Trump and the Ides of March (an open thread)

by liberal japonicus

Lots of folks say that Trump is going to be charged in NY, which is the first of four listed legal problems facing Trump that are listed in this BBC article.

In other news, my wife and daughter have become baseball fans because of the WBC and Samurai Japan and possibly because of Lars Nootbaar.

And some of the other life stories are interesting as well, which can be found going through the rosters.

An open thread

Comments

[Bobbyp]

Social media meltdown in progress. Stocking up on popcorn.

[wj]

Lots of folks say that Trump is going to be charged in NY, which is the first of four listed legal problems facing Trump that are listed in this BBC article.

I admit to a hope that the Georgia charges come in before New York. Far more certain of a conviction -- and the last thing we want to see is Trump ranting that, because (if) he got 1 Not Guilty/hung jury result, all of the charges are bogus.

Once he's nailed on a charge somewhere, the rest can be a cascade, and the occasional miss won't matter. But better to start off on the right foot.

[Girl from the North Country]

I meant to say before this that I agree with wj here. I am concerned that the hush money indictment will make a lot of people shrug their shoulders, since the actual criminal aspect (fraudulent representations about the repayments, and possible campaign finance offences) is perhaps harder for some Rs to grasp than the very clear attempt to suborn the falsification of an election result. Not to mention, of course, possible charges of incitement to riot, incitement to cause an insurrection etc etc. (I say Rs because I am assuming that almost everybody who leans Dem already thinks this, but when dealing with the Trump phenomenon, nothing would actually surprise me).

[wj]

At one frame per year, even 14 years produces a very short film. But still, you can see it move!!!
M1: The Expanding Crab Nebula

[nous]

Second case of AI generated patchwriting this quarter - just as easily spotted, but turned in as a final draft along with a writer's reflection that pretended to be proud of the hard work done. This one is being passed on to the Office of Academic Integrity. Gotta be done. Both cases have been student athletes in different sports, so it needs to be squashed before it spreads any more. Word will get around. Best it's the right words getting passed on.

In this case, as in the last, it was easy to detect, even when mixed with sentences of the student's own writing to try to stitch it all together. I'm actually shocked at how easy it is to spot.

Beware, Leon (and always show compassion to tortoises).

[wj]

In this case, as in the last, it was easy to detect, even when mixed with sentences of the student's own writing to try to stitch it all together. I'm actually shocked at how easy it is to spot.

Sounds like it is far less of a problem to spot than the traditional approach (for student athletes and others) of simply paying another human being to do the work. And, as I understand it, even that approach was far from guaranteed of success.

[nous]

And, as I understand it, even that approach was far from guaranteed of success.

Yeah, in my writing class I have them submit drafts and go through revision workshops to help them develop their ideas and revise their organization. People who try to purchase their writing usually either skip the drafts entirely, or they get drafts done and skip the workshop days in order to not be found out when they can't explain how or why something was written the way it was.

This one had the drafts but never completed a workshop or came to a paper conference to discuss ideas and revision.

Also, there's enough that happens only in discussions in class that they'd need to hire someone else in the same class to really make the essay read like it was written by a student.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

It's really amazing how much work some people will put in, to avoid having to work.

[nous]

Most don’t put in the work, and either fail on their own or get caught wrongly assuming that they are more clever than their instructors.

[wj]

get caught wrongly assuming that they are more clever than their instructors.

If you have spent your entire (young) life being told (especially, but not exclusively, by your parents) how wonderful you are, how brilliant, etc., etc., etc. it is all too easy to assume that all the people who kept telling you that were right. Especially since you never heard from those who thought differently -- except in cases which you could, and were encouraged to, write off as jealousy. (Conservatives/reactionaries today are not the only ones who live in an information bubble.)

[wj]

It just keeps getting better and better:

On the eve of a key hearing in a defamation lawsuit against Fox News, an employee who was deposed in the case said she has sued the company, alleging that its lawyers coached her to shift blame for programming decisions** around the airing of Trump allies’ false claims of election fraud.

The lawsuit from producer Abby Grossberg came late Monday, hours after Fox sought a restraining order to keep her from disclosing in-house legal discussions. [Emphasis added]

Further

According to Fox’s complaint, first reported by the Daily Beast, the network’s lawyers advised Grossberg in meetings before her deposition that “they represented Fox News and not her in her individual capacity” and that their discussions with her “were subject to the attorney-client privilege” and must be kept confidential.

