Those without a belief system are instead clinging to XR / Insult Britain movements to fill the void in their very human need to believe in something. As Voltaire said: "if god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him". Few have the calibre to work with that void and be meaningful to themselves and to others.
Paul, much as respect your acumen, the LibDems aren't making any political hay out of this at all. Quite the opposite, they're in reverse too. They are sub-critical as regards Parliamentary representation and struggling for funds. Their conference was as if they had taken an invisibility potion....
Do you think one of the reasons that boris keeps getting away with things is because the public have a different impression of him than sw1? Eg most pundits and oppo mps babble away about him being a right wing fascist whereas most of the public think he’s a decent guy but a clown. In general how would you attack boris if you were Labour, or would you follow Amazon principle of almost ignoring the competition and focusing totally on the customer? Thanks Dom
Interesting story I read from the Peter Thiel bio (most people think it was full of shit but this story I think is relevant). When musk became ceo of the newly formed companyafter Thiel left (he would eventually get fired and Thiel would return) musk kept trying to change the name back to x.com even tho PayPal had massive name recognition and had become a verb ‘to PayPal’ amongst online eBay seller community ie literally the target market. The reason was thought to be because he had allegedly paid a million dollars for the website name. Even very capable people like Elon can get emotionally attached even when presented with evidence they are wrong. No surprise really that bj can’t stop saying level up/global Britain.
I voted Labour (strongly holding nose) in 17. Voted local independent in 19 (no chance in Aldershot, pure protest vote). Nothing since Corbyn went has made me want to vote LAB again, and I should be their core demographic. Son (18) is looking at GRN as LAB not really serious in his eyes.
What about housing? Surely a massive issue among 18-35/40? Also a concern of parents (40-65) who are worried their children can't afford their own home. The Conservatives have no real plan or intention to address this - botched planning reform, even 95% mortgages policy still requires an inordinately large income in many parts of the country.
Starmer a total dud. Silent on Conservative treatment of young people. NI rises and changes to student loan repayments will leave someone on ~£30,000 about £1000 worse off every year. Conservatives considering changing loan terms retrospectively! It feels almost criminal, yet Martin Lewis making more noise than Labour leader.
Agree housing is a big issue BUT it's v v hard to say anything that is good policy and good comms on housing!
Ive done focus groups on it from durham to san francisco.
Planning reform etc v tricky.
The only thing that really works is a massive tax on foreigners 'to subsidise cheaper housing for us'! but obv this is v small beer in policy terms.
All LAB can really do is something like - local campaigns for more cheaper housing where popular - then in gvt actually do smart planning changes in the first 100 days (as i tried to do) so that real changes happen within 4 years.
They have to say theyll improve housing, it's just v hard to say things that wd actually work AND are good comms...
What about something more radical? Limit the number of homes someone can own. End foreign ownership of homes bought as assets and mostly left vacant. The comms is - housing is a need, not an asset. Vote winner, surely? The only people opposed would be big private landlords, who don't vote LAB anyway. Berlin's referendum to end corporate ownership (though non-binding) is surely an indication there is an appetite for something firmer in Europe?
The piece you shared on Twitter on housing (retweet from Patrick C, I think) was seriously compelling - you can do SO much good with strong housing policy.
But yes, you'll know more about it than me and I accept it's a tricky issue.
As I recall, the numbers involved in vacant housing are too small to be a cure in and of itself.
I remember this being discussed pre-2010 on 5Live and an expert on housing telling the presenters that there wasn't a housing shortage per se but that there was a massive overdemand for housing in parts of the south east.
With a move away from office working (which is happening despite what Boris wants), the housing market may well be unsnarling itself.
I have wondered on other fora whether looking at changing mortgage timelines might help as well. Most mortgages are for a 25 year timeframe but if the timeframe was longer, the payments would be less pro rata.
Yes, solving vacant housing alone not a solution, but could be a small part of it, even if only for moral value. It's more about moving away from housing as an asset class for the wealthy.
Unfortunately, I don't see much evidence of the housing market unsnarling itself as people move out of cities, esp. London. It has simply pushed up house prices elsewhere. Longer mortgage timeframes feels like small fry.
I feel we're at a point where tinkering won't work. Something more radical needs to happen.
Agree. Imbalance of population vs county size. New towns in Yorkshire or Cumberland, plus business/amenities is a obvious answer. Govts have tried decentralisation since about 1948. Never worked. Too many wrong intentives.
I don't think it's that hard. Just restrict foreign ownership wether direct or through holding companies. Also a heavy tax on empty or under utilised land / property (going for full land value tax reform if possible). Then sit back and watch the market do its thing as a small number of desperate sellers set new lower prices at the margins (because they can't afford to keep holding the property). This creates a "use it or lose it" setup where the land cannot be sat on by large builders, foreign owners, absent 2nd home owners etc.
The comms for the foreign part are easy as you noted - the comms on the rest are "we are making the asset rich sell to the property they are not using to drive down the price of homes to ordinary working people". Easy.
Agree on taxes re under used land - but of course this requires big planning changes and this is the problem - the tories are much more focused on short-term problems caused by this than long-term probs of low growth
Yeah it makes sense why you focus on this mentality - it pretty much colours everything else. Change the mentality and what is insoluble becomes relatively easy to fix. Even higher order aspects like lobbying (e.g. by the big builders with large land banks in this particular example) when you drill down on them can be distilled into this lack of long term / systems thinking (e.g. lobbying would have no effect on them if they had a long term strategy / goal of bringing down cost of living by forcing housing costs down).
