Beginning to See the Light: The Teflon Don

 

‘You pay the right price and they’ll both do you

That’s the way the game goes, gotta keep it strictly pimpin’

Gotta have my hustle tight, makin’ change off these women, yeah..’

 

The original ‘Teflon Don’ was John Gotti Jr. the head of the Gambino crime family in New York City, so named for his ability to avoid justice throughout several major trials. He was eventually bought to justice and sentenced to life.

Our own Teflon Don, Boris Johnson, continues to slither his way through sleaze, lies and incompetence in a way not dissimilar to how Gotti avoided the US courts. However, like the wiretaps that eventually felled Gotti, there are traps lying in wait for Johnson.

Firstly, there is Brexit, to date, the defining moment in his political career. The central pillars of Brexit were taking back control and re-establishing a global Britain. Within this, sections of the economy were ‘prized’, e.g., agriculture. Johnson has pledged support to farmers equivalent to forfeited European subsidies, saying the sector will be safe from cut-price competition when new free trade deals are signed.

He has told Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers’ Union, that he would ‘rather die’ than hurt her members.

At this point you know a betrayal is coming, it now only a question of how badly.

The first test of this is the zero-tariff agreement with Australia that Liz Truss, the trade secretary, is pursuing. The economic benefits are marginal, a boost to Britain’s economy of £500m over 15 years, or 0.02% of GDP. Nevertheless, it is a step towards ‘Global Britain’.

Other ministers, such as Michael Gove at the cabinet office and the environment secretary, George Eustice, are fearful of the impact on domestic producers who cannot compete with Australian mega-farms. Welsh and Scottish rural communities are especially vulnerable, which would further exacerbate nationalist grievances.

Johnson, as we know, only likes good new. His assurances to the farmers are as worthless as the Brexit promises he gave to businesses in Northern Ireland; ‘no barriers of any kind’ to trade across the Irish Sea.

 

the free-trade Brexit model; stimulating innovation and creative destruction

 

The deal with Australia will be done, farmers will be told that current food safety standards will still apply, and tariffs will be phased out gradually. Agriculture will continue in Britain, however, competition will generate new rural businesses and bankruptcies, but that’s the free-trade Brexit model; stimulating innovation and creative destruction. It will be interesting to hear Tory MPs sell this to farmers in their constituencies.

This trade deal will create precedent and expectation for US negotiators, who have no reason to indulge Johnson with a cosmetic deal designed to justify Brexit. President Biden’s priority is to re-establish the transatlantic alliance with Europe that Trump jeopardised. Brexit leaves us isolated basking in ‘economic vanity and geopolitical stupidity.’

Our naivety here is largely due to the fact that a generation of politicians haven’t had to deliver trade deals, that was done in Brussels.

In economic terms freedom to negotiate trade deals is no compensation for the loss of frictionless access to the EU single market. Post-Brexit, C.50% of our trade is still with the EU and the US is the largest single destination for UK goods. Despite what Lord Frost might believe, in trade there are three superpowers, the EU, the US, and China, we won’t be the fourth.

Our place at the top-table was in a different era. Brexit is a hybrid of imperial nostalgia and late-20th century market utopianism.

Brexit was about the restoration of parliamentary sovereignty. However, when it comes to trade deals it is effectively side-lined as they are international treaties and, as such, concluded by royal prerogative. Whichever way you look at this it isn’t what was championed by Brexiteers, more the beginning of a dictatorship checked only by a constitutional monarchy.

 

a hybrid of imperial nostalgia and late-20th century market utopianism

 

Johnson underestimates the value of trade, for him it’s just an extension of Brexit, whereas, in real terms, it’s about jobs and growth. ‘Global Britain’ is a just a charade for a domestic audience who are inward looking, led by a PM ‘with his back turned to the real world.’

Another example, of the dictatorship that we are allowing to develop as we look on, is the behaviour of Priti Patel, the home secretary, who is blocking the publication of the report into the role police and media corruption played in shielding the killers of Daniel Morgan in 1987. No one has ever been convicted of the murder of Morgan, and the Metropolitan police have accepted their efforts have been blighted by corruption.

Morgan’s son told the Guardian, ‘My family have endured enough words, suffering, waiting and pain: the only currency left with any value to us is action that brings our torture to an end.’

