Keir's Korma Karma

Keir Starmer has landed himself in the soup. It appears that his own opportunism may have cooked his goose. For months, he and other opportunist Labour politicians have attacked Boris Johnson for having attended social gatherings in Downing Street, during a period when the idiotic lockdown rules made them illegal. They have demanded that Johnson, and Chancellor Sunak resign for having broken the law. Now it appears that Starmer and other Labour politicians may have done the same, and are also under investigation by Durham Police. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, it may be said, and so, if also penalised, Starmer should abide by his own rules and resign.

Starmer is said to have gone for a few beers and a Chicken Korma with other Labour members, in breach of the lockdown rules. Now, of course, those lockdown rules were themselves illiberal, irrational an idiotic, and that Boris Johnson, having introduced such rules, should himself be found in breach of them, is rather fitting. That irony does not change the fact that the rules were illiberal, irrational and idiotic, and that it never should have been a crime to hold a party in your own home. But, Starmer et al, true to their opportunist politics, needed to add some spice and colour to their own drab politics that differ only from those of the Tories in degree and presentation, saw a perfect opportunity to attack Johnson on a personal level, without the need to consider any question of political principle. That it has come back on them, is quite simply political Karma.

Starmer's defence is that the social gathering in question was really a work meeting, in other words, exactly the same defence that Johnson used. However, this also illustrates the irrational nature of the lockdown regulations, and the irrational and opportunist politics that surrounds them. At the start of the lockdowns we were told that a blanket lockdown was required because the virus was “indiscriminate”. That was, of course, never true. It was a deliberate lie. The virus is, in fact, one of the most discriminating there has been. For the vast majority of the population, you could contract it and never know about it – it was asymptomatic. For many more, it had only mild, cold like symptoms, not surprisingly, because as a coronavirus, it is one of the group of pathogens responsible for the common cold. Those at any risk from the virus were only the elderly, particularly those over 75, or who had other medical conditions.

As Professor Mark Woolhouse has stated, this claim that the virus was indiscriminate led to the imposition of lockdowns that were a wholly irrational, ineffective and counterproductive response. They were part of what he called a collective madness that swept society. It was a madness, of course, stoked by a sensationalist media, and by opportunist politicians who saw it as a means to again beat the government over the head and demand that it always did more, which actually meant continuing to act in an even more illiberal and irrational manner. The virus was highly discriminating, and, as Woolhouse says, an elderly person was 10,000 times more likely to die from it than a young person, yet it was the young who were most grievously affected by the lockdowns that were mindlessly imposed, and which these illiberal, irrational laws were introduced to enforce.

But, whilst the virus is highly discriminating, no one has suggested that it is so smart and discriminating as to act in a way that Starmer's defence requires it to do. For that defence to have any rationality, we would have to believe that the virus could discriminate between people attending a social gathering that was “work-related”, and one that wasn't! Otherwise, why does it matter whether people infect one another at a work related social-gathering or some other? The effect is the same. We saw the same thing more than a year ago, when many of the people who were up in arms about young people congregating, in the Summer, on the beach, shortly afterwards were likewise up in arms about police breaking up a social gathering of people protesting in relation to the murder of Sarah Everhard, again as though the virus would be able to distinguish between the two types of social gathering!

The defence, in terms of law, of course, stands, because the law itself is irrational and allows one type of gathering as against the other, and that again just illustrates the arbitrary, irrational and illiberal nature of such laws. But, of course, those laws were precisely the ones that Starmer and other opportunist politicians, including some on the statist Left were pushing. That opportunist, statist politicians, be it Starmer, Johnson, Davies, Sturgeon, or those of the various left sects, should push these illiberal, authoritarian measures is not surprising, because it is part of their political DNA. They believe that the masses are rather stupid, and have to be led and controlled by a paternalistic state treating them like children. Lenin made the same observation of the Narodniks and other petty-bourgeois politicians in Russia.

The last thing they want is that the working-class should realise that it already is the force that makes society run, even if it does not run society. It is ordinary workers that produce the goods and services, that drive the public transport, and that also perform the managerial and administrative functions of society. If it realised its own position in society, it would realise it has no need whatsoever of those that run society, the shareholders and bondholders, and their representatives that control the boards of companies, or the top ranking civil servants, judges, and military brass. They are the ones who exercise control, and who appropriate the greatest riches of society, but they contribute nothing, and have no real social function. The last thing that Starmer or Johnson and the rest want is for workers to understand that, and to exercise their own self-activity, and self-government.

So, of course, Starmer and the rest, having essentially the same reactionary, petty-bourgeois and nationalist politics as the Tories, when they wanted to curry favour with voters believed that the way to do it was to simply do more of the same. And, when you do just more of the same, the only way of adding spice and colour to your own bland menu is on the basis of personality politics, and personal attacks. On the former Starmer is on to a loser, because no matter how hard you search for it, he appears to have no personality, as well as having no principles, as his volte face on the question of Brexit illustrated.

Voters in Thursday's elections seem to have come to a similar conclusion. As with the French elections, the big winner seems to have been None of The Above. Given the open goal that the Tories represent, Starmer's Blue Labour, predictably failed to score into it. The biggest gains came to the Liberals, Greens, and SNP, itself no doubt a reflection on the fact of Blue Labour's growing symbiosis with the Tories. Given the third party status of these other groups, their performance was much better than the actual numbers suggest, but it still leaves them way behind, and in a position where they will only split the anti-Tory vote, which is why the Tories continued to win in the former red-wall seats.

I will give a fuller analysis when all the results are in.

Starmer Isolates, Will Anyone Notice?

