Thank you for Paul Mason’s report on the Tommy Robinson rally (TNW #452), though perhaps deriding the people on the march, like Hillary Clinton’s use of “deplorables”, can minimise them.
There seem to be quite a lot of disaffected people who get a disproportionate amount of airtime, while pleading they are not heard, while a liberal majority is not heard at all.
Jane Apsey
I don’t always agree with Paul Mason, but this was a very good article that sums up the whole dismal situation with a vociferous hard right minority spouting the most vile racist chants and misinformation. It is a depressing scene when 900 mild-mannered protesters were arrested for their banners and placards against genocide in Gaza and yet mindless, drunken thugs who incite violence and hatred are free to protest with very little police interference.
Liz Court
Paul Mason’s references to the racism on the Tommy Robinson march should not to be taken lightly. I am pushing 80 and have been aware of racism since my teens; I noticed a marked increase 15 years ago when I moved out of London into a rural area where there were/are virtually no black or brown people but there were lots of Europeans. They helped to keep the economy going before the same attitudes on display on the Robinson march sent them back home and severely damaged our economy.
A national issue can only be addressed if we all recognise it and call it out in an open, friendly manner. Have some words ready so you’re prepared to do your bit for Britain.
John Simpson
Paul Mason’s conclusion in support of Keir Starmer (“they hate him because he is the avatar of the tolerant, progressive country they want to smash”) baffles me. This is a government that seems obsessed with placating loud-mouthed, know-nothing rightists and fascists but is perfectly happy to attack protesters from the left with ever more Draconian anti protest laws.
When will they realise there is no point and no need to try and talk to or reason with the political right at all these days? They need to put forward proper left wing policies and then fight for them.
Alexander Blackburn
To dismiss everyone who joined the demonstration as far right racists is lazy and dangerous. Reducing it to being about Tommy Robinson, Elon Musk or Laurence Fox – and fixating on images of a few drunken yobs – badly misrepresents the significance of what was actually happening.
Yes, Robinson and others were there, but their presence does not mean they speak for all the people on the march, or that the demonstrators accept every solution they promote. Their prominence is a symptom of a vacuum in political leadership, not the definition of the movement itself.
Jeremy Woolwich
Re: Alastair Campbell on the downfall of Peter Mandelson (TNW #452). Politics is a highly bankable business if you are prepared to weather the storms that your weaknesses present for public scrutiny. Mandelson was not the first and won’t be the last of the self-aggrandisers in politics to try to smooth a way through the consequences of their personal failings.
The question is how much harm they do along their ways to notoriety and fortune. The answer right now has turned menacingly extreme.
I must admit my heart sank when Mandelson was appointed as UK ambassador. But then again, it had already sunk below the horizon of hope when I learned he was a key Keir whisperer prior to the election last year.
Starmer’s current desperate plight is very much a consequence of his own choices of advisers and backroom operators.
Paul Davidson
Interesting article by James Ball on Ed Davey and the Liberal Democrats (TNW #452). Given the threat the far right pose, can “progressives” (including Labour and the Lib Dems) continue to fight each other? Especially when there is such a threat from the extremists on the right, whether far right, Reform or the imploding Conservative Party?
A shrewd political strategist must get ahead of the process and forge an electoral alliance built on a commitment to electoral reform. The various elements of the reactionary right will certainly forge an alliance before the next election to get their grubby hands on the levers of power.
Brian Ronson
Crosby, Merseyside
The comment from Ed Davey linking Farage, the Conservatives and Brexit, reminded me that David Cameron only called the EU referendum to appease the right wing Eurosceptics in his party and to stop the leader of Ukip, one Nigel Farage, from parking his tanks on his lawn.
To date, 14 former Tory Eurosceptic MPs and one current Eurosceptic MP have all defected to Farage’s Reform. Hindsight, eh?
Carol Hedges
I remain surprised and disappointed by the continued presence, on Elon Musk’s X platform, of UK government departments, their arms-length bodies and other major UK institutions: including The New World. Especially since the tech billionaire’s outburst at Tommy Robinson’s rabble-rousing march (see James Ball, TNW #452).
Twitter used to be an essential part of public dialogue; not any more, there are plenty of decent alternatives.
Why continue to support Musk?
Barry Lee-Potter
Elon Musk is a menace. He expects us to change our constitution. No chance. Many Lib Dems have stopped using X. All parties and government bodies need to follow suit.
How we run our affairs is our business as a sovereign state.
David Rolfe
Marie Le Conte (Dilettante, TNW #452) is absolutely right about the blandness of algorithmic TV. After watching yet another hour of a Netflix recommended show, I don’t feel I’ve accomplished anything other than getting another hour closer to dying.
I’m weaning myself off by signing up to BFI – loads of terrible world cinema on there, I love it!
Kevin Groarke
Patience Wheatcroft (TNW #451) wonders whether efforts to fuse patriotism and nationalism mean that being pro-EU makes us unpatriotic in the eyes of many. She needn’t worry.
All our serious problems require profound cooperation way beyond national and cultural identity if we are to have a hope of solving them, going some way to explain, for example, climate and Covid denialism on the right. Neither are addressed by “securing our borders”.
What we need is to be pro-human. It shouldn’t take a world war, but if nationalism and patriotism teach us to scrap this lesson from our recent past, then we can be proud of wanting neither.
Andrew Blewett
Exeter, Devon
BELOW THE LINE
I saw Jimi Hendrix (Great Lives, TNW #452) live twice in the UK. I was 15 – it was easy and cheap to go to gigs then – and his music was visceral in its volume and originality. Nearly 60 years later I can still recall the experience. A brilliant musician who burned so brightly and then was gone.
John Tunney
You call Hendrix at Woodstock “a clearly stoned man”. Let’s not make assumptions, he was a creative force who was at one with his instrument when he played, maybe that’s all it was?
T Wilson
Marie Le Conte’s “Britain’s trains will radicalise you” (TNW #451) was an excellent article that highlights the growing dissatisfaction with the political class – politicians, parties, advisers and the client media – from those of us who live in the real world. Our so-called political leaders live in a parallel universe where bread-and-butter issues never feature.
Martin Edwards
The mission of the UK should be to support everybody and not to put profit before people. The issue with railways – like so much else – is that they were turned into a money-making adventure via privatisation. That’s what needs sorting out.
Anthony Smith