The best response I've seen to the trans question was from (god forbid) David Lammy, who just shut it down with "this issue doesn't come up on the doorstep." For goodness sake, Labour needs to stop getting pulled into these debates on topics way, way down voters' priority list and giving answers that ostricise most voters.
quite. it's interesting people like Paul Mason saying on twitter that my advice is basically right but the Labour party is constitutionally and psychologically incapable fo doing it
The funny thing is that pre-2010 there was a space within the Labour Party that was anti-Marxian (therefore not woke) and people like Nick Cohen were are a breathing part of that discussion.
NC shut down his brain in 2010 tp stay in the "right" social circles in London.
That was the point I was trying to make (badly). Even if they wanted to take this advice, they are not structured to accept it, act on it, or defend it. My feeling is GRN and LDEM will take enough of their vote to prevent them being a viable party of govt for the long-foreseeable future. Tories are incompetent, but opposition are even worse.
That comment deserves more publicity: what Lammy is actually saying is the rational view that minority issues are..... for the minority.... and therefore do not assist with gaining the mandate of the majority. Doh!
I'll read in more detail later as there is much here, however, I have to agree wholeheartedly on two points:
As someone who voted remain (yes, I know, banish me from here :) ) we have got to stop banging on about how it was 'stolen' as though somehow Leave voters didn't know they were voting for Brexit. What I want now is someone who has a vision and a plan for a post Brexit Britain, one that exists in 2040 not 2005. Boris is a noisy empty vessel with a nostalgic story to sell and Starmer is just not cutting through that.
Also, completely agree with physically keeping data teams away from the decision and strategy makers, even to the extent of putting them on a different IT infrastructure and technology. People think of data as immutable and impartial but it doesn't interpret itself.
I don't think Nandy is the player you and other 'blue labour' pundits seem to think she is. I initially had the same impression of her as you did at the start of the 2020 leadership election. However the more I saw the more issues there were.
In said leadership election she pushed for keeping freedom of movement with the EU (not only re-opening brexit but also pushing for the most unpopular bit of the whole arrangement).
She also parrots whatever stupid woke line is doled out on twitter as readily as Starmer does.
Maybe you've seen something I haven't, or maybe she's just 'the starter for 10'. Either way the underlying logic of the candidate that should be found is solid.
The closest people I can think of that fit who you are looking for are Gloria De Piero or Caroline Flint (Both of whom also have issues) but both are now out of parliament. People like them either lost their seats in 2019 or were pushed out the party under Corbyn (and are now replaced with the aforementioned communists)
In general, there is even more of a dearth of decent 'operators' in Labour than in the conservatives. They disproportionally take their MPs from Law and (non-STEM) academia, hence why so many act like the clueless remainers in london despite holding constituency's in poor places far from Westminster.
Having said that, happy to see other suggestions of labour MPs that might have potential.
U cd well be right, i meant her as a shorthand - normal looking, sounding, from midlands not london, can move them on from brexit fixation, a woman is a nightmare for BJ etc.
Very interesting. Very. In a nutshell - for the good of the people /country whatever colour you are red or blue . We basically can’t go on like this without VL in No.10. It won’t change , the old dinosaurs won’t let it . I’m a conservative South East dwelling Brexiteer. It’s done . Let’s not go on about it. Those changes that needed to happen after however I fear won’t … not without fundamental change. Even I can see how trying to get someone in Labour to steer the party back to its original roots, the common man… the working man and his family can be seen as appealing . Heck after reading all that , I would consider voting for them.. because with the shit we’ve been through and looking ahead even more to get through we really really need someone on our side and at our table. Not just the red wall voters the true blue small business voters too! We are Nationalists …. Much like the original true reds … my only major concern is socialism…. You say ignore the ‘woke’( sorry I said it) shite and trans dribble and all the other political correctness on steroids …. But letting in another Labour Party makes me nervous … Will the socialism/commie mindset drip further into the government of this country and then we really are done for …dunno… but certainly something has to be done ! .
These views are not out of line with what many within Labour think, but our party is a sack of rats atm. We'd have to apply all this 4GW stuff internally before we get to deploy it against the Tories.
Fourth Generation Warfare. A model of conflict that describes how non-state actors can wage war on states. Look up William Lind and Martin Van Creveld.
DC, I must say the last two posts are top drawer!!
Question about MRP, have you even seen this technique used for probabilities of obtaining planning permission? Combining generic planning laws, local unitary development plans, local community opinion, previous planning committee responses, local community deprived infrastructure etc. Could be utilised effectively pre acquisition, pre planning and during planning.
Also the piece by Cornell on the thermodynamical nature of war was very interesting. Have you come across any similar reports covering regional and or international capital flows (would have thought more addressable post Covid with voluntary data provision)?
Re MRP-style work on planning permission - there is actually a real life example of crowd-sourcing housing strategy! The IEA had a competition for housing policy (https://bit.ly/3aZ7uhN) there were 1000s of ideas submitted. The IEA could have actually done some work and written a housing white paper there and then, presented it oven-ready to the party (Rees-Mogg was one of the judges) together with counters to all possible objections and a plan to get this implemented within a set timeframe. Instead they awarded a prize of 50K(!) to someone talking about releasing some MOD land to private developers, published some of the essays - and that was it. 1000s of hours dedicated to one issue from a vast range of expertise and many thoughtful pieces written that will never see the light of day or move policy. Instead, you get the likes of platitudes from IEA member Christopher Snowden in the Spectator this year which are all about just stating the problem in as many different ways as possible to seem relevant: "Much needed housing reforms are consistently "thwarted by Nimbys and tree huggers". Christopher argued: "Whatever the government does, it must do it now and do it quickly." Unbelievable. Totally agree with the statement: "The ‘think tanks’ and campaign groups are almost all displacement activity — they do not make the weather and their net effect is negative as they soak up effort and resources."