Keir Starmer is to self-isolate after someone in his household showed possible signs of being infected by COVID.  The question is, will anyone notice the difference, because ever since he was elected Leader he has been virtually invisible anyway, certainly as far as any kind of principled opposition to the government on the two main issues of the day - Brexit and the Lockdown.  In fact, his isolation, today, is fortunate for him, as it means that he has an excuse for the fact that the main opposition to the Tories disastrous Brexit policy, that has now resulted in it having to threaten to become a rogue state, and break international law, will come not from Labour, but from the Tories own benches!!!  This is a truly pathetic excuse for a Labour opposition.

When arch Blair-right Alan Johnson was appointed as Labour's coordinator, in 2016,  of Labour's EU referendum campaign, he immediately disappeared from sight.  There were complaints that Corbyn had failed to campaign for a Remain vote, that were largely untrue, being simply a reflection of the media's desire to give him no airtime, along with their morbid fascination with the soap opera that was taking place in the Tory Party, during the campaign.  But, compared to Alan Johnson, Corbyn was as busy as a bee, during the EU referendum.  However, Starmer today has even outdone Alan Johnson in his lack of activity, and even comments to oppose the Tory Brexit, as he tries to appease the hard right nationalists on his own benches, as he tries to hold together an alliance of the soft-left, Blair-rights and hard Right against the remnants of Corbynism in the PLP, and the sizeable number of progressive social-democrats in the party rank and file, who were drawn in behind Corbyn in 2015 and 2016.  Starmer needs to hold that coalition together, in order to be able to begin to undermine the Left in the grassroots of the party.  As soon as he has done that, the Right will ditch him, and bring in someone even more to their liking.  After all Starmer made the cardinal sin of remaining in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet.

Corbyn, at least, made an effort to argue for a second referendum, even if we all knew he really didn't believe in it, and still held to the delusion, that some kind of Labour Brexit could be negotiated, whereby the EU would voluntarily give us all the benefits of membership without actually being a member, or having any of the costs and responsibilities of membership.  But, Starmer hasn't even done that.  He has rolled over and died, accepting Brexit as a fait accompli, and offering workers, and Labour voters, who make up the vast majority of the 48% who voted to stay in the EU, and who, if another vote were held tomorrow, would be in a majority, absolutely no hope for the future.  He has again opened the door for the SNP, for Plaid and for the Liberals and Greens to present their own petty-bourgeois agendas as being some form of progressive alternative, and in the case of the nationalist parties, only way out of being dragged out of the EU.

Corbyn at least argued against Theresa may's bad deal, and then against Boris Johnson's even worse deal, but Starmer having opposed May's deal under Corbyn, now simply demands that Boris Johnson gets on with implementing his even worse deal.  This is surreal!  But, its not just on Brexit that Starmer has completely failed to offer up any kind of opposition to Boris Johnson.  On the lockdown, Starmer has simply reinforced all of the idiotic measures that Johnson has introduced that have caused the economy to go into the worst economic slowdown in 300 years, and that are threatening to cause millions of workers to lose their jobs as the unaffordable furlough scheme, inevitably gets wound down.  The only thing that Starmer and his Shadow Cabinet have had to say is that perhaps the government could have wrecked the economy sooner by introducing the lockdown earlier, or else making minor sniping criticisms of the way the government has implemented its measures.

Starmer's approach has been totally opportunistic.  On the lockdown, it was clear from the beginning on what was known from China and Italy that COVID19 is a virus that attacks virtually exclusively the elderly - over 60 but particularly over 80 - and to a lesser extent those whose immune system is compromised.  That is why the vast majority of deaths have been of people in care homes and in hospital.  There was absolutely no reason why those locations could not have been locked down and isolated so as to protect these vulnerable people from the virus.  But, that wasn't done.  Instead, like a conjurer using sleight of hand, everyone was told look over here instead, look at what we are doing to lockdown the whole of society, and don't question the fact that the whole of society actually is at virtually no risk from this virus!

Whilst millions of people who were at no risk from the virus were prevented from engaging in social activity, and about 20% were prevented from going to work, which is what has caused the cratering of the economy, thousands of old and sick people in care homes and hospitals, who should have been isolated and protected were dying.  And, of course, the lockdown was counterproductive for them too, because where else was the wealth to come from to finance all the expenditure required to finance the additional spending in care homes and hospitals?  Indeed, where else was all of the actual goods and services required by those care homes and hospitals to come from, if people were not actually at work, producing them?  With all due respect to the proponents of the Magic Money Tree, you can print as many banknotes as you like, and throw them into the economy in furlough payments, or to finance government spending, but you can't build a hospital or a ventilator out of those paper notes.

And, the same is happening all over again.  We have the government and media telling millions of people that they cannot meet up in groups of more than six people, and other such nonsense, and yet, day after day, we see TV reporters interviewing older people, the actual people at risk from the virus, who are blithely out shopping, and engaged in other such activities!  This is not rocket science.  The only people at serious risk from COVID are older people, and those with compromised immune systems.  The government should simply say that, and tell such people to isolate.  The government should enable them to do so.  Everyone else can and should simply get on with life as normal.  In that was herd immunity will be developed, the virus will be unable to spread, and will die out.

Even self-isolating for the elderly does not require you to become a hermit.  I get my shopping delivered online, but, everyday, I go for my normal half hour run, I have my sit-up bench in the garden, I can do my Kung Fu sets on the lawn, and I can practice with my swords, and so on; my wife and I walk the dog several times a day, simply ensuring that we keep a reasonable distance away from anyone else.  This is just common sense for anyone who is in a high risk category.  Had the government simply advised such action, rather than implementing the idiotic and counter-productive lockdown, we would have been passed the problem with this virus by now, and of other governments had done the same, it would be in decline across the globe, without having caused the economic damage that has resulted from similar lockdowns.