Beginning to See the Light: ‘Good Baddies and Bad Baddies’

‘Here comes two of you

Which one will you chose?

One is black and one is blue

Don’t know just what to do, all right!’

 
There is something profoundly nauseating about this government. It’s based on tokenism, slogans, everything they say is caveated with ‘leading’, ‘out in front’, ‘no one is doing more’. The only thing worse than this rubbish is the fact that seem to believe it!

When I look at other’s countries, especially those in the EU, they are acting out of moral concern. The entire situation in Ukraine is awful, the refugees especially so, yet everything we say and pretend to do is aimed at gathering political capital. It should be obvious to all but the most blinkered, that this government is based on self-interest and nothing more. Not national self-interest, their own.

After years of accepting political donations from oligarchs the stench has got too much even for this shower.

In truth Russian money is a part of an annual flow of foreign finance that enables us as a country to run permanent and massive trade deficits. Put simply, there money has, and still is enabling us to live beyond our means.

When I was growing up in the 1970s trade deficits made headline news. Since the early 1980s, when we gave up any pretence of manufacturing anything other than niche or luxury good for export, the trade deficit has got bigger and accepted as a fact of life. Now we focus (doubt more than a few worry) on who owns our football clubs and utility companies.
 

‘After years of accepting political donations from oligarchs the stench has got too much even for this shower’

 
The latter focus is important as the money flow from it help balance the books. The ‘books’ being the government ‘pink book’, which provides an in-depth account of Britain’s balance of payments. There is the current account, which includes imports and exports of goods, and trade in services such as banking or management consultancy, and a financial account that measures the flow of money itself in and out of the country.

We have not run a surplus on manufactured goods since 1982 although, for a few years, this was offset by the services sector. Since then, the deficit has soared; £20bn in 1990, £40bn by 2000, £98bn by 2010, and almost £140bn in 2019 (the last year before the Covid-19 pandemic struck). The cumulative trade deficit in goods and services totals C.£1.3tn.

To balance the books, increasingly large amounts of foreign capital were needed to offset these deficits. In some instances, this was positive, e.g., the direct investment in new British factories, such as the car plants set up by Nissan, Toyota, and Honda.

Another example is international investors owning a bigger share of the companies quoted on the LSE, this stands at C.56%, up from < 4% at the start of the 1980s.

Another part of this inward investment has been from Oligarchs using their funds to buy London property market. Financially, this was a smart move for them, as there is a limited supply of the properties they want, and we needed the cash.

Another example is football clubs, but more about that later.

The former governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, summed up the situation when he said the UK relied on the kindness of strangers to finance its trade deficit.

As an economy, over the last 40-years we have consumed more than they have produced. Also, structurally the economy shifted from manufacturing to financial and business services, centred on the City, who’s role as one of the world’s financial hubs has made it easy to attract foreign capital.

Presuming that we don’t have to hand back any sequestered assets to any Russian people from whom they were stolen, the second issue is that even if London ceases to be the destination of choice for ‘dirty money’, how do we balance the books?
 

‘Our club football is a microcosm of the moral and financial bankruptcy that is our country’

 
Our club football is a microcosm of the moral and financial bankruptcy that is our country.

There cannot have been a better way to sum up the rotten state of English football than yesterday’s match between Chelsea and Newcastle. The former had been owned for 19-years by the oligarch, Roman Abramovich, who the government has suddenly decided is unsuitable, while the opponents, Newcastle, are backed by the public investment fund of a nation which executed 81 people on Saturday.

Newcastle’s owners, like Vladimir Putin’s Russia, have for the last 7-years, been involved in the  invasion of a neighbouring state, Yemen, which has caused the deaths of C.250,000 people, not to mention famine, chaos and societal collapse. The organisation Human Rights Watch has called for an investigation into the role of Mohammed bin Salman who, manages the fund that runs Newcastle, for alleged war crimes.

To be clear, Roman Abramovich has been sanctioned by the British government because he is ‘associated with a person who is or has been involved in destabilising Ukraine and undermining and threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.’

In the case of Newcastle, the ownership is not just ‘associated with’ or distantly tied to the destabilising, undermining and the destruction of its own neighbour, it is openly and personally engaged in it.

What we have here is a ‘bad baddie’ and a ‘good baddie’; Russia is ‘hostile’, we see images of the war they are waging every time we watch the news, whereas there is no coverage of the Saudi’s butchery, and they are an ally.

Part of the reason for sanctioning Abramovich was because the government suspects he has been ‘supplying steel to the Russian military which may have been used in the production of tanks’. Whereas Newcastle’s fund is owned by an entity that is sending tanks to kill civilians. Tanks supplied by Britain.

Given how dire our trade deficit is we turn a blind eye and count the blood money; £10bn of Typhoon and Tornado aircraft, Paveway bombs, Brimstone and Storm Shadow missiles.

Shortly after I submitted this article, Ben Jacobs on Twitter wrote, “I can confirm Saudi Media Group have made a £2.7bn ($3.5bn) offer to buy Chelsea. Mohamed Alkhereiji is a Chelsea fan and leading a private consortium. No direct government links”
Perhaps someone could explain the difference between Ambramovic and this bidder? Both said they had no links to their respective governments.

Irrespective if this is the preferred bid, I wouldn’t expect the government to step-in and veto it. These are good baddies, after all.

The English Premier League doesn’t make society, it reflects it. The game has become a part of an industry of servicing, laundering, and enabling dirty money that has become so large as to appear almost respectable. People haven’t just realised who Abramovich’s connections are they have just opened their eyes. Unfortunately, pretending to be morally shocked by something we have turned a blind eye to for years is one of the few things we good at.

Football sold its soul to devil years ago when it embraced Murdoch’s Sky TV. Defenders of this can say look ‘at what they have contributed to the game’, but then the same could be said of Abramovich. As I written many times before, it isn’t where you start that matters, it’s where you finish.

The people’s game reflects where the country is; poorly led and sold to the highest bidder.
 

‘Catch me if you can

‘Cause I’m the England man

And what you’re looking at

Is the master plan’

An ardent Spurs fan, it came as no surprise that recent events centred around the beautiful game caused Philip to reach for his quill; so here we have ‘a special bulletin to deal with football, Abramovich, and our moral decay.

The persistent, and ever-increasing trade deficit shows how bankrupt the country is. Overseas money flows are all that balance the books. Put another way, the country spends more than it earns and needs overseas money to facilitate it.

Everything this government does is for political gain. They turned a blind eye to dirty money for years because it suited them. Also, it was useful for Johnson to scrounge for free holidays. Now, after 18-years Abramovich is bad. All that’s changed is public opinion forcing them to accept the unthinkable.

He was always a baddie, but now he’s a bad baddie. The Saudi’s who are barbaric are still good baddies because they buy our weapons keeping the BoP deficit from being worse than it already is.

And we turn a blind eye to the 250,000 people our weapons have killed.

Lyrically, we start with the Velvet Underground’s ‘Beginning to See the Light’, although in Johnson case it must be so bright it’s blinding! We finish with New Order and ‘World in Motion’ from 1990 when the game was still just a game!

Enjoy!

@Coldwar_Steve
 

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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