Andy Burnham says he holds Nigel Farage significantly responsible for UK's miserable decade
Andy Burnham has said he holds Nigel Farage "very significantly responsible" for Britain's failure to move forward in the last decade.
In a rare personal attack on the Reform UK chief, he tore into Brexit "lies" and questioned whether Mr Farage still has the appetite to lead. The Prime Minister accused him of giving Britain "a decade of division and drift" - and accused Russia of interfering with the 2016 referendum.
Already we see Burnham testing what Arthur C. Clarke once described as the yield point of his audience’s credulity.
It's a useful expression because it seems to lie behind Team Burnham's decision to use Brexit as a major hedge against their man having to shoulder direct responsibility. An understandable strategy now it has become less easy to push responsibility in the direction of the EU itself.
We may also conclude that Team Burnham has assessed the yield point of their audience’s credulity as robust enough for the strategy to work.
He had been listening with a professional pride to tales which even he would never have dared to spin, for he was an expert at detecting the yield point of his audience’s credulity.
Arthur C. Clarke - Tales from the White Hart (1957)
7 comments:
I wonder at the sheer brazenness of politicians and the fantasy world they inhabit. . Ruin the economy of your country by continually raising taxes and therefore reducing the spending power of the people, raise energy prices so that manufacturers can no longer produce goods , therefore needing more imports, destroying the farms which produce the food, and flood the country with millions of illegal immigrants from a backward, hostile , culture. Then wonder why the population becomes restless.
Ah, the yield point. Plastic. Suits Burnham to a T.
Way back, before UK joined the Common Market, the UK's economy was rubbish. I lived through that phase and it was crap. The Common Market seemed to be much more successful and we wanted some of that Pixie Dust here. Well, we joined. And it turned out nothing much got better because there was no Pixie Dust. We were manufacturing our own problems and the other members of the Club didn't care. And now, now that the uniparty has fucked up the imperfect but much better country that Margaret Thatcher built, Andy Burnham's Big Idea is to launch Operation Pixie Dust 2. It won't turn out well. On the bright side, I'm old enough that I probably won't have to endure it for too long.
John - it's a dangerous combination, narcissistic ambition combined with brazenly incompetent ideology. But voters vote for it, they seem to mistake it for something else which speaks to the dry, shrivelled bit of their ego.
dearieme - and does he snap or stretch into an almost invisible, floppy thread?
decnine - "Andy Burnham's Big Idea is to launch Operation Pixie Dust 2"
Ha ha, I like that. We're also old enough to know we won't have to endure it for long, although I'm concerned about younger family members.
I suspect Burnham and co. are trying out various 'vote winning policies' before they go for an 'early' General Election in May 2027. Reversing BREXIT is attractive to many but would probably never need to be implemented in less than a decade, if ever. So it's a 'safe' policy.
Another one, AKH ... yield point ... credulity ... shall adopt it.
DJ - that sounds spot on to me, it has the feel of experimental election rhetoric which appeals to voters but doesn't necessarily lead anywhere they need to plan for now.
James - thanks, it's possible to imagine Clarke coming up with it in an engineering test lab.
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