A front page article in The Times says a study from Cornell University shows that people who are taken in by ‘corporate bullshit’ tend to be stupider and more likely to find their leaders inspirational.
Coincidentally or not, the front page also features a piece in which Tony Blair offers his statesmanlike advice to the Labour Party. Apparently a change of leadership is not helpful if there is no change in policies. A longer summary on page 10 says that compared with the big boys - the USA, China and soon India - we are in danger of being ‘marooned on an island of irrrelevance.’
That ship has sailed, you may say. Though when the real ‘Robinson Crusoe’ was marooned it was for predicting his ship would sink - which it did shortly afterwards. He was ‘better off out’ then and so are we now, if only we seize the chances Brexit gave us.
More bullshit on page 5 where Home Office Minister Mike Tapp tells us that while Reform are squabbling ‘the Government is actually bringing down immigration.’ The official gross figure for y/end 2025 is c. 813,000 compared with 948,000 in 2024. But that’s assuming the Government actually knows the numbers. For over a decade MigrationWatch has predicted our total population will eventually hit 70 million; last October Ed West guessed that we’re already past that point; some think that given data on shopping and utilities it could be millions more than that.
Blair’s rich fantasy life pitches his Party the idea of representing a ‘Radical Centre.’ Hardly a new notion: the 1997 manifesto said ‘New Labour is the political arm of none other than the British people as a whole.’ Now his Institute is recommending ditching various 2024 manifesto commitments so we don’t go under.
I would suggest that the average Briton 1) is not a radical and 2) does not know what is in the various Party manifestoes, 3) would be a fool to think they are binding and 4) votes partly tribally and partly in an emotional spasm when disappointed.
Apparently, according to ‘The Master’, Labour won the 2024 General Election by being ‘an acceptable… default option to a Conservative government.’ If he is implying that voters switched from Tory to Labour he must be hard put to explain why Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership got more ballots in 2017 and 2019 than Starmer’s.
Corporate bullshit.
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