These guys all just reside within their settled intellectual bandwidth!! They refuse to increase amplitude and are clearly terrified of anyone that is e.g. DC.
Previous blog post you mention the deep state. In my mind I hear deep state and think of USA. Are the deep state the military/ intelligence apparatus (gchq, mi-6, mi-5, nca)? Did you find it to be an entrenched system? Do they Weald the same power as the US version?
Also like to say you called the lack of planning from the government for this winter and once again you called it absolutely bang on!!
Also interested to hear about the solar flares you have mentioned before. What is the event you are referring?
3) There have been internal disagreements in Labour over raising the minimum wage (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58713344). Is raising or lowering the minimum wage better for attracting votes?
4) What should Labour's policy be on housing?
5) Another please do not preemptively dismiss question - how should Labour deal with Scotland and Scottish independence?
1/ Separate serious detailed policy from topline broadcast message. Cd we learn from other countries on prisons? Obviously. Will you persuade most people this is the key thing, given we can all see violent criminals get away with joke sentences? and organised crime much stronger now than 30 yers ago? no
2/ Probably but not so much getting tories to switch, which is vital. Also you need to have an IMMEDIATE econ message before people are interested in you yapping about 2050
3/ Dunno but not hard to figure out
4/ See abve
5/ I havent researched this and dont have strong view
6/ LAB shd mostly shut up about china but the idea it's exaggerated danger is foolish
Just wanted to follow up and say that the issue of Scotland is a key one for Labour electorally. In 2005 Labour could not have gotten a parliamentary majority without Scotland, so consider this issue before you make your post public.
The Midlothian question has not been mentioned by anybody recently and your prompt is timely, especially given the abysmally bad performance of the SNP and their grudging reliance on the UK and its supply chains.
Some interesting ideas here, but Labour's main problem is not the leader (though clearly Starmer is useless and Nandy isn't strong enough) but the party itself. The way it chooses, finances and trains candidates - so that they're all on the same page - as...as what exactly? What actually is Labour's political philosophy? Then maybe do something about the idiotic way it chooses its leaders... And then consider this - exactly how many CLP's do you imagine will discuss, or be allowed to discuss, these ideas in the coming weeks? There you go...
yeah it's all a farce - but farces are opportunities for ruthless teams - so someone cd take over and kick some people around and grip it. It does not need more people thinking about 'political philosopy' there are far too many people who think theyve got interesting stuff to say about this already and almost all of it is beta/gamma
Maybe they don't need a philosophy as such but they do need something for voters to get behind and they haven't got that. They still fall back too often on tribal sloganeering and insult - and as for beta/gamma gabble how about Paul Mason on Politics Live yesterday (clip on Guido after the page highlighting your post) - re Patel pushing back migrant boats representing fascists' interests... i.e. those who 'fantasise about those pushbacks ending in death'. Intellectuals of the left unite you have nothing to lose but your brains...
Yeah they're in parallel universe - but part of what i explain in blog is why this happens - short term incentives push these people to respond to ACTIVISTS and things like novara, NOT the median voter.
And short term if you tell lefty activists - yes we shd focus on women's safety not trans nonsense, it will be bad for YOUR CAREER.
This is excellent advice that I am almost certain will not be taken.
1) 'Tough on crime; tough on the causes of crime'.
The Left do not think crime is caused by bad people behaving badly; rather they believe it is caused by *insert social buzzword here*. The fact this policy has been tried for entire 1900s is beside the point (see https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/RP99-111/RP99-111.pdf pg 14 - yes, despite the medical advances from the 1960s we've managed to double the murder rate!). Another fun example is the burglary rate is basically zero when it's raining...
You don't need to increase police numbers/funding. You need them on the street deterring crime, but the Left believe it's deprivation not depravity.
2) Social engineering is Fabianism to the core
Why would they give up ideas like LGBTQIALMNOP or The Climate Crisis when they are goldmines for manipulating how people think and behave?
3) How does Labour win without Scotland?
A genuine question. I can't find 320 seats in England/Wales that they could win. If they have 50, or even 30, seats from the SNP then maybe, but 'England's stopping us doing anything' is depressing effective north of the border. Labour currently have 1 (one) MP from Scotland.
Minor correction: "look at how elite graduates fell for Stalinist propaganda in the 1930s"
And as we're on the subject, it's always nice to mention the Rand Rebellion, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rand_Rebellion . The CPSA joined, informally, with the ANC after WW2, just 25 years after 'Workers of the World unite and fight for a white South Africa'.
Yep scotland is big prob for them and i havent looked at it enough to know what they shd do. But Starmer certainly aint the answer to anything up there
Thanks for the reply. Yeah, the sad thing is this is the country of James Watt and David Hume that's being fed deep-fried Robert Burns anthologies washed down with special brew. You'd think "we're not going to pay for you to Charles Kennedy yourselves. We'll provide job opportunities. Let's rebuild the <del>Navy</del> coastguard in Glasgow. If Scotland's still a great country, we'll let you prove it!", etc. would be enough. I'm just not sure it is anymore...
1) If you had been in charge, what would you have done about Covid? What are your views on 'The Great Barrington Declaration' and the relative success of Sweden?
2) Why are you so critical of David Davis? I admire him for his 'civil liberties' stance especially regarding ID cards. A covid pass can lead to a digital ID system which, in the hands of any of our governments, is a scary thought.
Ideal response on covid wd have been - close borders in Jan, on phone in Jan to vaccine companies, recruit human challenge trials, start tests in ?Feb, roll out march/april and 95% of the shitshow avoided. But that wd require a gvt that controls the gvt and employs people like General Groves... Possible in theory but not for our current bureaucratic states
For all the Tories reading DCs post with their head in their hands - it will never, ever happen.
