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PaperclipPerfector  10hr ago (text post)   1733 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026

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A few weeks ago, I mentioned that the UK held an election for local authorities, in which Labour were soundly trounced, losing a whopping 1,375 seats. Almost immediately, Labour back-benchers began clamouring for incumbent prime minister Keir Starmer (he of "two-tier" fame) to resign.

This morning, he followed that recommendation.

Starmer is expected to be succeeded in the role by Andy Burnham, former minister for health under Gordon Brown. I was unfamiliar with him before this morning, but those more familiar with his political career are generally unimpressed:

As health minister, he was liked by officials but known to be indecisive and incurious about policy detail. He made party-pleasing noises about being anti-privatisation but essentially passed through without touching the sides. Once he became mayor of Manchester, he no longer had to even bother with that onerous stuff. On national issues he could make gestures in the politically expedient direction without having to square them with his record or his plans.

The result is that he can sound startlingly vacuous. We all know the remark about not wanting to be “in hock” to the bond markets, without seeming to understand what bond markets are or why we are in hock to them, but it was hardly an anomaly. He mouths the phrase “fiscal rules” without ever giving the impression that he knows what they are or why they matter. Here’s how he answered a question about the EU, during Labour’s conference last September:

Journalist: “Rejoin the EU or stay out?”

Andy Burnham: “I want to rejoin. I hope in my lifetime, I want to rejoin the European Union. I believe in the unions of all kinds. The union of the UK. The EU benefitted this country. Trade unions. People prosper more when they’re part of unions.”

I’m sorry to break the flow of my Flaubertian prose, but - fuck me. I believe in the unions of all kinds. It’s like something from an essay by a primary school pupil. That’s the extent of his thinking, on one of the most important geopolitical questions of the age?

Similarly, Spiked characterises him as "just Keir Starmer in jeans".

Get ready for the UK's sixth prime minister in a decade. I wonder if he'll stick around until the next general election. At least he'll last longer than Liz "Lettuce" Truss.

Keir Starmer was an underrated PM. Wokeness was scaled back under Keir Starmer. The great awokening happened under the Tories and the UK is in many ways less woke now than when then tories left office. Immigration has declined immensely since Keir Starmer took office. He kept the UK out of the Iran war, he started the construction of new nuclear power and he revitalized the UK armed forces.

As a rightwinger Keir Starmer has been far more successful than Boris Johnson.

The great awokening happened under the Tories and the UK is in many ways less woke now than when then tories left office.

None of this had anything to do with them or Starmer. The UK has no cultural sovereignty because it doesn't control the internet: the Americans do. To the extent wokeness has receded in the UK, it's because it's receded in the United States.

And I don't think it's actually receded: I think woke power centres are coyly biding their time while the right clowns itself in the most ridiculous ways imaginable. Never interrupt your enemy when they're making a mistake.

Mark my words, next election, woke will return with a vengeance, and they will go Nuremberg on the right.

I think the best diagnosis is that Starmer has allowed things to drift. Some things were drifting in the correct direction under Sunak and have continued to drift in the correct direction under Starmer. In particular, gross immigration is falling back to a pre-Boriswave normal and net immigration is falling further (and possibly negative) due to remigration of EU citizens post-Brexit. Some things were drifting in the wrong direction under Sunak and have continued to drift in the wrong direction under Starmer. In particular, the minimum wage is drifting upwards faster than the productivity of unskilled workers (Counterintuitively, this was a Conservative policy dating back to the 2015 election) and the construction industry is drifting into overregulated paralysis.

Unbelievable how worthless the tories are. I can't think of a single thing they even made motions towards conserving.

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