Michael Chessum

An underpriced consequence of this year's local elections is just how dependent Labour's campaign machine now is on its councillors, with membership and morale on the floor.

If they lose their army of paid canvassers, they will really struggle to recover.

Turns out you can call a leaflet drop for a single ward in Brixton at less than a week's notice on Valentines Day and... about 30 people show up.

Isn't the obvious outcome of the Labour leadership crisis (Burnham blocked, Rayner stalled by HMRC, Streeting damaged, Miliband not wanting it, Al Carns too bizarre) that Lucy Powell does it?

Can't help feeling that if she was (a) right wing and (b) a bloke, everyone would think it obvious.

Starmer, McSweeney et al liked Mandelson because he was:
- amoral ("the Prince of Darkness")
- factional ("every single day...")
- in with the elite ("intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich")

You can't like someone for those reasons and then act surprised about all this.

Michael Chessum | Who’s afraid of Andy Burnham? In the wreckage of the neoliberal order they once championed, there are a number of paths available to Europe’s social...

‘Manchesterism is a clever branding exercise, giving geographical roots to a broad political vision. For the establishment centre-left, it represents an alternative to Starmer’s bond market orthodoxy.’

@michaelchessum.bsky.social on the blocking of Andy Burnham.

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ja...

Michael Chessum | Who’s afraid of Andy Burnham? In the wreckage of the neoliberal order they once championed, there are a number of paths available to Europe’s social...

Who's afraid of Andy Burnham?

I wrote this for the @lrb.co.uk blog about the Labour Right's public breakdown; 'Manchesterism'; and why Burnham could be Britain's answer to Pedro Sanchez.

If you can turn this many people out in minus 3 before term time to make plans and knock doors, you're not doing badly.

The Green surge is real, and I have a feeling it is about to hit London with a force that will surprise a lot of pundits.

A few snaps from that demo (ft. @michaelchessum.bsky.social)

It's looked inevitable for a while, but grim news from Chile, where Kast (open Pinochet fan) has won the Presidency comfortably.

Four years ago, a serious left candidate won for the first time since Allende, and it looked like Chile would get a new constitution. Now, god knows.

I know we're supposed to be cynical about these things, but it's worth pausing and reflecting that the UK has political prisoners. And that eight people are nearing death on hunger strike.

And that this whole situation - including the ban on Palestine Action - is the policy of a Labour government.

Bring back the spirit of the 2010 student fees protests We need their rampant disdain for the Establishment more than ever

15 years ago, Britain's streets were the scene of a mass youth revolt. If it had taken place under a Starmer government, we would have ended up in prison.

We don't just need slick media performers - we need disruptive movements that can change things 'from below'.

For @newstatesman1913.bsky.social

"I cannot BELIEVE Zack Polanski said he didn't want to wipe people's bums has he no respect for these people and no we won't pay them properly are you kidding, bond markets won't like that, and by the way we're literally banning their families from the country."

One week on from the Budget, it's clear the government has raised the tax to GDP ratio enough to give Reform an easy "Labour spent all the money" narrative.

But they're not doing much with it. People's lives are not going to improve. The geniuses present: the worst of all worlds. Again.

This weekend, Your Party members are discovering a culture of bureaucratic control freakery.

It's the same tendency that shut down Momentum's democracy, blocked Open Selections, witch hunted critics and demanded obedience. Those of us who opposed it then were branded wreckers.

So, now you know.

Net migration has plummeted. Contrary to all the lies we've been told, wages aren't about to go up.

Instead, we will find that we have no one to build the houses we need, and a worsening NHS staffing crisis. And a lot of young people emigrating from rainy fascism island.

In under 18 months, this government has:
- backed long prison sentences for climate activists
- prosecuted 2,000 people *as terrorists* for holding signs opposing genocide
- announced the end of trial by jury for almost all cases

Have we ever had a more authoritarian government?

When the River Turns Brown: Why I Left Labour for the Greens Councillor Martin Abrams left Labour for the Green Party over a key issue: the 'catastrophic failure' of Thames Water

"Greens aren’t afraid to say what so many people already believe: that clean water shouldn’t be a privilege, and pollution shouldn’t be profitable," writes Councillor Martin Abrams @martinabrams.bsky.social

leftfootforward.org/2025/11/when...

Surely Labour MPs realise that voting for the nastiest border regime in Europe will lose them their seats. "They'll vote for this shit holding their nose" doesn't work if we're wading in it.

We'll put it on every leaflet, through every door: they want to repeat the Windrush scandal every year.

Number of refugees per 1,000 people:

🇱🇧 Lebanon: 137
🇩🇪 Germany: 31
🇸🇪 Sweden: 23
🇧🇪 Belgium: 14
🇳🇱 Netherlands: 13
🇬🇧 UK: 6.5

We are not a "generous country". There is no crisis, other than a bankrupt political elite scapegoating the most vulnerable people on Earth.

The good news: Jeannette Jara, the candidate of the left, has won the first round of the Chilean Presidential election.

The bad news: she will face José Antonio Kast, an open Pinochet fan, in the run off. He will be the favourite, with the right and far right having won a majority of the vote.

The thing about the people who run the Labour Party is that they're not very good at politics, which is a shame because that's their only job.

Their next act of genius is to copy Denmark's "tough" (far right) migration policy to stop the far right. In fact, the Danish far right is surging:

A thing I've grown to enjoy recently is people who say Polanski can't be left wing because he was a Lib Dem ten years ago.

Usually they combine this view with being a super fan of Tony Benn, the establishment minister who once described himself as being "on the right wing of the middle of the road"

Sortition is sold as the solution to our democratic deficit. Michael Chessum argues that it is a chimaera ripe for undemocratic manoeuvres.

prometheusjournal.org/2025/11/04/a...

Michael Chessum | Green New Left Zack Polanski, the new leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, says he wants to replace Labour. That still seems...

‘Zack Polanski is a former Liberal Democrat who talks about expropriating the rich; the Greens are a small environmentalist party transforming into a mass party of the left.’

@michaelchessum.bsky.social on the Green Party’s renaissance, from the blog.

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/oc...

Michael Chessum | Green New Left Zack Polanski, the new leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, says he wants to replace Labour. That still seems...

If the Greens really were to replace Labour, this is what the early build-up might look.

Some thoughts for the @lrb.co.uk on the new left gathering around @zackpolanski.bsky.social, the contingent nature of green parties, and why this surge confounds commentators on left and right.

‘Anti-capitalism and environmentalism are common bedfellows. But both the Green Party’s activists and its sceptics would do well to avoid reading its fortunes off a script written abroad or in the past.’

@michaelchessum.bsky.social on the Green New Left.

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/oc...

ID cards are an almost perfect piece of stupidity, designed to win over Reform voters because they like authoritarianism and state action.

Except Reform voters deeply mistrust the state (look at covid). And they want it to be authoritarian to people who *aren't them*.

Fun fact: my daughter was born the same day Zack became leader. Since then, like the party, she has roughly doubled in size.

By 2029, the Greens will have about a trillion members. And Ella will be the largest organism on Earth, weighing the equivalent of 400 blue whales. Crazy times we live in.

This autumn business was absolutely fine until it started raining properly, wasn't it.

It's properly happening - a whoosh of momentum not seen since the summer of 2015.

The Greens are no longer a minor party. We're third on members and, in many cities, second on votes. The prize is not a few more councillors, it is kicking the doors down on the political system.