Beginning to See the Light: I’m Waiting For The Man’ 

 

‘Here he comes, he’s all dressed in black 

P.R. shoes and a big straw hat’ 

 
Whilst the last few months in UK politics have seen us reduced to a laughing stock, the rot set-in some time ago. To be precise it was the 23rd of June 2016, the day of the Brexit referendum. The day after, the 24th, David Cameron resigned as PM. 

His successor, Theresa May, battled through for 3-yrs (24-07-19), desperately trying to reconcile Brexit, the Northern Ireland Accord, and an increasingly ungovernable party, egged on by members of the European Reform Group. Added to this was the spectre of Nigel Farage looming large over everything. 

This year, 2022, has seen the musical leadership chair procession as reached tragic proportions. The end of the absurd Johnson, the dangerous and deluded Truss did more damage in 6-weeks that was ever thought possible. Now we turn to Rishi Sunak,our third PM in as many months. 

Whilst we tut, tut, overseas commentators have a more accurate, and open-minded take on the situation: 
 

• Le Monde; ‘Will the Conservatives, for once, manage to rise above their own partisan interests and choose a leader who will defend those of the whole country?’ 
• De Volkskrant; ‘That pretty much sums up the UK’s instability since the Brexit referendum. The Tories seem out for the count – but they still have a large majority.’ 
• Süddeutsche Zeitung; ‘There was a real risk, it said, that the next PM ‘will also not allow an honest debate on Brexit, which is urgently needed – nothing is paralysing the UK so much as the fatal consequences of leaving the EU‘. 

 

• Die Welt; ‘British politics has developed a self-destructive centrifugal force that should serve as a chilling example to those who still tout easy solutions to our challenges.’ 
• Canada’s Globe and Mail said Britain’s political ‘disgrace‘ was ‘the culmination of six woeful years sparked by the vote for Brexit, which hastened the decline of a major power while thrusting dunces and charlatans into command‘. 

 
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/21/liz-truss-global-media-reaction-uk-political-turmoil 

The comment from Le Monde is very succinct; ‘self-interest and winning elections is the Tory’s only concern. This was endorsed in the Guardian by David Lidington, a former Tory MP, who wrote: ‘Every time a Conservative MP talks publicly about how this or that candidate will help us to stave off election defeat, they add to the resentment and rage among growing numbers of the public that our party is no longer thinking first about the national interest.’ 
 

‘nothing is paralysing the UK so much as the fatal consequences of leaving the EU’

 
Unfortunately for the party this issue shows no sign of going away. There is a hardcore of right-wingers devoted to the ‘Cult of Boris’. On Sunday morning when his devotees were still creaming themselves over his return, Nadhim Zahawi became the seventh cabinet minister to endorse him as a candidate.  

One of the seven, Priti Patel went further saying, ‘From the successful vaccine rollout to investing in levelling up, and from delivering more police on our streets to getting Brexit done, Boris has the leadership qualities, democratic mandate and optimism to get our country through these challenging times.’ And they say love is blind. 

This Cult of Boris was summed up by the Labour font-bencher, Lisa Nandy, who said: ‘It’s extraordinary watching Tory MPs who put in letter of no confidence in him just a few weeks ago saying he wasn’t fit to hold the highest office now talking openly about trying to bring him back. It is a sign of absolute utter desperation in the Tory party.’ 

After last (Sunday) evenings disappointment as their beloved decided the time wasn’t yet right for his return, anarchy broke out in the nursery. 

Christopher Chope, the MP for Christchurch and a supporter of Johnson, warned that Sunak was seen as having undermined Johnson and Truss, and thus could not expect loyalty from Conservative MPs. To have a mandate, Chope said, Sunak needed to call a general election. 

‘We have got a parliamentary party which is completely riven, and it’s ungovernable,’ Chope told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. ‘In a sense, that is the reason why Boris has pulled out, because obviously Rishi Sunak wasn’t prepared to guarantee him his support in the event that he was elected as leader by the party and the country. 
 

‘We have got a parliamentary party which is completely riven, and it’s ungovernable’

 
‘Unless we can have somebody as our leader in parliament who commands the support and respect of the parliamentary party, we are in effect actually ungovernable. 

‘Unlike Boris, who did have a mandate, we now have the prospect of having a Conservative party leader who doesn’t have the mandate from the country and won’t even have a mandate from the membership either.’ 

And, in a nutshell, there is living proof that this country is doomed. For more see: ‘Gone But Delusion and Danger Still Remains. 

Then, of course, there is Brexit. Now I accept that I am a ‘remoaner’, but, to most people it should by now be clear that Brexit was about nationalism and immigration, inspired by our perception of British exceptionalism. 

