From Newsgroup: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy

Whether itrCOs competition or coronation this summer, expect to hear a lot about rCyLabour valuesrCO before (and after) Andy Burnham becomes prime minister. Labour canrCOt stop telling us about their wonderful values.
rCyWhen we rally around Labour values together, our movement changes the
lives of those who need it most,rCO Keir Starmer intoned like an adenoidal android during the local election campaign.

What exactly are rCyLabour valuesrCO? Late-era Starmer could get quite emotional rCo as far as he was able to rCo about them, stating, rCyWerCOre on the side of communities across our country,rCO whatever that means. In his resignation statement, he told us how herCOd been rCybuilding a country
where everyone is seen, everyone is valuedrCO. Whatever they are, Labour values always come wrapped in this sickly sermonic goo, suggesting some
kind of higher moral calling.

This nebulous cant rCo trumpeted from that section of the moral high
ground occupied by the ignorers of mass child rape, to take just one
oversight rCo is enough to knock you sick. We are constantly told that disagreeing with Labour is not rCywho we arerCO, that rCyBritain is better than thisrCO. It is done in the tone of a disappointed form tutor
reprimanding 13-year-olds for sticking chewing gum on the backs of bus
seats.

Under Andy Burnham, this is only likely to get more spew-inducing. At
his victory rally, he boasted that his campaign was led by rCystrong
northern power womenrCO, adding, rCyI wouldnrCOt mess with them and I suggest that you donrCOt either.rCO Well done, girls! As ever, thererCOs a line of ladies near the front of Labour, but not one right at the front. The
time, somehow, is never quite right.

The word rCyprogressiverCO rCo all over both Wes StreetingrCOs resignation letter and his toe-curling statement of fealty to Burnham rCo seems to function as a magic talisman of Labour values. Progressing from what and
to what? We are never told. It seems to be a Labour synonym for rCynicerCO, but without any frame it can mean anything. Cancer is often progressive,
after all. Amusingly, some Labour figures have started saying that we
should hold Labour governments close to our hearts because they are
precious, special things that donrCOt come around too often rCo yes, like plagues and world wars.

Starmer and company seemed to think that Labour values were enough, that
no thought or even preparation for government was needed. Labour values
were the magic pixie dust to be sprinkled about No. 10, and everything
would just sort itself out. Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo. In fact, just saying rCyLabour valuesrCO was enough. Like the Muppet Babies, with their promise that rCyWe make our dreams come true, werCOll do the same for you,rCO the offer is bafflingly vague. How, and with what?

Burnham has been rumbling about rCyneoliberalismrCO and rCytrickle-down economicsrCO, even suggesting that thererCOs too much Thatcherism about rCo which, considering the size of BritainrCOs benefits bill and debt interest repayments, is a bold claim.

But Labour values often seem to require pretending that itrCOs even
further back in time. Labour likes to talk as if itrCOs 1926, because that
was the last time they had a point. Riding in to dispossess fat cats and
the gentry today is like turning up to fight the Boer war a hundred
years late and waggling your breech-loading rifle in the utterly bemused
faces of Madonna and George Michael.

If we knew what Labour values are, rather than what Labour say they are,
we could perhaps begin to make sense of some of their more inexplicable wheezes: paying to give away the Chagos islands, or encouraging growth
through whacking up taxes by -u40 billion.

Good news, though! IrCOve untangled the knot, and I feel it is my duty to share the solution with you. You will be confused no longer. Everything
will suddenly snap into place.

With the Labour party of today, their entire purpose is for them,
high-status people, to spite and goad you and me, low-status people.
This isnrCOt snobbery as we knew it in the last century, as anybody can
join in rCo and similarly, members of the low-status out-group can be
rich, poor or middling, so long as they donrCOt share those rCyLabour valuesrCO.

Nothing and nobody else matters. This is the Labour through-line, what
gets them out of bed in the morning. Every other consideration has been
boiled away, leaving only the camaraderie of getting up the noses of
their out-group. It explains everything they say and do rCo from HermerrCOs prosecuting of special forces to the pointless VAT raid on private
schools to digital ID. If it winds up either rCytoffsrCO or rCygammonsrCO, or better still both, then it must be the right thing to do.

Empathy and kindness are the wrapper on LabourrCOs good old-fashioned envy
and malice. They are nice, you are nasty. They might as well operate a
Dame Edna-style badging system, pinning stars on people marked rCyGOODrCO
and rCyEVILrCO.

What about the actual, very grave, problems facing the country (which I
could list here if I had another 40,000 words)? Forget it.

ItrCOs horrible to have to face the true state of things and very tempting
to say rCydonrCOt be silly, they arenrCOt so badrCO. But this wonrCOt do. It is
especially galling when Labour accuses others of trying to start fires
of rCydivisionrCO, when it is they more than anybody who have been, for decades, merrily sloshing petrol about with one hand and flicking a
lighter with the other.

We donrCOt really have the luxury of not despising Labour any longer, of
being urbane and unflappable in the face of their destructive power. IrCOm afraid there should be division rCo but not between races or classes. The divide should be between Labour (indeed, between progressives as a
whole) and the rest of us. We may flinch at such thoughts, but our squeamishness is no longer useful.

Andy Burnham? More of the same. His first statement after StarmerrCOs resignation was all about tone, firing out words like rCyseriousrCO, rCyorderlyrCO, rCyresponsiblerCO, rCystablerCO rCa He then immediately convened a
massive selfie packed with grinning goons, chuffed to be lifted by his
mighty wind. Because herCOs Labour, you see, with Labour values, through
and through. And the Labour party rules through moral entitlement. This
means that the correction of their basic errors never happens.

The values the country desperately needs rCo honesty, intelligence,
competence rCo never even occur to them. After all, who needs those when yourCOre the good guys?


Gareth Roberts
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