May I comment on another article - the Bezos wedding abomination - this morning for which specific comments are not open?
Finn Redmond clearly does not know the real Venice at all. And I say that as someone who had a second home there for several years.
Yes: the main drags are swamped with tourists. But 90% of the city isn’t. Turn off the routes and you can get lost in the magic. Go off season (but avoiding the main acqua alta) and you can immerse yourself in even greater atmosphere & mystery. For every major cultural icon there are 100 lovely less known jewels to visit.
And the idea that you can’t eat well in Venice these days is just ill-informed rubbish. Of course, there’s terrible food to be found, as in most tourist cities, but I can give you 20 or more wonderful gastronomic addresses at different price points.
And don’t get me started on the joys of Burano, Mazzorbo, Torcello, even Murano …
Perhaps the people of the UK are annoyed beyond reason by cutting £5 billion from UK welfare at the same time as promising £3 billion a year to Ukraine in a 100-year partnership?
Perhaps they think that if you're going to use that money to save Ukrainian lives, you shouldn't be killing UK citizens to pay for it?
We see a repeat of the WFA. Everybody knows and calls for it to be changed, because in parts, it is unfair. People get government money who don't need it. And the overall welfare bill, heading to over £100bn soon? Where does the money come from to pay for that?
I think Labour are doing their damnedest to prove that they're fiscally prudent, but across the country, people are screaming "yes, but NOT LIKE THAT" without saying where the money would come from instead.
Oh, and "saving Ukrainian lives" also stops the march of Putin across and into Europe.
Great post, Rachel. Post election, other parties (and commentators) gleefully talked about "spread wide and thin" and "a thin majority." Suck it up, buttercups - you were out-foxed. Our government is built on MP seats, something other parties have known for years, yet something which Labour have only learned post-2019. Labour won more votes back then, but far fewer seats. If you want to change things, you need power. So yes, McSweeney turned it around.
But it's now time to (finally) accept Labour's messaging is dire. You can point to the generally right-wing media, you can point to right-wing click-hungry "political commentators" who would say anything for a few more clicks and engagement. I keep thinking back to Alastair Campbell, and how he controlled the messaging, controlled the narrative.
Yes, the media landscape has changed, and there are far more "journalists" (who are nothing of the sort) who turn up in front of TV cameras and be controversial, because in a crowded news market, everyone wants A Story. PR gurus, think-tank wonks, ex-politicians, podcasters... all want their 15 minutes of fame and the fee to go with it, thank you very much. So the messaging in 2025 is far MORE crucial than in 1997.
McSweeney is a mistake made by Starmer’s shadow City Boyz backers. He is so very obviously a product of his Emererald Tiger era upbringing in Ireland. This Irish cultural worldview informing his UK personal ideology. Imposing an ahistorical One Size Fits All political strategy upon a foreign country that he seems to see solely through the illusionary lens of Blair era Britpop mass mediated propaganda is going to continue to deliver heinous social damage and deliver economic disaster.
Of course it should be the case that the advisor should not take the flack for the failings of their political master. However, in recent years we seem to have had at least 3 PMs who had little if any political vision and so have been very dependent upon puppet masters. Cameron (“I think that I would be rather good at being PM”) provided an opportunity for George Osborne. Johnson (“I want to be world king”) had Cummings and Starmer (“There is no such thing as Starmerism”) has McSweeney. All three puppet masters seem to have two common traits: an exceptional degree of arrogance and an overriding political vision which is more about destroying things than creating something. Osborne wanted to destroy any remnants of a supportive state, Cummings’ target was any organisation which didn’t conform to his very limited understanding of how organisations work and the enemy for McSweeney is the Labour left. The fact that these are negative, destructive ideas pursued with unattractive arrogance makes the legacies of their puppets very limited. Even if the puppet master is forced out, the puppet has very limited vision or capability of their own. What was achieved in the 14 Tory years? What do we really expect from a five year Starmer government?
I appreciate that anyone on benefits is in a position of dependency, which is hard to get out of. That we have over 300,000 people on benefits that Labour thought were unlikely to meet the minimum standards for the payments is a little like George Osborne’s Austerity in the 2010-15 parliament. I cannot remember any mass movement by Tory or LibDem MPs when it was implemented but over 170,000 people died because of it, according to the Rowntree Trust. Imagine if a similar number had died because their PIP payments had been withdrawn or their benefits reduced. It would not be a matter of Starmer or Reeve’s resigning, they would be toast. The 120 Labour MPs who signed that document have saved the careers of Starmer and Reeves.
Great analysis thanks, entertaining too. The FT also had an anti-McSweeney spread - "Morgan McSweeney: Labour’s election fixer under fire as welfare rebellion looms" - the same day as The Times - curious eh! Starmer has been spending so much time abroad and at surely-not-neccesary Boris-style jaunts to factories etc around the UK that he can't have been listening to the limited extent he might have.
May I comment on another article - the Bezos wedding abomination - this morning for which specific comments are not open?
