Splitting the Hate Vote

It's becoming increasingly clear that Andy Burnham must have something in terms of ideas, policies, appeal or whatever, that might just halt the rise of the UK's rather pathetic extreme right in its tracks.  How do I know this?  Not from anything he's said, that's for sure, but rather from the way in which the likes of the Mail, Express and Telegraph have gone on the offensive against him since he became Labour's candidate in the forthcoming by-election.  Starmer seems forgotten about already as, day in, day out, they pump out spurious headlines trying to discredit Burnham: he's a U-turner because he's prepared to seek compromise on his position with regard to some issues, he's anti-woman because he doesn't hate trans people, he probably eats babies and he was really shit as 'Mayor of the North'.  All highly questionable in terms of veracity and reeking of desperation.  He's clearly got them spooked.  I find it interesting that Burnham is now seen as some kind of centre-left, progressive, leadership candidate, whereas, the last time contested for the leadership he was rejected as some kind of Blairite right-winger in favour of Jeremy Corbyn. (Possibly Labour's greatest ever act of self-harm, at least since Foot's leadership, or the split with Ramsay McDonald's National Labour faction back in the twenties).  It's a measure, though, of how far to the right the political discourse has been pushed in recent years, that Burnham, of all people, should be characterised by the right-wing media as some kind of 'left-wing firebrand'.

Still, it seems for once that Elon 'Never Met a Nazi I Didn't Like' Musk's attempts to interfere in UK politics might actually turn out to be beneficial.  He's allegedly been backing Rupert Lowe's band of extremists in the by-election, resulting in Farage bleating on about how he's thereby splitting the Nazi vote and calling for a 'United Extreme Right' front.  Which is ironic, as he doesn't seem to like it when parties on the left do such things.  But hey, hypocrisy and Farage are pretty much synonymous.  But it all throws up the strange question of which fascist-lite is worse: Farage or Lowe?  I mean, they are both  utterly repugnant individuals, with their hectoring, bullying approaches and loud-mouthed bottom-of-the-barrel, rabble rousing, rhetoric.  I remember when Lowe was chairman of Southampton Football Club, (maybe that was when Portsmouth fans started calling them 'scummers'), and he was an utterly hateful character then - an arrogant and ignorant snob who alienate fans and foes alike.  So it was no surprise when he started dabbling in extreme right-wing politics, first with Reform UK, then setting up his own, one man, party after his inevitable falling out with Farage.  Not that any of this makes Farage any less repulsive in comparison. He's a hateful grifter and bigot, too.  The fact that he enabled the likes of Lowe in the first place possibly, though, makes him slightly worse, just edging Lowe out in the 'most repulsive extremist bastard' stakes.