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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 20h

What an absolute pleasure to join @roberthutton.co.uk and @duncanweldon.bsky.social on their podcast to talk films, the French resistance and the ultimate defeat of Nazis.

open.spotify.com/episode/6JqG...

Is Paris Burning - with Karim Palant

open.spotify.com

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 1d

This was so much fun recording and just listening back to …. Thanks @roberthutton.co.uk and @duncanweldon.bsky.social for having me along!

War Movie Theatre @warmovietheatre.bsky.social · 1d

Zut alors! Sacre bleu! Cette semaine sur Theatre des Movies de la Guerre, nous voyons une filme Francais! Bien sur, c'est "Is Paris Burning?" comme tous les grands stars de la France et aussi les Etats-Unis! Bof.

Partout sur les services de podcast!

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

So, sure, new Labour was more liberal than them on say ‘empires’. But to compare the politics of New Labour with those of Attlee on this stuff is just weird if we don’t also acknowledge that say on that measure Thatcher js practically Ed Davey

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

I am just not sure I agree with sentence two. With earlier Labour governments we have a sample size of effectively 3. Two of them maintained an empire accross much of Africa.

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

I cld’ve been clearer- a better way is ‘Aiming for’ a more liberal coalition of voters/ a more liberal set of policies relative to the views of the general population. I think Blair, Straw, Blunkett **explcitly** aimed for a more illiberal tone than their voting coalition in exactly same way as Keir

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

no hold on. Your point wasn’t just that the entire country has got less liberal but that the New Labour electoral coalition was a shift to a more liberal
Coalition of Voters within the wider population as it actually
Existed than what came before and what came after it. I am disagreeing with that.

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

I’m not really clear which part of my
Argument your point is in response to?

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

If you control for the general shift towards illiberal immigration policies driven by wider trends including GFC and reaction to EU accession etc and global insecurity, easier transport… then I think this could have been ..Keir this week? Or probably Kemi

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

Oh and ***ID cards***

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

Except in so far as it makes clear it is a fact of life and that migration has positive economic impacts (something Rishi sunak, Boris and Keir Starmer have all said)

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

The 2005 Dover speech is the clearest and most articulate expression of the New Labour immigration argument and it includes all of those and much more. It does not make the case for higher migration.

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

Blair stood up in the 2005 election and proposed

An Australian style points system

Deporting foreign criminals (which he said Tories opposed)

600 More border guards

His pitch was ‘it's chaos from Michael Howard or proper, workable controls from Labour’

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

When Wilson came to power in 1964 Britain was still very much an imperial power. So I think it’s reasonable to say that a lot changed in the following 30-40 years on race. But Jenkins’ changes weren’t unilateral they were voted for by parliament…. In free votes often.

Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

LGBT rights you could say arguably but even then Blair was v resistant to even reforming section 28

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

It’s also one decision. Albeit a big one. Among many that point the other way.

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

more liberal than what? than ‘Great reforming Home Secretary (tm)’ Roy Jenkins? More liberal than Labour 1980-1994? I really don’t think so. It is definitely the case that a lack of transitional controls on EU accession was a very liberal move. But it was hugely controversial **within new Labour**

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

declining size coherence and homogeneity and community outlook of the working class vote LED to new labour rather than new labour just walking away from a nicely packaged working class vote

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

labour folks don’t just have an emotional attachment to the working class but a long and historic **hatred** of some of the politics of the urban intellectuals - communism for one, but also anti western, anti growth, and anti semitism etc

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

The old Labour right and blue Labour are not the same thing. Blue Labour is doomed to fail precisely because it is not an authentic working class movement or outlook - it’s a think tank project gone weird led by a literal professor…

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

The idea New Labour was a ‘liberal’ movement is quite widespread so this is an understandable error … but this was a government that pursued asylum detention centres; 90’day detention; ASBOs and ID cards. And record police numbers. Neighbourhood policing. A total false memory.

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

This by @samfr.bsky.social is both thoughtful and thought provoking on why Labour still goes after its ‘reform curious’ voters despite it being hard. But some thoughts in response.
1/…
open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/i...

Identity Crisis

How Labour can rebuild their voter coalition

open.substack.com

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

I was paraphrasing something which appears to underlay quite a lot of the defenses of one J Corbyn.

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

If anyone wonders ‘why are Jews so over sensitive to anti-semitism’ this maybe give it a bit of colour.

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 4d

When the global financial crisis hit my main reaction was ‘oh shit what happened after the 1929 crash…’

So as a Jew and a child of Holocaust survivors I don’t feel less safe these days because I haven’t felt safe for decades.

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Karim Palant @karimpalant.bsky.social · 5d

Chelsea beating Liverpool today sends a real message - you can’t just buy success in the Premier League. You need a team with a history, with a community spirit.

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