Reading · Conversations By The Sea

This isn’t going to be a detailed political piece; I am not the right person for that.

Instead, I want to talk about the internet’s role in this changing political landscape, how infighting is killing the left and why our frazzled dopamine receptors might actually be the final spark before the floodlights go out.

If you want to read more about Andy Burnham’s leadership bid and wtf is going on since Starmer’s resignation, I recommend reading Arlen Pettitt’s newsletter:

Thanks to the vast online world, many things are happening at once — and nothing is happening for very long. Where just ten or 15 years ago, a new story would last for weeks. A cultural event could remain a talking point for even longer. Now, everything is over within hours.

Not only is the timeline moving faster than ever, but the topics we discuss (and therefore care about) are more dispersed.

That’s because we get our information from social media, whereby we see content of two types: things we like and things we fucking hate. Both are designated by the algorithm depending on what we’ve interacted with before. Even the time we spend hovering over a post in our feed (dwell time) is recorded, and the platform will use that data to serve us more of that kind of content in the future.

What’s happening here is that the place we get our news isn’t actually designed to inform us. It’s designed to keep us online for longer, so they can show us more ads and earn more money from our attention. Hence, the term ‘the attention economy.’

The problem is that this doesn’t translate at all to what actually makes our lives better.

Being isolated, in front of screens, navigating conflicting (often incorrect) messages is antithetical to what makes humans happy. Various studies, including this one from Harvard, found that close relationships and embracing community both make us happier and live longer. Neither of which can be found arguing in an Instagram comments section.

That being said, communities are being fostered online. Community might not be the right word for it. I guess I could call them movements? Over the last year or so, we’ve seen thousands of people take to the streets of London and other cities to show their support for far-right policies, particularly the end to immigration. These protests, which are (let’s face it) racist, wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for burgeoning far-right communities coming together to organise a piss-up on the streets of London adorned with flags. It’s shit, but it looks pretty scary to me.

Especially when the left is still fucking arguing amongst themselves.

So, human Thunderbird puppet Andy Burnham is a northerner who has spent much of his political career fighting for issues that I, too, (and many other leftists) care about, such as devolution, more ‘public control’ of energy and water (although not full nationalisation) and the development of more social housing.

Cool, that’s all nice to hear. A man who cares about the things I care about could lead the current majority party in government and, as a result, the country.

But what about when this same man has also stood for things that I (and probably many of you) vehemently disagree with?

A 2015 interview recently resurfaced in which Burnham said he would prioritise a visit to Israel upon his election as leader.

It looks like he’s yet to change his tune on this because he just chose the ex-chair of Friends of Israel as his chief of staff. He also said he was unable to “judge things of that enormity” when asked if Israel’s actions in Gaza could be classified as a genocide.

The thing is, Andrew, it’s not up to you.

In October 2025, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory declared Israel's actions to be a genocide, and the Commission urged Israel and all States to fulfil their legal obligations under international law to end the genocide and punish those responsible for it.

Then, earlier this week, a new report was released from the same Commission to say Israel is purposefully targeting children with its violence, with over 30% of the conflict deaths being children and babies.

So, at home, Burnham is standing up for things I care about, and in the current climate, he seems about as good as we can hope for (while the Green Party are still working on growing their presence, anyway).

And yet if I, and other leftists, don’t support him, we’ll end up steamrolled by a united right-wing, while we’re all standing in a circle pointing at each other à la Spiderman.

I don’t know what to do here.

It’s difficult to know when to put one belief aside for another, especially when we are so under threat by two things: the rise of the far right and (perhaps even worse) the ubiquity of ambivalence.

Having seen six Prime Ministers in Number 10 since July 2016 (if you include David Cameron), it’s no wonder that people lack faith in our leadership. They can’t stay put; everything is getting worse, and it's felt every single day by the poorest people in society.

So, is it a privilege that I even get to care about what’s going on in Gaza?

Perhaps if I were spending my time queuing at food banks and struggling to pay my utility bill, I would be less concerned with one man’s moral standing and more optimistic that he could fix things for me.

One thing I do know is that parties like Reform and Restore are absolutely not going to fix anything, but they risk gaining more traction than ever while we all sit about arguing amongst ourselves.

I have no conclusions this week; it’s just a stream of consciousness about where I’m at with it all.

Let me know in the comments what you think.

Are we about to Burnham the house down?

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