IANAL, but I don't understand how lawyer-client privilege can apply to a lawyer's conversations with someone who is explicitly not a client. What am I missing here?

** Again, I'm not a lawyer, but that sure sounds close to suborning perjury.

[JanieM]

IANAL, but I don't understand how lawyer-client privilege can apply to a lawyer's conversations with someone who is explicitly not a client. What am I missing here?

Anyhow, attorney-client privilege binds the lawyer, not the client. (Right, all you lawyers out there?) So from that POV it doesn't even matter whether she was their client or not.

(Edited for clarity.)

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Typical lawyerese bluster to try to pressure someone, without any underlying basis, I'd guess.

Hope it bites 'em in the ass, not just because it's FOX, but because such tactics should be punished.

[McKinneyTexas]

Ok, something I know about. The atty/client privilege can be complicated, but usually it can be sorted out in a way that non-lawyers can follow it.

First, the privilege attaches only to *confidential* communications between attorney and client made for the purpose of soliciting or providing legal services.

Second, the privilege can be waived. When a client says, "My lawyer told me . . . ", the privilege is waived.

Third, there is a "crime/fraud" exception to the atty/client privilege (and other, not relevant exceptions as well) that would apply if an attorney is suborning perjury.

Fourth, the privilege gets a bit murky in the corporate representation context. It is correct that the company's lawyer represents the company, not its employees. It is also true that the company lawyer's communications with company employees attendant to the company's legal representation are privileged communications. The privilege belongs to the company, the employee is bound by the privilege to his/her employer, not to the attorney. Thus, the company can prohibit the employee from disclosing a privilege communication. But, not if the employee wants to testify that the company lawyer suborned perjury.

As a practical matter, the company has to file to enjoin the employee from disclosing privileged information. The employee must then persuade a judge that the privileged material is excepted due to the crime/fraud exception or some other exception. If the employee fails in that effort, the privilege would likely be sustained and the employee held in contempt for violating the privilege.

OTOH, if there is evidence that there was attempted subornation of perjury, the company and its lawyer has a whole new set of problems.

Generally, battles like this are rare and unpleasant.

[Michael Cain]

...the network’s lawyers advised Grossberg in meetings before her deposition that “they represented Fox News and not her in her individual capacity” and that their discussions with her “were subject to the attorney-client privilege” and must be kept confidential.

Doesn't this sort of scream "Don't say another word until you have a lawyer representing you present"? I only came close to this once. The giant corporation I worked for was being sued and it was possible I would be deposed/called as a witness on a particular engineering matter. Several of us were advised that the company lawyers did not represent us individually, with a hint of "You might want to have your own lawyer".

I wasn't called but my boss was. He said that the practice sessions with the company lawyers pretending to challenge his competance in the most aggrevating ways possible was interesting to go through, once.

[McKinneyTexas]

Doesn't this sort of scream "Don't say another word until you have a lawyer representing you present"?

Rarely. Companies sue and get sued all the time, and it's a standard disclaimer

[wj]

Generally, battles like this are rare and unpleasant.

I'm thinking that's how Fox sees the entire Dominion suit. At least, they devoutly hope it is (and remains) rare, because it's certainly being unpleasant.

On the other hand, if I was someone who had been slandered on Fox, I'd be thinking hard about what discovery might turn up. I mean, does anybody think for an instant that this is the only time Fox and it's crew tried to build/maintain audience share by pushing stuff they knew was untrue?

[wj]

P.S. McKinney, thank you very much for the explanation. I had the rough outline, but the details are important, too. Especially in a case like this.

And aren't we all getting an education on the crime/fraud exception to privilege. Although I get the impression that some of the lawyers involved in Trump's escapades have been a bit unclear on the concept, too. Which doesn't speak well of their education. Either in law school or in their bar review courses.

[JanieM]

Echoing wj -- thanks, McKinney.

[McKinneyTexas]

I mean, does anybody think for an instant that this is the only time Fox and it's crew tried to build/maintain audience share by pushing stuff they knew was untrue?

An important point to keep in mind is whether a news organization can be liable for defaming a public actor (Dominion is a public actor most likely) by providing a platform to someone like the Kraken? I'm not super clear on that. OTOH, I've done a few but not many defamation cases, and none of them involved a media defendant. At best, my question is somewhat-informed speculation.

