Limerick Miscellany

Eclectic collection of comments/posts on on matters of Literature and a miscellany of other matters!

[Limerick Miscellany @Limerickwords]

@DeborahMeaden It appears to be…. Midnight email…?

[Limerick Miscellany @Limerickwords]

@roisinmeaney @minajimpact 🤣

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Israeli-British Oxford University Professor, Avi Shlaim, speaking at @ICJPalestine on October 30th 2023:

"Anti-Semitism is a very ugly thing and can never be justified. Most of the anti-Zionist statements that I've come across are reasonable, evidence-based and legitimate. The problem is, Israel and it's friends conflate the two, so to claim that any criticism of Israel and it's policies are ant-Semitic."

"The Secretary General of the UN made a very humane statement about the need for ceasefire and to protect civilians. And the Israeli representative immediately accusing him of anti-Semetic"

[Edwin Hayward @edwinhayward]

Here's how the future is going to play out...

(Long - please expand the tweet.)

1. The Tories will wreck things at a faster and faster pace as we get nearer to the next general election.

(Implausible? You haven't been paying attention these last 13 years.)

Why would the Tories behave that way?
A) It stores up bigger and bigger problems for Labour - remember this crucial point for later
B) It's their last chance to funnel cash to friends and cronies
C) It's their last chance to feather their nests before they're out of power (and, for many, out of office)
D) The more chaotic things become, the less likely it is that any given scandal gets investigated in depth
E) It increases the probability that some of their changes will survive a full election cycle
F) Some (not all) find vicarious pleasure in upsetting the "woke Remain establishment". For them, that's reason enough to make destructive changes. You can see that reflected in their choice of policies designed to fan the culture wars.

From a Tory POV, the best stuff to break is anything unfixable. For example, the closure of ticket offices across the rail network. Once they become coffee concessions, and their staff get redeployed, it's game over. Across Britain, thousands of years of accumulated expertise will disappear forever. There will be neither the knowledge nor the physical space to reverse the changes in future.

2. Regardless of their actual policies, Labour will win the next election.

A huge number of people want to Get the Tories Out, and will vote on that basis no matter what's on offer. That's great for Labour, but only for one election cycle. (We will come back to this point later.)

Once in power, their manifesto commitments will constrain what they can do. The Tories, by contrast, will have free rein.

You see, the GE grants the losing party a blank slate. The electorate thumbed their noses at what they were being offered. That lets the losers get away with binning their manifesto and starting over. ("Nobody liked what we were selling, so we're adopting a different approach.")

No such flexibility is available to the winning party. Throughout history, pledges get broken, and commitments forgotten. But the broad strokes of their manifesto will still limit the extent of what they can and cannot do in power. This is especially true of headline policy issues such as Brexit.

3. Labour will start trying to fix the stuff the Tories broke.

This will prove slow going, and very expensive. It's alway much harder and much more expensive to mend stuff than it is to break it in the first place. That would be true no matter whose party's policies were being unwound.

But Labour have a huge problem that the Tories don't. They're trapped by the need to be "fiscally responsible" at all times in a way the Tories never were.

Why? Simple: British media is not a level political playing field. Our majority RW press will pounce on Labour if they spend as much as a brass penny without accounting for it.

It's an unfair situation. There's no denying that it is. But it's also reality - a known known, if you like. It's pointless moaning about it. It's no good trying to ignore it. Labour must find ways to win, and win repeatedly, despite being hobbled by the press.

(NOTE: If you don't read the RW tabloids, you may not realise that they attack Labour on a daily basis even today. That's despite the fact Labour haven't had a sniff of power for 13 years. You can imagine how much more virulent their attacks will become once Labour is in power.)

4. Labour will try to Make Brexit Work.

As a result, you might expect the RW tabloids to pick up the intensity of their attacks. And they will. But their own past and present actions constrain the potential future limits of their rage.

You see, they're misrepresenting Labour's Brexit position on a daily basis even today. That may explain why only 16% of people in a recent Redfield & Wilton survey were aware of Labour's actual Brexit position. In contrast, a huge 41% think that Labour's current policy is to rejoin the EU.

In short: the tabloids will paint Labour as Brexit betrayers no matter what they do. So Labour might as well take huge lumbering steps rather than teeny tiny ones.

