It's a straightforward relationship: high #inequality leads to the triumph of the far right. It will keep winning until governments deliberately seek to make societies more equal. I'm looking at you, Keir Starmer.
This week's column. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/13/trump-populists-human-nature-economic-growth
This week's column. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/13/trump-populists-human-nature-economic-growth
Comments
Remember, Labour Right fought visciously for Tory over Corbyn in two general elections and we got Boris and Brexit.
UK could tax all current and former UK citizens everywhere up to 90%,
but with debt 96% of the GDP and the annual budget exceeding revenues,
the UK may not be able to deliver everything to everyone right away.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/09/follow-the-money-by-paul-johnson-review-how-the-government-should-spend-it
a) more right wing than he pretended to be?
b) being badly advised?
c) enacting a strategy that will pay off even if we don't like it?
One hell of a disappointment, that man and his stolen party.
Buying an election and amassing power are not the same as winning. When corruption drives results we all lose and tells us democracy is either on life support or dead. Inequality leaves the masses vulnerable to the con.
Sharing the wealth better and making society fairer (more socially mobile, health and friendly for want of a better summary).
And stop defending perverted men invading women's spaces. If the left won't stand up for women, maybe someone else will.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich
MPG member and Psychologist David Smail 2006, cited in our book, Outsight:
https://midpsy.uk/publications/
Neo-natal leave
Pot-holes
Flood defences
Housing
Free childcare
Breakfast clubs
Improved Employment rights
NHS Waiting lists reduced
Community Pharmacies funded
£22b for NHS
Public transport investment
Playing to the right wing press ( which seems to be their plan so far) won't even get them good press .
The right wing press are weird fiction- noting they want works in real world
I heard the phrase "illegal immigrants" and shut my ears off.
It's only human
It's not about feeling excluded from wealth; it's about tribal divide. Thinkers vs doers, open vs closed minds, cosmopolitan urban vs religious rural.
Populism is more complex than Monbiot's wealth inequality argument.
dental, backs, knees etc-
sort out dentists & surgery pronto to combat the physical pain of injustice
& have more able to work!
The governments problem. It is the system. More specifically, the privately owned mainstream media that is the crux of the problem, as this decides public opinion. Thinks the crux.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2b7L0lW5x1P1QVZTbrt8hM?si=9fS0DCl7RY6NDrSZtGeJxg
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0sCDtAtA2uWoRF3O9Kro5W?si=uRQHSjP4RsGRevpkuy3Xdg
Neo-natal leave
Pot-holes
Flood defences
Housing
Free childcare
Breakfast clubs
Improved Employment rights
NHS Waiting lists reduced
Community Pharmacies funded
£22b for NHS
Public transport investment
Not taxing uber rich more.
Not closing tax loopholes.
Continuing austerity.
Nothing, with possible exception of free childcare or breakfast clubs, to reduce inequality.
I'm not even sure what they're for any more.
Neo-natal leave
Pot-holes
Flood defences
Housing
Free childcare
Breakfast clubs
Improved Employment rights
NHS Waiting lists reduced
Community Pharmacies funded
£22b for NHS
Public transport investment
Labour are smashing it!;
Neo-natal leave
Pot-holes
Flood defences
Housing
Free childcare
Breakfast clubs
Improved Employment rights
NHS Waiting lists reduced
Community Pharmacies funded
£22b for NHS
Public transport investment
If you say "never" they have no reason to try and get you back on side. Then where do they go for votes.
Next, abolish the house of lords.
Then institute a wealth cap. 5 million or so is plenty. Earnings beyond that must be given away.
Large companies must be owned by the workers themselves.
400 years of financial capitalism and corporate led capitalism and it always leads to fascism.
Be it promoted like Hitler was in 1925 by Prescott Bush
Or Netanyahu from both sides of the house in 2025.
It's time to ban their type of capitalism forever.
‘economically vulnerable regions’
to vote for #BrexitBenefits🧐🤷🏻♂️
which has contributed further to UK economic
And
*social* decline(thinking of Gov contempt for ECHR related disability & protest🤔)
🌱🕊️
https://bsky.app/profile/the-independent.com/post/3lle26optg22r
He does seem to want to sort stuff out and I personally don’t see many alternative politicians of his stature
He’s really grown into it
As an aside Gordon brown has grown exponentially in my view
Don't believe anything he says about his goals -look at what he has actually done.
