Read on Twitter
This speech is long, but well worth a read if you're genuinely interested in understanding the contemporary Tory project. Quick thread.
1/9 https://twitter.com/sundersays/status/1277017358788419585
1/9 https://twitter.com/sundersays/status/1277017358788419585
In January, I described how Johnson's Tories would rule, and their "post-neoliberal" project.
The left must truly understand what it faces rather than wallowing in deceptive nonsense about a "hard right", "white supremacist" (etc) govt.
https://www.thefullbrexit.com/how-will-tories-rule
2/9
The left must truly understand what it faces rather than wallowing in deceptive nonsense about a "hard right", "white supremacist" (etc) govt.
https://www.thefullbrexit.com/how-will-tories-rule
2/9
Gove's speech starts to flesh out the post-neoliberal Tory agenda.
Strikingly it opens with a quotation from Gramsci and recognition that the neoliberal order has crumbled, with a huge void opening up between rulers and ruled.
It's as if Gove has been reading @tfbrexit!
3/9
Strikingly it opens with a quotation from Gramsci and recognition that the neoliberal order has crumbled, with a huge void opening up between rulers and ruled.
It's as if Gove has been reading @tfbrexit!
3/9
Gove then selects as his role model not Thatcher but Franklin Roosevelt, who saved American capitalism and democracy by recasting the state and economy for the benefit of ordinary people, founding the US welfare state.
4/9
4/9
Gove adds to the mix what @cjbickerton calls "techno-populism": a melding of populism and technocracy.
He declares: "we should be a pro-worker, pro-public servant People’s Government", putting the "left-behind" at the centre of policymaking and decentralising govt.
5/9
He declares: "we should be a pro-worker, pro-public servant People’s Government", putting the "left-behind" at the centre of policymaking and decentralising govt.
5/9
But technocracy is also rampant: rigorous policy evaluation is required to discover "what works" (incredibly Blairite); more civil servants with scientific-technical backgrounds are needed, familiar with Bayesian statistics and big data, etc.
6/9
6/9
Here the influence of Dominic Cummings on Tory ideology is clear. Cummings embodies techno-populism, appealing to the masses while putting faith in "weirdos" and big data to reform government.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/dominiccummings.com/2020/01/02/two-hands-are-a-lot-were-hiring-data-scientists-project-managers-policy-experts-assorted-weirdos/amp/
7/9
https://www.google.com/amp/s/dominiccummings.com/2020/01/02/two-hands-are-a-lot-were-hiring-data-scientists-project-managers-policy-experts-assorted-weirdos/amp/
7/9
As I said back in Jan, this project is riddled with contradictions that may derail it. Some of these were worked through remarkably quickly, like the clash with the Treasury. COVID-19 has also blown it off-course, though it's also accelerated radical policy change.
8/9
8/9
Nonetheless, most of the left not only does not understand how the Conservative project is changing; it also has nothing like this kind of project itself. It is either tilting at windmills ("fascist Boris"), or mired in dull, technocratic criticism of govt policy (Starmer).
9/9
9/9
