Ed Miliband

[AngryOfTuebrook]

I'm voting for Alf!

 

Mark Steel: Is Ed Miliband's Labour Party prepared to do or say anything at all? - Comment - Voices - The Independent

 

Poor Ed Miliband, he couldn’t even come out decisively against an egg being chucked at his head. He looked as if his mind had become so addled from his strategy of refusing to say he’ll reverse what his opponents are doing that he’d say that now the egg was in his hair there’s no point in washing it out. Then he’d issue a statement saying that “the real issue is that up and down the country what hard-working chickens are asking is why our economy continues to fail our shells”.

The Conservatives have noticed this attitude from Labour, which may be one reason they’ve grown more confident lately. At the moment they can announce whatever cuts they like, then dare Ed Miliband to say he’d reverse them, which he never does. George Osborne could lean across to him all day long, tasering the Shadow Cabinet, and Ed Balls would appear on Channel 4 News to say: “We will make clear proposals concerning these measures, as soon as we have fully costed them, but until then we’ll continue to wriggle on the floor screaming and will not be pressured into hasty announcements.”

 

When the Home Office sent vans around London, covered in messages about illegal immigration, Labour responded by saying nothing. Maybe this is a result of the Shadow Cabinet converting to a branch of Buddhism that preaches, “Treat the venom of the Tory with silence, for his hostile energy will then turn against he who delivered it, exploding his van like a million petals, sending you many per cent up in the polls.”

 

The only time in recent months Miliband tried to appear decisive was when he got into an argument with Len McCluskey of the Unite union. The Conservatives demanded that Miliband confront him, until the Labour leader ended up making speeches such as, “Right, I’ll tell you what I’ll do with that Len McCluskey. To start with I’ll knee him in the solar plexus, then as he slumps forward I’ll surprise him with an elbow in the throat, they hate that in Unite. It might not be Queensbury Rules but once you’ve compromised the validity of subscription fees in Falkirk there ARE no rules.”

 

All year, Labour’s plan seems to have been to copy the Government it’s officially in opposition to. If Miliband had been in Italy, in opposition to Berlusconi, he’d have arranged to have himself arrested for fiddling with teenage girls, maybe insisting he was doing it more fairly by phasing the fiddling at a slower rate over the course of two parliaments.

 

If he was leader of the Muslim Brotherhood he’d conclude that the army’s attacks on demonstrators appeared to be popular with many people, so his strategy would be to stage a demonstration in which his followers would all shoot themselves. So although the Conservatives are the “most disliked party in Britain” according to a poll yesterday, Labour’s message of “Vote Labour, and dislike us instead” might not be as effective as it hopes.

 

Labour leaders may fear coming across as “soft” on benefits and immigration, but they’re never going to out-run the Conservatives at looking tough on those issues anyway. They could announce they’re going to trump the Home Office van by painting, “Text the name of a Somalian you’d like us to deport” on the side of a zeppelin, but the Tories would get the Red Arrows to write “Send back an Afghani and win a Toyota” in a trail of blue smoke above selected inner cities.

 

So Labour might do better to confront the central ideas underpinning the Conservative election plans. Whenever they’re asked about the bedroom tax, for example, they could suggest they’d bring in an even more stringent version, to be paid solely by Iain Duncan Smith for having the audacity to support such a measure while he lives rent-free in a multi-bedroom £2m Tudor country mansion. They could propose a van of their own, to tour the City of London with “Stop using offshore accounts and pay a proper amount of tax NOW”, plastered over it.

 

Because today there’s a dreadful sense around Labour that they’re best saying nothing, as their only hope is that voters will be so fed up with this government they’ll elect Labour because they can’t remember who they are.

 

Answering the unease of Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham this week, one Shadow Cabinet member said on the radio: “I think we’ve been very clear about our own agenda. We’ve made it clear that we want to take Britain forward.” Well that’s something I suppose. At least they’re clear they’re not planning to take us back to 1700 and infect us all with scurvy. No, it’s forward they want to take us, the radicals.

 

Many people wonder whether Labour needs a change in their front bench, and if so who would be the right people. But one improvement that might be worth suggesting is anyone. Choose names at random from the population by computer, and put them in top jobs in the Labour Party. Then, when Paxman says, “With us is the shadow spokesman for Work and Pensions – Alf, aged 4. What do you think of these proposed cuts in housing benefit?”, Alf’ll say, “I like snails but I don’t like slugs”, and the voters will think, “At least he knows his own mind, so that’s quite an improvement.”