Yet more proof of the economic consequences of leaving came in a report last week by the Economic and Social Research Institute. They found that  Trade from the UK to the EU is down 16% on the levels anticipated had Brexit not happened, and trade from the EU to the UK dropped by 20%. 

The report, ‘How has Brexit changed EU-UK trade flows’?, found the impact of Brexit on EU-UK trade does not appear that large if compared to UK trade with the rest of the world, as global exports from Britain had been growing slowly. But when the UK’s trade with the rest of the world was compared with the EU’s faster-growing performance with more than 200 trading partners, the picture showed a marked difference. 

In addition to this report, Guy Hands, a long-time Tory supporter, accused the party of putting the UK ‘on a path to be the sick man of Europe‘. Hands called on the government to ‘renegotiate Brexit’, stating that otherwise the British economy was ‘frankly doomed.‘ 
 

‘putting the UK ‘on a path to be the sick man of Europe”

 
He also highlighted the self-centred nature of the party, saying  they needed to ‘move on from fighting its own internal wars and actually focus on what needs to be done in the economy‘. 

Hands concluded that without a renegotiation of Brexit, Britain would face ‘steadily increasing taxes, steadily reducing benefits and social services, higher interest rates and eventually the need for a bailout from the IMF [International Monetary Fund] like we were in the 70s‘. 

All of this is reflected in how the markets perceive the UK; falling price of Gilts making government borrowing more expensive. Debt, corporate and government, is rated based on a borrowers ability to repay. One of the rating agencies, Moody’s, has downgraded the UK from ‘stable’ to ‘negative’ citing  ‘heightened unpredictability in policymaking amid weaker growth prospects and high inflation’ and ‘risks to the UK’s debt affordability from likely higher borrowing and risk of a sustained weakening in policy credibility‘. 

The size of our national debt today makes a mockery of the past 12-yrs of Tory government and austerity. 

Despite austerity our indebtedness has continued to rise. 

Government borrowing reached £20bn in September, and our  debt interest payments totalled £7.7bn, the highest September figure since monthly records began in April 1997. 

The government’s total debt pile, excluding public sector banks, now stands at £2.45tn, C. 98% of GDP.  

No doubt all Eurosceptics will be delighted to know that the ratio of debt to GDP rose in France to 113.1%, and 108.3% in Belgium. However, yet again we trail Germany who are at 67.8%. 

What we are seeing now resembles that last days of Rome. The Tory’s remain a party at war with themselves, focussing solely on what is best for being re-elected, and riven by internal dissent. 
 

‘What we are seeing now resembles that last days of Rome’

 
Conservatism has been the dominant politics of the modern world. Even when right-wing parties were not in power, their ideas and policies shaped society and the economy. The transformative 1980s governments of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, which fused disruptive capitalism and social traditionalism, conservatism has been the default setting of democratic politics. 

Perhaps being viewed as the default setting has led to an overconfidence about conservatism’s underlying health. This has been gathering post Reagan and Thatcher, and  is a ‘crisis of competence, of intellectual energy and coherence, of electoral effectiveness, and of social relevance.’ 

Since the 90s, Britain and the US have become more urban, multiracial, and more global in their outlook. Meanwhile, support for the Tories and the Republicans has grown ever more concentrated in towns and rural areas, and among white men. 

Andrew Cooper, Conservative peer and co-founder of the polling and social research firm Populus , wrote that ‘the Tory’s had doubled down on [exploiting] older people’s feelings about the modern world’. The party has got itself on the wrong side of a huge values divide.’  The under-45s have an increasingly ‘open‘,  liberal, worldview, which, he predicts, will not change as they age, something which conservatism has long relied on. 

Intellectually, conservatism is stagnant, the right-wing thinktanks they relied of for guidance’ have grown old together: the Institute of Economic Affairs was founded in 1955. Their free-market project has overseen numerous disasters, the GFC, increasing income inequality, the cherished ideals of outsourcing and deregulation gave us Enron and Carillion, and privatisation has so many failures it hard to pick one. Despite this the thinktanks’ never wavered in their beliefs; lower taxes, less regulation, and smaller government. 

The promises of a new, modern conservatism withered and died. The Big Society envisaged by David Cameron, followed by the anti-metropolitan conservatism proposed by May were tried and quickly abandoned. 

Belying all of this is an unchanging conservative objective: ‘the maintenance of private regimes of power’ .  Faced with democracy this became more difficult, their solution was ‘to make privilege popular‘; or at least popular enough for them to hold office. ⁽¹⁾ 

In this unsettled, disillusioned political environment, conservatives have depended more and more on extraordinary means to win power. ‘Tricks’ such as tilting the electoral process against left-leaning social groups such as the young, the transient and recent immigrants, and registering to vote are all designed to make voting more difficult. 

