side note on the slaughter

I said awhile ago that Labour seemed intent on changing itself into the Real British National Party, and the campaign it fought in Crewe tended to confirm that: reflexive sneering at effete toffs, foreigner bashing combined with the promotion of surveillance culture, "tough on yobs" demagoguery, and, in the canddiate, an attempt to promote legitimacy through dynastic connections.

Whatever the Crewe electorate eventually turn out to have chosen, and whatever reasons people actually had to vote the way they did, it should be noted that what has been comprehensively rejected here is hardline rightwing authoritarianism.