One of the main areas of inquiry for the panel was the conduct of Rupert Murdoch’s business empire, with two of those arrested after the murder having ties to the News of the World, the Sunday tabloid closed after the phone-hacking scandal.

Patel was a guest at Murdoch’s 2016 wedding in London to Jerry Hall. On Friday the Home Office said the home secretary would not discuss her relationship with Murdoch, or her attendance at his wedding, because it was a private matter.

In her first public comments the home secretary defended her actions on Channel 4 News. Patel said: ‘I think it’s important that I, as home secretary, actually receive the report before it is published. I have yet to receive this report and I think it’s right that I receive the report and read it before laying it in parliament. That is standard practice when it comes to reports of this nature and that is absolutely the right process to follow.’

The Home Office was asked several days ago to name a precedent for a report of this nature. It has yet to cite one.

This column now turns to today’s star turn, Dominic Cummings, who today gave evidence to MPs at Westminster. In summary, he said ministers and advisers had disastrously failed the public and gave damning assessments of the role of senior figures including the prime minister. Selected highlights include:

 

• He portrayed Johnson as easily distracted, ‘a thousand times’ too obsessed with the media, and too late to grasp the gravity of the pandemic.
• ‘Certainly, the view of various officials inside No 10 was if we have the PM chair Cobra meetings, and he just tells everyone ‘don’t worry about it, I’m going to get [England’s chief medical officer] Chris Whitty to inject me live on TV with coronavirus, so everyone realises it’s nothing to be frightened of’, that would not help, actually, serious planning.’
• He claimed that only in mid-March was an initial plan to pursue ‘herd immunity’, by allowing the virus to spread but delaying the peak of the outbreak, belatedly abandoned. Herd immunity ‘was the whole logic of all the discussions in January and February and early March’.
• Johnson was repeatedly distracted from Covid matters, Cummings claimed, including by security meetings about whether to join US bombing raids in the Middle East – and his partner, Carrie Symonds, going ‘completely crackers’ about a newspaper story about her dog, Dilyn.
• On the evening of the following day, Cummings said the deputy cabinet secretary, Helen McNamara, walked into the prime minister’s office to say: ‘‘I’ve come through here to tell you all, I think we are absolutely fucked. I think this country is heading for disaster. I think we’re going to kill thousands of people.’’
• ‘When the public needed us most, we failed. And I’d like to say to all the families of those who have died unnecessarily, how sorry I am for the mistakes that were made, and my own mistakes.’
• Boris Johnson has refused to deny that he initially dismissed coronavirus as ‘another scare story’ and that he delayed a second lockdown because Covid was ‘only killing 80-year-olds’

 

This is a story that will run and run, where it goes who can guess. Yes, Johnson will be damaged, but not fatally. He has an 80-seat majority, and no one in the party will challenge him yet.

Also, whilst I don’t wish to kick a man whilst he’s down, Sir Kier Starmer isn’t the man to bring Johnson down, either. In a move which shocked some locals, Starmer the MP for Holborn and St Pancras, has personally pushed for the erection of nine-foot tall aluminium barriers across Primrose Hill in north London. This will effectively lock off London’s only permanently open royal park from the public on weekend evenings and maintaining its exclusivity for wealthy residents.

‘It’s just incredible, though, isn’t it,’ says local resident Amy McKeown, who set up a ‘keep the hill open’ campaign two weeks ago. Stomping up the park on a gusty afternoon, on Saturday, she points to the small, socially distant groups of friends enjoying its famous view over London. ‘There they are,’ says McKeown, ‘drinking Fanta and coconut water, perfectly quiet and peaceful.’

However, there are bigger icebergs floating towards him in shape of planning reform and the disintegrating blue wall.

 

‘there are bigger icebergs floating towards him in shape of planning reform and the disintegrating blue wall’

 

The Times, by analysing publicly available data, estimate that C.400,000 homes could be built on greenfield areas in southern England over the next 5-years to meet revised housebuilding targets.

The reason for the south seeing the bulk of the development is that the government’s formula assumes that more housing is needed in areas where prices are higher, whereas the ‘red wall’ constituencies will see less development because prices are cheaper. In addition, the south also has fewer brownfield sites.

