Jul
2022
Beginning to See the Light: Wacky Races
DIY Investor
21 July 2022
‘Still don’t know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild, a million dead-end streets and
Every time I thought I’d got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet’
This column was born in early 2016, prior to the Brexit referendum, under the heading ‘Brexit: The never ending story’. At the time I had no concept of how prescient that title would be.
Yesterday, the 18th July, over 6-years on from the referendum, Boris Johnson, the outgoing PM hinted in a speech to the Commons of ‘deep state‘ plot to drag the UK back into the EU when he leaves office. (1)
This week’s news is last weeks, as the Tory hopefuls / hopeless scrap it out to see who will be the next experiment the party foists on us in their ongoing quest for domination.
After the parliamentary party has whittled the list down to two, party members will then decide who makes the rest of us suffer. The party members represents a miniscule percentage of the electorate, C.160,000 fee-paying members, half aged over 60, 97% white and skewing male from southern England who are overwhelmingly middle class, male; which is why the contest has seen the hopefuls focus on the policies they believe will find favour with party members,–. Tax cuts we can’t afford that benefit the ‘haves’ not the ‘have-nots’, with Johnson’s electoral promise of levelling-up seems a distant memory.
‘Johnson’s electoral promise of levelling-up seems a distant memory’
Given that levelling-up, the central tenet of their 2019 electoral victory is no more, Johnson’s replacement has no democratic mandate to govern. Once elected the new leader should seek a fresh mandate by calling a general election.
All of the hopefuls are guilty by association with Johnson. Whilst he promoted them, and they were happy to serve under him endorsing and supporting his lies and blunders none of them would ask him to be a member of their cabinet.
Nice Tom Tugendhat, the last remnant of ‘one-nation’ Toryism, fell by the wayside on Monday evening. The roll call now shows how the Tories have transformed into the Brexit party. Even as a ‘one-nation’ Tory nice Tom favoured tax cuts and a small state, whilst at the same time spending oodles on defence. He showed the compassionate side of Conservatism by supporting the offshoring of asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Nice Tom was followed on Tuesday by Kemi (Bedenoch) the warrior who is so far right its frightening, suffering from the answer is culture wars, what’s the question syndrome. Penny Moudant was a target of her anti-woke ferocity over trans issues. The fact that ‘wokeism’ is such as issue tells us how deranged the Tories are when there are problems such as global warming, and a cost-of-living crisis.
Kemi ‘the warrior’ appears to have a post-Thatcherite plan whereby government is government when needed, rather like ‘rush goalie’ in playground football, whilst its main role is guard against anything ‘culturally unsound’. One of which appears to be Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream for their ‘tendency to prioritise social justice, not productivity and profits.’ ‘Cone Together’, Kemi?
Last to leave us was Penny Mordaunt who was evasive and implausible, and who introduced her launch speech by linking herself to the Falklands conflict (which took place when she was nine years old) and her campaign video has 13 references to the Armed Forces.
As a highly-decorated former Naval Officer told the Mail on Saturday: ‘She isn’t [currently] a trained or paid reservist, she’s never qualified or been commissioned. She’s been banging the naval drum for days, and enough is enough. How she has presented herself — and how she has allowed herself to be presented — has been deeply misleading.’
Poor Penny was getting it from all directions as her former boss Lord Frost says she ‘did not master the necessary detail in the negotiations.’ He went onto say: ‘She wasn’t fully accountable, she wasn’t always visible. Sometimes I didn’t even know where she was.’
‘She wasn’t fully accountable, she wasn’t always visible. Sometimes I didn’t even know where she was.’
This is the Lord Frost who was instrumental in negotiating the Brexit deal, including the Northern Ireland protocol, which he oversaw as it became part of a legally binding international treaty. He then immediately turned around and said it was a crap arrangement, and that we have to break the treaty which is now international law!
According to a senior Tory poor Penny’s appeal was supposedly based on ‘the rejection of the establishments’. The ‘Treasury establishment’, otherwise known as smug Rishi, is unpopular with many Tories because he has put up taxes. The ‘Boris establishment’, which is largely falling in behind Liz Truss, is loathed by those Tory MPs who received no preferment from the Johnson regime and those who were repelled by its scandals.
Our next PM will be either smug Rishi, who’s record as chancellor isn’t up too much. I suspect he isn’t the darling of the right, as a Johnsonite described him as a ‘rat‘ and ‘sly assassin‘, or Liz Truss who is simply unspeakable.
In addition she seems to have her predecessors problems with the truth, especially when she is reminiscing about her working-class roots and growing up in a ‘red wall’ seat.
Martin Pengelly, breaking news editor for Guardian US, grew up in the same part of Leeds and attended the same school as Liz Truss. According to him her claims are untrue. Leeds North East, the constituency that contains both Roundhay school and the tall stone houses in which Truss and he grew up, was Conservative from 1955 to 1997 – by which time Truss had graduated from Oxford.
