Can someone artistic come up with a graphic mashup of John Lydon & Nigel Farage? 😀
BTW, Lydon is actually a very bright and in many ways deeply admirable figure.
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Reading political analysis in the UK right now be like…May 8th, 2026 |
 19 comments to Reading political analysis in the UK right now be like…Leave a Reply |
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I know, it’s fucking hilarious 😀
I wish half the things I’ve seen were actually true, but safe to say I’ll be brewing my tea with Labour and Tory tears today.
If we’re talking punk, then Strummer was objectively far more bright and admirable. And The Clash were a far better band (the last one and a half albums aside, obvs)
Never Mind The Bollocks was a great album, to be sure, but they never reached the same heights, and Lydon never had as much to say that was worth listening to as Strummer. Shame, really.
I never really liked the Sex Pistols, though they did do a couple of covers of old rock and roll songs that were pretty good. I quite liked the Boomtown Rats, before Geldof acquired his messiah complex obviously.
There’s an old saw that punks were good people pretending to be evil, while hippies were evil people pretending to be good. Mr Lydon is perhaps the perfect exemplar of this. Too many examples of the latter, with David Crosby top of my list.
Strongly disagree.
Also strongly disagree, and I Woz There. Strummer (IMHO) was a public schoolboy art student playing at being a Working Class Hero, who latched onto punk as just another route to success. Lydon, for all his flaws, was obviously, unquestionably authentic, and his life and work since the foundational days of punk have only reinforced his basic authenticity. Both of his books of autobiography are well worth a read. We’ll likely still be listening to PIL long after the Clash are no more than a footnote.
llater,
llamas
What is the post about?
As for the local elections.
Hanwood Park went as I predicted – a split vote on the right (79 votes for the Conservatives 44 votes for the Reform Party) let in the Greens (102 votes). A small example (Hanwood Park is the smallest ward) – but a horrible warning about much larger future contests, such as the Parliamentary election (if the United Kingdom gets to 2029).
Birmingham (the second largest city in England) was an interesting result – 15 seats for the Conservatives and 15 seats for the Reform Party – if they can work together, they can defeat the socialists and ultra socialists (the Greens). If they can NOT work together – then the chaos in Birmingham (a city that is already falling apart) will continue.
Come to think about it – I may have worked out what the post is about, it is in the title “anarchy in the UK” – anarchy as in chaos (rather than anarcho capitalism).
Yes, I understand what Perry means now.
Didn’t Lydon specifically call anarchy crap at some time recently? Last time I saw him, he was wearing Trump merch and decrying wokeness.
SO are you guys just having a political-preference argument? Or a definitional “what is punk” one?
Yeah, let’s have the ‘what is punk? argument! Guys in their 70’s reliving their 20’s and shaking their walking sticks at each other!
llater,
llamas
Dang whippersnapper.
(Ramones.)
llamas,
I bumped into Lydon, almost literally, back in the day. I was strolling up Wardour St. returning from lunch and as I was about to pass Bar Bruno Lydon and entourage stepped out directly in front of me causing to pull up. While a mere arm’s length in front of me Lydon turned to his friends and said in perfect middle class, “I’ll see you back at the studio, yah?”
At this point I grew donkey ears and brayed like Tom used to do in the cartoons when he discovered he’d been made an ass of.
Yeah, he was never (by his own admission) genuinely “for” anarchy – he said it just happened to rhyme with anti-christ (which, ermm, it obviously doesn’t)
Agree with The Ramones – although oddly, Acid Eaters was the first album of theirs that I heard. I got into them quite late.
llamas – PIL are great, Metal Box is fantastic, and Rise is one of my favourite songs (different album, obvs) I have “No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs”, but that’s reminded me to get hold of “Anger Is An Energy”. I just prefer The Clash; at least, the first three albums (and the other three have some good songs although I haven’t listened to those all the way through for ages)
Ramones? Dingwalls, 1976. It’s still frightening to me, some days, to realize that all four of them, only a couple of years older than me, are now deceased.
llater,
llamas
If the local election results were repeated at the 2029 General Election (if the United Kingdom gets to that) then there would be a “hung Parliament” with no party having a majority in the House of Commons.
Would there be a grand coalition of other political parties to keep the Reform Party out of government – as was done in Austria against the Freedom Party?
I do NOT believe there would be such a conspiracy (which is what the Austrian grand coalition really is) – I believe that the Conservatives would side with Reform against Labour, the Scots and Welsh Nationalists, the Lib Dems (who are NOT moderate – they are very much a party of the left), and the Greens (the ultra left).
But Birmingham is the test case – can the Conservatives and Reform (both of whom won 15 seats) work together?
The rhetoric of “no deals” has to stop – and cooperation has to be worked out.
Both in Birmingham and the rest of the country.
Before 2029 (if we get there) an agreement has to be worked out – for the left are already working out there agreements.
For example – in this constituency (Kettering – in the middle of England).
It was no accident that there was no Green candidate in the Burton Latimer by-election – it was done so that the Liberal Democrat would win.
And it was no accident that (two days ago now) that there was no Liberal Democrat (or Labour) party candidate in Hanwood Park – it was done so the Green candidate would win.
In both cases the Conservatives and the Reform Party cut each other’s throats – putting up candidates against each other.
The left talk – they form pacts, we must do the same.
Can’t see Labour allying with Green right now, to be honest. I can see Labour allying with LibDem; I can also see Green allying with LibDem (I think). Labour – or at least Starmer’s Labour – dislike the Greens too much; more so, I suspect, than they dislike Reform.
Inasmuch as Starmer has any principles (open to question), his Labour is a rightwing “favours for Big Corporation” party, even if they’re fannying around the edges of more traditional Labour and pretending otherwise with a few policies that prima facie appear to favour “working families” – most of the ones I’m familiar with don’t favour the workers, although I’m sure there’s some that will.
That said, I think it’s significantly more likely today that Starmer will be out of a job (good) sooner rather than later, and it’s plausible (albeit I believe it unlikely) that whoever takes over will tack left, so this is open to change.
The Clash were punk for people who liked Bruce Springsteen. Strummer had very little of interest or value to say, and was principally driven by attempts to cover up his background. To judge Lydon solely by his brief Sex Pistols output and ignore PiL misses the point.
Oh, ok. (“Do you like Phil Collins?”)
Go on, then, which punk bands should one have liked, Toby?
Yes indeed – even the combined Conservative and Reform Party total in Birmingham is only 38 seats, not enough for a majority – so the situation is incredibly difficult.
It is astonishing – even with the evidence in front of their eyes, the city collapsing around them, the new demographic (the new population groups) mostly (not totally – but mostly) continued to vote for the left.