Echoing wj -- thanks, McKinney.

My pleasure.

[Girl from the North Country]

Echoing wj -- thanks, McKinney.

Thirded, excellent to have specialist info.

[GftNC]

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, we have the prospect of BoJo having to testify for hours tomorrow about whether he intentionally misled parliament. Anybody who hasn't been keeping up should remember that he has been sacked from almost every job he has had for lying, and that this is well-known and verifiable. Given that we hear he is angling to make a comeback as PM, this really, really matters. For admirers of Marina Hyde:

One last heave – in all senses of the word – for Boris Johnson, Britain’s worst ex, who tomorrow flops himself out in front of the standards committee and asks it to consider an auto-satirical question: did the foremost British liar of the age tell a lie? If you want a sense of our self-respect as a nation, an entire parliamentary investigation has spent 10 months gathering evidence on that question, while £220,000 and rising has been spent by the taxpayer on Johnson’s legal defence. It is, let’s face it, a long way to go to reach the conclusion, “Lol of course he told a lie – it’s BORIS JOHNSON?!?!?!?!?”

Strip away the incidental details of this latest adventure in a career of turbo-fibbing and you are faced with a reality as old as bullshit itself. Johnson, who last told the truth during the Reagan administration – and then only accidentally – has somehow got the government to fund state-of-the-art lawyers to prove he wasn’t aware of parties happening in his own house, attended by his own self, against his own rules, and in at least one case against his own laws, having gone on telly every single night to tell people that compliance to the letter of said rules and laws was a matter of life and death. Please bear this in mind if you tune in to his appearance tomorrow afternoon, along with the question: does our country have a path to dignity? Because this ain’t it.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/21/boris-johnson-lies-standards-committee-partygate

[nous]

Gotta love his defending himself against photographic evidence of rules violations at the booze-ups by saying that they are proof of his innocence because he never would have allowed the photos to be taken if he had believed that they were violating the rules.

Weasel is a verb.

[wj]

Johnson, who last told the truth during the Reagan administration – and then only accidentally

No wonder he and Trump got on so badly -- they can each see himself in each other. Definitely two of a kind.

[ral]

I can hardly wait for Tony J's report on BJ, I expect it will be a thing of beauty.

[Girl from the North Country]

FWIW, I am far from confident that the committee will find against him, or that even if they do, the house will back their recommendation. Such is life in the mother of parliaments.

[Girl from the North Country]

Opposing such pessimism, here is Danny the Fink (Daniel Finkelstein) in the Times. I only hope he's right. I copy because of paywall:

It’s the hypocrisy that will do for Boris Johnson

Voters once loved his lies, but arguing he didn’t understand his own rules has turned him into just another evasive politician

It was a remarkable story. Janet Cooke’s tale of Jimmy, an eight-year-old heroin addict, won the Washington Post reporter the Pulitzer prize in 1980. But when other reporters went looking for Jimmy they couldn’t find him. Which wasn’t surprising as he didn’t exist. Cooke had made him up.

When the Post looked into her record, after the scandal had emerged, they found she was a serial liar. She had lied to the paper from the beginning, including on her job application. In his memoirs, her editor Ben Bradlee considered how the Post had let it happen: “How come we never checked? Simply put, Janet Cooke was too good to be true and we wanted her too bad.”

In her books on liars and lying, Bella DePaulo always stresses the role that the lied-to have in enabling lies. A consistent theme is that some people want to believe liars so badly they will go to great lengths to stick with them even as the deception unravels.

Boris Johnson will have some friends whatever he says to the privileges committee to answer accusations that he lied to parliament. And he will have some friends whatever the committee decides. And these friends will accuse the committee of bias and his critics of mounting a coup. Because for some people Boris Johnson is too good to be true and they want him too bad.

But the number of these friends is diminishing and is no longer enough to carry the day. There will be relatively few people who find his defence (basically that his own guidance was so complicated he genuinely didn’t know he was breaching it) convincing. If the committee finds against him, most people will side with the committee. And if they propose a heavy sanction, most will support it.

Which leaves the question: why? Boris Johnson has failed to tell the truth many times in his career. His record of lying is extensive. He has always been able to recover. More than that, he has thrived. Yet now, even when he employs the finest lawyer and makes the best possible case for his ultimately indefensible position, he has lost the crowd. Why has this happened?

