HP Source: Dominic Cummings – Machiavelli, Rasputin, now he’s the Malcolm McLaren of politics

 

‘Ought to control what I do to my mind, Nothing in there but sunshades for the blind’

 

For anyone in doubt, Malcolm McLaren was a Svengali like character famous for creating and managing the Sex Pistols, amongst other claims to fame.

He came unstuck with the Pistols when the lead singer, Johnny Rotten, wouldn’t be manipulated. Today, there are no such issues for Cummings, Boris owes it all to him and doesn’t have the intellect to rebel.

‘Cummings desire to spend in abundance without a cautious chancellor restraining him’

It may have been Boris who pulled the trigger prompting last weeks (forced) resignation by Sajid Javid but it was Cummings who loaded the gun. The sacking was about two things; Dominic Cummings increasing his control by having his muppet, sorry man, as chancellor, and secondly Cummings desire to spend in abundance without a cautious chancellor restraining him.

Strangely, the first beneficiary of this big buck’s approach was HS2, a project that Cummings isn’t a fan of. But then, few seem to be…

 

• The route to Euston from Birmingham’s isolated Curzon Street, a mile from the rail hub of New Street, was chosen only because Robert Stephenson chose it in 1838.
• High speed it isn’t as each end is so ill-connected as to cancel any time saved aboard.
• In London the new line misses St Pancras by half a mile, thus denying the point of long-distance speed, which is to link the north with HS1 and the Channel.
• HS2 will carry no freight.
• A recent BBC interview with Birmingham passengers showed trains three-quarters empty.

 

Originally, HS2 was about speed now discounted as being energy guzzling; HS2 admits it is going to be carbon positive for generations.

It was then about capacity which, seemingly, will mainly benefit commuters from London’s northern home counties, now it’s about levelling up the north.

‘there is also the divide between boomers and millennials’

The problem is that even northern voters don’t seem enthused by HS2. A recent YouGov poll showed a public against HS2 by 39% to 34%.

The north and Midlands were overwhelmingly against; the one place strongly in favour was London, supporting HS2 by a massive 42% to 23%.

But it isn’t only the north-south divide, there is also the divide between boomers and millennials ^(1):

 

 …… Sitting in a Wakefield coffee shop, three women in their early 70s, each of whom was raised in a Labour family, discuss the life prospects for today’s younger generation. It was as hard for us then as it is for young people now, one says. Harder actually, interjects another woman, listing the home comforts now provided by TVs and washing machines, and the consumer perks accessible by credit card. The women say they’re sympathetic to younger generations, but that the young need to work harder, not rely on handouts. We are expected to pay for them now, as one woman puts it.…

 

Unsurprisingly, all three voted Conservative at the last election, they wanted Brexit done and didn’t want Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister.

 

The age divide across the UK:

 

1. 75% of 18- to 24-year-olds voted to remain in the EU in 2016,
2. whereas 66% of those aged 65-74 voted to leave.
3. In the 2017 election, 66% of first-time voters aged 18-19 backed Labour and
4. 58% of those aged 60-69 supported the Conservatives.
5. In 2019, 56% of 18- to 24-year-olds voted Labour,
6. while 67% of the over-70s voted populist, sorry Tory.

 

Result: politics is currently driven by older people, against the wishes of the young.

The post-war period conferred benefits to the boomers that aren’t available to millennials, such as: the advantages of free education, thriving industry, stable jobs and affordable homes.

‘politics is currently driven by older people, against the wishes of the young’

While boomers would view their good fortune as deserved, and we worked for it, people tend to have short memories when it suits them.

Boomers can be summed up by this comment from a 64-year-old tutor in Wakefield: It’s about my future, too. I’ve got another 20 years, maybe.

He explains his Conservative vote as self-interested, but only through lack of choice. Maybe I am being selfish and just looking out for myself, he says. But if we don’t do it, the government won’t do it for us.

