting redrawn according to the registered electorate, not population, and those electorate figures are from December 2015. This was after hundreds of thousands dropped off the register thanks to changes to the registration process, and before two million extra people re-registered to take part in the EU referendum. It is hopelessly out-of-date and is set to recompose British politics off inaccurate data. For Theresa May, this attempt to cook the next election's books is a test of her alleged One Nation Toryism. As someone who's always been sceptical about a snap general election (even putting down an amendment to the Fixed Term Parliaments Act requires Parliamentary time, which comes with plenty of warning), and as May has ruled one out, I believe she has a clear incentive to keep the boundary review going. Uncharacteristically, this is one set of findings she won't be kicking into the long grass. And yet, if it does go through, it could store up very serious problems for British politics. As noted recently, the reason why revolutionary movements have a tendency to either become domesticated or disappear in liberal democracies is because constitutionalism opens up political paths for the achievement of objectives without the constant mobilisation and pressure of extra-parliamentary activity, be it demonstrations, strikes, occupations, or other forms of direct action. If the constitutional path is choked off, then it is reasonable to assume that more radical, confrontational politics strike down thicker and wider roots. This is what May's Tories are playing with. I'm not suggesting a huge revolutionary movement will rise up, but if something as simple as the everyday interests of the labour movement are locked out of official politics because of boundary fixes, they will find expression in other ways. Some of which might be sharp, militant, and violent. And so the ball is very much in May's court. How much does she want to see the Tories win? Is she as entirely short-sighted as per her late and unlamented predecessor, or will she stop and think for a moment? Dave, as a man afflicted with a disastrous gambling habit was happy to risk the legitimacy of the British political system for the small reward of a few dozen extra seats. Is May?
Asked why he wanted to be Prime Minister, Dave reportedly replied it was because "I thought I'd be rather good at it". Well, I have some news. He turned out to not be very good at all. And as he draws a curtain on a political career that hadn't even begun when this century started, it's time to reflect and take stock. 100 years from now Dave will be remembered only for one thing, and that's Brexit. Future historians and biographers will rightly conclude that his career was one gamble after another. As the rewards diminished over time, so the stakes grew higher. Detoxifying the Tories to the extent they became the party that pushed equal marriage through the house cost Dave little beyond losing his party's wing of the unreconstructed and unhinged. And three years later to woo back this sliver of activists and thin layer of voters, Dave staked Britain's membership of the European Union and its position in the single market. We know what happened next. Leading politicians do feel the need to dress their politics up in some sort of world view. Dave didn't really have a philosophy as such. Yes, he did try the Big Society wheeze, which was exactly that. On its own terms, official efforts to encourage civic mindedness and volunteering isn't objectionable. Giving social enterprise and the third sector more recognition, and highlighting cooperatives was no bad thing in and of itself. But critics, and they were legion, were quick to point out that increased volunteering was to compensate for the swingeing cuts to public services under his watch. For instance, many a library saw paid posts deleted as budgets radically imploded, and had to rely on the good grace of unpaid amateurs to remain open. I don't know whether this was Dave's intention - his six years as Prime Minister showed a remarkable resistance to the radical notion that actions have consequences, but the Big Society was something that kept a few wonks in employment. Nor was there much distinctive about Dave's politics apart from egregious opportunism. For cheap electoral reasons, he and Osborne seized upon the 2008 stock market crash and subsequent bail outs as evidence of Labour "profligacy". The tanking economy, we were told, was a consequence of the huge debt Gordon Brown had piled up. Cause and effect were cynically swapped around, and the message driven home that everything would get fixed if public spending was reined in. With a supine media and an opposition turning immediately inwards to fight a leadership election, once Dave assumed power he defined the terms of the discussion. The deficit was all; it was the black hole that sucked politics into a spiralling, doomed orbit around it. Against the backdrop of a crisis of capitalism, and from the standpoint of the British economy, it was absolutely the wrong thing to do. It choked off investment and the economy stalled, gaining momentum only after this stupid and ignorant plan got junked. But its immediate effect was to stoke fear and social anxiety, to allow employers to speed up casualisation and precarity, and erode the social wage further. Grounds perfect for a fear-mongering election campaign the Tories later won. But again, one should not credit Dave with Machiavellian genius. He was no thinker and did not ponder his politics in these terms. He was spontaneously neoliberal, and therefore committed to the magical, recuperative power of unregulated markets simply because that was Tory common sense. Petty prejudice and predisposition, not politics, was his guide. It just so happens that they always operate to the benefit of the wealthy few. And now, he's gone. The self-justifying memoir is bound to appear in due course, just as the clutch of directorships will surely present themselves. Yes, Dave shall be remembered alright. All political careers end in failure. But few suffer the ignominy of climaxing in complete disaster.
