“It's clear what'll happen to the reactionary right. They've gone half-mad in power, talking all their now-standard gibberish about conspiracies and global elites and the rest. In opposition, that sense of grievance, viciousness and powerlessness is going to become truly ugly. They will have every psychological incentive to turn into the very worst versions of themselves, railing against the government in ever-more vitriolic ways, no matter how moderate its programme is.”
This is exactly what happened here in Australia when the 9 year right-wing Liberal government lost the 2022 general election to the Australian Labor Party. The rump of the Libs elected an almost comically hard man as Leader of the Opposition, who has led his party considerably farther to the right - with, of course, the inevitable full throated support of the Murdoch empire.
There are just three operating principles: say no to every government measure, no matter that the Opposition supported it when in power, offer no policy substance, and fixate upon a mythical glorious past.
As always, the right are so much better at intuiting that there are a great many in our community who yearn for simple solutions for complex problems.
Whilst I am in relatively broad agreement with what you outline here, there is one huge assumption that I think needs to be addressed - that in hoping for quiet, rational politics, people can to a large extent not have to be quite so involved in politics themselves, because the "sensibles" are now in charge, which in turn serves to shore up the status quo, inadvertently or not. Putting the desperate culture war bollocks of the Right to one side, my hope is that the increased scrutiny that you describe in your article continues after a Labour win at the next general election, with all politicians having to get used to being held to account by the electorate in a more rigorous way than the current "your turn, my turn" democratic duopoly desires.
Good point. To my mind, the less tribal policy-by-policy approach is actually more effective at scrutiny overall, because it grounds analysis in content rather than tribal identity.
I remember a wise friend point out that we live in a post-truth world, where stories matter more than facts. But as has been said often, facts have a liberal bias. Stories quite often have a reactionary, illiberal bias. That might go some way to explaining why these ideas get so much traction.
I've said this before but if we can not let perfect be the enemy of good we can have an elected government with cabinet ministers who have expertise and empathy and experience in the very department they are head of. Starmer is not my dream labour leader but he is a way out of this right wing populist nightmare so for me voting Labour is the only way forward. Let the far right of Reform and Sunaks ilk fight out their culture war amongst themselves now it's a dying act.
"There are Faithful and Traitors. If there are any Faithful left at the end of the game, they get the money. If there are any Traitors left at the end, they get the money."
The second sentence should read "If there are ONLY Faithful left at the end of the game, they get the money. Otherwise, if there are ANY Traitors left at the end, they get the money"
Insightful as ever. I think the The Traitors metaphor may actually describe the Conservative party infighting. No point in trying to get rid of Rishi until a GE, so before that, acting in a way to have a chance as or with his successor seems the main motivation of Conservative politicians. For most, it means increasing the culture war effort. This implies that, once in opposition, this will indeed continue to be the main attack strategy. But it sounds different coming from the opposition. Tories are going to have to discover for themselves that a protest party won't be electorally attractive. One lesson that UKip and Jeremy Corbyn's Labour's might have taught them will be lost on them.
The Labour policies of Corbyn were in fact very popular. It wasn’t the policies that were the problem. It was the media lies and the traitors in the Labour Party. Never forget that Starmer et al denied us a Labour government and helped inflict the current shitshow on us.
As popular as Corbyn's policies were with his followers the majority of people saw it as a vacuous wish list which in its entirity would have been not deliverable, there were some very interesting and plausible policies in Corbyn's manifesto but on mass it was not achievable thus the public saw through it and showed this at the ballot box.
It was fully costed in fact. Did you read the manifesto or the papers? And the money would have been spent on making things better for people rather than being given to Tories and their doners.
Tory governments create more debt than labour, always have.
A Labour Leader who can't even get Labour MPs to support his policies is not going to get floating voters to support them. His policies, therefore, can not have been ones to attract popular support.
Yet whenever the policies were put to “ the man in the street” just as policies they were very much liked.
Obviously not all Labour MPs supported the policies, but to sabotage the chance of a labour government and inflict the Tories on us is, certainly to me, unforgivable. Other opinions are available, but mine is that Starmer and his ilk are traitorous vermin and I fucking hate them for the Tory shitshow that we have had since 2017.
Really pleased to read this idea of the new media landscape being exposed to a change in tone.
I do think it will be very interesting to see what happens to a lot of unaligned commentators, see where they train their sights.
As much as I’m looking forward to seeing what’s left of the Tories year themselves asunder in search of a popularish populist direction, it’ll be so good for the soul not to be exposed to the endless shite they spew on an hourly basis.
