Do we think that small towns are going to have banks in them, and branches of Boots? Or that there can be a pub on every street corner? Or that smoking is making a comeback? Or that industrial jobs you can work your way into are going to form more than a small fraction of the workforce? No. (2/2) - ThreadSky

gsoh31.bsky.social • 1 day ago

Do we think that small towns are going to have banks in them, and branches of Boots? Or that there can be a pub on every street corner? Or that smoking is making a comeback? Or that industrial jobs you can work your way into are going to form more than a small fraction of the workforce? No. (2/2)

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buds-disability.bsky.social•22 hours ago

We don't do party politics, but it's certainly true that the deliberate social-led design of local communities ended in the 1980s, and communities started to form around purely commercial interests instead. These new communities exclude non-profitable people like older and disabled people by design.

chrisdillow.bsky.social•23 hours ago

True. I remember we Marxists in the 80s getting interminable lectures about how our ideas were out-dated because the industrial working class was disappearing. 40 years on, it's no longer us that need these lectures - not that I'd wish them upon anyone.

theangelofhistory.bsky.social•23 hours ago

Anyone in 2025 whose economic politics isn’t based on the reality that the majority of the workforce - whether rich or poor - are engaged in white collar work, is basically pointless or harmful.

oldtrotter.bsky.social•2 hours ago

Why Johnson’s version of “levelling up” was both perceptive and unrealistic. People do feel an attachment to the places they live, and that they’re being hollowed out. Whitehall can’t bring back branches of Boots but it can avoid making the problem worse ….1/2

oldtrotter.bsky.social•2 hours ago

….by following the private sector out of those places and funding local government properly, or allowing it to fund itself properly. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/17/forgotten-britain-towns-villages-austerity-community

matthewkilburn.bsky.social•1 day ago

It's very close to Reform territory - one of their Tyneside candidates' manifestos last year was dominated by a wish for the shops on the main streets to come back and a complaint that no-one had explained why they had gone.

duncancd.bsky.social•1 day ago

They all shop at Amazon!

gsoh31.bsky.social•1 day ago

I would love them to come back, and I live near a fairly posh row of them for exactly that reason. They won't.

path-dependent.bsky.social•1 day ago

It's a politics that has little to offer economically sidelined places other than being anti immigration (and maybe strongly pro car-driver).

Neither of these things are going to do anything for local economies.

marwoodlennox.bsky.social•23 hours ago

Yes, that's the other thing - they imagine they want the coherence of an industrial society but also keep all the benefits of the modern consumer society and I am sorry but it just doesn't work that way.

yakopov.me•22 hours ago

"Everyone needs to be a manual worker or a farmer or maybe a shop assistant" - yeah, that the social structure of the poorest societies on the planet.

stephaniemac.bsky.social•1 day ago

Maybe it might have had something to do with everyone driving to the Asda’s and Tesco’s on the outskirts because they were cheaper? Not helped by councils seeing street parking as a cash cow because government cut their budgets

matthewkilburn.bsky.social•1 day ago

And lots more - well before the hypermarkets took off, family businesses owning department stores in depressed areas might find it easier to close the store and rent out the building as multiple units in search of a more reliable financial return - and car ownership was low in these areas.

jim1132.bsky.social•23 hours ago

It should be relatively simple to quantify reversing the decline in bank branches, small shops, and pubs because you can count them. The fact there isn't a plan betrays the faux-nostalgia/culture war/blame the libs froth of Blue Labour's dreamings.

gsoh31.bsky.social•23 hours ago

Good point also. Banking hubs with at least an ATM and a staff member part time at the PO a good example.

greygosling.bsky.social•2 hours ago

It's not like they exude any sort of political smarts. Backing the MAGA line on Ukraine, yes, very working class, much British patriotism.

almagroschool.bsky.social•1 day ago

there'll have to be a massive economic and security crisis for there to be any chance of defenestrating MacSweeney and Glasman and doing some social democracy. Hey ho, maybe there's one looming in to view....
(But maybe that'll just make them double down)

theangelofhistory.bsky.social•1 day ago

The proof of the pudding is in the eating; everything starts for them with hostility to immigration & the unassailably good parts of social liberalism (race, sexuality). The rest is an edifice strung on for post facto justification. We can get to job security et al; but that’s not their core goal.

tadaaa.bsky.social•2 hours ago

Spot on

realcaptainhaddock.bsky.social•2 hours ago

Hence why Glasman was at Trump inauguration

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