5. Make Brexit Work won't. Work, that is.

You might as well try to put the toothpaste back in the tube after you've brushed your teeth with it. Brexit is inherently unworkable by nature. We cannot replicate what we had inside the EU while outside it. (Remember Labour's 6 Brexit tests? They appear to have forgotten them all.)

Some observations:
A) Small incremental improvements will never appease Rejoiners.
B) Even a hint of closer ties with the EU will infuriate some still-Leavers. (Others, more pragmatic, will wait and see what the results are.)
C) The number of still-Leavers is declining every day. Young voters who came of age since the referendum break 86/14 in favour of Rejoin. By the time we get to the end of a first Labour term, anyone under 32 will be overwhelmingly keen to re-enter the EU.
D) There will always be a core group of Leavers who will continue to believe Brexit could have worked. That will always be true, no matter how what form actual Brexit takes. But their numbers dwindle every day. The lived experience of Brexit combined with the passage of time see to that.
E) The only way to undo our Brexit problems is to make major changes of the sort Labour ruled out ("no to SM/CU/FoM/Rejoin").

It is also vital to remember that Brexit damage is likely to increase over time. It will continue to be a drag on the UK economy. As well as all the current problems of Brexit, we will experience new ones. (Not least because many temporary mitigations will expire.)

For example:
- Introduction of ETIAS/EES for travellers going to the EU.
- Introduction of incoming border checks. This will reduce the range of goods in shops and raise prices further.
- UK REACH, meaning that firms that use chemicals will have to certify them twice, once in the UK and once in the EU.
- UKCA marks, requiring firms to go through multiple certification processes to sell in the UK and the EU.

This ever more visible Brexit damage is likely to convince more and more people that Brexit was a bad idea.

6. Labour will have to spend more and more money to stop things falling apart.

The legacy of Tory underinvestment has played havoc with our already fragile infrastructure. Think leaky sewers and water pipes, collapsing schools and crumbling hospitals. (Privatised firms, by contrast, have generally done very well indeed.)

Where's the money going to come from to pay for everything that needs fixing? That's what every journalist on the Right will demand of Labour, again and again.

7. Much of the Tory party is likely to get wiped out by the GE. But the MPs that survive will sit on the sidelines laughing and jeering.

They will point to every broken thing and claim it's all Labour's fault. The RW media will be in lockstep, amplifying the message.

Consider that people like Greg Hands still talk about the "no money" letter after 13 years. It's easy to imagine how things will play out. ("Typical Labour, always spending money they don't have.")

As we approach the GE after next, the Tories and the RW press will step up their attacks further. "Same old Labour. Can't trust them with the economy. Can't get anything working. Can't even fix Brexit, despite all their lofty promises."

With luck, Labour will go into the GE after next with the situation in Britain better than when they took office. But it won't be that much better. The depth and breadth of the problems they were left will see to that. We'll only be knee-deep in metaphoric (and maybe literal) sewage, rather than thigh-deep.
than thigh-deep.

8. GE2: Electric Boogaloo.

This is the big one. This is where the wheels come off for Labour. The bright red Brexit lines they spent so much energy painting will bite them like a rabid crocodile.

You see, Labour are stuck. The taunts about the failure of their flagship Make Brexit Work policy will hit home. Why? Because they're true. And because the process will have irritated everyone across the Remain/Leave spectrum. That lubricates the way for all the lies the Tories/RW media will spin to slip down like honey.

But if Labour pivot to "rejoin SM/CU/EU" to win GE2, they give the game away. They might as well tattoo "We wasted the last 5 years. We prolonged the Brexit damage. All because we didn't know what they hell we were doing." on their foreheads.

They may well pivot anyway. The alternative is even more unthinkable.

And if they do, the press will scream "U-turn", and again they'll be completely right. It will be a U-turn big enough to be visible from space. (Consider the difference between changing stance now, a year before GE1, and doing so after 5 years of Make Brexit Work.)

Think back to where we started, a long long way up the page. Remember when I said there's no Get the Tories Out vote.

That will prove critical in GE2. People who voted Labour once through gritted teeth to GTTO won't do so again. Not when Labour didn't do what they wanted on issues such as Brexit and PR. (PR is a huge deal which we will explore in a bit.)

