Jack Saundrs
@jacksaundrs.bsky.social
Anarcho-syndicalist, labour historian (post-war motor industry, NHS). Author: Assembling Cultures (http://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526155979/) (he/him) Blue and White Notes #itfc https://bluewhitenotes.beehiiv.com/
created September 19, 2023
3,133 followers 1,313 following 2,256 posts
view profile on Bluesky Posts
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
Thing is, amongst people who vote Tory, a substantial proportion thought massive unfunded tax cuts would make Britain (and them) richer. So Truss' negatives actually did have a floor. There's no substantial section of Labour's electorate that likes the current trajectory, so there's no floor.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
like how none of this stuff landed on Farage: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
"NATO membership is very popular" is such pundit brain shite. Sure, you can shithouse any anti-imperialist by shrieking about how they're in the pay of the Ayatollah etc. etc. but no-one outside Liberal Atlanticist lobby dickheads is actually like "I LOVE NATO"
sasha ↙︎↙︎↙︎ 🌹🏴 (@2damntrans.bsky.social) reposted
You can't be anti-fascist if you're transphobic. And if you're "gender critical" then you are at the very least a collaborator, if not fash yourself, because "GC" is gender fascism. It doesn't matter how left-wing you think you are.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
I never thought it possible for a government to be more embarrassing than the Johnson administration, yet here we are
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
IMO the election of this transphobic Labour government was a tipping point where permission was granted to move from 'legitimate concerns' transphobic questions to 'i hate trans people and want to do them violence'
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
If a Tory government were this unpopular, their MPs and members would be raging, demanding a leadership contest. Yet Labour there's absolutely nothing.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Yeah, serious crime like elderly vicars holding signs in support of Palestine Action!
LiLBaz (@lilbazza.bsky.social) reposted
Right, well, reinforcing the norm now means "vaporising the Labour Party" that the Sensible Moderates all spent a decade furiously destroying the parliamentary *actually anti-racist left* to shitefest into power. Let me know when that starts to happen
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
booooooooo
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
booooooooooooo
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
i hope you're happy @noscoredraws.com
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
😭 #itfc
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
yeah and you'd guess that bagels come to America about the same time, as part of the same migration of Jewish refugees from the Russian Empire
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
Starmer is actually the kind of pathetic creature who would put up a national flag in his house to pander to people who'll never see it and won't believe it's there
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Nazis can't have kids or claim to have kids, apparently
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
Just smashing the "be racist" button over and over again, every single day, fresh after yet another round of polls that has him as the least popular PM in history
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
mass availability of the bagel/beigel likely starts in Britain and the USA at roughly the same time, so if it's American it must also be British ...
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
part of that is they had Brown's 29% and Miliband 31% as products of leftism, rather than what they were, which was the final exhaustion and dissolution of the Blair bloc.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
Always think the big misread of the Corbyn era by the right was this idea it lowered Labour's floor. But having an outright leftist as Labour leader actually consolidated a base that was already cracking in 2015. It might have lowered a ceiling a bit but it reinforced the floor.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
More I think about it, the more true this must be. Lifelong Communist, PM of a Communist government. The tankies sent the tanks to oust the tankie.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
ironically, reckon Imre Nagy himself qualifies as a tankie under the modern aggro-centrist definition
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Bagel King, Walworth Road or Bagel and Jerk in Beckenham
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Somewhere between "the national cuisine is a set canon of dishes established by 1950" and "we can append any food made in Britain to the glory of the nation" is the realisation that food cultures defy borders and citizenship
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Like, I can find you a banging jerk chicken bagel in South London, it is "of Britain" in a way that is exactly analogous to a pastrami bao
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
You are literally responding to a thread about migration being a benefit to food culture.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
I dunno, feels like if you scream "Islamists are evil, they'd kill everybody if they had the chance, that's why we have to sniper children in the head", you probably don't also have the right to say "hey, you'll probably be fine, the Taliban have absolutely assured us they won't hurt you"
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
It's cool how in reactionary world you can just whisper 'Hamas' and thus justify a host of war crimes, whilst simultaneously pretending that the governments of Iran, Syria and Afghanistan do not widely persecute their citizens
punkacademic (@punkacademic.bsky.social) reposted
The way that was narrativised at the time and then memory-holed was spectacular. The guy actually shouted 'Britain First' as he murdered her. Things just carried on. There won't, as @davidwearing.bsky.social notes, be some snap-back even if someone dies. The media won't allow it. /1
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Rayo should really be 2-3 up by now
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Played at an absurd pace and physicality too
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
This is a ridiculous game, don't think I've ever seen a match this stretched out for the whole 90 minutes?