 

 ‘I live just for today, I don’t care about tomorrow’

 

However, our erstwhile retiree best be careful, Suella Braverman has been appointed Attorney General.

My initial reaction to her appointment was surely not after all Sue Ellen, you’re a drunk, a tramp and an unfit mother. Then the penny dropped its Suella not Sue Ellen, I was mixing her up with Dallas.

Last month Suella wrote in Conservative Home, that the concept of human rights had been stretched beyond recognition and that elected decision-makers needed to take back control from a small number of unelected, unaccountable judges once the UK had left the EU. Included within this are judicial reviews.

Lest we forget judicial reviews played a key role in the 3-yrs Brexit struggle.

There was the 2016 case over triggering Article 50, which led to the Daily Mail’s notorious Enemies of the People front page, and last year the overturning of Boris’s prorogation of parliament, a tactic almost certainly created by Cummings.

For populists the courts are an issue, there has been the failed impeachment of Donald Trump, and the impending criminal trial of Italy’s Matteo Salvini for holding rescued migrants at sea.

Right-wing populists like to invoke a majoritarian conception of the people, usually along exclusionary nationalist lines.

They use it as a justification, often directly opposed to the checks and balances that exist to uphold the rule of law or protect the rights of minorities and the vulnerable.

 

We was all endangered charms, Swear we’re havin fun…

 

At the centre of all of this still is the cause, the Global Financial crisis of 2008.

Why, because countries get defensive when times are tough, becoming inward facing.

For example, curbs on foreign investment to protect critical technology, data and infrastructure from foreign sabotage, toughening up controls on migration, markets and open borders become closed. Welcome to deglobalisation.

‘recession was stealthy, missed by the few and affecting the masses, recovery has been long, painful and incomplete’

Globalisation requires a champion confident enough to spread the gospel of free trade and open markets, this was Britain in the late 19th century, and the US in the second half of the 20th century.

‘in my view politics is broken, we are completely stuck; the current two-party system strangles innovation and has matured into total crisis’

The grand finale of the second period of globalisation culminated in the fall of the communist bloc, and China joining the WTO in 2001.

Growth was strong, partly due to a globalisation feedback loop in which cheaper imports pushed down inflation rates and allowed central banks in the west to keep interest rates low and asset prices high.

The financial crisis exposed the weaknesses of a system that was able to operate globally without adequate controls and effective supervision.

The following recession was stealthy, missed by the few and affecting the masses, recovery has been long, painful and incomplete.

The major beneficiary of globalisation’s fruits has been owners of capital and the better off, inequality has risen in every part of the world. In democracies, there is a limit to how long the masses will tolerate inequality, and, as we have seen that tolerance is over.

To overcome this strong and innovative government was required, we have neither. As I wrote a year ago; in my view politics is broken, we are completely stuck; the current two-party system strangles innovation and has matured into total crisis. ⁽²⁾

 

‘Cause things are just too hard, Frankie can’t make enough money, Frankie can’t buy enough food..’

 

As a solution, I refuse to accept that Populism is the answer. It is no more than a nationalistic message peddled by bar-room politicians and believed by those looking for someone and something to blame, wanting to wallow in past glories convinced that no one had it harder than them.

 

However, is the solution Dominic Cummings?

 

For regular readers of this column it should be obvious that I have a grudging respect for the man.

Without doubt he masterminded the 2016 Leave campaign, he came back in and saved Brexit, and masterminded Boris’s sweeping electoral victory.

In addition to all of this, there was the 2004 referendum, which killed off Labour government’s plan for a political assembly in the north-east

He appears to be the master of the long-game, and doesn’t seem to care about day-to-day stuff, or try to correct it.

Evidenced by supposed setbacks such as the courts overturning the prorogation of parliament, or parliament seemingly taking control of Brexit, both times he appeared to snatch a victory that looked lost.

He is well-read, a thinker, frustrated with current government structures, an anarchist happy to lob hand grenades into established institutions to deliver lasting change.