[Major Tom]

Went to a David Milliband talk. Hugely impressive bloke. Labour missed out big time there.

[Strontium]

When Ed got egged the other day, he quipped "I'm always looking for new ways to connect with voters".

 

Obviously scripted in case something like this happened, but props for the delivery.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

When Ed got egged the other day' date=' he quipped "I'm always looking for new ways to connect with voters".

 

Obviously scripted in case something like this happened, but props for the delivery.[/quote']

 

Plagerised from Prescott, that. Always says it when he's asked about punching that fella.

[Section_31]

Went to a David Milliband talk. Hugely impressive bloke. Labour missed out big time there.

 

A ringing endorsement indeed.

[Stu Monty]

I'll be really funny if Labour manage to do just well enough next time round to be able to form a coalition with the 6 remaining Lib Dem MPs. Just to see the Lib Dems suddenly do a 180 degree reversal and start putting the boot into the Tories and defending "this government".

 

Unless Miliband is trying to say as little as possible, pull all this blue Labour shit, and then slip some left-leaning policies once they are in power, then it's about time he goes out the fucking airlock.

 

The thing is, if you do that, as Brown did a bit (shout as little as possible about redistribution) then you aren't pulling the centre ground of general thought over your way, which is, long-term, surely a goal. But, as I've said before, we no longer have leaders, we have followers. We no longer have "I believe in X, I will argue my balls off so you all follow me", we have focus groups and triangulation.

[Strontium]

6 MPs :whatever:

 

I'd prefer a Lib-Lab coalition, not because I think Labour are any better than the Tories (despite what the cockeyed inhabitants of Liverpool think, they're absolutely not) but because I think it would be easier for us to rein in Labour excesses. Also I do like Ed, even if he has the faint whiff of sixth form debating society about him.

 

But I don't know why anyone here cares, since all parties are apparently three sides of the same coin anyway, or something.

[Creator Supreme]

Cockeyed inhabitants of Liverpool!!! That's clever on a Liverpool forum.

 

And I think 6 MP's is generous, 4 at best.

[Stu Monty]

6 MPs :whatever:

 

I'd prefer a Lib-Lab coalition, not because I think Labour are any better than the Tories (despite what the cockeyed inhabitants of Liverpool think, they're absolutely not) but because I think it would be easier for us to rein in Labour excesses. Also I do like Ed, even if he has the faint whiff of sixth form debating society about him.

 

But I don't know why anyone here cares, since all parties are apparently three sides of the same coin anyway, or something.

 

The fact that they are packed into a restricted little spectrum of opinion (especially economically) doesn't mean that you can't hope for the least shit of the three choices, does it?

 

If I give you three choices of how you want to be tortured, you're going to prefer one over the other two.

[Skidfingers McGonical]

Frank Field: Labour has a 'policy vacuum' and is trailing Tories on welfare - Telegraph

 

Frank Field: Labour has a 'policy vacuum' and is trailing Tories on welfare

Labour has a "policy vacuum" and has failed to find a "clear message" on welfare, the economy and immigration, a senior MP has warned.

 

Frank Field, a former Labour minister, has said that his party is "trailing" the Tories on key issues like welfare and that too many members of the shadow cabinet have yet to "work out their positions".

 

His intervention comes amid growing concern that Labour has failed to make an impact this summer, when almost all the senior members of the shadow cabinet has been away on holiday.

 

Lord Glasman, the Labour "guru" who was rewarded with a peerage by Ed Miliband, has said that the Labour leader needs to "grow up" and show leadership.

He suggested that Ed Miliband should consider turning to Mr Field to show that Labour is "serious" about reforming the welfare system.

 

Mr Field said he is prepared to work for Mr Miliband, but was highly critical of the party's performance.

 

He said: "If you had said five years ago that the Tories would actually be setting the agenda on welfare you risked being certified. We are now trailing them in policy.

 

"What we badly need is to leapfrog their agenda and set out our own stall. I think it's a failure of the Labour team, it's too easy to blame the leadership.

 

"People who have got shadow cabinet positions should have their positions worked out. If I, who am not part of the shadow cabinet, see what needs to be done surely the shadow cabinet can."