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Lol, they really were something else
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
Lamine Yamal is a cheating little shit
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Wouldn't have taken a huge amount of political acumen to spot this particular argument coming down the line, would it?
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Christ, if that isn't a damning indictment of the government
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
What's the point of being a massive conformist if not to advance your career?
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
As in fell out with the wrong people? Just a difficult person to get on with even if you agree with her?
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
It's a bit like Meg Hillier - MP has a rock hard safe seat since forever and I would challenge anyone to remember anything political she's ever done. Seems to just be a case of sitting in the seat, drawing the salary and eventually getting a gong.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
Sort of fascinated by Stella Creasy's parliamentary career. She's been an MP since 2010, was briefly in the shadow cabinet under Miliband and that's it. She's senior. She's down with the political direction of the government. It's weird that she's not in a cabinet role?
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
She nominated Luke Akehurst, chair of We Believe in Israel (an even more evil organisation than LFI), for NEC!
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Top tier breakfast
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
Gotta have pan con tomate for every breakfast when the tomatoes come in
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
World's changed
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
I am in a new restaurant in Ipswich called literally 'Kurdistan Republic' and there *isn't* a portrait of Öcalan.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
boomerism is such a powerful ideology, it's basically forced Michael Palin to rewrite his own life narrative
Rivoluzionario della melanzana (@caponatacommie.bsky.social) reposted
Bobbi is absolutely correct here, although I fear they're already too late on this...
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
symbiotic relationship maybe? Think the small fascist bloc exists irrespective of what's going on in the mass media and is definitely useful for accelerating things
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
imo, the only useful questions here are (a) how do you disrupt that transmission from small fascist demo to mass media-produced moral panic (b) how do you organise/bring out the people who have clocked that this *is* fascism on the march.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
"what should I say to people" is not a useful question when whatever you say and whatever they say will still be rendered as "concerned families protest sex-crazed outsiders" at a level of discourse you have zero control over and that is actively being leveraged on behalf of the enemy.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
The lack of power to frame anything makes the discussion about the slogan redundant.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
No there isn't.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
What can Ipswich fans expect from teenager Sindre Walle Egeli?
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
I just don't think it's important at all. Is there something you can call these people that will make them go home? No. Is there something you can chant on a demo that will derail the moral panic being driven by media and politicians? No. So what are we even talking about here?
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
like, "this will affect your children and grandchildren badly" is like the most common argument environmentalists make?
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
What happens to the neo-nazis, Robert Jenrick, the editor of the Daily Mail and Keir Starmer when you stop calling them fascists and finally hit on the winning strategy of 'saying foreigners are human beings'
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
You think their whole thing is suddenly going to be troubled by a bit of bog standard liberal humanitarianism?! Come the fuck on.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
The political/media class *chose* not to make a big deal out of Jenrick associating with a Neo-Nazi, precisely because it disrupted their scripted narratives about what these protests are and what they mean, precisely because violent Hitler fanatics being involved *is salient* to 'bystanders'
Tom Roberts (@tpgroberts.bsky.social) reposted
In a year of Labour putting major restrictions on legal immigration to appease immigration focussed voters they have gone from 35% to 19% in polls, immigration is now a higher profile issue, and both right opposition parties have moved to calling, either as leaders or as MPs, for mass deportations.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Honestly pretty naive to imagine it's worthwhile giving chant advice when you're lining up against a solid phalanx of mass media, Reform, Cons, Labour, all singing from the same hymn sheet about what the protests mean.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
Noone gives this take the other way round, do they? No one advises conservatives that calling their enemies communists, extremists, anti-semites, Britain haters etc. "doesn't work" Because political name calling plainly *does* work, if done regularly at sufficient volume with a big enough platform
Arbeitology (@arbeitology.bsky.social) reposted
1. It’s not about “winning” bystanders 2. I’m not sure bringing coked up and five Stellas deep* wins by standers, either, so that’s a non sequitur really?
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
The haphazard way that peppers ripen is very enjoyable
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
So, you get into long discussions about what constitutes consent/ resistance, support/dissent
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
One of the key problematics for social histories of, for e.g., Nazi Germany is exactly how you know what 'the majority' thought about anything - once the authoritarianism kicks in they're no longer being systematically asked what they think!