In "Patterns of Conflict", Boyd made extensive reference to the moral level of warfare. Congruity between one's actions and one's morality is how you keep people fighting under incredible duress over long periods of time. Actions that decouple from morality will serve to isolate a side from their allies. The master stroke of the last 80 years has been a program to redefine and invert what is evil and what is good. At least two generations are governed by inverted moral axioms that consistently bear bitter fruit. The reason "do-gooders" has been a pejorative for decades is because the people in question are so utterly convinced of the righteousness of their actions, the terrible results are written off as an acceptable cost. The reason 'do-gooders' consistently get away with ruining everything is because the vast majority of the public share their moral beliefs and differ only in conviction. The nutters DC refers to are not isolated activists, but the tip of a vast spear. Just as an infantryman has 10 men in the logistical chain behind him, each activist represents hundreds who align with them on a moral plane and whose support can be assured.
For the Labour Party to adopt this plan of action, it would have to publicly defect from Wokism and that will never be permitted to happen. This is to reject what they think to be good and adopt what they think to be evil. The Outer Party of the Cathedral (a term I detest) is completely converged by this inverted morality and it will eat alive anyone who dares to recant their faith. I know DC regards the culture war as an unimportant sideshow that gets in the way of real conversations, but he is mistaken to write it off so lightly. The ideology that grips the highest echelons of society is bent upon destroying family, nation, civilisation, beauty and truth. Its adherents behave in a coordinated fashion over long time scales and have manoeuvred their way into every node of influence and power. True believers in the inverted moral order have enacted laws that give them the authority of the state to enforce their will on the unwilling and there is no movement to remove these laws from the statute books because nobody believes they are wrong.
The culture war is not a sideshow, but the heart of the system's inability to govern well. It is a disagreement on an axiomatic level about what is right and wrong. And until that is resolved by deliberate and concerted effort, the entropic slide into chaos and mayhem will remain a feature and not a bug.
Really enjoyed your poignant summary. However I believe you are missing the trend that is unfolding with increasing pace within the western world, which is being exacerbated by COVID. I agree we are in an increasing trend of entropy, however I believe the phase transition is in our midst and once and for all this brand of socialism is finished.
I think the rising tide of nationalism across Europe is a harbinger of what is to come. The problem is that the unstoppable force of nationalist plebs will eventually collide with the immovable object of globalist elites. Nobody is expecting a peaceful transfer of power between the two.
Agreed! This extreme polarity has been building for some time. This is why I refer to a phase transition moment , but what comes out on the other side is truly concerning! A new form of authoritarianism or a great awakening(perhaps the dream of an optimistic fool like myself).
I think all sorts of cultural aspects are far from a sideshow, theyre more important than the 'normal' politics everyone focuses on.
But Ive learned that if you thik talking to people on Right re normal politics is pointless/mindnumbing, it's 100x hen you get to some of these issues.
So I tend to keep quiet about them.
Really changing the CULTURE is even harder than pulling off the brexit heist...
But Im thinking about all this more and more hence why about to reread Closing of the American Mind etc...
I will post on this shortly but it connects to the Balaji argument - focus on building replacement institutions not fixing the old ones...
Changing culture is a generational project and it has to be approached 'at an angle' to the current flow. Direct opposition doesn't work - only the smart approach will work so it strikes me your relative silence on these aspects is wise and understandable.
Behold the bitter fruit of atheism.
Those without a belief system are instead clinging to XR / Insult Britain movements to fill the void in their very human need to believe in something. As Voltaire said: "if god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him". Few have the calibre to work with that void and be meaningful to themselves and to others.
There is no meaning the way philosophers hoped since socrates, accept it - and like the pre-socratics embrace life anyway
Hi Dom, any plans for the live q and a? Also if you’re looking for people to intern for you how can we contact you?
Plan is week after next, if i can make the app work ill post early next week
Most disaffected Labour and Tory Voters will vote Lib Dem at the next opportunity.
I know crazy right!
But that's what will happen
That’s just voting for stagnation right there
Lulu
Yep
But that's exactly what people will be doing
They won't vote Tory or Labour
The only option is Lib Dem
Paul, much as respect your acumen, the LibDems aren't making any political hay out of this at all. Quite the opposite, they're in reverse too. They are sub-critical as regards Parliamentary representation and struggling for funds. Their conference was as if they had taken an invisibility potion....
Yes that's all true
But on the day people will just vote for the known least worse option
I have good experience of how the average person thinks
Remember 99% of people are not too clever
We will see
My Subscription on here ends tomorrow
So this is my last post
Was fun
But I'm not getting anything worthwhile from DC
All the best
👍
LD no answer. Not sure how many people under 30 will vote for them, as no real ptogramme/purpose.
I wonder home many under 30 will vote GRN. Eating into LAB to no pol purpose, so CON administration again.
Do you think one of the reasons that boris keeps getting away with things is because the public have a different impression of him than sw1? Eg most pundits and oppo mps babble away about him being a right wing fascist whereas most of the public think he’s a decent guy but a clown. In general how would you attack boris if you were Labour, or would you follow Amazon principle of almost ignoring the competition and focusing totally on the customer? Thanks Dom
Interesting story I read from the Peter Thiel bio (most people think it was full of shit but this story I think is relevant). When musk became ceo of the newly formed companyafter Thiel left (he would eventually get fired and Thiel would return) musk kept trying to change the name back to x.com even tho PayPal had massive name recognition and had become a verb ‘to PayPal’ amongst online eBay seller community ie literally the target market. The reason was thought to be because he had allegedly paid a million dollars for the website name. Even very capable people like Elon can get emotionally attached even when presented with evidence they are wrong. No surprise really that bj can’t stop saying level up/global Britain.