Finn Redmond clearly does not know the real Venice at all. And I say that as someone who had a second home there for several years.
Yes: the main drags are swamped with tourists. But 90% of the city isn’t. Turn off the routes and you can get lost in the magic. Go off season (but avoiding the main acqua alta) and you can immerse yourself in even greater atmosphere & mystery. For every major cultural icon there are 100 lovely less known jewels to visit.
And the idea that you can’t eat well in Venice these days is just ill-informed rubbish. Of course, there’s terrible food to be found, as in most tourist cities, but I can give you 20 or more wonderful gastronomic addresses at different price points.
And don’t get me started on the joys of Burano, Mazzorbo, Torcello, even Murano …
Perhaps the people of the UK are annoyed beyond reason by cutting £5 billion from UK welfare at the same time as promising £3 billion a year to Ukraine in a 100-year partnership?
Perhaps they think that if you're going to use that money to save Ukrainian lives, you shouldn't be killing UK citizens to pay for it?
Who knows? Not Starmer, that's for sure.
We see a repeat of the WFA. Everybody knows and calls for it to be changed, because in parts, it is unfair. People get government money who don't need it. And the overall welfare bill, heading to over £100bn soon? Where does the money come from to pay for that?
I think Labour are doing their damnedest to prove that they're fiscally prudent, but across the country, people are screaming "yes, but NOT LIKE THAT" without saying where the money would come from instead.
Oh, and "saving Ukrainian lives" also stops the march of Putin across and into Europe.
Great post, Rachel. Post election, other parties (and commentators) gleefully talked about "spread wide and thin" and "a thin majority." Suck it up, buttercups - you were out-foxed. Our government is built on MP seats, something other parties have known for years, yet something which Labour have only learned post-2019. Labour won more votes back then, but far fewer seats. If you want to change things, you need power. So yes, McSweeney turned it around.
But it's now time to (finally) accept Labour's messaging is dire. You can point to the generally right-wing media, you can point to right-wing click-hungry "political commentators" who would say anything for a few more clicks and engagement. I keep thinking back to Alastair Campbell, and how he controlled the messaging, controlled the narrative.
Yes, the media landscape has changed, and there are far more "journalists" (who are nothing of the sort) who turn up in front of TV cameras and be controversial, because in a crowded news market, everyone wants A Story. PR gurus, think-tank wonks, ex-politicians, podcasters... all want their 15 minutes of fame and the fee to go with it, thank you very much. So the messaging in 2025 is far MORE crucial than in 1997.
McSweeney is a mistake made by Starmer’s shadow City Boyz backers. He is so very obviously a product of his Emererald Tiger era upbringing in Ireland. This Irish cultural worldview informing his UK personal ideology. Imposing an ahistorical One Size Fits All political strategy upon a foreign country that he seems to see solely through the illusionary lens of Blair era Britpop mass mediated propaganda is going to continue to deliver heinous social damage and deliver economic disaster.
Oh well. Buckle up.
Of course it should be the case that the advisor should not take the flack for the failings of their political master. However, in recent years we seem to have had at least 3 PMs who had little if any political vision and so have been very dependent upon puppet masters. Cameron (“I think that I would be rather good at being PM”) provided an opportunity for George Osborne. Johnson (“I want to be world king”) had Cummings and Starmer (“There is no such thing as Starmerism”) has McSweeney. All three puppet masters seem to have two common traits: an exceptional degree of arrogance and an overriding political vision which is more about destroying things than creating something. Osborne wanted to destroy any remnants of a supportive state, Cummings’ target was any organisation which didn’t conform to his very limited understanding of how organisations work and the enemy for McSweeney is the Labour left. The fact that these are negative, destructive ideas pursued with unattractive arrogance makes the legacies of their puppets very limited. Even if the puppet master is forced out, the puppet has very limited vision or capability of their own. What was achieved in the 14 Tory years? What do we really expect from a five year Starmer government?
I appreciate that anyone on benefits is in a position of dependency, which is hard to get out of. That we have over 300,000 people on benefits that Labour thought were unlikely to meet the minimum standards for the payments is a little like George Osborne’s Austerity in the 2010-15 parliament. I cannot remember any mass movement by Tory or LibDem MPs when it was implemented but over 170,000 people died because of it, according to the Rowntree Trust. Imagine if a similar number had died because their PIP payments had been withdrawn or their benefits reduced. It would not be a matter of Starmer or Reeve’s resigning, they would be toast. The 120 Labour MPs who signed that document have saved the careers of Starmer and Reeves.
Feeding £3 billion a year into the arms industry makes the arms industry richer and will do very little to save Ukrainians...
Great analysis thanks, entertaining too. The FT also had an anti-McSweeney spread - "Morgan McSweeney: Labour’s election fixer under fire as welfare rebellion looms" - the same day as The Times - curious eh! Starmer has been spending so much time abroad and at surely-not-neccesary Boris-style jaunts to factories etc around the UK that he can't have been listening to the limited extent he might have.