He doesn't need to be popular: he just needs to stop people realising they can vote for real change by abandoning Labour (and not moving Right)
Faithfully communicate LAB good and bad points, correctly weight the voices of opposition parties, and if LAB lose votes its to progressive parties.
Reform gain because they're invariably the only third party given airtime.
I think your argument falls apart by looking at the stinking rich people they follow.
Possibly why the B word shalt not be spoken because to accept the reasons why brexit happened means addressing inequality in a meaningful way rather than the bs of levelling up. That, and Putin.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/12/10
She's hammered neither by inequality nor austerity. Just naked, short-sighted self-interest born of ignorance.
The responsibility resting on Labour's shoulders is huge. If they don't get this right they're not just opening the door to RW populism, they're rolling out the red carpet.
They just don't want to vote for the leading parties anymore, as they feel they are all the same.
What's the pattern in the NL?
Trapped at their estates, where they were born, never went anywhere, never met anyone different... Angry!
Very much take your point though.
Why would they vote for a party like Farage party who they know will make them poorer and make the rich richer?
Make it make sense!
Not many of them actually have legitimate grievances.
The billionaires are the causes of austerity.
Why don’t the aggrieved see the billionaires as the real scapegoats.
https://gripe.polisci.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/121/2022/09/GRIPE_S06E03_DEVRIES.pdf
When British capitalism collapsed in the 1920s Labour Ramsey McDonald lied for power, imposed Austerity and protected wealth.
Like how many times must people suffer this exploitative system of borrowing the future for inflated profits today?
Time to ban it!
How did Trump win? How did Hitler win? It's racists, innit?
….
Here's one I made earlier...
So given that this Labour is no longer protecting the rights of those in need, where are the votes gonna go?
How are they removing kids rights?
They’ve got biggest increase in workers rights going through parliament in decades
Parental rights? More nurseries, better support for sickness, neonatal rights?
The right to privacy? 🤣🤦♂️
The British Social Attitudes survey frequently shows a majority in favour of raise taxes and spending, and only ever a tiny minority in favour of cutting taxes and spending.
https://natcen.ac.uk/publications/british-social-attitudes-37
Detain people when they are actually, obviously millionaires and said they were not.
Confiscate assets against which taxes are repeatedly neither paid nor exempted.
Would that work?
That said it's disappointing to see UK Gini significantly higher than large EU nations.
Don't expect Starmer to do it, though. We have to do it for ourselves.
He doesn't give a shit about equality in society.
He just wanted power.
Many voted in Labour because they promised 'change'. Turns out, Labour meant more poverty.
Many won't bother to get ID to participate in elections. That is their vote. It is a waste of time, they don't have😡
Angry at exclusion, much of public wants vengeance,
And long failure to tax wealth adequately has bred it:
In US, 80’s tax cuts broke New Deal framework, which rt-wing were intent to destroy, as Dems diddled w/ neolib’sm,
And lost to a savage boy seeking to trash his own house.
He's a RW Thatcherite City Servant, masquerading as a Labour Party Leader.
Income Inequality is Trump’s goal
Good luck all.
10% of any population is cruel no matter what, & 10% is merciful no matter what, & the remaining 80 % can be moved in either direction.”―Susan Sontag
Many people think just what they're told. Some can't think.
https://bsky.app/profile/dickniggardly.bsky.social/post/3lf3kksi2ok2i
What is your thinking?
Labour wants to get the money back, not from the billionaires who ended up with it …. but from pensioners and people on benefits 🤨…..
On why people vote far right
(Combined with: the rich live longer and vote more right and extreme right)
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdF8Xrt1/
Hitler did it
Mussolini admitted he coined corporatism as fascism
And now they openly do it by attacking the market and the intellectuals. They openly state they wasn't researchers to go make Apple phones or mining and openly promote child labour to keep people poor and above all dumb
Which will lead to Habsburg idiocy on the end probably