 

Chuka Ummuna, the shadow business secretary, suggested over the weekend that Mr Miliband will be "turning up the volume", evoking memories of Iain Duncan Smith's doomed Conservative leadership campaign.

 

Mr Field said: "Ed can only perform as well as his team. I would of thought he must be thinking about who he wants to present the Labour image coming up to the next General Election. Before we turn up the volume we need to know the message, because otherwise it's a dialogue with the deaf."

 

Mr Field, 71, is suggesting that ring-fenced public funds for health, pensions, care and unemployment benefits would help restore public trust.

 

He said: "We just need to be first in the game by being honest that if you want your pensions paid, if you want health to improve, if you want a proper care pension, if you want to be looked after properly when you're unemployed we do have to pay more for that.

 

"We are going to have national mutuals with their own governing body so we can't get our sticky fingers on it.

 

"I have been working because there appears to be a vacuum. I thought I'd do some work to make a set of proposals that the leadership can adopt."

According to poll ratings released last week, Mr Miliband is the most unpopular leader of Britain's three main political parties.

 

The party's bad run culminated in Mr Miliband being pelted with eggs during a walkabout last week on his first public appearance since returning from holiday.

 

Lord Prescott, the former Deputy Prime Minister, said that Labour has "massively failed" to hold the Conservatives to account.

 

He suggested that Mr Miliband needs to give his shadow cabinet the "hairdryer treatment" and threaten to sack them if they don't improve their performance.

[Skidfingers McGonical]

Even Boris is sticking the boot into this pointless no mark.

 

Boris says he would never ‘shaft’ his brother like Ed Miliband did - Telegraph

 

Boris says he would never ‘shaft’ his brother like Ed Miliband did.

 

Boris Johnson has suggested that it is “very likely” that his brother will become the Prime Minister - as he attacked Ed Miliband for “shafting” his brother David in the battle for the Labour leadership.

 

The Mayor of London accused Mr Miliband, who defeated his brother in a leadership election in 2010, of being a “socialist” who regards familial ties as “trivial”.

 

He said that Mr Miliband is a “leftie” who sees people as “discrete agents devoid of ties to society or to each other, and that’s how Stalin could murder 20 million people”.

 

It seems like socialism is a very dirty word in politics. As long as you don't lean too far from the centre, all the money people will be happy.

 

And Ed Milliband should be a fucking socialist and fuck the policies that Blair brought in and make it about fighting for the people instead of just spouting out pointless sound bites so he appears to be able to look into a camera and endear the people that way.

 

It's actions that we want you tool, not empty soulless words.

[VladimirIlyich]

Skidders,those articles are hardly surprising given they are from the Torygraph.

The fact they are attacking Miliband might indicate that they are actually worried given they have largely ignored him in the past?

Frank Field may as well be a Tory anyway.

[Skidfingers McGonical]

Skidders,those articles are hardly surprising given they are from the Torygraph.

The fact they are attacking Miliband might indicate that they are actually worried given they have largely ignored him in the past?

Frank Field may as well be a Tory anyway.

 

I don't know how they could be worried about him though. He is walking, talking bunged up disaster.

 

I would say they are taking the piss out of him rather than beginning to worry about him.

[Skidfingers McGonical]

Blunkett has obviously had some read Section's posts on here about Milliband.

 

David Blunkett joins criticism of Labour leadership's performance | Politics | theguardian.com

 

David Blunkett joins criticism of Labour leadership's performance

Ex-home secretary says there is frustration at how party is performing and compares Ed Miliband to Clement Attlee.

 

David Blunkett said he accepted that the 'oldies' in the party like himself would not be coming back to prominent roles in the shadow cabinet. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian

David Blunkett has joined the growing chorus of Labour figures saying that the party should be doing better at winning public support,

 

In an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Tuesday, the former UK home secretary said there was frustration in the party at how it was performing, but also "a great deal of hope" that it could improve before the general election.

 

He also suggested that Ed Miliband was similar to Clement Attlee in being an effective team leader, but not necessarily "the most vibrant" figurehead.

 

Over the past three weeks a series of Labour MPs have been complaining about the party's failure to campaign more effectively. Their concerns have been heightened by Labour's narrowing poll lead over the Tories and the perception that the party has failed to set the agenda during August.

 

Blunkett said he agreed with the general thrust of these comments, and in particular with an article written by John Prescott in the Sunday Mirror saying that Labour "got nowhere" in August and that underperforming members of the shadow cabinet should be sacked.