And what will the Tories do? Already, we have people like Tobias Ellwood decrying the problems caused by Brexit. And Brexiters like George Eustice admitting it has hurt the labour market. What will the Tories do to get their hands back on those sweet, sweet levers of power? Especially if a drubbing in GE1 clears out most of the headbanger Brexiters.

Think back a few years, to the days of Rory Stewart and Anna Soubry and Heidi Allen. Back then, there were many moderate Tories, even though they were in the minority. A devastated Conservative party may decide the quickest way back to power is to pivot back to the centre. Remember, they aren't constrained by anything they promised in GE1. They lost. Their manifesto was so much chipwrap the day after.

9. Labour lose GE2.

They're a one-term wonder, and then they're done. Sunk by their Brexit maximalism, and by the impossible cleanup task the Tories left them.

The Tories do what they do best: sweep into office, and blame everything on Labour. Five years is a long time for an electorate with short attention spans. Especially one conditioned by decades of RW media lies into believing Labour can't be trusted with the economy.

We know how this plays out. We've seen how fast the horror spread these last 13 years. Another decade or so of Tory misrule is an unbearable thought. It's also a probable future, unless Labour makes changes now.

BTW, from the standpoint of history, being PM is 100x more important than being Leader of the Opposition. A place in posterity for eternity is the grand prize. It's the one thing even rich people can't buy, though their wealth can certainly help them secure it. Heck, schoolkids will still be talking about Liz Truss a century from now. (What a dreadful thought.) If Keir Starmer survives a full term, that's already longer than May, Johnson, Truss (!) or Sunak managed. His standing becomes assured. Put another way: his incentives are not our incentives. Cynical? Absolutely. True? Without a doubt.

10. Another ruinous decade or so of Tory rule.

We all know how this plays out. We've seen how fast the horror can spread these last 13 years.

We also know how hard it is for Labour to win. They need the Tories to mess up so badly that a tide of outrage carries them over the finish line. But the RW press will remind us of Labour's actual and perceived failings 24/7. So it will take a long time for that outrage to reach critical mass again.

In the meantime, we'll be stuck in an unbearable situation we're all too familiar with.

That is, unless Labour makes changes NOW. They have to reposition the first domino so that the last domino never falls.

(We should at least allow for the idea that the Tories will take a different approach to governing next time. Unlikely, but not impossible. They may decide the country's so beaten down, there's no appetite for culture wars and immigrant-bashing. And things may be ok... for a while. But the tendency to revert to type is likely to prove hard to shake in the longer term.)

== Deep breath. Have a coffee and a biscuit. You've earned them. We've seen the problem. After the break, it's time to tackle the solution. ==

Scroll back through the scenario above.

Notice how Brexit runs through it like a vein pumping poison.

That's why Labour need to change their approach to Brexit. They need to do it now, not just before the GE.

It takes a long, long time for the message to sink in. (Remember, just 16% of people even realise Labour's current Brexit position.)

Labour has to stop ruling things out.

Important: Not saying you won't do something is not the same as saying you will do it.

Please read the sentence above several times, until it makes sense.

Something like: "Labour will do whatever it takes to mitigate the damage Brexit is causing Britain." They can also add that they can only analyse the full extend of that damage once they're in power.

Of course, the actual message will need polishing by the pros. They can do a much better job of it than I ever could! But you get the idea. It's the intent that's key. Without the red lines on SM/CU/FoM/Rejoin, anything becomes possible. Labour will be able to react as the situation demands, free of artificial constraints.

Will the tabloids scream? You bet. But not as much as you might think. After all, Labour's Brexit position will still be less radical than they have been claiming it is. (Labour are not saying "Rejoin"!) And if they're going to scream, better to have that scream diluted over a year, rather than at max volume just before a GE.

The other huge issue is the amount of time it will take to make a dent in Britain's mountain of problems. If Labour only get the one term, they're not going to make a lot of headway.

Don't think of GEs as coming in 5-year cycles. When the party in power changes, they need a year to pick through the mess and learn what's going on. And the final year of every 5-year cycle focuses on the next GE. So there's only ever 4 (more often 3) years of governing in any 5-year cycle.

That's under FPTP.

Under PR, the story would be completely different.

PR is the only hope we have of achieving any sort of long-term stability.