The rise of right-wing populists such as Trump and Nigel Farage, rather than being conservatism’s latest potent incarnation are more a sign decay not renewal. Politicians like Farage risk fragmenting the right-wing vote, and are dependent on white male rage against a changing world. 
 

‘dependent on white male rage against a changing world’

 
John Gray ⁽²⁾ sees populism, and the established conservative parties’ attempts to emulate it, as signs of an age-old conservative sense of entitlement turning to panic. ‘Conservatives still think their ideas about how the world should be are ‘natural, but they can feel the electorate slipping away from them.’ The result is ‘a politics of wild, disconnected gestures‘, a desperation to keep voters happy. 

Post the GFC we have come full circle, we started with austerity, had a play with Johnson style populism and helping people with levelling up, and now, under Sunak, its back to austerity in search of £40bn in cuts.  

Quite where he can find any fat to cut is a mystery to many. The NHS is at, or possibly beyond breaking point. Headteachers are warning of huge cuts in their state schools, which are still funded below 2010 levels.  

The Institute for Fiscal Studies’ green budget graphs show steep falls in each department’s budget with cuts of over a quarter in benefits, housing and local councils. 

Torsten Bell of the Resolution Foundation warns of the ‘colossal fall in incomes next year‘. Needless to say who the winners and losers will be: those at the bottom lose 15% while top earners lose just 3%.  
 
‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose ». 
 

‘You’re all alone and by yourself 

Your life is like a broken shell 

It doesn’t really matter to me’ 

Notes: 

1. Corey Robin, ‘The Reactionary Mind’ 
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gray_(philosopher) 

 
 
We’d been hoping that Philip wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to dip his quill, and are fortunate to have his excellent commentary; but, boy, what a circus.

This time out, not even Larry the Cat voted for the new PM; as we watch Mr Sunak announcing his new cabinet, it’s becoming difficult to remember who was where before the latest merry-go-round.

Piers Morgan said that he was glad a ‘grown up’ is in charged and urged Mr Sunak to ‘Put the best people in your cabinet. Fill it with smart experienced independent thinkers who will challenge you to make the right policy calls.’ Piers, do you not remember who he’s got to choose from? 

Thus far, we know Hunt remains, to give those keen on rhyming slang something to work with, Cleverly and Wallace remain, Raab is back; Zahawi is minister without portfolio, but with lovely, toasty horses. Who else? Oliver Dowden…oh God, its all far too familiar. 

‘Two Planes’ Shapps must have broken some kind of record by lasting just five days as Home Sec – one-and-a-quarter for each alias; he becomes Business Secretary, so expect plenty of get-rich-quick scams and Ponzi schemes. Apparently Mr Rees-Mogg plans to spend more time with someone called ‘Bitty’ before he presumably returns next week showered with rose petals.

Alok Sharma has been given the heave-ho, although retains responsibility for explaining the UK’s position on the environment at COP27; we don’t GAF, we f**ked our economy, and we’re skint. Any of that crusty nonsense, and we’ll bang them up and throw away the key.

And the crowning turd in the water pipe ObergruppenfuhrerBraverman is back (see above); WTAF. Richi, don’t feed her after midnight, and don’t, whatever you do, turn your back on her.

What an absolute steaming pile; and Truss even had the temerity to trumpet her ‘swift and decisive action’; it was that love. See Jonathan Pie’s touching tribute below.

So what was Philip thinking?

As many writers have said, the Tory’s treat the role as PM like kids do the parcel in “pass the parcel”. Round and round it goes, the winner is the one who looks the most palatable to the electorate. The goal is “to save my seat, and everything, and everyone else be damned.”

Our media are, in the main, so in thrall to the Tory’s that there is little relevance to them. The overseas press are different, writing what many here are frightened to say; self-interest and Brexit. They see what I wrote about last week; decay, complacency, delusions of grandeur and exceptionalism.

Interestingly, even the Daily Mail were cautious about Johnson’s proposed return. I was hopeful for two reasons; one, there would have been so much to write about, and secondly, it would have split the party.

Despite all the talk of unity, and coming together for the common good, I expect their internal dissent to continue, one even gave an interview suggesting as much.

The truth is that after 40+ yrs of conservatism, it’s over; dead, buried, devoid of ideas. Appealing only to the “Land of Hope and Glory” types.  

As we approach a new era of austerity, I find it reassuring to know that our new PM can afford his own wallpaper.

Lyrically, we start with the greatest band of all time, the Velvet Underground and I’m Waiting For The Man”. We finish with more discordant noise, the Jesus and Mary Chains “Upside Down”, because it all is! Enjoy!

 
@coldwarsteve
 

 

Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.

Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s

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