Episode 79: UK Election Special

RedFem

The UK General Election is set for July 4th 2024 and we face the situation of Keir Starmer's Labour Party being to the right of the Tories on some questions, the peril of electing a Deputy PM in Angela Raynor who has previously supported obvious perverts, and almost zero incentive for young people to vote for either of the two main parties, given we could barely fit a wafer cracker between their policies. We discuss Labour's obsession with fudging issues by creating 'third ways' on topics, such as believing they can deliver both 'single sex spaces' and 'self-ID'. Plus, how Starmer's core base is the PMC, who he not only embodies and represents the interests of, but is of their class.
The wider context of the PMC and their acolytes is that the working-class embarrass them. The PMC and middle-class consider themselves morally superior and more deserving to run things than the one person one vote General Election a liberal democracy allows for. The middle-class elements that orbit the PMC, typically aspiring to ascend to it, are actually workers in the sense that they sell their labour, so have to create moral constructs in order to separate themselves from the working-class, who disgust them. They do this day-to-day through having different habits of consumption, but they also pick political issues on which to perform outrage and perform empathy, such as Brexit, the war in Ukraine, or "smashing the gangs". This means they avoid having uncomfortable conversations about the realities of imperialism and global capital.
The episode ends on the wider shift to the right across Europe (though it was recorded before yesterday's EU election results where the rightwing won big), the NHS, immigration, and private finance.