Roundhay sits on a hill. Climb that hill and you see tall stone houses, a cricket club, a huge urban park, as he says, ‘the privileged, largely white neighbourhood where Truss and I grew up‘.
Truss has claimed that at Roundhay school, ‘children who failed and were let down by low expectations‘
A schoolfriend of Pengelly, who also went into politics, says: ‘It’s a nonsense. To the extent that we were ‘let down’ it was because we were being taught in a building in such a state of disrepair that you could put your fingers through the window frames. Funding, not low expectations, was the problem.’
‘a Johnsonite described him as a ‘rat‘ and ‘sly assassin”
As this week has been somewhat warm, global warming has been to the forefront of peoples concerns.
Of all the candidates, Penny seemed to grasp the issue soonest telling Conservative critics of net zero that ‘environmentalism and conservatism go hand in hand’ as she vowed to create ‘millions of green jobs.’ She is attempting to convince colleagues that there is a positive case to be made for net zero, because of the green jobs it would create.
In addition, she has committed to the eco-friendly farming plan, telling the Guardian: ‘I have pledged to reform EU land subsidies and instead will reward those farmers here at home who champion nature and sustainable management of the countryside.
Not to be outdone the other hopefuls have weighed in too; Kemi the warrior said she would not row back on net zero commitments, which is interesting as she had previously disparaged the target. Perhaps the lure of a few votes was too much for her?
Smug Rishi dodged the question about whether he’d attend the conference in Montreal, Canada, in December, saying it was ‘very important‘. However smug Rishi might soon be shit Rishi as he revealed that peat restoration is his ‘pet project’ and is the equivalent of Britain’s rainforest. For a moment I thought that peat restoration was a guitarist in a punk band!
Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, told the audience that not only would she attend, she’d lead a delegation and lead Britain on the world stage. It’s Liz ‘the ‘leader’, the ‘remainer’ who became a leaver imbued with everything being leading. About as implausible as her memories of her schooldays.
I suspect the rush to be ‘green’ is driven by this weekend’s threat to resign by Alok Sharma, the cabinet minister who led last year’s landmark Cop26 UN climate summit.
‘the rush to be ‘green’ is driven by this weekend’s threat to resign by Alok Sharma’
So much for global warming and what about the cost-of-living crisis?
Well, its tax cuts of differing amounts, some funded, some unfunded, and all pure fantasy. The only difference is that smug Rishi plans to delay them should he become PM.
Sounds great doesn’t it? Especially if you are the ‘better off’, but then that is what shared Conservatism is for.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (‘IPPR’) reports that cutting the basic rate of tax from 20 to 19 per cent would cost the Exchequer > £5bn, little of which would reach those on lowest incomes. (2)
Almost half the total tax reduction, C.2.5bn would go to the 20% of households with the highest incomes, with just 2.6%, £137m going to those on the lowest incomes. In cash terms, someone earning £20,000 would see their tax bill lowered by £74 a year, whereas someone earning £50,000 would gain £374 – more than five times as much.
Henry Parkes, IPPR senior economist, said: ‘Tax cuts are an incredibly inefficient way of getting money to those who need it most. To support those on low incomes through the cost of living crisis, it would be much more effective to provide a higher level of targeted support towards those on the lowest incomes.’
What is missing is planning, vision, an understanding of the real issues. These issues are not new, they pre-date Brexit, unfortunately Euroscepticism has become all-consuming to the Tory’s. The rise of UKIP / Farage post the-GFC saw these structural economic and societal issues ignored. Successive governments failed to understand that these were the drivers of vote ‘leave’.
One of the basic problems of UK plc. is consistently low productivity growth, allied to internationally-high levels of regional inequality, and an economy dominated by low-paid jobs that offering opportunities for progression.
As post-war Britain progressed productivity regressed.
In the 1950s growth averaged 3.2%, with our industrial production reaching pre-war levels by 1947, proving that the 50s wasn’t all driven by rebuilding what the Luftwaffe knocked down. Growth was even higher in the 1960s.
Despite the belief that Thatcher kick-started the economy from the doldrums that were the 1970s, average economic growth in the 80s was 2.6%, the same as the 70s, when western economies suffered a massive oil price shock and the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. (3)
‘From the 1980s onward we have become dependent on a housing market that is progressively more dysfunctional’
The key difference between the two decades was that the proceeds of growth were more equitably distributed in the 70’s. The inequality of the 80’s was the result of weakened trade unions, privatisation, and low tax benefitting the rich. Whereas, in the 50s and 60s growth was much higher: in this period unions were stronger, big businesses were expected to contribute more, and state intervention in the economy was widespread.
From the 1980s onward we have become dependent on a housing market that is progressively more dysfunctional; many people will reach retirement having rented their whole lives. Those that do buy often cannot afford to move to areas where the best job opportunities are.