‘well-read, a thinker, frustrated with current government structures, an anarchist happy to lob hand grenades into established institutions’

Within this change there is a desire to articulate and channel the frustration of voters who feel alienated by what has been described as the Westminster elite. Identifying with such voters enabled him to deliver the successes cited above.

Cummings quite correctly understands that the fate of Johnson’s government will depend on whether it delivers for these left behind towns whose voters feel little connection with more affluent cities.

That explains his opposition to HS2,  which he views as an elitist project which links affluent cities and bypasses towns with greater needs.

Whilst his initial focus is spending to rebuild infrastructure neglected by the austerity he opposed, his longer-term goal for these communities lies in improving the state of schools.

‘the fate of Johnson’s government will depend on whether it delivers for these left behind’

Education, where he worked with Michael Gove in the Tory’s last years in opposition prior to the 2010 election, is the only area where Cummings has previously worked in government.

Their plan was to expand Tony Blair’s academy schools and to usher in a new era of free schools that could be set up by parents and voluntary groups.

Once in government, he and Gove turned their fire on the blob, the word they used for what they considered to be the education establishment, including parts of the department they ran, local authorities and teachers’ unions, which was supposedly trying to thwart their schools revolution.

At that time one admirer said, that in delivering this vision Cummings was heavily influenced by Lenin, who famously argued that you cannot make a revolution in white gloves.

Dom is a much more successful Leninist than any of the Leninists around Corbyn, the friend says.

Whilst the demotion of Gove in 2014 by Cameron ended Cummings’s time in government, it was doubtful that Cummings was concerned about what the Cameron circle thinks about him, he scorns the former PM who hails, in his eyes, from the moneyed classes, those with an easy route from studying Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford into the political world.

Perhaps seeing Cameron resign after his mis-guided referendum was Cummings revenge?

 

The BBC summed up his financial ideas last week saying:

 

• Cummings wants a spending spree to be directed by No 10, with large sums directed at the science budget and an array of infrastructure projects, not just HS2.
• Taxes on the idle rich.
• A mansion tax has been floated by No 10
• Cummings is also an enthusiastic supporter of raising national insurance towards the income tax threshold of £12,500, to put more money in the pockets of poor and middle-income families

 

Perhaps, 44-years after the first chord sounded, we are about to enjoy Anarchy in the UK?

 

‘Don’t know what I want, But I know how to get it..’

 

Notes:

1. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/14/war-millennials-baby-boomers?CMP=share_btn_link
2. Brexit Bulletin, 23^rd February 2019, HEAV’N HAS NO RAGE LIKE LOVE TO HATRED TURN’D

 

OK lyric spotters we are absolutely delighted that Philip has decided that with just so much going on, it was the wrong time to hang up his quill and he’s treated us to a hard-hitting piece that gets to the very beating heart of the UK as the transition period ebbs away.

His picture of a nation divided along economic lines, along generational lines and becoming increasingly introspective could draw some gloomy conclusions, yet he finds causes for optimism from the most unlikely source – the ‘Malcolm Maclaren of politics’ – Dominic Cummings.

We’re delighted he’s back but he’s spared no mercy when it comes to this week’s tracks; I thought there was a ‘gimmie’ in there at the end, but no points on offer, so nul points for me. Entries will be accepted in the normal way and standard charges apply – waived for all claiming a full house.

First up ‘one of post-punks finest’, three points for Gang of Four and ‘Anthrax’; next, and with a tribute to producer Andrew Weatherall who left us this week, its Primal Scream and ‘Higher than the Sun’ – 3 pts.

Thirdly ‘decadent, dirty, drug addled, throw-away music. So good it’s almost funny’ three points for the outrageous New York Dolls and ‘Jet Boy’; last but by no means least ‘an often-overlooked act, who predated punk but benefited from it’ – very odd, but a grower – Suicide with ‘Frankie Teardrop’ for your final three pointer. Enjoy!

 

 

https://youtu.be/tONEk9YMoIw

 

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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