 

"I would accept what's been said over the last few weeks, including the article by John Prescott on Sunday, that we need to work out how to get a higher profile, in circumstances where it is very difficult to get a hearing," Blunkett said.

 

Asked if Miliband had "got what it takes", Blunkett replied: "I think Mr Miliband has demonstrated on a number of occasions that he can do it, but he won't be able to do it alone, and nor should he. Clem Attlee wasn't the most vibrant, in public terms, opponent. He was a fantastic leader of the Labour party."

 

Blunkett said between now and 2015 Labour needed to "capture people, not on individual items – because we've got some very good individual policies – but on the perspective of where we would be in 2015, and what that government would look like, and what Britain would look like".

 

As an example, he said the party should be highlighting its plans to help people to join together to negotiate lower energy bills. "That's self help with mutual action. Replicate that in other areas and we have a message," he said.

 

He also said that he hoped the special conference being planned for next spring to debate changes to the party's relationship with the trade unions would be a "springboard" where further policies would be announced "so that when we get to the manifesto in 20 months' time people will actually know what we stand for".

 

Blunkett said he accepted that the "oldies" in the party like himself would not be coming back to prominent roles in the shadow cabinet. But he said Miliband had asked him to do some work "in terms of a substantial part of our education policy", and he said that he hoped that older former cabinet ministers would be able to help their younger colleagues with advice.

 

"I think it was made clear earlier in the year that the oldies would not be coming back. So we need to find new ways of being able to contribute," he said.

 

"What we could do better is probably us joining up with younger, enthusiastic, energetic, upcoming people so that we can give them a bit of advice if they are prepared to listen to us."

 

Blunkett spoke as a poll in the Daily Mirror showed that only 46% of those who voted Labour in 2010 say they want Miliband to lead the party into the next election. Another 34% of 2010 Labour voters say Miliband should not be leading the party, and 20% do not know.

 

In another development, Frank Field, the Labour former minister, criticised the party for not having a clear message on welfare.

 

"If you had said five years ago that the Tories would actually be setting the agenda on welfare you risked being certified. We are now trailing them in policy," Field said in the Daily Telegraph.

 

"What we badly need is to leapfrog their agenda and set out our own stall. I think it's a failure of the Labour team, it's too easy to blame the leadership.

 

"People who have got shadow cabinet positions should have their positions worked out. If I, who am not part of the shadow cabinet, see what needs to be done surely the shadow cabinet can."

[Stu Monty]

John Cruddas wrote about five years ago that Labour needed to sell people on a vision of sophisticated self-interest, where people are aware that helping others helps them indirectly as it creates a stronger country. I would say that they have failed to do that but to fail at something you have to attempt it.

[Vincent Vega]

These poll results for The Mirror make terrible reading for the bland Miliband, the party are sleep walking to an election defeat if they don't consider change soon.

 

Ed Miliband poll blow as only 45% of Labour voters happy with leader's performance - Mirror Online

 

 

Ed Miliband poll blow as only 45% of Labour voters happy with leader's performance

19 Aug 2013 22:00

 

However, the poll shows there is no clear alternative to replace him and he is more popular than his brother David

 

 

Fewer than half of Labour supporters want Ed Miliband to lead the party into the next general election, a poll for the Daily Mirror reveals.

 

The survey underlines the challenge facing the Labour leader, with just 21% of all voters satisfied with his performance.

 

Double that (42%) are dissatisfied.

 

It comes after a difficult summer for him and follows high-profile criticism the party has failed to get its message across.

 

Of those who backed Labour in 2010, 34% say he should not lead the party into the 2015 General Election, while only 46% say he should.

 

Among Labour backers, 31% are dissatisfied, while just 45% think he is doing a good job.

 

Martin Boon, of ICM, which did the poll, said: “Let’s not be in any doubt that with less than half of 2010 Labour voters satisfied with him he is polling miserably.

 

"Satisfaction is pretty consistent across the board. He cannot even look to sub groups to pull him out the mire.”

 

Mr Miliband is also struggling to win over older and male voters.

 

His approval rating among pensioners shows 61% are unhappy with his leadership, while 48% of all men say he is not up to the job, compared to 37% of women.

 

However, the poll shows there is no clear alternative to replace him and he is more popular than his politician brother, David.

 

He can also draw comfort that he outscores David Cameron and Nick Clegg on honesty and helping the poor.

