Heroes: A Country United or Divided?

 

‘There’s no future 

No future 

No future for you’

 

1. There are numerous divisions in our country; the north-south divide, old and young, black and white, Muslim and non-Muslim. Overriding this is one simple summary, ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’. 

We are a country run for the benefit of the few, at the expense of the masses who have elected successive divisive governments. 
 

‘a country run for the benefit of the few, at the expense of the masses’

 
The past 13-yrs of successive Tory government has achieved little of merit, other than to exacerbate this divide. Which is why the latest Tory election broadcast is so amusing. Usually electioneering of this nature is full of half-truths, this is best described as fantasy.

More frighteningly it is a wonderful example of telling people what they want to hear. 

It is based on, ‘Five clear promises you can judge us on!’    
 

• Halve inflation 
• Grow the economy 
• Reduce debt 
• Cut NHS waiting lists 
• Stop the boats 

 
In addition, there were some other fantasies: ‘Inflation is coming under control’; Energy price guarantee to be continued; Pension triple-lock maintained;  Energy security plan; Extending free child-care (one for Rishi’s wife’s pension pot); More Doctors and nurses due to the strong economy;  

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001lm52/party-election-broadcasts-conservative-party-02052023 

Back in the real world, we can see the true beneficiaries of  government policy. 

BP’s underlying profits reached $5bn (£4bn) in the first three months of the year, outstripping analysts’ forecasts of $4.3bn. 

The company said it would reward investors, buying back $1.75bn of its own shares. 

However, Shell make BP look like beginners, declaring adjusted earnings of $9.6bn (£7.6bn) in the first three months of this year. Europe’s biggest oil and gas company will now offer shareholders $4bn in share buybacks over the next three months. 

Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, said oil and gas companies were treating the British public ‘like cash machines‘. 
 

‘oil and gas companies were treating the British public ‘like cash machines”

 
‘We could have lower household bills and an energy system that served the public, if government taxed excessive profits, introduced a social tariff and created public ownership of new clean power.’ 

Back in the real world the majority are doing very badly as I described in ‘Inequality, Poverty, and Greed’.  This reality puts the whole coronation into perspective.  

Firstly because it includes the first ‘homage of the people‘ – an addition to the ancient ceremony in which people across the UK and the overseas realms will be invited to swear an oath of allegiance to Charles. 

The proposal was swiftly denounced by critics as ‘offensive, tone-deaf and a gesture that holds the people in contempt‘. 

Graham Smith, a spokesperson for Republic, which campaigns for the abolition of the monarchy and its replacement with a directly elected head of state, said: ‘This kind of nonsense should have died with Elizabeth I, not outlived Elizabeth II.’ 

Jenny Jones, a Green peer said; ‘Asking us to chant our allegiance does seem an odd request when so many of us think that the monarchy is an outdated institution that needs drastic reform. And I really think that the king is rich enough to pay for his own coronation, not us taxpayers.’  

This is living-proof that they are totally out-of-touch with everyday reality. 
 

‘64% of Britons care either not at all or not very much about the coronation’

 
A  YouGov polls shows that 64% of Britons care either not at all or not very much about the coronation, while only 9% care a great deal. 

Last year 38% of Britons still felt the royal family was ‘very important’ to the country, the National Centre for Social Research finds that figure has now fallen to 29%. 

I suspect that this fall in support is largely due to finances. Whilst the majority of the country are struggling with rising costs, the same peoples’ taxes are expected to pay an estimated £100m to cover the cost of the coronation.  

Legally there is no need for it, Charles is already Charles III, a fact that was sealed in the days after the Queen’s death at the accession council. Needless to say, none of us got a vote. 

The argument that it attracts overseas visitors is spurious, the royal palace in Europe that attracts the most tourists is Versailles. 
 

‘this unaffordable largesse needs to change’

 
In addition to the coronation we are also paying £369m to refurbish the palace despite King Charles and the Prince of Wales have private estates that have yielded more than £1bn in recent years. Both of which, unlike all other private estates, pay no corporation tax. In addition, both are exempt from Inheritance Tax. 