Most ppl have accurate picture of boris but as i explain the key thing with polls is 'who is better'.
Starmer is not credible leader.
Key for Labour is to articulate voice of the majority, it isnt complex.
But look at Paul Mason's response to me.
They sort of know Im right but are fatalistic that they just have to parrot their nutty activists ratrher than focus on normal people
Interesting, thanks for the reply. Would you say public have a far more accurate opinion of him than pundits
I voted Labour (strongly holding nose) in 17. Voted local independent in 19 (no chance in Aldershot, pure protest vote). Nothing since Corbyn went has made me want to vote LAB again, and I should be their core demographic. Son (18) is looking at GRN as LAB not really serious in his eyes.
What about housing? Surely a massive issue among 18-35/40? Also a concern of parents (40-65) who are worried their children can't afford their own home. The Conservatives have no real plan or intention to address this - botched planning reform, even 95% mortgages policy still requires an inordinately large income in many parts of the country.
Starmer a total dud. Silent on Conservative treatment of young people. NI rises and changes to student loan repayments will leave someone on ~£30,000 about £1000 worse off every year. Conservatives considering changing loan terms retrospectively! It feels almost criminal, yet Martin Lewis making more noise than Labour leader.
Agree housing is a big issue BUT it's v v hard to say anything that is good policy and good comms on housing!
Ive done focus groups on it from durham to san francisco.
Planning reform etc v tricky.
The only thing that really works is a massive tax on foreigners 'to subsidise cheaper housing for us'! but obv this is v small beer in policy terms.
All LAB can really do is something like - local campaigns for more cheaper housing where popular - then in gvt actually do smart planning changes in the first 100 days (as i tried to do) so that real changes happen within 4 years.
They have to say theyll improve housing, it's just v hard to say things that wd actually work AND are good comms...
What about something more radical? Limit the number of homes someone can own. End foreign ownership of homes bought as assets and mostly left vacant. The comms is - housing is a need, not an asset. Vote winner, surely? The only people opposed would be big private landlords, who don't vote LAB anyway. Berlin's referendum to end corporate ownership (though non-binding) is surely an indication there is an appetite for something firmer in Europe?
The piece you shared on Twitter on housing (retweet from Patrick C, I think) was seriously compelling - you can do SO much good with strong housing policy.
But yes, you'll know more about it than me and I accept it's a tricky issue.
As I recall, the numbers involved in vacant housing are too small to be a cure in and of itself.
I remember this being discussed pre-2010 on 5Live and an expert on housing telling the presenters that there wasn't a housing shortage per se but that there was a massive overdemand for housing in parts of the south east.
With a move away from office working (which is happening despite what Boris wants), the housing market may well be unsnarling itself.
I have wondered on other fora whether looking at changing mortgage timelines might help as well. Most mortgages are for a 25 year timeframe but if the timeframe was longer, the payments would be less pro rata.
Yes, solving vacant housing alone not a solution, but could be a small part of it, even if only for moral value. It's more about moving away from housing as an asset class for the wealthy.
Unfortunately, I don't see much evidence of the housing market unsnarling itself as people move out of cities, esp. London. It has simply pushed up house prices elsewhere. Longer mortgage timeframes feels like small fry.
I feel we're at a point where tinkering won't work. Something more radical needs to happen.
Agree. Imbalance of population vs county size. New towns in Yorkshire or Cumberland, plus business/amenities is a obvious answer. Govts have tried decentralisation since about 1948. Never worked. Too many wrong intentives.
Not keen on limiting no. of houses someone can own.
But strongly agree on MUCH stricter rules re foreign owners esp in LON
Build in Yorkshire might help. Not in Home Counties, which already have 1/4 UK population, not Manchester/Liverpool, because ditto.
I don't think it's that hard. Just restrict foreign ownership wether direct or through holding companies. Also a heavy tax on empty or under utilised land / property (going for full land value tax reform if possible). Then sit back and watch the market do its thing as a small number of desperate sellers set new lower prices at the margins (because they can't afford to keep holding the property). This creates a "use it or lose it" setup where the land cannot be sat on by large builders, foreign owners, absent 2nd home owners etc.
The comms for the foreign part are easy as you noted - the comms on the rest are "we are making the asset rich sell to the property they are not using to drive down the price of homes to ordinary working people". Easy.
Agree on taxes re under used land - but of course this requires big planning changes and this is the problem - the tories are much more focused on short-term problems caused by this than long-term probs of low growth
Yeah it makes sense why you focus on this mentality - it pretty much colours everything else. Change the mentality and what is insoluble becomes relatively easy to fix. Even higher order aspects like lobbying (e.g. by the big builders with large land banks in this particular example) when you drill down on them can be distilled into this lack of long term / systems thinking (e.g. lobbying would have no effect on them if they had a long term strategy / goal of bringing down cost of living by forcing housing costs down).
Lisa Nandy? https://twitter.com/politicsjoe_uk/status/1230837769200689155?s=21
Yes indeed! Not sure she's quite the "Midland woman" that would do it for Labour.
Not sure Dom meant her specifically, just an archetype. LN = shorthand for capable, northern, female Labour leader.
Yeah shes shorthand - i dont know much about her - but she seems vaguely normal, not a nutter - and with right team she cd do lot better than KS
This is exactly what i was referring to in my comment, thanks for pulling up a concrete example of it.
I checked out Nandy back in early 2020. She is not the person people are looking for.
The best response I've seen to the trans question was from (god forbid) David Lammy, who just shut it down with "this issue doesn't come up on the doorstep." For goodness sake, Labour needs to stop getting pulled into these debates on topics way, way down voters' priority list and giving answers that ostricise most voters.
quite. it's interesting people like Paul Mason saying on twitter that my advice is basically right but the Labour party is constitutionally and psychologically incapable fo doing it
Sweet, but some might say that Paul Mason is constitutionally and psychologically incapable too!