Oh what a lovely war! I speak not of the Labour Party on this occasion, but of the crisis engulfing our friends in the United Kingdom Independence Party. As I'm sure readers know by now, Steven Woolfe has been excluded from the leadership race by the party's NEC. This is a big deal because a) he was the front runner, and b) an apparently talented politician in a field of blockheaded mediocrity. In his not-at-all-bitter reply to the NEC, he attacks the body as "not fit for purpose" and believes it was unprofessional. Three of its members agree and have quit the committee. A few ordinary members have taken to social media and declared their resignation from the party, and there's a change.org petition circulating calling for Douglas Carswell's head. And to rub it in Diane James has plundered Woolfe's campaign pages, nicking his slogan and logos. Hold on while I get the door, my tanker full of popcorn has just arrived. From the point of view of UKIP officialdom, it is quite right Woolf be excluded from the leadership race. He didn't get the application in on time because reasons. Then there is the awkward revelation he let his membership lapse for a year, meaning he doesn't cross the continuous membership threshold. And lastly, he forgot to declare a prior conviction for drink driving when he stood as a Police and Crime Commissioner candidate. Tut, tut, Steven. If you can't figure out your nuts and your bolts, why would anyone trust you to put flat back furniture together, let alone run a political party with four million votes to its name? To be honest, I was utterly indifferent to the prospect of a Woolfe leadership. He is a competent performer on Question Time and has something more about him than other well known UKIP figures. Not being entirely odious chief among them. But the figure he cuts is of a mainstream politician who wouldn't look out of place in the Tories or on the right of Labour. The purples, however, are a populist force built on inchoate anger and alienation from the world. There's nothing to suggest Woolfe has the kind of personality or charisma to sustain a party built around Farage's personage. He is an entirely forgettable grey blur who, as far as the party's base are concerned, has risen without a trace and would have a hard time making an impression in a sand pit, let alone the political imagination of the "people's army". Not the kind of leader you need when UKIP is entering choppy waters. The problem with UKIP is it came to prominence by hiving a chunk off the Tories who, historically, in terms of values, support, and natural constituency are in long-term decline. Perhaps May's Milibandism can turn it around, perhaps not. Anyway, generationally speaking, confirmed Tory voters are not being replaced like for like. As UKIP splashed big with middle-aged and elderly white men, and made virtually no headway among the under-40s, at its core the party was made as a declining force. Despite all the talk of UKIP coming in and doing an SNP in Labour's heartlands, it picked up little over two dozen councillors in this year's locals, which were concentrated in those self-same core areas. And that was while its core issue - Brexit - was salient and they still had Farage at the helm. The core task for UKIP, as it is for any new(ish) party wanting a long-term future is to find and articulate the demands of a particular constituency. UKIP's problem is the most backward sections of capital, of small business and the shire middle classes, the retired manual workers and the lumpens aren't what you would call rising political forces, unlike the new working class powering the Corbynist moment. Nor are they particularly stable, which helps explain why the kippers are faction ridden and chaotic, if not shambolic. The field judged competent to stand by the NEC are nowhere near qualified to address the existential problems UKIP are facing. Bigoted and ignorant, you have to wonder whether this shower is enough to prompt one of Farage's famous unresignations. Assuming that doesn't happen, Diane James has to be the favourite. At least the activists have heard of her, though the other parties will have fun with her Putinist fangirling. The other thing in her favour is she is entirely vacuous. Believe me, when the most appalling bigots are also standing this gives her candidacy an edge. Nevertheless, all are woefully out of their depth dealing with the crisis waiting to call time on their party. Woolfe, to his credit, seemed to recognise UKIP's multiple weaknesses, hence his talk about social justice was more than just rhetoric: it was to be his way out of the angry man/small r racist ghetto. Alas, the Woolfe was at the door but the NEC shut it to him. And by doing so, they have rendered a service to those who can't wait to see the back end of this poisonous little party.