More than 11,000 houses could be built in rural Cornwall alone, while Buckinghamshire will need to allow at least 10,000, and the government risks a further backlash from back- benchers already concerned that planning reforms will alienate traditional supporters in the shires.

Last year Tory rebels last year forced a U-turn over a ‘mutant algorithm’ that could have sparked a planning free-for-all in the shires. In its place came the ‘Standard Method, this considers housing targets, brownfield capacity and local house prices to come up with a number of homes that each local authority has to build.

 

‘countryside campaigners have warned that the reforms would mean ‘open season for developers’ in rural areas’

 

There is still continuing backbencher anger over these reforms and their impact on the party’s ‘Blue Wall’ shire constituencies. In addition, countryside campaigners have warned that the reforms would mean ‘open season for developers’ in rural areas.

At least 80 Tories are members of a WhatsApp group that previously united to defeat the Government’s botched plans for an algorithm are still against the proposed reforms. One said the group had ‘woken up’ again over the new proposals. The number is far more than would be needed to defeat the plans.

Two Tories openly said they were prepared to vote against it.

Theresa Villiers, the former environment secretary and MP for Chipping Barnet ⁽¹⁾ on London’s border with Hertfordshire, said: ‘Despite significant changes to the government’s housing algorithm, there is still far too much pressure to build in London and the south. Cramming more and more homes into the south will do nothing to deliver the government’s promises on levelling up the north.’

Villiers, in an interview with the BBC said: ‘Potentially, I am prepared to defy the whip if I thought what was being brought forward was going to be damaging to the quality of life or the environment of my constituency.’

Asked if he would also be prepared to defy the whip, fellow London MP Bob Blackman said: ‘Very much so.’

Meanwhile, former cabinet minister Damian Green said: ‘If you want to spread wealth and prosperity you need to spread housing too.’

The MP for Ashford in Kent – the county known as ‘the Garden of England’ – added: ‘Everything I hear makes me worry that the Government is not going to do that. There will be more building in traditional Tory areas, without providing opportunities and jobs in the Red Wall.’

Roger Gale, Tory MP for North Thanet in Kent, said: ‘I’m not prepared to see the Garden of England turned into a building site. As far as I’m concerned, this is a developers’ charter… I think Boris needs to be looking at the Blue Wall because he may find it crumbles.’

The next test  of the blue wall is next month’s Chesham and Amersham byelection, where Ed Davey, the lib Dems leader, scent a possible victory. The Buckinghamshire constituency which has never seen the Conservatives win less than 50% support since it was created in 1974.

 

‘Boris needs to be looking at the Blue Wall because he may find it crumbles’

 

Davey told the Guardian: ‘It’s still quite a hill to climb, primarily because the Tories are doing quite well in the polls nationally. It’s absolutely clear it’s a two-horse race. But that doesn’t mean the anti-Tory vote will actually get behind us.’

Key to the Tories holding the seat is the lack of any ‘progressive alliance’ with a Green party buoyed up by its local election results and, according to one opinion poll published on Sunday, now level with the Lib Dems for national support. Whilst, in the 2019 general election, the Lib Dems and Greens, as well as Plaid Cymru, stood aside for each other in about 60 seats in England and Wales, local sources from the Lib Dems and Greens said there was not even any discussions over a pact, amid generally tepid and sometimes suspicious relations between the two parties.

The Lib Dems, and previously the Liberals, have almost always finished second in Chesham and Amersham – although Labour did this in 2017 – and took control of Amersham town council for the first time in the local elections.

Davey said that while he accepted it would ‘need a big swing’ to take the seat from the Conservatives, one likely factor was local disquiet about government proposals to change planning rules in a way expected to greatly increase housing targets in southern counties, which has met with opposition from many Tory MPs and councillors.

‘If the shock were to happen, it would be clear this would be a massive mandate for those of us who were campaigning against the planning reforms,’ Davey said, adding his party was pushing for a less centralised, more locally-led system. ‘And I think it would make a lot of Conservative MPs around the south of England quite worried.’