The funny thing is that pre-2010 there was a space within the Labour Party that was anti-Marxian (therefore not woke) and people like Nick Cohen were are a breathing part of that discussion.
NC shut down his brain in 2010 tp stay in the "right" social circles in London.
That was the point I was trying to make (badly). Even if they wanted to take this advice, they are not structured to accept it, act on it, or defend it. My feeling is GRN and LDEM will take enough of their vote to prevent them being a viable party of govt for the long-foreseeable future. Tories are incompetent, but opposition are even worse.
That comment deserves more publicity: what Lammy is actually saying is the rational view that minority issues are..... for the minority.... and therefore do not assist with gaining the mandate of the majority. Doh!
I'll read in more detail later as there is much here, however, I have to agree wholeheartedly on two points:
As someone who voted remain (yes, I know, banish me from here :) ) we have got to stop banging on about how it was 'stolen' as though somehow Leave voters didn't know they were voting for Brexit. What I want now is someone who has a vision and a plan for a post Brexit Britain, one that exists in 2040 not 2005. Boris is a noisy empty vessel with a nostalgic story to sell and Starmer is just not cutting through that.
Also, completely agree with physically keeping data teams away from the decision and strategy makers, even to the extent of putting them on a different IT infrastructure and technology. People think of data as immutable and impartial but it doesn't interpret itself.
1/ agree re stopping the 'stolen' narrative but Adonis, Campbell et al just can't let it go. theyre demented.
2/ yup. also Parliament is just v v insecure, all sorts of people wondering about. gotta keep good op-sec...
I don't think Nandy is the player you and other 'blue labour' pundits seem to think she is. I initially had the same impression of her as you did at the start of the 2020 leadership election. However the more I saw the more issues there were.
In said leadership election she pushed for keeping freedom of movement with the EU (not only re-opening brexit but also pushing for the most unpopular bit of the whole arrangement).
She also parrots whatever stupid woke line is doled out on twitter as readily as Starmer does.
Maybe you've seen something I haven't, or maybe she's just 'the starter for 10'. Either way the underlying logic of the candidate that should be found is solid.
The closest people I can think of that fit who you are looking for are Gloria De Piero or Caroline Flint (Both of whom also have issues) but both are now out of parliament. People like them either lost their seats in 2019 or were pushed out the party under Corbyn (and are now replaced with the aforementioned communists)
In general, there is even more of a dearth of decent 'operators' in Labour than in the conservatives. They disproportionally take their MPs from Law and (non-STEM) academia, hence why so many act like the clueless remainers in london despite holding constituency's in poor places far from Westminster.
Having said that, happy to see other suggestions of labour MPs that might have potential.
U cd well be right, i meant her as a shorthand - normal looking, sounding, from midlands not london, can move them on from brexit fixation, a woman is a nightmare for BJ etc.
Yeah from what I saw of Gloria shd cd be it
Very interesting. Very. In a nutshell - for the good of the people /country whatever colour you are red or blue . We basically can’t go on like this without VL in No.10. It won’t change , the old dinosaurs won’t let it . I’m a conservative South East dwelling Brexiteer. It’s done . Let’s not go on about it. Those changes that needed to happen after however I fear won’t … not without fundamental change. Even I can see how trying to get someone in Labour to steer the party back to its original roots, the common man… the working man and his family can be seen as appealing . Heck after reading all that , I would consider voting for them.. because with the shit we’ve been through and looking ahead even more to get through we really really need someone on our side and at our table. Not just the red wall voters the true blue small business voters too! We are Nationalists …. Much like the original true reds … my only major concern is socialism…. You say ignore the ‘woke’( sorry I said it) shite and trans dribble and all the other political correctness on steroids …. But letting in another Labour Party makes me nervous … Will the socialism/commie mindset drip further into the government of this country and then we really are done for …dunno… but certainly something has to be done ! .
These views are not out of line with what many within Labour think, but our party is a sack of rats atm. We'd have to apply all this 4GW stuff internally before we get to deploy it against the Tories.
4GW?
Fourth Generation Warfare. A model of conflict that describes how non-state actors can wage war on states. Look up William Lind and Martin Van Creveld.
Thank you.
Fourth-generation warfare. The OODA loop stuff.
DC, I must say the last two posts are top drawer!!
Question about MRP, have you even seen this technique used for probabilities of obtaining planning permission? Combining generic planning laws, local unitary development plans, local community opinion, previous planning committee responses, local community deprived infrastructure etc. Could be utilised effectively pre acquisition, pre planning and during planning.
Also the piece by Cornell on the thermodynamical nature of war was very interesting. Have you come across any similar reports covering regional and or international capital flows (would have thought more addressable post Covid with voluntary data provision)?
a/ no
b/ no
Re MRP-style work on planning permission - there is actually a real life example of crowd-sourcing housing strategy! The IEA had a competition for housing policy (https://bit.ly/3aZ7uhN) there were 1000s of ideas submitted. The IEA could have actually done some work and written a housing white paper there and then, presented it oven-ready to the party (Rees-Mogg was one of the judges) together with counters to all possible objections and a plan to get this implemented within a set timeframe. Instead they awarded a prize of 50K(!) to someone talking about releasing some MOD land to private developers, published some of the essays - and that was it. 1000s of hours dedicated to one issue from a vast range of expertise and many thoughtful pieces written that will never see the light of day or move policy. Instead, you get the likes of platitudes from IEA member Christopher Snowden in the Spectator this year which are all about just stating the problem in as many different ways as possible to seem relevant: "Much needed housing reforms are consistently "thwarted by Nimbys and tree huggers". Christopher argued: "Whatever the government does, it must do it now and do it quickly." Unbelievable. Totally agree with the statement: "The ‘think tanks’ and campaign groups are almost all displacement activity — they do not make the weather and their net effect is negative as they soak up effort and resources."
