Heroes: A Lesson From History 

 

‘Have some sympathy, and some taste 

Use all your well-learned politnesse 

Or I’ll lay your soul to waste, mm yeah’ 

 
We start this article with where I ended the editorial to ‘Utterly Pointless, but What Comes Next? 

‘People like Braverman are just exploiting the situation for their own gain. If she cares about anything, it’s herself, and her quest for power. If she attains it, we will go back to the evil politics of the 1930s which led to WW2, and millions dying to stop the spread of fascism.’ 

Winston Churchill told us that history never repeats itself, he continued saying, ‘Every single historical moment is distinct from those past. However, we must learn from our mistakes so that we do not run the risk of repeating them‘. 

Let us go back to end of WW1, the allies had prevailed, and inflicted a heavy punishment on defeated Germany, with the Treaty of Versailles. 

Often overlooked is the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-20, which resulted in C.25 million deaths, though some researchers have projected that it caused as many as 40–50 million deaths. 

Tsarist Russia was no more, and many other European countries faced the potential of a communist revolution. Soldier who had fought and faced slaughter now wanted a better deal, they were promised a ‘home fit for heroes‘. 

Instead, many returned to find their jobs gone, taken by woman who were the only source of labour during the war. 

Many European countries, including France, Germany and Italy, saw growing unrest and general strikes. In 1929 the Wall St Crash (‘the 1929 Crash’) devastated economies, what followed was austerity. 
 

‘we must learn from our mistakes so that we do not run the risk of repeating them‘

 
Workers took to the streets, there were battles between left and right, especially in Germany and Italy. In all these countries the rich, looking at what had happened in Russia and fearful of losing their wealth, turned to the hard-right, whereas many workers seeking a better deal embraced communism. 

What followed was WW2.  

Today, as I have consistently warned, we are reliving the 1930’s and the politics that went with it.  

The GFC of 2008, followed by the Covid pandemic, are our equivalent of the 1929 Crash, WW1, and Spanish Flu. 

In 2008, central banks learnt from previously and flooded economies with liquidity, via ultra-low interest rates and quantitative easing. Their mistake was not reversing this much sooner, a failing which led to an asset bubble allowing rentiers (the rich) to benefit disproportionately. 

In the UK, the new Tory government learnt nothing from the 1929 Crash, and inflicted 13-yrs of austerity. Leaving many in society worse-off in real-terms than before the GFC, creating an under-class that are destitute, and reintroducing child poverty. 

If austerity was a rerun of the 1930’s we are seeing a repeat of its politics too. 

Many in the electorate have, post-Covid seen the benefits of a big state. In addition, the GFC showed many that unrestrained free-markets don’t work, that markets don’t always know best. 

However, this is fertile territory for the hard-right. Austerity led to Brexit, it sowed the seeds of discontent, and anti-establishment sentiment. The left, who should have been the natural beneficiaries of this were slow to react leaving  the field clear for Farage.   
 

‘If austerity was a rerun of the 1930’s we are seeing a repeat of its politics too’ 

 
Now, what we are seeing from the Tories is desperation. Policies that once would have been too extreme for them are becoming the norm. MP’s and cabinet members fear a heavy electoral defeat, and are seeking to distance themselves from the Sunak administration, and position themselves for in the inevitable leadership contest. 

This is exactly what Braverman has done; she put Sunak is a no-win position. Keeping her in the cabinet would have only led to her  carrying-on doing and saying what she wishes, making him look even weaker. By sacking her, he has given her the opportunity to distance herself from any heavy electoral defeat, and continue campaigning to replace him. 

Her comments last week about the Remembrance Day were designed to achieve all of this.   

We are already seeing who might join her. 

Grant Shapps, currently the defence secretary although he has held 4-different cabinet positions in the past year, accused Labour of ‘trying to play politics‘ over far-right protests in London, blamed in part on Suella Braverman’s rhetoric. 

Following the violent scenes around the Cenotaph on Saturday, where far-right groups fought officers in what was billed a counterprotest to a much larger pro-Palestine demonstration, Labour said Braverman had intentionally inflamed tensions and undermined the police. 

Defending Braverman’s incendiary rhetoric , Shapps, insisted that the protesters, described by police as mainly football hooligans, had already decided to march before Braverman’s statements calling the pro-Palestine demonstration a ‘hate march‘ and accusing police of dealing less robustly with leftwing protests.  
 

‘By sacking her, he has given her the opportunity to distance herself from any heavy electoral defeat, and continue campaigning to replace him’

 
Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary said: ‘I think this is much more serious than that. Suella Braverman decided to launch an unprecedented attack on the impartiality of the police, and also to deliberately inflame tensions in the run-up to remembrance weekend. 

‘No home secretary has ever done that before. Her job is supposed to be to support the police and to work with the police and to calm tensions. She did the opposite. And she did the opposite in a really damaging and irresponsible way.’ 

Cooper is correct, given the tense nature of the situation, a responsible home secretary would have selected their words with great care. Instead of being a calming influence, Braverman deliberately ramped-up the temperature, describing the protesters as ‘mobs‘ and using the false blanket label ‘hate marchers‘, as well as attempting a bizarre conflation with marches in Northern Ireland. That angered those organising pro-Palestinian protests and politicians on all sides in Northern Ireland, one of whom put it well when he charged her with ‘aggressive ignorance‘. 