Although telling lies in politics is theoretically regarded as a great sin, in practice it doesn’t often cost the liar much. Most people, on most issues, most of the time don’t follow the details and aren’t in a position to judge who is telling the truth about what. Eyes generally glaze over during complicated sagas involving the prime minister’s ethics adviser, “Nolan rules” and “Acoba”, whatever he, she or they are.

Instead people adopt the general rule that politicians lie to them all the time, a rule that leads them to discount every statistic, disbelieve any promise, ignore any slogan and assume the accused politician guilty in any scandal.

While some politicians despair about what this decline in trust is doing to democracy, and the danger it poses to the rule of law, for others it represents an opportunity. If all politicians are regarded as liars then the cost in effort and exposure of telling the truth isn’t worth bearing.

Just say the first thing that comes into your head or do whatever suits you and there will be no price to pay. Most people won’t even notice you said or did anything. And those who do will think you no worse than politicians who take great care with their facts, because they don’t believe those politicians either.

Watching various prime ministers prepare for Commons appearances, I have always been deeply impressed by the amount of time they took to ensure they knew the facts. Theresa May’s diligence and recall were prodigious, for instance. But Boris Johnson probably sat there and wondered how much good it did her.

Certainly as prime minister he did not follow her example and his answers each week reflected that. When he replied to the questions about the gatherings in No 10 he satisfied himself on the basis of an extremely sketchy and self-serving assurance from political staff. Most weeks this would do. Most weeks he was fine doing that.

In fact, more than fine. As distressing as it might be to someone like me, it wasn’t just that voters didn’t punish Johnson for his slapdash approach and his rule breaking. Some people liked it. Quite a lot did. It was an asset. People saw others as creating the rules to suit themselves and they liked someone who cheerfully broke them.

Johnson is a talented comedian, and the core of his comedy is subverting the rules, breaking the fourth wall to talk to the audience about the charade they were witnessing. There is a famous story about how Johnson went round making the same after dinner speech for money, scribbled on a sheet of paper moments before appearing. But the key to this story is that he would make a joke out of not knowing the name of the organisation he was addressing. And far from feeling slighted, the audience would laugh.

In his fine book Political Hypocrisy, David Runciman explains how some voters came to judge the honesty of Hillary Clinton more harshly than that of Donald Trump. As they saw it, she was pretending to tell the truth and he wasn’t. His brazen lying seemed, at least, authentic. His ill disciplined and wayward tweets may have made him seem horrible and erratic, but at least it was revealing. Meanwhile conventional politicians, with their fake politeness and hedged non-answers, were trying not to lie but ended up seeming evasive and fake.

Why, then, has all this protection from which Johnson has benefited disappeared? Runciman’s book has an explanation for that too: whatever voters may think about lying, they hate hypocrisy.

Johnson is no longer the laughing cavalier, breaking rules that everyone else hates, winking as he transgresses. He is the person that created the rules and then broke them. The rest of us were doing what he told us and he wasn’t doing what he told us. And when facing this new, much more dangerous, charge — hypocrisy — he finds himself unable just to barrel on.

He’s had to buy in a KC and start appealing to voters and his parliamentary colleagues to believe, despite his history, that the words he used in the Commons were used with great care and a passion to get to the truth, however inconvenient. He has become the standard evasive politician talking about the difference between rules and guidance, between reckless and deliberate.

Johnson has dazzled and amazed. But he is a magician whose trick won’t work any more. The spell has been broken. Hypocrisy has broken it.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

George Santos and BoJo clearly deserve each other.

Maybe the US and UK can get together and drop them both off on Rockall.

[Pro Bono]

My guess is that the Privileges Committee will find that Johnson recklessly misled Parliament. And MPs as a whole will go along with that - the majority of Conservative MPs got fed up with his lies. But the sanction imposed will fall short of anything very embarrassing for the Conservative Party.

[Pollo de muerte]

De-lurking for a moment ...

I agree with McTX on how the privilege works with employees. In a completely civil context where it is clear that the employee is acting in the scope of employment and has not been named as a defendant, I commonly defend employees at deposition. There is a limit to this representation and the employee needs to warned of this limitation. It is sometimes referred to as the "Corporate Miranda Warning" or less colorfully, the "Upjohn Warning".