These guys all just reside within their settled intellectual bandwidth!! They refuse to increase amplitude and are clearly terrified of anyone that is e.g. DC.
Previous blog post you mention the deep state. In my mind I hear deep state and think of USA. Are the deep state the military/ intelligence apparatus (gchq, mi-6, mi-5, nca)? Did you find it to be an entrenched system? Do they Weald the same power as the US version?
Also like to say you called the lack of planning from the government for this winter and once again you called it absolutely bang on!!
Also interested to hear about the solar flares you have mentioned before. What is the event you are referring?
Questions about article:
1)Please do not preemptively dismiss this question - the left on crime:
Could the policy of increased prison rehabilitation/better conditions be sold to the public concerned about crime?
In Norway, the recidivism rate has fallen since the introduction of a prison system that actually treats prisoners well and tries to rehabilitate them (https://borgenproject.org/norways-prison-system/). By contrast, British prisons have gruelling conditions (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49324718) and furthermore bad prison conditions are linked to recidivism (e.g. allowing family visits reduces probability of recidivism https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/243718/evidence-reduce-reoffending.pdf theres more information confirming this).
2) Can the Green New Deal policy be useful in attracting votes for Labour? (policy details https://www.labourgnd.uk/gnd-explained)
3) There have been internal disagreements in Labour over raising the minimum wage (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58713344). Is raising or lowering the minimum wage better for attracting votes?
4) What should Labour's policy be on housing?
5) Another please do not preemptively dismiss question - how should Labour deal with Scotland and Scottish independence?
6) Labour policy on China (some on the left think China is an over exaggerated danger https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/08/china-military-power-zhengzhou-flooding-climate-crisis)?
7) If Labour uses this article and wins, will you accept an Order of Lenin from Jeremy Corbyn?
Also, when is Cummings Vs. McGregor happening in the UFC? https://www.sundayworld.com/showbiz/celebrity/conor-mcgregor-calls-former-boris-johnson-adviser-dominic-cummings-lanky-streak-of-pss-40962751.html
Im more of a contract negotiator than a combatant
1/ Separate serious detailed policy from topline broadcast message. Cd we learn from other countries on prisons? Obviously. Will you persuade most people this is the key thing, given we can all see violent criminals get away with joke sentences? and organised crime much stronger now than 30 yers ago? no
2/ Probably but not so much getting tories to switch, which is vital. Also you need to have an IMMEDIATE econ message before people are interested in you yapping about 2050
3/ Dunno but not hard to figure out
4/ See abve
5/ I havent researched this and dont have strong view
6/ LAB shd mostly shut up about china but the idea it's exaggerated danger is foolish
7/ Obv yes, I always work well with the comrades
Just wanted to follow up and say that the issue of Scotland is a key one for Labour electorally. In 2005 Labour could not have gotten a parliamentary majority without Scotland, so consider this issue before you make your post public.
The Midlothian question has not been mentioned by anybody recently and your prompt is timely, especially given the abysmally bad performance of the SNP and their grudging reliance on the UK and its supply chains.
Some interesting ideas here, but Labour's main problem is not the leader (though clearly Starmer is useless and Nandy isn't strong enough) but the party itself. The way it chooses, finances and trains candidates - so that they're all on the same page - as...as what exactly? What actually is Labour's political philosophy? Then maybe do something about the idiotic way it chooses its leaders... And then consider this - exactly how many CLP's do you imagine will discuss, or be allowed to discuss, these ideas in the coming weeks? There you go...
yeah it's all a farce - but farces are opportunities for ruthless teams - so someone cd take over and kick some people around and grip it. It does not need more people thinking about 'political philosopy' there are far too many people who think theyve got interesting stuff to say about this already and almost all of it is beta/gamma
Maybe they don't need a philosophy as such but they do need something for voters to get behind and they haven't got that. They still fall back too often on tribal sloganeering and insult - and as for beta/gamma gabble how about Paul Mason on Politics Live yesterday (clip on Guido after the page highlighting your post) - re Patel pushing back migrant boats representing fascists' interests... i.e. those who 'fantasise about those pushbacks ending in death'. Intellectuals of the left unite you have nothing to lose but your brains...
Yeah they're in parallel universe - but part of what i explain in blog is why this happens - short term incentives push these people to respond to ACTIVISTS and things like novara, NOT the median voter.
And short term if you tell lefty activists - yes we shd focus on women's safety not trans nonsense, it will be bad for YOUR CAREER.
Similar to ERG and NHS...
This is excellent advice that I am almost certain will not be taken.
1) 'Tough on crime; tough on the causes of crime'.
The Left do not think crime is caused by bad people behaving badly; rather they believe it is caused by *insert social buzzword here*. The fact this policy has been tried for entire 1900s is beside the point (see https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/RP99-111/RP99-111.pdf pg 14 - yes, despite the medical advances from the 1960s we've managed to double the murder rate!). Another fun example is the burglary rate is basically zero when it's raining...
You don't need to increase police numbers/funding. You need them on the street deterring crime, but the Left believe it's deprivation not depravity.
2) Social engineering is Fabianism to the core
Why would they give up ideas like LGBTQIALMNOP or The Climate Crisis when they are goldmines for manipulating how people think and behave?
3) How does Labour win without Scotland?
