Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

The right is creating its own new stories. Because culture war is not about winning a debate about what constitutes England through factual disputes about its character, its statues, its football team or its history of empire. It is not a peripheral indulgence, or a mere confection. Culture war is an aggressive political act with the purpose of creating new dividing lines and therefore new and bigger electoral majorities. It aims to create its own truth, and its own England, through what Nietzsche called a “mobile army of metaphors” The right is winning

"All the politicians attacking the Bristol iconoclasts for removing the slave-owner Colston's statue---Johnson, Patel, Steer Calmer, Labour's Shadow Home (can't remember his name] and others, share one thing in common. Not a single one of them has called for the reinstatement of the statue. Wonder why? Calmer agrees it shouldn't be there, but numerous governments, Labour and Tory never removed it. Calmer and Johnson would rather it was done 'legally'. (Laughter). Worth remembering that Colston too was a believer in legality. Nothing he did was illegal! Slavery was the law of the land, free trade, etc." —Tariq Ali, 09 June 2020

"Reasons to hope and why euthanasia should be legalised: 18-24-year-olds: Lab: 57 per cent/ Tories 19 per cent 25-31 olds: Labour 45 percent/Tories 30 percent 45--54-year-olds: Tories 45 percent/ Labour 35 percent 60 and above: Tories:62 percent/ Labour 18 percent." —Tariq Ali, 14 December 2019

"Get Brexit done" has won! Related: The UK is more regionally divided than any comparable advanced economy. Our analysis finds stark regional differences in productivity, income, unemployment, health and politics. We are not the only country to have regional divides, but our regional inequalities in productivity, income and health are far worse than in any comparable country.  

"Britain is a racist country, and prejudice exists within all parties. Labour has attempted to deal with antisemitism in its ranks, not always successfully or adeptly. The Conservatives have ignored the problem. It is not whataboutery to argue that no political party should harbor racists of any hue. But the Conservatives have been able to ignore their own issues and problems because Islamophobia is more broadly acceptable among the public and the media class." The Tories' Islamophobia problem

We are all in it together: one people, one nation with great values. The Price of Austerity in England See also Robin Hood in Time of Austerity

UK Understanding the British election

Britain The Tories just dropped a privatization bombshell

An interesting analysis albeit some narrative of politically blaming mainly the Tories.

“Every industrial and commercial centre in England possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps, English proletarians and Irish proletarians. The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life … This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short by all the means at the disposal of the ruling classes.” " If remain had won, we would already have returned to pretending that everything was carrying on just fine. Those people who have been forgotten would have stayed forgotten; those communities that have been abandoned would have stayed invisible to all but those who live in them. To insist that they will now suffer most ignores the fact that unless something had changed, they were going to suffer anyway. Those on the remain side who felt they didn’t recognise their own country when they woke up on Friday morning must spare a thought for the pensioner in Redcar o...