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
What we are living through is not about migration policy, it's not amenable to the government doing X or Y, it is a mass moral panic, driven by malevolent actors with the passive consent of cowards.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
It's hard to explain how delusional it is to believe that there is some magic level of anti-migrant policy that this government can hit that will somehow neutralise this issue.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Marceiano Crookyez
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
Lol. #itfc
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
See, very much feels like any non-horrendous majority opinion can just be subjected to tabloid screeching, re-reported endlessly by the BBC, pushed by every awful pundit, agreed to be consensus common sense by the government, new structured polls run, then hey presto it's 90% for ethnic cleansing
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
So easy to use as a back door to force actually longer hours on people too - "oh, not getting by on your shit wages? Well you've got Friday free why not do some overtime or a second job"
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
spot that opened at the end of my road where everything was cooked on the bone and with some of the spices whole, tasted A++, but lasted 3 months because it was product of the chef trying to run a restaurant kitchen like they were at home and everything turned up an hour late as a consequence
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Also love that walthamstow is full of Bangladeshi and Pakistani cafes that seem to run less on dish names and more on pointing
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
I'm prone to a chaos order from the specialities bit of the menu but the regulars will be chicken vindaloo, tandoori prawns, onion bhaji, brinjal bhaji
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
Given the UK spent c. 15 years fighting in Afghanistan ostensibly because the Taliban were the epitome of Radical Islamist evil, don't suppose any think it worth asking Farage or the Tories whether it's cool with them if the people they send back get tortured and murdered when they get there
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Looking forward to Labour inevitably outbidding Reform on this and Mason not noticing
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
The way they all piled in to tell off Zahra Sultana the other week was clarifying imo about how little they've understood about what happened over the last decade of British politics
Phil McDuff (@mcduff.bsky.social) reposted
There's been a very serious effort to create the environment in which you actually *can't* call straightforwardly racist things racist, a creation of a whole category of newspeak and fauxtrage. This is the political correctness they told us about.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Would say that it's quite important in terms of building any alternative to make sure people understand that liberal commentators like Dunt don't actually understand anything and aren't worth listening to
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
(and so did Caroline Lucas)
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Just grinning away whilst his mates have a row with the ref
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
Main thing ref cam has revealed is that Virgil Van Dijk always looks very cheerful
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Sure, ok, good luck with that
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
I set up the BBC Sport to update me on the Test Cricket and it unilaterally decided this meant I wanted to know about The Hundred, so now every day I get a notification like: "The Northern Thundermonkeys have beaten the London Smashgobbers!"
Dr Panti Bliss-Cabrera (@pantibliss.bsky.social) reposted
In a bid to restore the English flag from its racist associations, loads of English racists have started putting it up everywhere for racist reasons
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
Really appreciate the commitment to wearing home shirts here
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
(that's not to downplay how dangerous and widespread racist anti-refugee sentiment is, more a comment on the Daily Mail doing "HURRAH FOR THE BLACKSHIRTS" with extra steps on this one)
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Like, you'd imagine there's at least a couple of thousand members across the various groupuscules and that very few of them are sat at home missing their big moment. The numbers reported would barely allow any room for many casual 'ordinary public' to be involved.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
Given the numbers involved, it seems pretty likely the dues-paying members of fascist organisations wildly out-number anyone else attending
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Definitely a tendency to decide "food cultures became more national over the 20th century" = "food was invented post-1945", isn't there?
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
GW1 conclusions are always wrong, but deciding "Man U are back and Arsenal are terrible" because the latter played badly and beat the former 1-0 might be the most wrong GW1 conclusion I've ever seen
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
I don't know how to ask this without getting a mountain of smut in response but... anyone grown aubergines outdoors in England? Is it destined to stay this sort of size? Do leave it growing until later in the season? Give it loads of water?
Phil McDuff (@mcduff.bsky.social) reposted
This is obviously, excessively true. So the question now for people working in the media is: if your colleagues, or bosses, or place of employment, are working hard to obscure this, what's your next move?
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social)
Only way the intention here could be more obvious is if the crosses were burning and they wore pointy hats
flyingrodent (@flyingrodent.bsky.social) reposted
Where are the Enough Is Enough protests, where is the terrified screeching into cameras and foaming at the mouth on breakfast TV sofas? It’s nowhere, because all of that shit was always insulting fraudulent drivel for idiots, and they are now showing you what they were always all about.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Yeah, really is.
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Potato, onion (and I presume a lot of salted butter!)
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
Rather nice here
Jack Saundrs (@jacksaundrs.bsky.social) reply parent
The entire political and media class seems to have decided there's just absolutely nothing wrong with fascists gathering outside refugee accommodation to harass and terrify residents, staff and bystanders, nothing wrong with encouraging them to violence.