If they are serious about modernising the monarchy this unaffordable largesse needs to change. 

The generational divide is well illustrated by their attitude to the monarchy. YouGov found that 38%  of 18 to 24-year-olds, the so-called Gen Z, want to replace the Crown with an elected head of state, 30% didn’t know, whilst only 32% supported the Royal Family. 

By comparison, among the oldest group, aged 65+, 78% back the monarchy with just 15% wanting it abolished. 
 

‘the expectation that successive generations will enjoy ever-greater opportunities is under threat in the UK’

 
The age divide sums up the ‘haves’ and have ‘nots’; the expectation that successive generations will enjoy ever-greater opportunities is under threat in the UK. Primarily, due to a housing market that means fewer will own their own home, and an ageing society in which today’s young will shoulder the burden of higher taxes to meet the health and care costs of their parents’ generation. 

Falling birth-rates require us to spend a higher proportion of GDP on healthcare and pensions. And, with an ageing population there are fewer working-age taxpayers to cover these costs. Moreover, younger people will not have the luxury of the private pensions that benefit the current generation of retired workers, many of whom have benefited from generous defined-benefit schemes long since closed. 
 

‘if the price of a supermarket chicken had increased at the same rate since the late 1960s, it would today cost more than £50’

 
Whilst falling birth-rates can’t be blamed on the government, it is their policies that have created a shortage of new homes causing a supply and demand in-balance.  House price inflation (‘HPI’) is absurd, the Guardian quoted this example: if the price of a supermarket chicken had increased at the same rate since the late 1960s, it would today cost more than £50. This dramatic increase in HPI has delivered  significant windfall wealth – at the expense of those who cannot afford to buy their own home. The high cost of housing is having a profound impact on the economic wellbeing of young people. 

The UK has some of the highest rents in Europe, preventing people from moving to areas with economic opportunities because the housing is too expensive and they cannot afford a rental deposit. The proportion of people living in privately rented housing has doubled in the last 20-years. Many will never be able to afford to buy their own home, meaning they and their children face years in insecure housing, forced to move when their tenancy comes up and at risk of being priced out of the vicinity of friends, family and their children’s school.  
 

‘many university students today will pay an extra 9% of their income above the student loan threshold towards the cost of their higher education for most or all of their working lives’

 
These housing market effects are compounded by the education system and the labour market. The high level of fees and interest on student loans mean many university students today will pay an extra 9% of their income above the student loan threshold towards the cost of their higher education for most or all of their working lives. Thanks to the UK’s weak economic productivity, there are too many low-paid, entry-level jobs offering poor progression prospects that rely on school leavers downgrading their aspirations. 

Politically the baby boomers punch above their weight, and politicians on both sides of the house fear their wrath. They generally do not want to see their house prices fall due to greater housing affordability, nor are they inclined to pay more tax on their assets to fund opportunities for the next generation.  

The young are our future, without a redistribution of wealth from the older to the younger generation, there will, at some point, be painful consequences. 

Another example of the generation divide is voter ID which is debuted at today’s local elections. The supposed reason for demanding that voters show photographic proof is protection against fraud which could ‘rig’ election results. In reality, the crime being thwarted – lying about your name to steal someone else’s ballot paper – is increasingly rare, and largely unproductive. 
 

‘without a redistribution of wealth from the older to the younger generation, there will, at some point, be painful consequences’

 
A much easier way to ‘rig’ an election is voter suppression, especially if the way it is constructed impacts your opponent. Under the new rules, pensioners will be allowed into a polling both if they show their bus passes. Younger people with an equivalent travel document will be turned away, proving the old adage, if you don’t vote Tory you don’t count. 

It is a reasonable assumption that new barriers to democratic participation will obstruct those who already feel marginalised by the political process. Encouraging abstention is a way to boost incumbent power. 