 

In a blunt message to the rest of the frontbench team, 72% of Labour voters believe the leader should be getting more support from the Shadow Cabinet.

 

It will fuel demands for Mr Miliband to use a reshuffle next month to boot out senior colleagues not pulling their weight.

 

One Labour MP said: “He should sack a load of them. No one in the Parliamentary Labour Party would be upset.”

 

Mr Miliband is under pressure to stamp his authority on the party, with ex-Deputy PM John Prescott saying Labour “massively failed” to get its message across over the summer or take the fight to the Tories.

 

Labour MPs have also accused the leadership of failing to come forward with a “cogent and cohesive” set of policies.

 

Our poll shows Mr Miliband trails David Cameron by 37% to 15% on who is most trusted by voters to make tough decisions, with Nick Clegg polling just 4%.

 

Mr Cameron also beats the Labour leader on who is most trusted to run the economy (27% to 21%), and on foreign affairs ( 27% to 17%).

 

The Tories are also seen to have the clearest set of policies, beating Labour by 25% to 15%.

 

But Mr Miliband is ahead when voters are asked which party leader is the most honest (22% to Cameron’s 14%), who is most trusted to help the poorest (35% to 11%) and who best understands what life is like for ordinary people (26% to 11%).

 

Labour is also seen to be the party most likely to act in the interests of the whole country, with 24% against the Tories’ 19% and the Lib Dems’ 8%.

 

And Mr Miliband beats Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg when people are asked who they would most like to ride to the rescue if their car broke down.

 

A total of 20% would like Mr Miliband to help, compared to 18% for Mr Cameron and 13% for Mr Clegg.

 

However, Mr Cameron is the leader people would most like to go to the pub with.

 

While 23% would have a pint with the PM, only 14% say the same of Clegg and 21% for the Labour leader.

 

Voters also said Labour and the Conservatives were equally divided.

 

Asked which of the main parties is the most united, Labour and the Tories score 21% while the Lib Dems get a dismal 7%.

 

Allies of Mr Miliband said he was determined to take the party into the 2015 contest.

 

A Labour source said: “We have always said the party which wins the election will be the party that gets the answers to the big questions right.

 

“On questions on the economy, public services, social security and employment we will get the right answers and leave the tittle-tattle to others.”

 

Mr Miliband also received support from former London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who slammed Lord *Prescott’s criticism.

 

He said: “For Prescott to criticise anyone else given his record in government is ridiculous. The last thing Ed Miliband needs is advice from him.”

 

Poll horror even worse for Nick Clegg

 

Lib Dem supporters don't rate Nick Clegg's performance, the Daily Mirror's poll reveals.

 

The ICM survey finds the Deputy Prime Minister trails a distant third behind David Cameron and Ed Miliband on almost every major issue.

 

More Lib Dem voters think Mr Miliband (22%) and Mr Cameron (20%) would be better than running the economy than Mr Clegg, who is rated by just 13% of his own party.

 

And Lib Dems rate Mr Miliband ( 17%) and Mr Cameron (23%) more highly than their own leader (16%) on foreign affairs.

 

On the leader most trusted to make tough decisions, only 13% of Lib Dems who voted for the party in 2010 rate Mr Clegg and only 2% of Tory and Labour voters.

 

The Lib Dem leader also trails on who is the most honest, polling a dismal 8%, and on which leader best understands what life is like for ordinary people - again getting just 8%.

 

Mr Clegg should also be alarmed that he is only marginally ahead of Mr Cameron on which leader is most trusted to help the poorest (12% to 11%).

 

Again, more Lib Dems believe Mr Miliband does more to help the most vulnerable (36%) than their own leader (29%).

 

Only 5% of those polled plump for the Lib Dems on the question of which party has the clearest set of policies.

 

And Mr Clegg comes bottom of the list when asked which of three main party leaders would you most like to have a drink down the pub with.

 

Daily Mirror ICM Poll results - conducted Aug 16 to 18

 

ICM Research interviewed an online sample of 1,435 adults aged 18+ on August 16-18 2013. The data has been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.

 

1 Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way Ed Miliband is leading the Labour Party?