If I believe that employee acted outside the scope or employment, is potentially personally liable, or (this is the biggie) potentially criminally liable, then I will literally lean in and with raised eyebrows suggest that they get their own lawyer. This is not a sleazy tactic designed to obfuscate or delay; it is an important preservation of an individual's constitutional rights that can be waived.

As for the legal standard in the Dominion case, it is a very high bar for the plaintiff:

(i) Fox intentionally provided a platform for guests that Fox's hosts knew would make false and defamatory statements of fact on the air; (ii) Fox, through Fox's hosts, affirmed, endorsed, repeated, and agreed with those guests' statements; and (iii) Fox republished those defamatory and false statements of fact on the air, Fox's websites, Fox's social media accounts, and Fox's other digital platforms and subscription services.

US Dominion, Inc. v. Fox News Network, LLC, C. A. N21C-03-257 EMD, 2 (Del. Super. Ct. Dec. 16, 2021)

The mens rea requirements here ("intentional", "knew") are very difficult and result from the plaintiff being a public figure. Add in the 1st Amendment defenses at Fox's disposal, and even with what appears to be overwhelming evidence, I don't know that I'd bet on the plaintiff winning here ... I certainly don't expect them to get summary judgment.

[ral]

Tony Jay does not disappoint.

[GftNC]

Slightly too slapstick for my taste, but I loved his debauched reign of error, being (as I am) a sucker for wordplay.

I would also note, regarding the following:

Even the thoroughly loyalist Metropolitan Police Force issued 126 fines to Downing St occupants for breaking Covid laws, including one for Flobbity Fuckwit himself, and not a single one of them was challenged in law

that, if I recall correctly, the Met only investigated and then issued the fines when forced into it by a troublemaking (and I use that word as a high compliment) lefty organisation called The Good Law Project.

https://goodlawproject.org/update/partygate-met-police-investigate/

I'm still reading Tony Jay's BJ piece, while simultaneously listening to BoJo's grilling, but am posting this in the meantime....

[Girl from the North Country]

PS The "Carey" review that Jay mentions more than once, finding institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia in the Met, is actually the Casey review.

[Nigel]

“ Third, there is a "crime/fraud" exception to the atty/client privilege…”

https://abcnews.go.com/US/sources-special-counsel-claims-trump-deliberately-misled-attorneys/story?id=98024191
… In her sealed filing, Howell ordered that Evan Corcoran, an attorney for Trump, should comply with a grand jury subpoena for testimony on six separate lines of inquiry over which he had previously asserted attorney-client privilege.

Sources added that Howell also ordered Corcoran to hand over a number of records tied to what Howell described as Trump's alleged "criminal scheme," echoing prosecutors. Those records include handwritten notes, invoices, and transcriptions of personal audio recordings...

[wj]

Howell ordered that Evan Corcoran, an attorney for Trump, should comply with a grand jury subpoena for testimony on six separate lines of inquiry over which he had previously asserted attorney-client privilege.

To absolutely nobody's surprise, Trump's attorneys have filed an appeal of Howell's ruling. Bad news for Trump: none of the 3 judges (randomly) assigned to the appeal are his appointees. And, worse news (because Trump's standard MO is to appeal and try to run out the clock), they seem to be moving with unusual speed to hear the appeal. Hey, how can you plausibly object at getting a speedy hearing of a case you filed?

[ral]

wj: Hey, how can you plausibly object at getting a speedy hearing of a case you filed?

Only by admitting your abuse of the judicial process?

[wj]

Only by admitting your abuse of the judicial process?

And even Trump's lawyers wouldn't expect even this Supreme Court to buy that kind reasoning.

[Nigel]

Court rejects Trump’s urgent bid to keep lawyer’s records from special counsel
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/22/trump-court-rejects-special-counsel-00088403

[wj]

In other legal developments
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/22/1165292718/florida-lawmaker-dont-say-gay-covid-fraud

A former Florida lawmaker, who sponsored a bill dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" law by critics, has pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining COVID-19 relief funds.

Joseph Harding entered a guilty plea on Tuesday in federal court in the Northern District of Florida to one count of wire fraud, one count of money laundering and one count of making false statements, according to court records.

Harding faces up to 35 years in prison, including a maximum of 20 years on the wire fraud charge. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for July 25 at the federal courthouse in Gainesville.

Any party can throw up the occasional scumbag, of course. But today's GOP seems to be especially prolific. Well, when you work hard to drive away all the good people, what else do you have to draw from?

