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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 1d

The class debate in Britain is utterly broken, exhibit 3,456,649.

James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 1d

I know plenty of politicians 'working classify' their backgrounds, but this from Jenrick is taking the piss.

His father's linked in is here: uk.linkedin.com/in/bill-jenr...

He was a managing accountant who ended up as the Managing Director of Cannon Industries

Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 3d

FWIW I led a Whitehall EDI team in the George Floyd era, which presumably makes me first against the wall. I did think some of the ideas and rhetoric were excessive, but I remain proud of the work we did.

Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 3d

We only tell people who know the secret handshake.

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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 3d

*People* being fundamentally good obvs. Must stop skipping words.

Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 3d

Hard agree. Progressives frame racism in economic terms because it plays into their priors about being fundamentally good, and because it makes the problem amenable to progressive policy solutions. At best 'people turn to racism because of poverty' is a partial account.

Prof Nisreen Alwan @nisreenalwan.bsky.social · 3d

Sorry I keep talking about this but I’m genuinely alarmed by the growing narrative that poverty is a cause of racism. First it’s super insulting of people on low incomes. Second it normalises & excuses racist takes. And third it deters real action on racism by shifting the whole focus to economics.

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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 3d

To be clear - this is all stuff I really like and that is *precisely why* I think it won't work.

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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 3d

I despair at some of the more therapy-flavoured takes which think grief tending and community organising will address racism. If I'm doing an abhorrent thing that makes me feel powerful and included then I'm probably not turning up to the grief circle or doing a community share offering.

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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 3d

Well Tommy Robinson could only hold his little gathering because some very rich people paid the bills. But equally there is some basic psychology here - latent racism being given social license, people who feel neglected asserting themselves, protest just feeling really good to be part of.

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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 3d

Hard agree. Progressives frame racism in economic terms because it plays into their priors about being fundamentally good, and because it makes the problem amenable to progressive policy solutions. At best 'people turn to racism because of poverty' is a partial account.

Prof Nisreen Alwan @nisreenalwan.bsky.social · 3d

Sorry I keep talking about this but I’m genuinely alarmed by the growing narrative that poverty is a cause of racism. First it’s super insulting of people on low incomes. Second it normalises & excuses racist takes. And third it deters real action on racism by shifting the whole focus to economics.

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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 3d

Give it 18 months and most of them will have joined the Queens Army.

Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 5d

I'm now wondering if Liz Truss has subtly transformed the role of the OBR? The one time a CHX bypassed the OBR it led to catastrophe, so now strict adherence to forecasts is a signifier of fiscal rectitude (including for bond markets).

Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 5d

What gets me about lanyards and lattes is the weird nostalgia they encode. Amazon warehouse workers wear lanyards and white van men buy lattes in Greggs. The working classes don't generally go down mines and drink coal any more.

George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 5d

This is his repeated attacks on what he calls the "lanyard class". Who are the terrible people who wear lanyards? Doctors & nurses, care workers, teachers, managers, administrators, secretaries. The people who hold society together, who keep everything running, who do the jobs he wouldn't stoop to.

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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 5d

I saw a neat four box model recently that did left v right and maintenance of status quo v disruption. Reform and the Greens now very much on the side of disruption but the former gets a lot more attention. Fair I think to say Labour is status quo. I don't think we really know about Tories.

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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 6d

Continue to be surprised that the fair funding dog hasn't barked politically. The figures here are eye watering. I'm sure London Councils has cherry picked its stats, but even a fraction of this will be extraordinarily difficult for some boroughs.

Alan White @aljwhite.bsky.social · 6d

Scoop from @cjayanetti.bsky.social - Some of London’s poorest areas could see their share of funding for children’s services halved in under local govt grant reform plans www.politicshome.com/news/article...

London Councils Face Losing Half Their Share Of Children's Services Funding

Some of London’s poorest areas could see their share of funding for children’s services halved under Labour’s plans to reform local government gran...

www.politicshome.com

Reposted by Simon Parker

Sarcophagus Gibbs @sararoseg.bsky.social · 6d

You don’t actually have to both sides this. The Jewish community in the UK is not the Israeli government. You can just condemn the murder of two British Jews killed in their place of worship and you don’t have to say a single other thing.

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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 6d

Future being cancelled all over the place today.

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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 6d

Sure my point was narrowly that Marx would have said if you sell your labour you're a proletarian. Hobsbawm recognises it's more complicated than this - though interestingly he saw the white collar 'labour aristocracy' as a conservative force that identified with capital.

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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 6d

I note that this also explains the quite significant distinction between 'middle class' and 'upper middle class' which is the difference between me (professional salariat) and David Cameron.

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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 6d

Ok so genuine question here... I've been re-reading Hobsbawm's Forward March of Labour Halted and his point is that strictly proletarians are those who sell their labour, so in Marxist terms isn't it more that upper-proletarians have adopted bourgeois habits?

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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 6d

I only read Le Monde in the original French.

I don't actually understand much of it mind.

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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 6d

Oh it drives me crazy. My grandad spent his whole life as a farm labourer. I get to be an exec director in local government. My family's elevation into the middle class is an absolute bloody miracle so can we all stop cringing about social mobility now please?

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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 6d

Reminded of the (now quite senior) Labour figure I once met who despite being a highly accomplished policy professional and Oxford graduate insisted that they now only read The Sun. Apparently this helped them understand the working class, who also only read The Sun.

Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 6d

New post:

"Identity Crisis"

Labour keeps trying to appeal to a lost white working class vote + alienating middle-class grads / ethnic minority voters that are a much bigger part of their coalition.

Why? And how can they rebuild their coalition more effectively?

open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/i...

Identity Crisis

How Labour can rebuild their voter coalition

open.substack.com

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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 7d

MRP at this stage is pretty meaningless tbf.

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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 8d

Are you coming out as an anarchist?

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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 8d

I was sure I'd heard Blair say this was his goal... and he did. In this interview he describes 50% as a 'target or aim'. I think you're right that it wasn't an official government goal, but policy was clearly geared towards achieving it. news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/program...

BBC NEWS | Programmes | Newsnight | Blair on tuition fees transcript

news.bbc.co.uk

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Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 8d

Yes Labour is gambling that FPTP forces the anti-Farage coalition to go Starmer. Maybe.

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