 

Total Labour

 

Satisfied 21% 45%

 

Dissatisfied 42% 31%

 

Don’t know 37% 24%

 

2 Should Ed Miliband lead the Labour Party into the next general election?

Total Labour

 

Yes 26% 46%

 

No 40% 34%

 

Don’t know 34% 20%

 

3 Which of the following would be the best person to lead the Labour Party?

 

Total Labour

 

Ed Miliband 16% 28%

 

David Miliband 12% 18%

 

Harriet Harman 5% 4%

 

Alan Johnson 4% 3%

 

Ed Balls 3% 7%

 

Alistair Darling 3% 2%

 

Yvette Cooper 2% 3%

 

Chuka Umunna * 1%

 

Someone else 10% 5%

 

Don’t know 45% 29%

 

4 Do you think Ed Miliband should be getting more support from his colleagues?

Total Labour

 

More support 46% 72%

 

Less support 16% 9%

 

Don’t know 38% 19%

 

5 Which of the main party leaders would you most like to have a drink with in a pub?

Total

 

Cameron 23%

 

Miliband 21%

 

Clegg 14%

 

Don’t know 42%

 

6 Which of the three main party leaders do you trust...

To make tough decisions To run the economy well On foreign affairs Help society’s poorest Be honest with voters Understanding what life is like for ordinary people

 

Cameron 37% 27% 27% 11% 14% 11%

 

Clegg 4% 6% 7% 12% 8% 8%

 

Miliband 15% 21% 17% 35% 22% 26%

 

Don’t know 44% 47% 49% 42% 56% 54%

 

7 Which of the main political parties do you think is most likely to act in the whole country’s interests?

(Voted in the General election may 2010)

 

Total Conservative Labour LibDem UKIP Other

 

Labour 24% 5% 66% 26% 3% 13%

 

Conservative 19% 57% 3% 7% 11% 1%

 

LibDem 8% 3% 3% 26% 4% 4%

 

Other 15% 11% 6% 13% 54% 50%

 

Don’t Know 35% 24% 22% 28% 29% 31%

 

8 Which of the main political parties do you think has the clearest set of policies?

(Voted in the General election may 2010)

 

Total Conservative Labour LibDem UKIP Other

 

Conser 25% 63% 7% 15% 31% 8%

 

Labour 15% 4% 40% 14% 3% 1%

 

LibDem 5% 2% 4% 15% 2% 3%

 

Other 15% 10% 8% 14% 36% 51%

 

Don’t know 42% 21% 40% 42% 28% 37%

 

9 Which of the parties is the most united?

Total

 

Conservative 21%

 

Labour 21%

 

LibDem 7%

 

Other 15%

 

Don’t know 36%

 

10 If your car broke down who would you most like to come to your rescue?

Miliband 20%

 

Cameron 18%

 

Clegg 13%

 

Don’t know 49%

[dennis tooth]

On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs – David Graeber

 

David Graeber traces the 20th century promise of a 4 hour day and how we got unproductive labour instead.

 

In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century’s end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There’s every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn’t happen. Instead, technology has been marshaled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it.

 

Why did Keynes’ promised utopia – still being eagerly awaited in the ‘60s – never materialise? The standard line today is that he didn’t figure in the massive increase in consumerism. Given the choice between less hours and more toys and pleasures, we’ve collectively chosen the latter. This presents a nice morality tale, but even a moment’s reflection shows it can’t really be true. Yes, we have witnessed the creation of an endless variety of new jobs and industries since the ‘20s, but very few have anything to do with the production and distribution of sushi, iPhones, or fancy sneakers.

 

So what are these new jobs, precisely? A recent report comparing employment in the US between 1910 and 2000 gives us a clear picture (and I note, one pretty much exactly echoed in the UK). Over the course of the last century, the number of workers employed as domestic servants, in industry, and in the farm sector has collapsed dramatically. At the same time, “professional, managerial, clerical, sales, and service workers” tripled, growing “from one-quarter to three-quarters of total employment.” In other words, productive jobs have, just as predicted, been largely automated away (even if you count industrial workers globally, including the toiling masses in India and China, such workers are still not nearly so large a percentage of the world population as they used to be).

 

But rather than allowing a massive reduction of working hours to free the world’s population to pursue their own projects, pleasures, visions, and ideas, we have seen the ballooning not even so much of the “service” sector as of the administrative sector, up to and including the creation of whole new industries like financial services or telemarketing, or the unprecedented expansion of sectors like corporate law, academic and health administration, human resources, and public relations. And these numbers do not even reflect on all those people whose job is to provide administrative, technical, or security support for these industries, or for that matter the whole host of ancillary industries (dog-washers, all-night pizza deliverymen) that only exist because everyone else is spending so much of their time working in all the other ones.