A genuine question. I can't find 320 seats in England/Wales that they could win. If they have 50, or even 30, seats from the SNP then maybe, but 'England's stopping us doing anything' is depressing effective north of the border. Labour currently have 1 (one) MP from Scotland.
Minor correction: "look at how elite graduates fell for Stalinist propaganda in the 1930s"
They were already fully onboard. Communism is a Western idea (Marx = German buried in Highgate). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_General_Strike ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Reed_(journalist) .
And as we're on the subject, it's always nice to mention the Rand Rebellion, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rand_Rebellion . The CPSA joined, informally, with the ANC after WW2, just 25 years after 'Workers of the World unite and fight for a white South Africa'.
Yep scotland is big prob for them and i havent looked at it enough to know what they shd do. But Starmer certainly aint the answer to anything up there
Thanks for the reply. Yeah, the sad thing is this is the country of James Watt and David Hume that's being fed deep-fried Robert Burns anthologies washed down with special brew. You'd think "we're not going to pay for you to Charles Kennedy yourselves. We'll provide job opportunities. Let's rebuild the <del>Navy</del> coastguard in Glasgow. If Scotland's still a great country, we'll let you prove it!", etc. would be enough. I'm just not sure it is anymore...
The devolution experiment has been an expensive disaster, mostly detrimental to the people of Scotland rather than anyone else.
Gill
1) If you had been in charge, what would you have done about Covid? What are your views on 'The Great Barrington Declaration' and the relative success of Sweden?
2) Why are you so critical of David Davis? I admire him for his 'civil liberties' stance especially regarding ID cards. A covid pass can lead to a digital ID system which, in the hands of any of our governments, is a scary thought.
3) I like the post and agree with much of it.
Ideal response on covid wd have been - close borders in Jan, on phone in Jan to vaccine companies, recruit human challenge trials, start tests in ?Feb, roll out march/april and 95% of the shitshow avoided. But that wd require a gvt that controls the gvt and employs people like General Groves... Possible in theory but not for our current bureaucratic states
DD is beyond lazy
What was the opposition to human challenge trials? "Bioethics" or just "dead players"?
Agreed. I cancelled meetup with Chinese investor end Jan 2020..told him not to come to UK. Did zoom instead.
For all the Tories reading DCs post with their head in their hands - it will never, ever happen.
In "Patterns of Conflict", Boyd made extensive reference to the moral level of warfare. Congruity between one's actions and one's morality is how you keep people fighting under incredible duress over long periods of time. Actions that decouple from morality will serve to isolate a side from their allies. The master stroke of the last 80 years has been a program to redefine and invert what is evil and what is good. At least two generations are governed by inverted moral axioms that consistently bear bitter fruit. The reason "do-gooders" has been a pejorative for decades is because the people in question are so utterly convinced of the righteousness of their actions, the terrible results are written off as an acceptable cost. The reason 'do-gooders' consistently get away with ruining everything is because the vast majority of the public share their moral beliefs and differ only in conviction. The nutters DC refers to are not isolated activists, but the tip of a vast spear. Just as an infantryman has 10 men in the logistical chain behind him, each activist represents hundreds who align with them on a moral plane and whose support can be assured.
For the Labour Party to adopt this plan of action, it would have to publicly defect from Wokism and that will never be permitted to happen. This is to reject what they think to be good and adopt what they think to be evil. The Outer Party of the Cathedral (a term I detest) is completely converged by this inverted morality and it will eat alive anyone who dares to recant their faith. I know DC regards the culture war as an unimportant sideshow that gets in the way of real conversations, but he is mistaken to write it off so lightly. The ideology that grips the highest echelons of society is bent upon destroying family, nation, civilisation, beauty and truth. Its adherents behave in a coordinated fashion over long time scales and have manoeuvred their way into every node of influence and power. True believers in the inverted moral order have enacted laws that give them the authority of the state to enforce their will on the unwilling and there is no movement to remove these laws from the statute books because nobody believes they are wrong.
The culture war is not a sideshow, but the heart of the system's inability to govern well. It is a disagreement on an axiomatic level about what is right and wrong. And until that is resolved by deliberate and concerted effort, the entropic slide into chaos and mayhem will remain a feature and not a bug.
Really enjoyed your poignant summary. However I believe you are missing the trend that is unfolding with increasing pace within the western world, which is being exacerbated by COVID. I agree we are in an increasing trend of entropy, however I believe the phase transition is in our midst and once and for all this brand of socialism is finished.
I think the rising tide of nationalism across Europe is a harbinger of what is to come. The problem is that the unstoppable force of nationalist plebs will eventually collide with the immovable object of globalist elites. Nobody is expecting a peaceful transfer of power between the two.
Agreed! This extreme polarity has been building for some time. This is why I refer to a phase transition moment , but what comes out on the other side is truly concerning! A new form of authoritarianism or a great awakening(perhaps the dream of an optimistic fool like myself).
That's the best summary and dialectic on the current catasrophe I've read anywhere.. Wish I'd written it! Congrats Bookworm!
I think all sorts of cultural aspects are far from a sideshow, theyre more important than the 'normal' politics everyone focuses on.
But Ive learned that if you thik talking to people on Right re normal politics is pointless/mindnumbing, it's 100x hen you get to some of these issues.
So I tend to keep quiet about them.
Really changing the CULTURE is even harder than pulling off the brexit heist...
But Im thinking about all this more and more hence why about to reread Closing of the American Mind etc...
I will post on this shortly but it connects to the Balaji argument - focus on building replacement institutions not fixing the old ones...
In that case, I apologise for misrepresenting your position.
Changing culture is a generational project and it has to be approached 'at an angle' to the current flow. Direct opposition doesn't work - only the smart approach will work so it strikes me your relative silence on these aspects is wise and understandable.
Beautifully put.