A week in politics is an eternity these days, but can you remember that speech in front of 10 Downing Street? You know, when Theresa May looked down the barrel of the lens and channelled her inner Ed Miliband? The idea of a fundamentally different Tory party embracing its One Nation heritage and embedding it in a different economic programme certainly raised a few eyebrows. How's that looking so far? Unfortunately, the sincerity of Tory Keynesianism has fallen at the first hurdle. May was very clear in the early stages of the leadership contest that the state should step in and prevent the sale of large businesses with strategic leverage. And so we have ARM and its sale to Softbank for �24bn. Not for the first time during the Tories' tenure, a key economic actor - in this case a giant in the increasingly important global high-technology market - has been sold off with the government blandly cheering it on from the sidelines. What has been gained by the Tories as they've traded in future tax revenues, a burgeoning British-owned lead in the so-called internet-of-things, and the possibility of integrating a dynamic and socially useful company into an industrial strategy? Philip Hammond earlier heralded it as a vote of confidence in the British economy, which of course it wasn't - it's the purchasing of a market leader at a reasonable price. And, I'm afraid to say that is precisely why ARM's sale has had the government's nod. As we slope along the path of slow Brexit, May is going to pull out all the stops to ensure that, as far as business is concerned, nothing has changed. Britain is still one of the best places to invest, in or out of the EU, and you can swoop in and pick up the family silver with nary a murmur. Anything, anything that can stand in for and represent those sound fundamentals allegedly bequeathed by George Osborne will be seized upon and broadcast from the roof tops. Even if, again, it is entirely counterproductive from the standpoint of British business as a whole. Softbank have said nothing will change. ARM will stay headquartered in Cambridge. The staff doubled. Everything hunky-dory, but we've heard that story many times before these last six years. I'm sceptical this buy out will prove any different in the medium term, unfortunately. What it shows without the shadow of any doubt is despite the promises to govern for the whole people, May's Tories on their first test have proved no different to Dave's term in office. A strategic company has been let go just for the sake of a brief market-soothing headline. Conservative decadence lives on, uninterrupted.
Or, to be more accurate, what's happening to politics in general? The times they are a changin', and things are happening so fast that it's difficult to keep up. This week we've had a new PM, the ruthless purging of the Cameroons, two Labour leadership challenges (including one as I write this), the drama of *that* NEC meeting, the draconian rules on voting eligibility, and two legal challenges. Compounding the sense of chaos were the horrors of Nice and the failed Turkish coup - both awful events that will reverberate for years to come. When there is too much happening and you haven't got a staff of writers to help keep the blog updated, the only thing you can do is step back and reflect. Which is precisely what I'm going to do in this post about the state of British politics. It's time to go beyond the personalities and positions of the factions and look at what's moving in the guts of society so we can get a sense of what's happening to our politics. Firstly, the thing isn't to pretend that everything was fine and dandy before the Brexit vote. Or, for that matter, Jeremy's election as Labour leader last year. Or before the general election. Or the Scottish referendum. The rapid, bewildering change we're now experiencing is amplified by recent events, but have their roots far deeper in the changes to Britain's political economy. To get close to understanding what's going on, a standpoint informed by the sociological imagination is required. The only alternatives are the realms of conspiracy theorising, or the fixation with personalities as per professional punditry. It is now generally known and widely accepted that the 1980s saw deep and far reaching change to British capitalism and the class structure underpinning it. On the one hand you had the transition away from manufacturing as the bedrock of Britain's economic strength to an economy dominated by service provision (and hence mass consumption) and the production of immaterial commodities. Examples of this aren't just the aforementioned availability of services, but also knowledge, financial "products", and digital goods. The post-industrial trend wasn't just confined to Britain - it is the lot of all the advanced capitalist nations, though the way this transition was handled and the depth to which it was carried through varies from state to state. Bound up with this, at least in the UK, was the destruction of the institutional props of the post-war economic order - casualties of an unsparing, ruthless class war waged by Thatcher and