And the money laundering charge is just soooo Trumpian.

[Nigel]

It's also very Florida.
The number of political corruption stories from Florida is notably high.

Regarding the header, and the lj family interest in baseball, one of my favourite K-dramas is Hot Stove League. I've no real interest in baseball at all, but I enjoyed it immensely.

[wj]

Your politically incorrect smile for the day:
Kosher salt: what you use to make pork halal.

OK, I admit to a warped sense of humor.

[GftNC]

Moving right along.

I cannot resist giving you Marina Hyde on Rupert Murdoch's engagement announcement, or, as she puts it:

Never mind the lies on Fox News: Rupert’s getting married again. Just be happy for him

I worry that the fuss about fraudulent election claims will overshadow the real story. It’s love at fifth sight.

Too many bons mots to copy and paste, so I will link - I think most or all of you can read the Grauniad? If not, say so and I will copy....

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/24/lies-fox-news-rupert-murdoch-married-election

[GftNC]

Oh, from his lips (or pen) to God's ear:

Ignore the detractors – Keir Starmer is a radical who can transform the country
Will Hutton

He could marshal the progressive tradition that has always eluded the liberal left

The Labour party’s 125-year anniversary is two years away. By then, it will have held power for just 33 of those years. The ambition to build a socialist commonwealth – a new Jerusalem – has not been realised, nor is there any prospect of such an outcome in the next 125 years. Tory England – its riches, its schools, its social influence, its press, the inequalities over which it presides, its stranglehold over what is considered political common sense – remains as powerful as it was under prime minister Lord Salisbury in 1900. As an exercise in political futility, there is little to match it. It is often said that the Conservatives are one of the most longstanding and successful parties in the world. What is less said is that it has been given a free pass for more than a century by its opponents.

For a leader of the Labour party named after its founder, this is not only galling – it cannot be allowed to continue. For Britain does have a great progressive tradition independent of socialism, largely rooted in the best of “new liberalism”, common law and our early embrace of democracy. Moreover, our core values – fairness, tolerance, kindness, openness, admiration for those who dare, championing the underdog – are also fundamentally progressive. The political problem for the liberal left is that it has never marshalled these forces successfully into a sustained political project or party. Instead of uniting in the manner of US Democrats, British progressivism has been fatally divided between a largely workers’ party committed to utopian socialism, at least in its rhetoric, and a middle-class party that so hankers after Conservative acceptance it has only a weak progressive spine. Throw in a first-past-the-post voting system and the past 125 years is explained.

In this respect, Keir Starmer is shaping up to be a potentially transformational Labour leader. Like the socialist economic historian Richard Tawney or intellectual Labour MP Anthony Crosland, his outlook is driven by strong ethical and moral beliefs – an ethical socialism defined by values, not by non-negotiable doctrines. That opens the door to a more audacious, if unspoken, project: to reinvent the Labour party as a means to bring together an inclusive British progressive coalition. The socialist left must certainly be a member – it brings muscularity – but it can never again be allowed to define the progressive project. No more spasms of Bennism, Footism, Corbynism or the leftism that undermined Harold Wilson and Barbara Castle’s efforts to bring the law into industrial relations, and later the attempt to launch industrial democracy, and whose destruction so set the stage for Thatcherism. No more free passes to the right: hence, the strong opposition to reinstating an unrepentant Jeremy Corbyn as a Labour MP.

Starmer wants to meet John Rawls’s criterion, that a just society is one in which it does not matter where and to whom you are born
Starmer’s detractors on the left see this as betrayal and a compromise with neoliberalism – the longstanding trope that Tawney described as “the infantile disease of left-wingism” back in the 1930s, “absurd exhibitions of self-righteous sectarianism”. His critics argue that, for all his success in offering reassurance, he lacks a big idea or an overriding intellectual framework. But the big idea is right in front of them. It is to launch a progressive revolution and recast Britain – something that Tony Blair talked about but from whose implications he ultimately shrank.

There are far-reaching ambitions. The overhaul of the British constitution to make the House of Lords a second elected chamber representing our nations, cities and regions, as promised by Gordon Brown’s Commission on the UK’s Future and endorsed by Starmer, would have been welcomed by liberal progressives Gladstone, Lloyd George or Asquith, as would further empowering our constituent nations and local government. It’s a programme of constitutional reform that has eluded the country throughout Labour’s history. It will happen under Starmer. And that is where it starts.

