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but equally [I] have to accept that the players have no option but to play within that game currently
This is the really crucial thing here, I think, and I (hopefully, respectfully) disagree. Hate the players and hate the game even more, 100%, but I think we'd all agree that ultimately the game needs to change, so the question is how.
From further upthread:
get power first, then argue about all this shit in private
The shadow front bench are capitulating on a number of arguments: on migration, on the nature of finance, workers rights, tenants rights, among others. These aren't private issues — they're inherently public — and our major left representatives don't seem to be concerned with them much at all. That's partially down to a democratic deficit, and otherwise an anti-confrontational streak in the shadow front bench for all the reasons @Maj stated earlier.
To give them some credit, they're trying to navigate what they see as a difficult political situation with new ways to get around the old problems of political economy. It seems to me that they've read a bit of Mariana Mazzucato and listened to her ideas on the entrepreneurial state (I'm a fan too!), but have landed on the idea that it's all they need to do, rather than something in addition to correcting any of the many failures of the last 40-50 years.
The resurgence of the youth vote for far-right parties in places like The Netherlands is particularly worrying in this context. Their protest votes centre on old problems of distribution, equality and housing. The only figures they can turn to are the likes of Geert Wilders, who are publicly willing and able to warp these forces into changing the status quo.
So back in the UK, we're really just hoping that Labour's agenda is much more progressive than it appears, simply willing meaningful change into existence without really talking about it.
slippers-
Really good points, it’s a really complex, embedded context with no simple answers (well, apart from the bone headedly simple solutions that populists have sold to the gullible and look how that’s worked out for the vast majority of the country).
But because it’s hard is absolutely no excuse not to try to do anything to address it - if we hope that things can get better then there’s a chance, if we have no hope then we’re lost before we start. And I can’t see any hope if the current bastards get to continue for a further term.
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Heaven help the UK if think-tank vampires like Mariana Mazzucato are to be the Tru-Labour economic gurus. The only policy she's actually implemented, the Scottish National Investment Bank, is a wonderful example of Tammany Hall cronyist statist government failure.
Big_Ted
hurricane_run
And within that, leaving aside the recent huge by-election swings recently which if replicated at a general election will be an absolute sea change, there are millions of voters in very safe seats who don’t have a meaningful vote - in my small constituency it’s been a huge Tory majority as far as I can remember, currently north of 24k.
I’d absolutely rail against the sham democracy game that we have and wish it would change even if I can’t see how that will happen but equally have to accept that the players have no option but to play within that game currently. So hate the players but despise the game, kind of thing.