her governments. The common sense that full employment was the objective of economic and social policy got junked. All that mattered was keeping inflation low, public spending down, and letting the market run amok. That the Conservatives and the interests they represent happened to benefit materially from tearing up the social contract was more than coincidental. To reach this destination the state had to take on the organised labour movement, which Thatcher did in set-piece battles. Closing nationalised industries in the early 80s weakened the bargaining position of labour by flooding the market with millions of unemployed workers. Attacking the miners - the big batallion of the organised working class - and defeating them after a year-long struggle was the pivotal moment. Other struggles coincident with it, such as the dockers' strike and the collision between the government and Militant-led Liverpool City Council were paid off at the time and were clobbered once Thatcher dealt with her main enemy. That put trade unionism permanently on the back foot and we haven't recovered since. The labour movement has sat largely powerless as public services and state enterprises were sold off, broken up, or gutted by market forces. Neoliberalism, the common sense that markets were best at everything didn't come into being because it was "what worked", it's a philosophy justifying exploitation and the continued seizure of the greater part of social wealth by a tiny, powerful minority. It became the commonsense because they won. Nothing lasts forever though, not even defeat. Because capitalism is a class system that carries within it the seeds of its own demise, seeing off challenges and challengers from within is a constant, ceaseless accomplishment. And the present political turbulence reminds us of this fact. The defeat of the miners and the full bore market fundamentalism Thatcher unleashed trashed the institutions that suppressed inequality, the communities that produced a "work ready" working class, the trade unions that fought for our share of the social wealth that we produced. It paved the way for New Labour's market-embracing approach, locked down social mobility, and made insecurity and anxiety the lot of millions. Our culture became schizophrenic and disjointed - at once atomised, powerless, and at the employer's mercy while flattered, seduced, and kowtowed to by the blandishments of consumption. Affluent lifestyles paraded as its trappings became less affordable, especially for the young. The defeat of the post-war social order changed politics more profoundly than the turn to market fundamentalism and the (temporary) death of socialism. It weakened the relationship between the two main political parties and their constituencies, and was expressed in declining membership and joint vote share. While never actually total, in the Labour Party's case falling numbers and less input from the trade unions enabled moves to insulate the parliamentary party from the base and create a more authoritarian party in which power was concentrated in the leader's office and an iron grip exerted. As, under Blair, Labour made its neoliberal turn the constituency the party traditionally represented had a more passive relationship to its party. The transmission belt that would take shop stewards from the factory floor and into politics ceased, replaced by an over-preponderance of graduates from the party's middle class wing. Exacerbated by a strategy that ignored working class support to concentrate on the marginals of the leafy suburbs and (relatively) affluent towns, the atomisation of our class enabled the autonomy Blair's office and the party apparatus under his control. The continued pursuit of neoliberal policy by Labour in power ensured that, in its fundamentals, this relationship carried through into the Brown era and opposition under Ed Miliband. Something similar afflicted the Tories too. Their deindustrialisation impacted negatively on whole sections of capital, small and large, and enriched some at the expense of others. Their market fundamentalism promoted selfish individualism at the expense of the family, of community, and of what they're supposed to represent at a values level - conservation. Under Blair, for the first time in their history the Tories went from preferred party of government to British capital's second eleven. For a brief period Blair's success in rebranding Labour as the party of business broke the Tories' claim to being its natural home. The consequence was the triple debacle of Hague, IDS, and Howard, and the pre-eminence of those business interests that did stick around: the socially useless but superficially dynamic city slickers, and the most backward, least competitive sections of capital. Hence under Dave, his and Osborne's economic and political programme was wedded to these interests, which were counterproductive from the standpoint of business as a whole, and ran the most sectional government in modern times in the hope of rewinning what was lost to New Labour. But as they did so, traditionally anti-Labour working class people, its petit