 

These are what I propose to call “bullshit jobs.”

 

It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working. And here, precisely, lies the mystery. In capitalism, this is precisely what is not supposed to happen. Sure, in the old inefficient socialist states like the Soviet Union, where employment was considered both a right and a sacred duty, the system made up as many jobs as they had to (this is why in Soviet department stores it took three clerks to sell a piece of meat). But, of course, this is the sort of very problem market competition is supposed to fix. According to economic theory, at least, the last thing a profit-seeking firm is going to do is shell out money to workers they don’t really need to employ. Still, somehow, it happens.

 

While corporations may engage in ruthless downsizing, the layoffs and speed-ups invariably fall on that class of people who are actually making, moving, fixing and maintaining things; through some strange alchemy no one can quite explain, the number of salaried paper-pushers ultimately seems to expand, and more and more employees find themselves, not unlike Soviet workers actually, working 40 or even 50 hour weeks on paper, but effectively working 15 hours just as Keynes predicted, since the rest of their time is spent organizing or attending motivational seminars, updating their facebook profiles or downloading TV box-sets.

 

The answer clearly isn’t economic: it’s moral and political. The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger (think of what started to happen when this even began to be approximated in the ‘60s). And, on the other hand, the feeling that work is a moral value in itself, and that anyone not willing to submit themselves to some kind of intense work discipline for most of their waking hours deserves nothing, is extraordinarily convenient for them.

 

Once, when contemplating the apparently endless growth of administrative responsibilities in British academic departments, I came up with one possible vision of hell. Hell is a collection of individuals who are spending the bulk of their time working on a task they don’t like and are not especially good at. Say they were hired because they were excellent cabinet-makers, and then discover they are expected to spend a great deal of their time frying fish. Neither does the task really need to be done – at least, there’s only a very limited number of fish that need to be fried. Yet somehow, they all become so obsessed with resentment at the thought that some of their co-workers might be spending more time making cabinets, and not doing their fair share of the fish-frying responsibilities, that before long there’s endless piles of useless badly cooked fish piling up all over the workshop and it’s all that anyone really does.

 

I think this is actually a pretty accurate description of the moral dynamics of our own economy.

 

Now, I realise any such argument is going to run into immediate objections: “who are you to say what jobs are really ‘necessary’? What’s necessary anyway? You’re an anthropology professor, what’s the ‘need’ for that?” (And indeed a lot of tabloid readers would take the existence of my job as the very definition of wasteful social expenditure.) And on one level, this is obviously true. There can be no objective measure of social value.

 

I would not presume to tell someone who is convinced they are making a meaningful contribution to the world that, really, they are not. But what about those people who are themselves convinced their jobs are meaningless? Not long ago I got back in touch with a school friend who I hadn’t seen since I was 12. I was amazed to discover that in the interim, he had become first a poet, then the front man in an indie rock band. I’d heard some of his songs on the radio having no idea the singer was someone I actually knew. He was obviously brilliant, innovative, and his work had unquestionably brightened and improved the lives of people all over the world. Yet, after a couple of unsuccessful albums, he’d lost his contract, and plagued with debts and a newborn daughter, ended up, as he put it, “taking the default choice of so many directionless folk: law school.” Now he’s a corporate lawyer working in a prominent New York firm. He was the first to admit that his job was utterly meaningless, contributed nothing to the world, and, in his own estimation, should not really exist.

 

There’s a lot of questions one could ask here, starting with, what does it say about our society that it seems to generate an extremely limited demand for talented poet-musicians, but an apparently infinite demand for specialists in corporate law? (Answer: if 1% of the population controls most of the disposable wealth, what we call “the market” reflects what they think is useful or important, not anybody else.) But even more, it shows that most people in these jobs are ultimately aware of it. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever met a corporate lawyer who didn’t think their job was bullshit. The same goes for almost all the new industries outlined above. There is a whole class of salaried professionals that, should you meet them at parties and admit that you do something that might be considered interesting (an anthropologist, for example), will want to avoid even discussing their line of work entirely. Give them a few drinks, and they will launch into tirades about how pointless and stupid their job really is.