Whilst I am not suggesting manipulation on Trumpian levels, or disappointed voters storming parliament, we have seen with Johnson how the narrative can be manipulated. For example, the issue with Sue Gray and her recruitment by Labour, which has been seized upon as evidence that Whitehall was agitating against him all along, in covert service to the opposition. 

It appears that the Tory’s model of the dutiful civil servant is not someone who upholds the integrity of the system but someone adept at moulding it to their requirements, such as Sir Simon Case. It would appear that he was promoted to the top civil service job despite never having run a department, and because no properly qualified candidate would submit to the will of Dominic Cummings, then in command of No 10. 

Ultimately, the Tory’s are doing all they can to cling onto power. Their election broadcast was a very bad joke but it will have impact. People’s perception is their reality. The ‘haves’ are in it with them, they believe what they are told. All the while have’s perception is that low, or no taxes if you’re a royal, are what the Tory’s deliver, and the opposite is true of Labour, then the Tory’s will continue to govern. 

At some point either the Tory’s become extinct because baby boomers no longer rule the roost, or before that if Gen Z grows a political voice. In the meantime just grin and bear it. 
 

‘I belong to the generation but 

I can take it or leave it each time’ 

 
Inequality has been a long-running theme in Philip’s column, and its impossible to conclude anything other than it has got steadily worse on all fronts.

What Philip didn’t have was sight of the local election results, as the polls were still open when he filed his copy; I think it is fair to say that the electorate have sent a pretty strong message as the number of lost seats creeps toward four figure.

So, what was Philip thinking?

This week we continue with inequality. Haves and have nots.

On one side we have BP and Shell reporting record profits which, once again, benefit the haves and the expense of the have nots.

In the main the haves are the rentiers, the older generation with assets. It is no surprise that many of them are looking forward to Saturday’s charade, its part and parcel of their Britain. By comparison the young see it for what is, unnecessary expense at a time when we simply can’t afford it.

If Charles III wants a modern monarchy then do as we do, pay your way!

The Tory’s continue to evolve and cling onto power by whatever means necessary. Whilst I mock their election broadcast, I fear the joke is on me. Yes, they may well have a bad night when the local elections results are published, but the main event is the general election. This campaign is a warm-up for that, reality and perception.

“Stop the Boats” is part of their 5-points. This is part of something more sinister, national conservatism. Sometimes explained as a movement that wants “a world of independent nations”, societies centred on the traditional family (“built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman” and therefore spurning “ever more radical forms of sexual licence and experimentation”), and a big official role for Christianity (“which should be honoured by the state and other institutions both public and private”).  

Known as “NatCon” it is an offshoot of the Edmund Burke Foundation, an American thinktank-cum-pressure group founded in 2019 seemingly to overturn the economic liberalism propagated by mainstream parties of the right since the 1980s, and develop the kind of chaotic populism associated with figures such as Donald Trump and Boris Johnson into something much more moralistic, and highly organised.

Tories such as Jacob Rees-Mogg and the leading Brexiter David Frost show how the intersection between national conservatism and the Tory mainstream is already developing.

Examples of this can be found in recent speeches.

The Home Office minister Robert Jenrick;  Conservatives, he said, “should not shy away from their belief that the nation has a right to preserve itself”, nor from the insistence that “excessive, uncontrolled migration threatens to cannibalise the compassion of the British public”. Note the use of  “excessive”, “uncontrolled” and “illegal.”

The people trying to come to the UK in what politicians have styled “small boats”, he said, “tend to have completely different lifestyles and values to those in the UK”, that seems a toxic suggestion which is now an in-built part of the government’s messaging. Via an evidence-free association with crime,

The Home Secretary Suella Braverman; the attitudes and behaviour of those crossing the Channel are “at odds” with British values.

Readers can be forgiven for thinking I have a fear that the future is Tory “blue”, what is fear is fascist “black”.

Lyrically, there is only one place to start; the Sex Pistols and “God Save the Queen ”. Not because I mock the coronation, or the monarchy, but because it was to be called “No Future.”

We end with Richard Hell and the “Blank Generation”, which is what I fear Gen Z will become. Too many already have no future.

@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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