Like the rush to the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury when the headliners arrive, the very ground beneath everyone's feet seemed to move this week. In the US, Democratic Party elders were floored when New York voters picked Zohran Mamdani – an actual socialist, who campaigned on a ticket that would see city rents frozen, buses to be fare-free and grocery stores to be state-run – to be their mayoral candidate. As political analyst and former Kamala campaign strategist Pablo O'Hana concluded: "People are desperate for someone – anyone – to 'flip the f***in' table'."
Donald Trump's world was upturned when it became clear that his military attack on Iranian nuclear sites hadn't been as obliterative as he had hoped. He reached for his go-to admonition – "Fake news!" – to dismiss damning intelligence leaks. For Sean O'Grady, the president's refusal to accept unwelcome reality is Trump's greatest weakness of all. For John Rentoul, Trump going it alone in Iran after the UK prime minister urged de-escalation signalled nothing less than humiliation.
To mangle the accepted phrase, the PM is not just unpopular abroad, he's unpopular at home, too, having appeared seemingly indifferent to a burgeoning rebellion ahead of next week's vote on proposed welfare cuts. By Andrew Grice's reckoning, the prime minister facing a confidence issue less than a year after his landslide election win meant he had "one least-worst option" to wriggle free.
In a very personal piece, Rachel Charlton-Dailey – who experiences depressive episodes that mean she sometimes forgets to wash and change her clothes – wrote about what losing her £558-a-month PIP allowance would mean for her ability to work: "I have apps that remind me to clean and eat, I buy pre-sliced food or mostly rely on ready meals. But if Labour's cuts to PIP go through, I won't be able to afford to continue living my lovely little life." Read her desperate story in full here.
The tectonic plates of politics weren't just shifting around in Westminster. Tim Bale picked up on a new British Social Attitudes Survey that showed how, as well as the progressive usual suspects (…and Nigel Farage's Reform), even Tory voters are now in favour of changing how we vote – in favour of proportional representation. "Whether it would help restore our trust in government, who knows? But it's got to be worth a try," he wrote.
Just in case you missed it, it was the 9th anniversary of the Brexit vote this week. To commiserate, John Rentoul dug out an old social media post from Leave campaigner Daniel Hannan in which he envisioned how a "thriving", "world-beating" post-EU Britain would look in 2025. In his hilarious take-down, Rentoul asks if any of the predictions have come true. Given that the UK has yet to be crowned the centre of world shipping, Birmingham has yet to become a financial capital to rival Frankfurt, and Grimsby has yet to put down its fishing nets in favour of becoming a hub for Big Pharma, there's still work to be done.
But things can still change, and for the better, right? Until next week!
0 comentários:
Postar um comentário