‘In the years following the financial crisis, net additions to the housing stock fell to 124,000 new homes per annum, the lowest peacetime figure ever recorded.’(4) As a result:
- 1 in 206 citizens of our supposedly wealthy society are homeless,
- 1 in 5 children live in a house that is either overcrowded, unaffordable or unsuitable, or a combination of.
Health and educational inequalities hold back many young people, with a 20-year gap in life expectancy for people who live in different parts of the country.
There is a lack of planning for an ageing society: we spend too little on healthcare compared with other similar countries, and politicians have completely neglected the issue of how we care for the growing number of people who will experience physical and mental decline in old age.
Instead we are being offered ‘reheated soup’ from a bunch of Thatcher tribute acts.
Liz Truss has the pussy-cat bow blouse and those famous Thatcher poses, while Sunak is the epitome of Thatcher’s mantle of fiscal rectitude.
‘we are being offered ‘reheated soup’ from a bunch of Thatcher tribute acts’
Liz the leader clearly doesn’t understand Thatcher’s economic policies. Thatcher wasn’t about just cutting taxes, it was a switch from direct to indirect taxation; income tax cuts were funded by increases in other taxes, notably VAT. It wasn’t until 1988, almost 9-yrs after she became PM, before we saw real income tax cuts.
Truss, whatever the tabloids and Tory MPs such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, might think, is, in practise Reaganite; treating pandemic debt like WW1 debt and pay it back over 50 years, while lowering taxes to create fantasy growth.
Smug Rishi is more a true Thatcherite, deferring tax cuts until we’ve worked out how to pay for them. Sunak told the Telegraph: ‘We will cut taxes … and we will do it responsibly. That’s my economic approach. I would describe it as common sense Thatcherism. I believe that’s what she would have done.’
As I have written before the Tory’s have created their own self-serving myths about Thatcherism. They try to prove their adherence to Thatcherism by saying how much they hate the EU, whereas Thatcher was instrumental in creating the Single Market.
Thatcher was of a time and a place. She used North Sea oil revenue to balance the budget, but, as former foreign secretary Margaret Beckett points out: ‘The Norwegians have a national wealth fund; we haven’t got one because she used it to save herself financially. At one point, we were getting something like £32m a day out of the North Sea. That was at a time when you could buy a full district hospital for £32m. It was the greatest opportunity the nation ever had – and she used it to steer away from problems of her own making.’
Beckett says. The orthodoxy we are witnessing now – Thatcher as the one true Conservative, who led the country into prosperity with judgment that was at once magical and replicable – is a relatively recent development. It was niche even in her final years and has gathered pace since her death in 2013.
Thatcher never pretended that Tax cuts lead to growth, if fact many people think the ‘Left behind’ were the result of Thatcher’s free market economics that saw the closure of mines and industries without replacing lost jobs or repairing communities.
All of this should put the fear of Christ into the ‘red wall’ voters who support the Tories need to maintain.
This support is only on ‘loan’ as Johnson’s charmed them by disguising himself as a break from Thatcherism, promising high spending, levelling up and an end to austerity.
‘The people have the power
The power to dream, to rule
To wrestle the world from fools
It’s decreed the people rule’
Notes:
- ‘the deep state’ is a term favoured by conspiracy theorists regarding this they suspect of intending to take the UK back into the EU
Well, its been quite a week; so this is Philip’s take on things – but what does he really think (warts and all)?
‘This week it’s samo, samo, as Wacky Races rolls on, and the hopeless are whittled down to a final-two of smug Rishi and Liz the leader.
We have seen the back of nice Tom, who, whilst being a “One Nation” Tory, still favours tax cuts, more guns, and offshoring migrants. And that’s being moderate?
On the hard-right we have Kemi the warrior, who amongst other madness, will shrink the state to the barest minimum, government when needed. Saving itself for purging culture warriors. I fear her day is yet to come.
Poor Penny was never real there, just a compromise candidate who adopted that patronising Thatcher tone. You know, the one when you were all addressed as simpletons. That aside, poor Penny was more an alternative to smug Rishi, Liz the leader was always the choice of the right, including the all-important Mail and Telegraph.
Whilst not a betting man I suspect Liz will be the leader, the party is hard-right and she is too. They won’t want to hear we have to be able to afford tax cuts, its tax cuts, Euroscepticism, and tanks they want.
Both are just Thatcher tribute acts. Smug rishi is closest with his samo, samo policies, whilst Liz the leader has the look but follows the myth not the person.
Whoever wins, nothing will change, the rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer. Inequality will grow and levelling up will just become a trivial pursuit question.
If it wasn’t so sad it would be funny.
Lyrically, we start with the great man and “Changes”, which is now 50-yrs old and still sounds wonderful. If only we were getting changes…We end with Patti Smith and the “People Have the Power”. Only the don’t, out of 60m only 160k get to choose. It’s called democracy, apparently!’
@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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