Supporters of Labour who hope an Angela Rayner led party would 'return' to the party's Left roots, might pause & wonder if like Keir Starmer there will be a lot of promises of a Leftward shift (such as Starmer promised when campaigning for the party leadership) only to be subsequently abandoned as 'unrealistic' or 'impractical'.
As a real Left alternative now seems to exist with the Greens (GPEW/SGs) that might be a better bet?
Who'll trust Labour again?
I think Rayner stated the obvious when she said Starmer promised 'change' and is not delivering, and this is why he's so unpopular, and why the Greens are now sometimes polling ahead of Labour.
Nor do I think Starmer's perpetual excuse - be patient, change takes time - is credible, because it's not just a question of giving measures time to work, but of the timidity, and in some cases the direction, of the measures being taken - or not taken.
However, I think a Rayner leadership would merely tweak the Labour Leadership a little bit to the left, with little substantial change in either policy or popularity. It still wouldn't, for example, implement a programme taking the UK back to the social norms of it's neighbouring countries - public ownership of basic utilities, rent controls and other housing market reforms, acceptance of 'lived gender', employee participation, EU membership, etc, etc - and of course green transition (though Ed Miliband is the one light in the current Labour gloom).
I'm not talking radical politics here - just the old European Social Model that still exists (under attack) in the UK's neighbouring countries - but some more radical steps, such as establishment of a Commission on degrowth, would also of course be welcome.
yes, sadly a successful Rayner leadership bid, to me, would look more like the endemic practice of only letting a woman take over when crisis looks to be inevitable.... while, like you I think the return to the European Social Model would be an excellent move, the Overton Window has moved so far & the Labour Party so scared of criticism from the Right media, that screams of 'communism' would halt the party in its tracks if it even looked like moving in that direction....
But let's not talk about the overton window as if its movement is an autonomous fact - it is moved by presentation and policies - and propaganda. Had Labour not been captured by the 'focus group' mindset - following rather than leading public opinion - the window's movement right could easily have been halted, and reversed. The facts that Corbyn did reverse the decline in Labour votes, and almost won in 2017, and that the Greens just won their first byelection, shows that the triangulation of Labour spin-doctors is weaker than an honestly held and clearly stated political position.
Hmmmm.... its an interesting idea; but (taking the UK as an example), how does a second window (which I'm assuming you would see to the left of the currently theorised one) effect politics - are you saying this second 'window' is what is allowing the GPEW/SGs to become seen a rational recipient of mainstream votes?
@AndyDearden @KimSJ @Jeffrey @GeofCox
Yes, that's a possibility, although the 'spaces' are not disconnected.... and (in the UK at lest) the pent media, while suffering from falling circulations, continues to have an over-weighted influence in the setting of the daily news agenda.... but equally a fragmented opinion-scape may also involve very different views about what 'common-sense' looks like
@AndyDearden @KimSJ @Jeffrey @GeofCox
Well, for those not committed to a day-to-day exposure & engagement with politics, the 'daily agenda' can be quite influential... but your general point also is right, this may be less so as alternative news sources (citizen journalism of the @BylinesNetwork for instance) has increasing heft.
@AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 @KimSJ @Jeffrey @BylinesNetwork
Let's think about a specific example of a notion within the overton window - say the notorious 'household analogy' in finance and economics - the idea that a national economy is like a household budget - and all the implied conceptions, such as that 'the national debt' is a bad thing, rather than more like savings deposits in banks, which are usually regarded as a good thing, or that government injection of funds into, say, education and health, is a 'cost' rather than an investment that enables the whole national economy to work smoothly.
This notion is plainly all wrong, but so embedded in the way issues like the 'national debt' or government 'expenditure' are presented - embedded in these very terms - that it has the force of 'common sense'. It's well-known that, say, the BBC, is always simplistically propagating this, to such an extent that dozens of the world's leading economists wrote to complain about Laura Kuenssberg saying that the UK 'maxed out' its credit card. But the question is whether, outside (admittedly) a few specialist, academic finance and economics offerings, internet or other diverse media really challenge blatant deceptions like the household analogy ?
@GeofCox @AndyDearden @KimSJ @Jeffrey @BylinesNetwork
When people tap about the dangers of financial illiteracy, and focus on budgeting or understanding interest rates' relation to risk... they, as you right suggest, completely miss the much bigger problem - the widespread reduction of macroeconomics into the household analogy. Until this is properly;y debunked our political economy all alway be ruled by charlatans.
Emeritus Prof Christopher May
GeofCox
Jeffrey Rogers š“ó §ó ¢ó ·ó ¬ó ³ó æ
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Andy Dearden