 

This is a profound psychological violence here. How can one even begin to speak of dignity in labour when one secretly feels one’s job should not exist? How can it not create a sense of deep rage and resentment. Yet it is the peculiar genius of our society that its rulers have figured out a way, as in the case of the fish-fryers, to ensure that rage is directed precisely against those who actually do get to do meaningful work. For instance: in our society, there seems a general rule that, the more obviously one’s work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it. Again, an objective measure is hard to find, but one easy way to get a sense is to ask: what would happen were this entire class of people to simply disappear? Say what you like about nurses, garbage collectors, or mechanics, it’s obvious that were they to vanish in a puff of smoke, the results would be immediate and catastrophic. A world without teachers or dock-workers would soon be in trouble, and even one without science fiction writers or ska musicians would clearly be a lesser place. It’s not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish. (Many suspect it might markedly improve.) Yet apart from a handful of well-touted exceptions (doctors), the rule holds surprisingly well.

 

Even more perverse, there seems to be a broad sense that this is the way things should be. This is one of the secret strengths of right-wing populism. You can see it when tabloids whip up resentment against tube workers for paralysing London during contract disputes: the very fact that tube workers can paralyse London shows that their work is actually necessary, but this seems to be precisely what annoys people. It’s even clearer in the US, where Republicans have had remarkable success mobilizing resentment against school teachers, or auto workers (and not, significantly, against the school administrators or auto industry managers who actually cause the problems) for their supposedly bloated wages and benefits. It’s as if they are being told “but you get to teach children! Or make cars! You get to have real jobs! And on top of that you have the nerve to also expect middle-class pensions and health care?”

 

If someone had designed a work regime perfectly suited to maintaining the power of finance capital, it’s hard to see how they could have done a better job. Real, productive workers are relentlessly squeezed and exploited. The remainder are divided between a terrorised stratum of the, universally reviled, unemployed and a larger stratum who are basically paid to do nothing, in positions designed to make them identify with the perspectives and sensibilities of the ruling class (managers, administrators, etc) – and particularly its financial avatars – but, at the same time, foster a simmering resentment against anyone whose work has clear and undeniable social value. Clearly, the system was never consciously designed. It emerged from almost a century of trial and error. But it is the only explanation for why, despite our technological capacities, we are not all working 3-4 hour days.

 

 

 

An I tell you, this uzi is the dooozy!

 

THE HOOD LOVE IT - YouTube

[aws]

Cameron's worst nightmare is Milliband being replaced before the election.

[King Emlyn]

Cameron's worst nightmare is Milliband being replaced before the election.

Absolutely, he would be devastated and rightly so. Miliband is as poor a "leader" as it is possible to find, he's abysmal.

[Stickman]

Absolutely, he would be devastated and rightly so. Miliband is as poor a "leader" as it is possible to find, he's abysmal.

 

I agree he is terrible but who would you get to replace him?

The Cabinet and a lot of the party are all Blair clones.

[Strontium]

I agree he is terrible but who would you get to replace him?

The Cabinet and a lot of the party are all Blair clones.

 

 

You say that like Blair wasn't the most successful leader Labour ever had.

[Section_31]

What knocks me sick about Miliband isn't that he's 'bland' or a bit weird or wet or any of that, it's that he's got no stones. He's content to sit there and hope something goes tits up with the coalition, and is sat there doing fuck all when there's millions of people out there - many of them his party's 'traditional' core vote, who are being shit on.

 

Instead of trying to win the argument, he's not even getting involved on any level. He's a fucking disgrace.

[aws]

What knocks me sick about Miliband isn't that he's 'bland' or a bit weird or wet or any of that, it's that he's got no stones. He's content to sit there and hope something goes tits up with the coalition, and is sat there doing fuck all when there's millions of people out there - many of them his party's 'traditional' core vote, who are being shit on.

 

Instead of trying to win the argument, he's not even getting involved on any level. He's a fucking disgrace.

 

He was gifted an early lead by the coalition cut-backs and now he's parked the bus.

[Stickman]

You say that like Blair wasn't the most successful leader Labour ever had.

 

For me that twat wasn't Labour...

.All it meant was we have had right wing politics in Britain for the last 34 years...

[Anny Road]

I hate it when people slag Blair off for not being Labour. You can be as Labour as you like but get used to opposition. Most of this country is oblivious or Tory. Thats the facts. Left wing does not win votes rightly or wrongly.

As for Milliband I'd let him run the chess team but not the country.