A Free Left Blog

This is just a bit of fun I was having on Twitter with the election campaign on and thought I would turn into a blog post - imagining what our political parties would be if they had to get up every morning and go to work [h/t Sasha Hunter for that last thought]. The Tories: South West London estate agent Well-scrubbed, suited and booted, posh or ‘aspirational’ or both, originally from the Home Counties, keen to ‘make it in the property market’. Says ‘Yah’ a lot. Labour: Local authority 'equalities' officer Well-meaning, but tangled up in convoluted ideology and bureaucracy; nevertheless convinced that more convoluted ideology and bureaucracy is the way forward; partly lost sense of itself but still packs plenty of political clout. UKIP: Builder No-nonsense at best, uncouth and bigoted at worst; unreliable, ‘likes a drink’, resentful at all these Eastern European builders coming in and doing a better job for less money. The Lib ...

Dear potential UKIP voter, We wanted to let you know that we understand you and your concerns. We have been looking at the polling and it proves that you are all white, male, ageing, ignorant, hypocritical, working class racists and losers. This makes us feel very smug and superior, and we thought we would write you a letter to show how things really work around here so you might get with the programme. Firstly, it seems you have not read the memo which says no one is allowed to speak truth if it is the wrong truth. It has been decided that all immigration is beneficial both socially and economically, so any evidence that some immigrants or communities are causing social problems or abusing the welfare system must be suppressed immediately or detached from any association with immigration. We are also seeking to establish that it is people like you who are the real cause of social problems and who abuse welfare, so it has been necessary for us to make allusions and associa...

The liberal-left is in a terrible muddle over immigration at the moment largely because of a pervasive and highly-judgemental rationalism which completely fails to engage with people as they are. This rather arrogant, dogmatic form of rationalism assumes that who we are, our opinions and our feelings, are all derived from thought, reflection, decisions and judgements. Hence the discomfort someone might be feeling about lots of outsiders moving into their neighbourhood is viewed as being derived from a thought and ultimately a judgement that outsiders, or certain types of outsiders, are bad by definition. In this way this sort of rationalism takes theoretical, universalistic thinking as primary to human existence, and assumes we are formed and come to be who we are primarily by thinking and judgements made from thinking. So, we would assume the person who is discomforted by lots of outsiders moving in to their area has done some thinking and concluded that outsiders ...