It is important that they’re held to a high standard, even if they seem incapable of one themselves, as any coalescence, even one of the dregs, will hold plenty of agency with enough of the electorate and the client press by whom they are force-fed.
John McDonnell made the salient point that Labour without a real unifying theme and a term ending without sustained enthusiasm or proof of progress leaves the door open to the far right. I’d posit that the far right have taken the Tories’ door off its hinges and are twatting them with it for fun. Braverman’s naked agitation of the hooligan element at the Cenotaph was Fashy 101 - from inside the government.
Let’s hope this time next year this awfulness is consigned to a weird and way-too-long period in our politics.
I’m not normally a conspiracy theorist, but it seems so odd to me that so many countries, their politics and their media are experiencing the same thing-UK, US, Italy, France, Argentina, etc. Is it because so much of the media is under the control of a handful of oligarchs, a la the Murdochs? Or is there some foreign govt who stands to benefit from all the right wing populism fuelling it? All of it just sounds like one giant psyop. Or maybe I’m just too far down the rabbit hole myself.😂
Looking at history, this sort of thing happens to a country when something outside local control forces its residents out of their comfort zone. Historically, that could be an invasion, a crop failure, a pandemic, or a regional economic collapse.
We've had at least one of those causes globally in recent years - COVID-19 - and the thing that brings populist politics to the fore in this sort of situation is that it has simple, understandable claims about the cause of your discomfort, combined with a promise to fix things so that you can go back to your comfort zone.
Interesting that you write as if a new Labour government with Starmer is already a done thing, that neither the Tories can pass laws to restrict access to the vote (like US Republicans did when too many voted for the "wrong" party) nor that the right-wing, millionaire financed press can find something to smear Starmer with (wasn't one hopeful candidate sunk by a ham sandwich once?)
But to me, this new year is the year where we enter a worse dark age, beyond the UK: the Republicans have aligned everything, from passing laws in many states restricting the vote to fully ignoring the vote - state parliaments telling the collegium on whom to vote for, and have purged non-loyal politicans with principle, so Trump may likely steal the election legally (and after all, Bush jr called a judge because he was a friend of his father and stopped the legal process of counting all votes decades ago, so there's precedent).
Which means: no more aid for Ukraine, and EU still hasn't stepped up, so Ukraine will fall. Which will signal to the whole world that standing up to Autocrats and their Imperialism is useless because when it comes down to the edge, the West is more about making money and their own interests than backing up their ideals of democracy with commitment.
This will be translated by PCR as go-ahead to attack and occupy Taiwan, because if Republican USA doesn't want to spend a few million dollars on aid, they certainly won't send real soldiers to defend Taiwan.
In Europe, the Baltics know already they are next (they have been attacked by Putin already digitally) but with Trump leaving NATO, the EU parts of NATO failed to use the previous 8 years to arm up: it's not about the figure of 2% that matters (US spends far more, but a lot is pork-barrel contracts to big US companies, without any benefits to the soldiers in the field) but about having good capability with enough weapons, vehicles and ammunition plus well-trained soldiers. All that has been ignored, so NATO can't fight Russia without US.
Plus the ever-increasing wave of right-wing populists in government together with media.
While I hope your country manages a turn-around, I don't have much hope for the bigger picture.
Is right wing culture war more financially rewarding for journalists than centrism/liberalism? Without going to far down rabbit holes, if I start writing about small boats do I start getting cash from right wing think tanks and getting paid by shadowy figures to tweet stuff? Would seem a more rational explanation than Allison Pearson, Isabel oakeshott going mad or just lying to provoke wokies like me .
It's a fair question, I think. I do think there's a more widespread and profitable media network on the right. Look at the outlets: Spectator, the Critic, Telegraph, Mail, Express, GB News, Talk TV, the list goes on. On the left you have, what? Guardian, Statesman, and maybe Prospect? Same goes for think tanks. It's a more limited space, so there's a good incentive to write another bit of anti-woke gibberish instead.
“It's clear what'll happen to the reactionary right. They've gone half-mad in power, talking all their now-standard gibberish about conspiracies and global elites and the rest. In opposition, that sense of grievance, viciousness and powerlessness is going to become truly ugly. They will have every psychological incentive to turn into the very worst versions of themselves, railing against the government in ever-more vitriolic ways, no matter how moderate its programme is.”
This is exactly what happened here in Australia when the 9 year right-wing Liberal government lost the 2022 general election to the Australian Labor Party. The rump of the Libs elected an almost comically hard man as Leader of the Opposition, who has led his party considerably farther to the right - with, of course, the inevitable full throated support of the Murdoch empire.