Framing the next Labour government’s aims as five national missions is another crucial downpayment on creating a broad-based progressive coalition. Aiming to have the fastest sustained growth in the G7 and to be a clean energy superpower are not throwaway commitments. Neither can or should they be executed by the state alone, but, rather, in partnership with business, finance and workforces, where necessary ensuring there is a public body to fill key gaps, such as the proposed Great British Energy corporation. Expect more such innovative institutions, such as the proposed sovereign wealth fund to take stakes in green and hi-tech startups and promote new industries. It is part of the annual £28bn capital spending commitment on backing the green transition – not trivial.

The mission to build a 21st-century NHS is equally far-reaching, especially the commitment to make personal wellbeing one of the prisms through which all policy should be judged. It is a migration from a welfare to a wellbeing state, reinforced by the commitments to banning zero-hours contracts and bogus self-employment, and ensuring all workers from day one are entitled to sick pay, paid holidays and parental leave. Fair pay agreements are to be a new part of the labour landscape. The Beveridge report – one of the great expressions of new liberal progressive thinking – argued that a fair labour market was a key adjunct to effective social and health policy.

Starmer is going down the same route. The mission to promote opportunity, to meet social philosopher John Rawls’s criterion that a just society is one in which it does not matter where and to whom you are born, is also a big commitment – again, progressive and liberal in its roots. Labour has never tackled private schools’ charitable status; Starmer aims to do what none of his predecessors accomplished. To complete the picture, there is the mission to halve serious violent crime, involving stronger communities and more social cohesion as much as a reformed police force.

None of this is small or conservative. It is also a moment when the Tory stranglehold is slipping, a key reason why this pro-European wants to capitalise on the opening. So no second political front on Europe, at least yet.

Working on a forthcoming book – How the Right Broke Britain: And How to Put it Back Together Again – I am struck time and again by how the Labour party has been at its strongest when it reaches out beyond its base to recast a reflex socialism beset by doctrinal divisions into a more broad-based progressivism closer to Britain’s heartbeat. In their different ways, Attlee, Wilson and Blair all pulled off the trick. Keir Starmer is finding a way to do the same.

This article was amended on 26 March 2023 because an earlier version used used the word “criteria” where “criterion” was required.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/26/ignore-detractors-keir-starmer-radical-transform-country

[wj]

Starmer’s detractors on the left see this as betrayal and a compromise with neoliberalism – the longstanding trope that Tawney described as “the infantile disease of left-wingism” back in the 1930s, “absurd exhibitions of self-righteous sectarianism”.

Hotton's praise for the US Democrat's "big tent" approach notwithstanding, we see the same thing here in some ways. I'd be willing to bet that the reason that Biden's approval numbers remain stubbornly low is simply that too many on the left "disapprove" -- simply because he isn't progressive enough to suit them. No matter how much progressive legislation he got thru with a minimal-to-notional Senate majority. His accomplishments may have given the Democrats a historically successful 2022 election, but nothing will even be enough.

In fact, I'd bet that, if Bernie Sanders was President (with the inevitable constraints that reality brings to the job), they would be equally disapproving. Perhaps more so, having invested so many hopes in him.

Maybe someday the polls will reflect the two very different reasons voters might have for disapproving. But it's probably not simplistic enough for a punchy headline.

[CharlesWT]

Working on a forthcoming book – How the Right Broke Britain: And How to Put it Back Together Again

Thatcher became Prime Minister in large part because the left broke Britain. Or, at least, failed to fix what was broken.

[nous]

Approval numbers are to governance what market values are to economic policy. All of the drama over the ups and downs are less important than the long-term trends, but the grifters build their fortunes off of manipulating those short term fluctuations and turning them into narratives that they can exploit for further gain, long-term trends be damned.

Reporting on the market and on approval ratings gives more strength to the right than to the left. Whatever their biases, the media are, so long as they follow this paradigm, miring us in this inability to deal with our biggest problems.

I'm glad of the victories won by the Democrats during Biden's term, but the party and the media really should be doing a better job of educating the public about the large scale issues that determine our trajectory beyond the next election cycle.

We have the myth of Pandora going on right here in our moment, and the media is busy talking to Epimetheus (Afterthought) and ignoring Prometheus (Forethought).