The Lib Dems polled only 26.3% here in 2019, and there is little likelihood of Labour winning, making this is a test of whether they are willing to work with other parties to defeat the Tories, For the Greens, on just 5.5% last time, this HS2 route feels fertile ground, but if they fight here, they risk taking the blame. Can the other parties reach out to them? ‘They’d better come to us with a cast iron quid pro quo,’ says the Green party spokesperson Molly Scott Cato.

55% of the constituents are reckoned to be ‘remainers’, many of them voted Tory in 2019 for fear of Jeremy Corbyn. Brexit is still the great definer, and ‘remainer’ Tories were alarmed by the hard Brexit deal.

The Lib Dems recently won control of Amersham town council, with no Labour or Green councillors. To win here, they need a 14.6% swing, however there is precedent; in 2016 the Lib Dems won in Richmond Park, defeating Zac Goldsmith with a 22% swing. That happened because, whilst Labour fielded a candidate its activists canvassed for the Lib Dems, there was a similar story in Brecon and Radnor in 2019.

 

it is preventing change, supporting a two-party state where it continually comes second

 

Labour needs to wake up, it is preventing change, supporting a two-party state where it continually comes second. By doing so it is de facto supporting the government, e.g., recently the Lib Dems, Greens, SNP, and Plaid Cyrmu wrote to the Speaker of the House ‘to challenge the prime minister’s persistent failure to give accurate information to the House of Commons’, listing untruths Johnson refused to correct. Labour would not join them, saying haughtily it didn’t follow other parties’ initiatives.

The only beneficiaries of this government and Brexit are nostalgia seekers happy to be regressive, who continue to benefit from house price inflation, and triple-lock pensions ^(2),,the country cannot afford. Their bigotry is continually stirred-up by a rabid media every bit as flawed as the BBC but too valuable to upset.

As is the case with many things Starmer and Labour are stuck in yesteryear. It will be one, perhaps two parliaments before they can challenge the Tories, they must put their own vanity second to defeating a government that supports a minority of the population. Will he see the light?

 

‘Oh, some people work very hard

But still they never get it right..’

 

Notes:

¹ I live in this constituency.

²  A triple lock was introduced to the UK state pension in 2010 by the Tory / Lib Dem coalition government. It was a guarantee that the state pension would not lose value in real terms, and that it would increase at least in line with inflation. To make the guarantee even more secure, it included three separate measures of inflation (hence ‘triple lock’). The so-called ‘triple-lock’, is a three-way guarantee was that each year, the state pension would increase by the greatest of the following three measures:

• Average earnings
• Prices, as measured by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI)
• 2.5 per cent

 

Philip sums up his feelings about Mr Johnson in the title of this week’s piece, and he certainly has a point – it seems that whatever he does he still smells of roses.

Even though he has diligently catalogued them along the way, Boris’ blundering, error strewn and often disingenuous behaviour over Covid looks shocking as laid bare by Dominic Cummings; however, possibly more shocking is that in common with most, Philip does not think that the allegations will significantly harm Boris’ premiership – even though that includes ‘thousands of unnecessary deaths’.

However bomb-proof Boris may seem, what chances of Matt Hancock emerging unscathed after such a blistering attack; maybe he’ll get to see more of the landlord at his local, assuming he hasn’t bought himself a little slice of Caribbean paradise.

Given that Boris was so desperate to get a trade deal done with India that he willfully endangered the vaccination process by keeping the borders open to direct flights from the Covid epicentre of the world, it should come as no surprise that the prospect of an Australian deal received plenty of column inches.

Fewer still will be surprised that the farmers now join the fishermen and the folk of Northern Island as having found themselves on the wrong side of Boris’ whoppers.

Sometimes things can seem just a little too surreal; the thought of Priti Patel celebrating the nuptials of Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall is just, well, out there.

With Keir Starmer getting enmeshed in the row rumbling around Primrose Hill, and seemingly unable to land a blow, could the whole area of planning start to undermine the blue wall?

If Boris has grand designs on another term, he’d be well advised not to cheese off the ‘Disgusteds’ in Tunbridge Wells.

Two tracks, just for fun this week – to complete the analogy, Three 6 Mafia with ‘Hard out Here for a Pimp’, and Velvet Underground with ‘Beginning to see the Light’. Enjoy

 

 

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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