The Fraud, Paul Holden (OR Books)
There Is No Antimemetics Division, qntm (Del Rey)
In The Fraud, Paul Holden carefully pieces together evidence to show how Morgan McSweeney helped remove Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party, install Keir Starmer at the helm, and facilitate and direct the Party’s lurch to the right.
I rather like conspiracy theories, the more ridiculous the better to laugh at and write about, but it seems that almost every conspiracy theory about British Politics is true. There were plenty of dirty tricks used by McSweeney & co. to spread rumours and lies about Corbyn, to constantly undermine him and his ideas, to have him villified in the media, and to eventually get Starmer elected under false pretences. Much of this was achieved through the Labour Together campaign, a clear case of misdirection if ever there was one.
No, not fiddling the vote, just the judicious use of large sums of – often undeclared money, lots of shit-stirring and baseless accusations, and a reliance on a Keir Starmer image from decades ago, when he was a radical lawyer working for human rights. In fact Starmer had already started mimicing Blair and moving towards some kind of ‘New Labour’ who might as well merge with the Tories, whilst McSweeney – once safely installed as Chief of Staff at Downing Street – was keen to see an illiberal, censorial, authoritarian government whose policies would protect and favour the wealthy, including himself and his friends.
However complicity Starmer may or may not have been in any of this (ok, was), we can see that those who pulled the strings to get him into power are happy to sacrifice him now that voters, the media and many Labour Party politicians have turned on him and his policies. His ruthless top-down cull of anything vaguely socialist and his adoption of Reform-like rhetoric about immigration and benefits issues, have discredited him, as does the evidence in this book, carefully accessed, curated and presented by Holden.
It’s an unsettling and disturbing read, even for someone as cynical about politics and politicans as me, and one that thankfully is finding readers and being noticed. Initial print runs sold out quickly (I had to wait for my review copy) and it seems that people may be finally waking up to how the media can be manipulated and misdirected. (Did you know Jeremy Corbyn in all of the 42 years he has a politician, including 5 years as Leader of the Opposition, has been on Question Time three times, whilst loudmouth clown Nigel Farage has been on 39 times? And people say the BBC has a left wing bias! If only…)
It’s clear that Labour has abandoned its principles and core members, which is one of the reasons it is in such deep trouble at the moment: hugely unpopular, floundering and caught between and challenged by new and more extreme versions of the Left (Your Party) and Right (Reform). Holden ends his book on what at first appears to be a rhetorical note but having just read the evidence I don’t think it is, it’s a genuinely important question:
Are there any limits to the lengths the Starmer Project might go in order
to keep its grip on the power it wrested through a near-decade-long
campaign of misdirection, political subterfuge, outright lying, and
anti-democratic stitch-ups?
I suspect not, but it maybe that even our ridiculous version of democracy may allow dissent and common sense to get these pretenders out of power before too long.
If you imagine that McSweeney had the ability to create information and documents that could hide themselves and gradually be forgotten about and vanish, then you are starting to conceptualise the world of antimemes, which is the subject of qntm’s brilliant new novel There Is No Antimemetics Division about the work of an organisatin dedicated to protecting the world against said antimemes.
It is only by controlled drug use anyone can see these invaders. Even so, memories and data disappear, Antimemetics Division operatives become caught in endless loops of remembering and forgetting, reassembling and then losing the evidence, even when written down on paper, which is less susceptible to anti-memes.
New operatives are often not new, simply starting out again. (‘Welcome to the Antimimetics Division. No, this is not your first day.’) Information is confidential, wrapped under layers of security protocol and stored in numbered secure rooms whose access codes are lost; the whole department is caught up in layers of forgetting and trying to assemble fragments of previous operations and major events that no-one can remember, half-aware that something wants you to never be able to recall what has already happened.
The Antimimetics Division is slowly dwindling away, forgetting who they are and what their purpose is, unaware of both the Divison’s and Human history, let alone what they are fighting against or for. qntm is adept at creating a sense of unease, panic or hysteria, and at times horror: some pages here are redacted, characters fall prey to confusion and forget who they even are, plots and subplots become lost, events reoccur, stories pick up again pages later, time itself seems warped and uncertain. This is an addictive and puzzling read, gripping, exciting and at times shocking. I haven’t read anything like it before and found it both original and wonderfully readable.
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Rupert Loydell
Find out more about The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney, and the Crisis of British Democracy here.