bourgeois support, and the core Tory shire supporters were isolated, atomised, and ignored. They too had nowhere to go. Constituencies were cut off from their traditional parties did not mean grievance and anger didn't stop accumulating. Sooner or later large numbers of ostensibly powerless people realise that strength of numbers does give them power and influence, and eventually find their way into politics. In other words, the disconnect prepares the ground for an eventual reconnect. There were two early signs the autonomy of politics couldn't carry on indefinitely. There was the rise of the LibDems throughout the 90s to the point they went into coalition. They represented something new and fresh, especially as they took a superficial social democratic turn under Ashdown and Kennedy. Even before the Iraq War, there were plenty of people in my age group happy to give them a punt against the bland managerialism of Blair and the repulsive conservatism of the Tories. For others, especially the most down trodden and semi-lumpenised section of our class, the BNP took off in a number of areas as a protest vote against established politics. In both these cases though, the protest was sporadic, inchoate, and passive. Matters moved up a notch as the LibDems collapsed and the BNP folded. First, UKIP, which was also a recipient of increased levels of passive support during the 00s, hit the big time after Dave alienated a good number of toxic "traditional" Tories over his equal marriage stance. The significance here was that it affected a split within the party itself as activists decamped to UKIP and it started wracking up impressive parliamentary by-election votes and became the go-to party of protest. UKIP then represented a partial reconnection to politics by those on the right alienated by the official right. The next big earthquake was Scotland. Treated like a fiefdom by the Labour Party for too long, what happened was decades in the making. Rotten boroughs with tiny, barely functioning constituency parties, this was the part of Labour's apparatus that had intentionally been allowed to decay so the dominance of the PLP and the machine could continue unhindered. As it became more remote from its core support and promulgated policies opposite to the aspirations of its voters, the Scottish referendum and the catalyst of mass politicisation saw the party collapse as newly energised, active voters flocked to the SNP. In an incredibly short space of time, the SNP has cohered a solid rock of support that would take Labour decades to shift - if it can at all. The raw ingredient, again, was people who were atomised and ignored by established politics, and who rushed in once the possibility of making a difference was perceived. And now the same process is working its way through the Labour Party. To have more than doubled in size in less than a year is incredible, and for a mass audience for radical, socialist politics to appear more or less overnight is breathtaking. It too is a product of mass alienation, of people in large numbers feeling angry and ignored for years. Their charging onto the political stage is entirely welcome and should be encouraged, despite the crudity, anger, and naivete that often accompanies it. Those cut off from Labour for the best part of 20 years, including those for whom Labour has always been just another establishment outfit, are cohering collectively around our party. The Corbyn moment last year, and the monstering that has taken place since is politicising and driving even more people into the party, transforming it from a party centered around Westminster constitutionalism into something that could do that and more. This means the leadership election is about more than who's the most competent, it is the site of a battle between an old order (understandably) wedded to previous realities and a new just beginning to become aware of itself. The potential danger is if this is successfully blocked then this new wave would find expression elsewhere, either through the Greens, or an evolving anti-political strand in the trade unions (yes, I think this movement of people will start working its way through the unions in time), or - very unlikely - a strengthening of the hitherto entirely marginal far left. The election then is a choice between a Jeremy-led Labour Party with all the problems it entails, or a party on the road to ruin. It's a matter more serious than winning or losing the next general election, it's whether the party survives as a going concern. What's happening, then? Change is happening, and it's been a long time coming. Masses of people excluded for decades by broad social trends and deliberate political choices have, in spite of those processes, seized an opening and are remaking politics. And not before time - for apathy and anti-politics to melt before active political engagement is something that should have every democrat in this country rejoicing. Our party cannot avoid this and go back to the way things were. We either embrace the change and find ourselves strengthened in the long-run, or oppose it and invite our ruin.