Why? Because many of the problems Britain faces will take 2, 3, 4+ election cycles to fix. And by gosh do they need fixing! But the only way to find the time to fix them is to form long-term partnerships in the national interest. In other words, PR.

PR rids us of the short-termism mindset that has dragged Britain down for decades. The exact balance in Parliament will change from GE to GE, even under PR. But a coalition should always be possible without involving the Tories or other RW parties.

Isn't it better to have a share of power forever than absolute power for a few years? (In the latter scenario, the other lot will come in and undo everything you worked towards.)

If you accept the reasoning so far, then you understand why Labour may only get one term.

And that means they have to bring in PR in their first term. Because it's too late afterwards. FPTP will sink them. But bring in PR, and the pressure valve releases. There's time to plan things. To fix things. To build things. To improve things. To make Britain better. Not as a cloying, hollow slogan. But in real, tangible ways.

In summary:
Labour need to adopt a different approach to Brexit. They need to do so now, not in the runup to the GE. They also need to lay the groundwork to introduce PR. Those two elements together unlock endless possibilities.

Phew, we're almost done. Thank you for persevering this far.

In parting: You may disagree with what you just read. You probably will. But please take a big step back and look at the situation with a critical eye.

Is your disagreement because the scenario I painted is too horrible to think about? In other words, is the reality so stark and so depressing that you shy away from acknowledging it? And is your support for a particular party blinding you to what they can achieve in a short 5 (really 3) period in office?

And that's it. Let me know what you think. Please share this material if you think it has value. Have a great day.

[Limerick Miscellany @Limerickwords]

@ra_barlow James Joyce Centre, Books Upstairs….

[Limerick Miscellany @Limerickwords]

@HelenORahilly LOVE THEM!

[John McCourt @mccourtitaly]

Still a few places available at this year's very special Trieste Joyce School. #Ulysses100

[Limerick Miscellany @Limerickwords]

@bhx_official Looking at social media in the last hour reporting long queues and delays, we have a flight to Shannon at 19.35 this eveningHow early should we arrive?

[Glen Mitchell @GlenMitchell1]

I don’t share this lightly but two years ago today this is how I said goodbye to my Mum. We stuck to the rules. Boris Johnson broke the rules he wrote. We aren’t moving on or forgetting. He’s got to go. But thank god for Julie x

[John McCourt @mccourtitaly]

Looking forward to being at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle @Sorbonne_Nvelle next week to celebrate #Ulysses100 in the city where it was published and to talk about my book Consuming Joyce @BloomsburyLit @UniMC

[Micheline Sheehy Skeffington @MichelineShSk]

Well spoken @TomClonan just now on @MiriamOCal. Totally agree on Irelands strength as a neutral country. And congratulations on ur election!! May you continue to be a force for change 🙏

[ConsumingJoyce @ConsumingJoyce]

Consuming Joyce is blushing this morning!

[Limerick Miscellany @Limerickwords]

Just started….

[Limerick Miscellany @Limerickwords]

@tararoonies Imagine how this can be altered by those who want to denigrate the city…. I ask again, who is responsible for this?

[Limerick Miscellany @Limerickwords]

Some people I know actually started reading Ulysses this week……. From the beginning!

[John McCourt @mccourtitaly]

Delighted to see the publication of this groundbreaking book by @antonio_bib It is an important contribution to reception studies of Irish literature in Europe and to Irish studies in Italy.

[Limerick Miscellany @Limerickwords]

@mccourtitaly Have a great Christmas John and Family from Limerick Miscellany, Limerickwords, aka as Donal and Suzanne!

[Limerick Miscellany @Limerickwords]

@mccourtitaly Glad to see the box of fruit has correct word……. Any such words as Santa Claus, Father Christmas or similar might get your Dublin, Irish passport revoked ….Santy, or any approximation it has to be !

[Thiefdom Of Horslips @THorslips]

@gaelforceluimni @RoisinRainy @limerickan @Limerickwords @Limerick_ie @limerick_now @Limerick_C_C @Limerick_News @LimerickArts @LimerickHour @LimerickWriters @EventsLimerick I was in a book shop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, not so long ago and found Limerick there represented by Frank McCourt.

https://t.co/ZTaS2ihUVV

[Edward O'Dwyer @EdwardODwyer2]

A nice and much needed run in #Limerick this evening. @LimerickMatters @Limerickwords