There are just three operating principles: say no to every government measure, no matter that the Opposition supported it when in power, offer no policy substance, and fixate upon a mythical glorious past.
As always, the right are so much better at intuiting that there are a great many in our community who yearn for simple solutions for complex problems.
Whilst I am in relatively broad agreement with what you outline here, there is one huge assumption that I think needs to be addressed - that in hoping for quiet, rational politics, people can to a large extent not have to be quite so involved in politics themselves, because the "sensibles" are now in charge, which in turn serves to shore up the status quo, inadvertently or not. Putting the desperate culture war bollocks of the Right to one side, my hope is that the increased scrutiny that you describe in your article continues after a Labour win at the next general election, with all politicians having to get used to being held to account by the electorate in a more rigorous way than the current "your turn, my turn" democratic duopoly desires.
Good point. To my mind, the less tribal policy-by-policy approach is actually more effective at scrutiny overall, because it grounds analysis in content rather than tribal identity.
I remember a wise friend point out that we live in a post-truth world, where stories matter more than facts. But as has been said often, facts have a liberal bias. Stories quite often have a reactionary, illiberal bias. That might go some way to explaining why these ideas get so much traction.
I've said this before but if we can not let perfect be the enemy of good we can have an elected government with cabinet ministers who have expertise and empathy and experience in the very department they are head of. Starmer is not my dream labour leader but he is a way out of this right wing populist nightmare so for me voting Labour is the only way forward. Let the far right of Reform and Sunaks ilk fight out their culture war amongst themselves now it's a dying act.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but you have got the rules of The Traitors slightly wrong (or have stated it poorly). I can't continue for shame
Wait - how so? This is a very serious allegation.
"There are Faithful and Traitors. If there are any Faithful left at the end of the game, they get the money. If there are any Traitors left at the end, they get the money."
The second sentence should read "If there are ONLY Faithful left at the end of the game, they get the money. Otherwise, if there are ANY Traitors left at the end, they get the money"
Ah yes, fuck. Annoyingly, you're quite right. Logic of the point still stands though.
Insightful as ever. I think the The Traitors metaphor may actually describe the Conservative party infighting. No point in trying to get rid of Rishi until a GE, so before that, acting in a way to have a chance as or with his successor seems the main motivation of Conservative politicians. For most, it means increasing the culture war effort. This implies that, once in opposition, this will indeed continue to be the main attack strategy. But it sounds different coming from the opposition. Tories are going to have to discover for themselves that a protest party won't be electorally attractive. One lesson that UKip and Jeremy Corbyn's Labour's might have taught them will be lost on them.
This is excellent. I am now totally going to insert it into a future column on Tory leadership hopefuls.
The Labour policies of Corbyn were in fact very popular. It wasn’t the policies that were the problem. It was the media lies and the traitors in the Labour Party. Never forget that Starmer et al denied us a Labour government and helped inflict the current shitshow on us.
As popular as Corbyn's policies were with his followers the majority of people saw it as a vacuous wish list which in its entirity would have been not deliverable, there were some very interesting and plausible policies in Corbyn's manifesto but on mass it was not achievable thus the public saw through it and showed this at the ballot box.
It was fully costed in fact. Did you read the manifesto or the papers? And the money would have been spent on making things better for people rather than being given to Tories and their doners.
Tory governments create more debt than labour, always have.
A Labour Leader who can't even get Labour MPs to support his policies is not going to get floating voters to support them. His policies, therefore, can not have been ones to attract popular support.
Yet whenever the policies were put to “ the man in the street” just as policies they were very much liked.
Obviously not all Labour MPs supported the policies, but to sabotage the chance of a labour government and inflict the Tories on us is, certainly to me, unforgivable. Other opinions are available, but mine is that Starmer and his ilk are traitorous vermin and I fucking hate them for the Tory shitshow that we have had since 2017.
People like tax cuts and higher spending, but they don't have to believe someone who offers them both.
Who offers both?
Ooh I've just discovered I can restack- not sure where it gets stacked or who can see it but I've done it anyway because it's good.
Thanks Ian,
Really pleased to read this idea of the new media landscape being exposed to a change in tone.
I do think it will be very interesting to see what happens to a lot of unaligned commentators, see where they train their sights.
As much as I’m looking forward to seeing what’s left of the Tories year themselves asunder in search of a popularish populist direction, it’ll be so good for the soul not to be exposed to the endless shite they spew on an hourly basis.