Finally the curtain has fallen on the era of Dave and Osborne. A day I've longed to see, but one that has only happened because they trashed the country and left a trail of devastation we'll be picking over for decades. But more of them another time, for we have a new tenant in Downing Street. Theresa May's speech this afternoon was very much the kind of speech you'd expect Ed Miliband to have made if history turned out somewhat differently. Whereas One Nationism was very much rhetorical cover for Dave and his sectional two-nation politics, May has made such a song and dance about the kind of Britain she wants to preside over that we might actually see some of that blue collar Toryism that's excited the wonks for a while. If May follows through her rhetoric, this is a significant shift for the Tories. From policies that are self-destructive and self-defeating back to "responsible" custodians of capital as a whole, her premiership is looking to be the most Keynesian since Jim Callaghan's. What an absurd world we live in. But it makes economic and political sense for the Tories to do what needs to be done. The economy is in a weak state and teeters on the edge of a nervous breakdown thanks to the Brexit vote. What British business desperately needs is stability, hence May's pledge for a slow Brexit and no mention of austerity. Politically, as Labour settles in for a summer of self-harming she's seeking to redefine the centre ground around a Tory party interested in managing things and doing what works - all the better for painting Labour as wildly left regardless of who wins the leadership contest. On her appointments, they are indisputably political decisions - as they always are. Ability comes second. And so, Boris Johnson is resurrected as foreign secretary, giving him opportunity for rehabilitation and a position in the public eye. Guaranteeing, indeed, that he and his still powerful faction don't cause trouble. The appointment of David Davis and disgraced former minister (now disgraced current minister) Liam Fox to the new Brexit and international trade ministries is further red meat for her back benchers. And Amber Rudd is pretty much May's mini-me - expect continuity of the most rancid, racist kind at the Home Office. Them's the politics, but what bumps lie ahead? There is always a danger of history repeating. Having struck a 'no flash, just Gordon' pose from the beginning of her leadership campaign, competence depends on decisiveness, as Brown found to his cost. Her immediate problem is the general election question. Does she run the risk of an Autumn/Spring contest? She has ruled it out so far, but the rumour mill will churn and the press have column inches to fill. The other option, and one that might play to her one nation instincts is a national government that could cripple and split the opposition - especially now. Failing that, the slim majority isn't a problem that has gone away. May remains vulnerable to the Tories' taliban tendency who want Article 50 enacted yesterday. Slow Brexit is something they will find difficult to reconcile themselves with, despite the appointments of Davis and Fox. When the outcome isn't to their liking, because it won't be, what happens then? And on economic policy, after decades of free market dogma the shift to overt Keynesianism might befuddle those rare Tories yet to realise principle comes second to power. It should never be forgotten though that if May does embark on her Milibandist programme, it's not because she's been converted to centre leftism. It's about the preservation of British capitalism. It will provide our movement new opportunities and audiences for deepening some of the measures her government ends up pushing through, but as Tories they will be careful to ensure they do not empower the collective power of working people. In this, it's up to us to ensure their efforts to keep us down prove fruitless.
"In truth @andrealeadsom better suited to obscurity than high office" so tweeted backbench Tory Sarah Wollaston this morning. And I for one find it hard to disagree. Since Leadsom was touted as a potential leader in the early days of the referendum campaign, I've watched her rise to media prominence and for the life of me couldn't discern anything special about her. A pantomime Thatcher at best who could repeat her lines, but without the conviction and drive the aforementioned possessed. Then at one of the referendum debates, I forget which one, she prefaced her remarks about some issue with the killer phrase, "as a mum ...". I knew then this would be her schtick, and so it has proven. Her reaction to Saturday's interview in The Times shows her up to be either a deeply stupid or deeply duplicitous individual. After raising the 'I'm a mum and therefore better than Theresa May' flag, she backpedaled saying her words has been misrepresented. See for yourself:
I am sure Theresa will be really sad she doesn't have children so I don't want this to be 'Andrea has children, Theresa hasn't' because I think that would be really horrible but genuinely I feel that being a mum means you have a very real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake. She possibly has nieces, nephews, lots of people, but I have children who are going to have children who will directly be a part of what happens next.
