This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Oi there, I was born in 1966 I will have you know

Though tbh I think the cut off birthdate for Boomers/Generation X is a bit too late at circa 1965.

In a UK context I think a good guide is the following:

Old enough to vote in the 1964 GE - Golden Generation
Old enough to vote in the 1979 GE - Boomer
Old enough to vote in the 1997 GE - Generation X
Old enough to vote in the 2015 GE - Millennial
Younger than that - Generation Y

Ahem... Generation Y is actually a synonym for Millennial.

The people my age (I was born in 2001) are the Generation Z - hence why "Zoomers", by portmanteau with baby boomers.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Eric Hobsbawm's very last vote was cast for her in 2010, which is a fun one given the size of her majority that election.

Did Hobsbawm typically vote for Labour candidates? That would not be particularly surprising but in a sense it also is, given that he was a card-carrying Communist till that ceased to be a thing...

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

The Labour mayor of Northumberland North of Tyne has quit the party and looks like he will stand as an independent for the forthcoming North East Combined Authority mayoral election. He wanted to be the Labour candidate but was blocked by the party in favour of the elected Police and Crime commissioner (which covers more of the new body). He’s been martyred by the left of the party online but I’m doubtful of his electoral process (in fact, the anointed candidate did much better electorally, insofar as these things can be attributed to the individual). I’m not sure many members of the electorate even know who he is nevermind are actually able to say something he’s achieved.

My immediate reaction to this story is that none of the things you capitalized have any reason to exist other than Northumberland (and Labour lol). English local government reform and its consequences...

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

An essay question; what is easier for a layman to understand… The internal politics of Welsh Labour, the m***ns or the Catholic Church?

Not the Masons. Never the Masons. The Masons are the enemy. Down with the Masons.

Something which, appropriately enough, Welsh Labour and the Catholic Church one hundred percent agree on!

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Speaking of Ramsay MacDonald, recently I was reading his Wikipedia page and I stopped on this quote from his book A Socialist In Palestine, an account of his visit there from 1922.

The other section is composed of the rich plutocratic Jew, who is the true economic materialist. He is the person whose views upon life make one anti-Semitic. He has no country, no kindred. Whether as a sweater or a financier, he is an exploiter of everything he can squeeze. He is behind every evil that Governments do, and his political authority, always exercised in the dark, is greater than that of Parliamentary majorities. He has the keenest of brains and the bluntest of consciences. He detests Zionism because it revives the idealism of his race, and has political implications which threaten his economic interests.

That a Labour leader in that time would view Zionism positively as a Socialist project is not surprising, but the contrast with this awfully detailed version of the "rootless cosmopolitan" caricature sounds almost surreal. The past is truly a foreign country.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I think I finished reading the above exchange knowing less about Owen Jones than I did at the beginning.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Isn't the obvious choice for "most shocking if he had an affair" Gordon Brown?