It is important that they’re held to a high standard, even if they seem incapable of one themselves, as any coalescence, even one of the dregs, will hold plenty of agency with enough of the electorate and the client press by whom they are force-fed.
John McDonnell made the salient point that Labour without a real unifying theme and a term ending without sustained enthusiasm or proof of progress leaves the door open to the far right. I’d posit that the far right have taken the Tories’ door off its hinges and are twatting them with it for fun. Braverman’s naked agitation of the hooligan element at the Cenotaph was Fashy 101 - from inside the government.
Let’s hope this time next year this awfulness is consigned to a weird and way-too-long period in our politics.
Good read. I am looking forward to desperately dull politics. There are only so many hours in the day and politics is taking up too much time.
Yes. Thank you!
Very good read, the paragraph on audience capture particularly so
Audio version:
https://soundcloud.com/thomas-askwho-askew/2024-the-year-we-bury-the-culture-war?si=6fdfc3742f1442d1a8c3ef5997ff2cea&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
I’m not normally a conspiracy theorist, but it seems so odd to me that so many countries, their politics and their media are experiencing the same thing-UK, US, Italy, France, Argentina, etc. Is it because so much of the media is under the control of a handful of oligarchs, a la the Murdochs? Or is there some foreign govt who stands to benefit from all the right wing populism fuelling it? All of it just sounds like one giant psyop. Or maybe I’m just too far down the rabbit hole myself.😂
Looking at history, this sort of thing happens to a country when something outside local control forces its residents out of their comfort zone. Historically, that could be an invasion, a crop failure, a pandemic, or a regional economic collapse.
We've had at least one of those causes globally in recent years - COVID-19 - and the thing that brings populist politics to the fore in this sort of situation is that it has simple, understandable claims about the cause of your discomfort, combined with a promise to fix things so that you can go back to your comfort zone.
I apologise that my first comment on your excellent work is a bit trivial, but I believe it's "for fuck's sake" not "for fuck sake".
I love that you spent valuable time pondering if the sake belonged to the fuck.
Interesting that you write as if a new Labour government with Starmer is already a done thing, that neither the Tories can pass laws to restrict access to the vote (like US Republicans did when too many voted for the "wrong" party) nor that the right-wing, millionaire financed press can find something to smear Starmer with (wasn't one hopeful candidate sunk by a ham sandwich once?)
But to me, this new year is the year where we enter a worse dark age, beyond the UK: the Republicans have aligned everything, from passing laws in many states restricting the vote to fully ignoring the vote - state parliaments telling the collegium on whom to vote for, and have purged non-loyal politicans with principle, so Trump may likely steal the election legally (and after all, Bush jr called a judge because he was a friend of his father and stopped the legal process of counting all votes decades ago, so there's precedent).
Which means: no more aid for Ukraine, and EU still hasn't stepped up, so Ukraine will fall. Which will signal to the whole world that standing up to Autocrats and their Imperialism is useless because when it comes down to the edge, the West is more about making money and their own interests than backing up their ideals of democracy with commitment.
This will be translated by PCR as go-ahead to attack and occupy Taiwan, because if Republican USA doesn't want to spend a few million dollars on aid, they certainly won't send real soldiers to defend Taiwan.
In Europe, the Baltics know already they are next (they have been attacked by Putin already digitally) but with Trump leaving NATO, the EU parts of NATO failed to use the previous 8 years to arm up: it's not about the figure of 2% that matters (US spends far more, but a lot is pork-barrel contracts to big US companies, without any benefits to the soldiers in the field) but about having good capability with enough weapons, vehicles and ammunition plus well-trained soldiers. All that has been ignored, so NATO can't fight Russia without US.
Plus the ever-increasing wave of right-wing populists in government together with media.
While I hope your country manages a turn-around, I don't have much hope for the bigger picture.
Is right wing culture war more financially rewarding for journalists than centrism/liberalism? Without going to far down rabbit holes, if I start writing about small boats do I start getting cash from right wing think tanks and getting paid by shadowy figures to tweet stuff? Would seem a more rational explanation than Allison Pearson, Isabel oakeshott going mad or just lying to provoke wokies like me .
It's a fair question, I think. I do think there's a more widespread and profitable media network on the right. Look at the outlets: Spectator, the Critic, Telegraph, Mail, Express, GB News, Talk TV, the list goes on. On the left you have, what? Guardian, Statesman, and maybe Prospect? Same goes for think tanks. It's a more limited space, so there's a good incentive to write another bit of anti-woke gibberish instead.