This is the new "innovation" test driven by the Leave campaign: make an outrageous or controversial claim, and then immediately take it back. Here Leadsom is making an unpalatable pitch to the yellowing Tory grass roots who are a touch less reconstructed than Dave and friends, and then retracting it immediately. But it doesn't matter. She's made her I'm-thinking-what-you're-thinking wink to the shires, and that's what counted. Job done. What will be harder for her to weather are the claims about her "finessed" CV, the reports about her non-performance in her present role, and previous positions taken around equal marriage and the European Union. Does Leadsom stand a chance with the membership? It's difficult to say. Despite attempts by some, including Arron Banks, to organise an entry job on the Tories and swing the result their rules ensure anyone joining now won't have a say on the leadership contest. The potential difficulty for Leadsom is the membership drift that took place under Dave. Her base are in UKIP, effectively. Another problem is the blue collar wing, best exemplified by Stephen Crabb's candidacy and represented in the House by the likes of Anna Soubry. As the most pragmatic and arguably least unhinged section of the Tories (Crabb's endorsement of "gay-curing" notwithstanding), May has moved quickly to scoop up this bootstraps vote, which she adds to the Westminster wonk set, the activists interested in winning elections and, crucially, the Tories' money men. Apart from the rump backward brigade at the bottom of the pile, it's difficult to see where a Leadsom vote is going to come from. In many ways, Leadsom is a perfect candidate for the Tories. Inept, clueless, economical with the actualit�, she condenses in her person the decadence of her party. This is a theme visited here plenty of timespreviously. The Tories are a decadent party because they are structurally dysfunctional from the standpoint of the interests they represent which, traditionally, is big business. By introducing policies that price Britain out of international education markets, or give infrastructure contracts to foreign powers, or taking money out of workers' pockets, and now withdrawing Britain from the European Union because UKIP threatened to grab a few thousand votes here and there, the Tories are proving the greatest threat to the continued health of British capitalism. It is therefore apt someone as obviously unsuited as Leadsom should come forward as a serious contender for the party's leadership. Though she would differ from the decadence of Dave and Osborne in one respect - they were prepared to trash the country for perceived narrow Tory advantage within the party system. With Leadsom we'd be skirting the abyss on account of her ignorant whims.
Who saw that coming? Nigel Farage's resignation as UKIP leader yesterday morning is for keeps. He does have a habit of going back on his word, as he did in 2009 and 2015, but this time - hopefully - it really is third time lucky. In his parting shot, Farage declared that its future lies in taking Northern and Midlands seats off the Labour Party, a boast that has thrown some folk into a tizz. While threats from UKIP should be taken seriously, we're not going to see a meltdown of Scotland proportions afflict our party, and I'm going to tell you why. To emphasise, this isn't a counsel for complacency, but an attempt to inject some sobriety into the discussion about UKIP. First things first, there was no sign of UKIP doing well in the build up to the European referendum. The pollsters are totally discredited after calling it wrong, but nevertheless what they do pick up is movement, they are reliable in detecting shifts of opinion. During August and September in 2014 they all spotted the rocket firing beneath the SNP and the death spiral of Scottish Labour. Where UKIP are concerned in the lead up to the EU referendum, there was nary a sign of increased support. They were placed somewhere between 12% and 17% and never threatened a break out. The story from actual by-elections paint a gloomier picture. Since June last year, they have lagged behind the Liberal Democrats in all monthly tallies bar one - this after a solid three years as the third party in England and Wales. Of the three parliamentary by-elections outside London to have taken place since the general election, UKIP came a distant second in all three and there is very little sign they ate into Labour's vote. If Labour are losing votes to the purples, our party is picking them up from others in numbers that more than compensate. UKIP on the other hand seem to be consolidating the traditional anti-Labour working class vote. In all, if it waddles like a declining party and quacks like a declining party ... The second point to remember is so-called "red UKIP" is nothing new. Readers may recall the BNP, as per the traditional "one nation" politics of fascist organisations, regularly went to the electorate with old Labour-sounding policies and populist nationalism. Despite the the panic at the time, the BNP peaked at 60-odd councillors, two MEPs, and a London Assembly member. Perhaps their opportunist "labourism" hoodwinked some voters, but their support was contained and thrown back. Can UKIP do any different? Well ... no. In 2013 the purples dumped their pig ignorant "libertarianism" because Farage deemed it an obstacle to electoral success. Since 2014, they have been working very hard to target Labour-voting working class areas and where has it got them? You might have expected to see significant advances in the local elections just gone, elections that took place in areas Labour can expect (and has historically) to do well in. How did it go? UKIP netted 25 councillors while Labour overall lost 11 (not 18 - lazy commentators routinely miss out the seven gains made in late-counting Bristol). These aren't the sorts of advances you'd expect to see from a party poised to clean up the Labour heartlands. In fact, it fits a pattern. In 2013, the year UKIP went big, they gained 139 councillors. In 2014, they went up 163. And last year, 176. Steady growth in non-metropolitan boroughs, rural areas, swing seats, and next to bugger all on Labour's home turf. These present Labour with a problem and a challenge, but not an existential crisis. Thirdly, there's little point getting excited about the contest to become UKIP's new leader. The party was a one man band, despite the best efforts of getting Suzanne Evans, Diane James, and Paul Nuttall in the media. The appeal the party has among older, white working and middle class men very much depends on the figure of Farage. As I've argued before, the person and image of the UKIP leader is of the well-heeled but no bullshit gaffer who'd bollock you at work, but go out for a pint with you afterwards. No other leading kipper has the kind of charisma that can appeal to the sorts of support favourably disposed to this kind of political personality. James is a non-entity, Nuttall affects well the persona of an ignorant thug, and Evans is too Tory (and too suspended). None of these people would be known to us if it wasn't for Farage, and without him it's difficult to see what kind of future any of them have. Fourth, UKIP is a creature of decline. Or, rather, their rise to prominence is a result of the slow-burning crisis of the Conservative Party. Here is a party that despite retaining its status as a formidable election-winning machine has been shedding members like they're going out of fashion (though, it should be noted, they have put on numbers since the referendum) and their infrastructure in a state of collapse. In addition the core vote is aging and it's not being replaced like-for-like by younger cohorts. UKIP's breakthrough owed everything to Dave's decision to push through equal marriage - it feasted heartily on former Tory activists appalled by this concession to the 21st century. Yet this source of nourishment meant UKIP was effectively born again as a declining force, even while seemingly strong and pushing forward. The problems afflicting the Tories afflicts them too, albeit with an even narrower base. Long-term their organisation and social weight is shrinking, and there is nothing that the Brexit vote can do to reverse it. In fact, if anything, it could hasten their demise. And that's just it, what does a single issue party built around an individual do when it's mission accomplished and the leader elects to spend more time propping up bars? As an immediate campaigning focus, UKIP HQ have advised its branches to work against a second referendum, an eventuality that looks more remote by the day. I suppose the long delay between now and triggering Article 50 gives them some opportunities around hurrying Brexit up. And, as has already been indicated, continued access to the EU's single market depends on accepting free movement of people, a niche is available for an out-and-out anti-immigrant party. But UKIP's options are increasingly limited. I understand that 14,000 people joined the Tories immediately after Dave's resignation, and it's likely that number had gone up since - though I would be surprised if it's anywhere near Labour's tally. Arron Banks, the purples' sugar daddy, has urged Leave.EU supporters to join the Tories to back the dread Andrea Leadsom as Tory leader. However, that's money wasted as the party has a three month rule before one can vote in internal contests, such as the small matter of determining the next Prime Minister. Still, there is anecdotal evidence that a wing of UKIP is "coming home", strengthening the Tories and (temporarily) checking their historic decline. UKIP would become even more superfluous if Leadsom or Gove win. There then is UKIP. A declining force sliding into a political situation in which it will find itself squeezed. Yes, there is some mileage in its core constituency, so decline is more likely than collapse, and a return to pre-2013 (or even pre-2009) levels of support cannot be ruled out. There is no basis in polling evidence or the direction of social dynamics underlying their support for believing UKIP are on the verge of making it big. Quite the opposite.