As reprehensible as her words were, what is totally unforgivable is the way she sought to undermine the fundamental principles of a free society by trying to issue operational orders to the police. This is the behaviour of autocracies, and it has no place in any democracy.  

She also challenged another fundamental tenet of democracy, free speech. Sir Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police acted correctly when he defied her bullying; the right to protest is only curtailed in exceptional circumstances where there is a clear threat of serious disorder.  

After her attempt to intimidate the commissioner failed, she accused the police of having ‘play favourites’ when it comes to demonstrations, alleging they are soft ‘on politically connected minority groups who are favoured by the left’, while ‘giving no quarter‘ to those who are not.  

Given her words, it is clear that she helped to incite and embolden the so-called ‘counter-protesters‘ from the far right who clashed with the police near the Cenotaph yesterday and attacked officers elsewhere in central London. 
 

‘she described being homeless as a ‘lifestyle choice‘ and argued that charities should be banned from providing tents to people on the streets’

 
This, of course isn’t her first transgression, she described being homeless as a ‘lifestyle choice‘ and argued that charities should be banned from providing tents to people on the streets. More sensible cabinet members prevented this from appearing in the legislative agenda unveiled in the king’s speech, though the idea is far from dead. She has also criticised multiculturalism as a ‘toxic‘ failure and migration as an ‘existential threat‘ to western civilisation, a trope favoured among nativist extremists. 

As I predicted in ‘Brexit: The Never Ending Story’, Brexit and its aftermath could lead to the Tory party splintering into factions. 

Tory MPs, especially the party’s more moderate MPs and members, must decide if they want their party to become defined by Ms Braverman’s toxic brand of politics?  

There will always be some amongst the electorate who champion them as the ‘nasty party‘, but, with the rise of the educated under-50s, allied to the demise of older voters polls suggests there will never be enough support for this to win an election. 

Despite this, there is a significant risk that the party will fall into the hands of Ms Braverman, or someone like her, especially if an election defeat deranges Tory activists. The challenge for the party’s moderates is whether they can muster the resolve, the arguments and the numbers to prevent that from happening. That this is a question for Conservatives underlines what a dystopian direction their party is travelling in. 
 

‘there is a significant risk that the party will fall into the hands of Ms Braverman’

 
Events are clearly playing into Braverman’s hands. Although the country has become a basket-case under successive Tory misgovernment, she continues to stir the culture wars even though they aren’t a major electoral concern for the majority. She continually picks on culture war issue that drives people apart, anointing herself as head of one of the two warring camps. As an example, her comments that multiculturalism had failed, that Britain faced a ‘hurricane‘ of migration and that homelessness was a lifestyle choice – each one of those provocations designed to make her the standard-bearer of nationalist populism in the UK. 

Her comments about Palestine have ignited the situation domestically.   

Antisemitic incidents have surged by more than 500% compared with the same period last year, and   Islamophobic attacks have risen by a similar proportion. 

It is not the job of any home secretary to take sides, to decide who is right and who is wrong. Yet in her Times article last week Braverman pitted one community against another, praising Jewish vigils – whose focus is the return of the 240 hostages held by Hamas – as ‘dignified‘ and those calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as ‘mobs’ and ‘hate’ marchers. 

She is cynically exploiting the situation, distorting the conflict, forcing it into a pre-existing ideological frame. In this she has much in-common with Douglas Murray, the associate editor of the Spectator, who has long railed against what he sees as the threat that Islam and Muslims pose to Europe and the west. The current crisis suits his purpose. He told one US interviewer that Humza Yousaf has ‘infiltrated our system‘, and that he is not really first minister of Scotland, but rather ‘first minister of Gaza‘. Murray has thoughts too on the future of Gaza, writing that ‘it could be a good time … to clear all the Palestinians from that benighted strip’. 

Whilst her rhetoric, views and behaviour are dreadful, her allies claim that > 52 Tory MPs support her. Some are from hard-right Tory groups labelled ‘the five families‘ blame the chief whip, Simon Hart, for orchestrating a plot to get rid of her. 
 

‘Braverman will now continue to lob hate bombs from the backbenches as she seeks to undermine the PM and position herself as ‘leader’ of the right’

 
The five families comprises members of the European Research Group, the Northern Research Group, the New Conservatives, the Common Sense Group and No Turning Back. 

The New Conservatives, a populist-leaning alliance of MPs, led by Danny Kruger and Miriam Cates, are meeting this week, and whilst Braverman’s sacking was not officially on the agenda, Kruger and Cates have been among the most vocal MPs defending her arguments about the supposedly biased policing of protests. 

The immediate response from most of her supporters in the parliamentary party was muted, although one, Andrea Jenkyns, tweeted: ‘I support @SuellaBraverman. Sacked for speaking the truth. Bad call by Rishi caving in to the left!’ 

In conclusion, Braverman will now continue to lob hate bombs from the backbenches as she seeks to undermine the PM and position herself as ‘leader’ of the right.  

There is now a clear split within the Tory party, with Sunak swinging both way, appeasing everyone and pleasing few. 

Whilst they play games the country disintegrates. Voters concerns; the NHS, inflation and the economy are simply ignored. Strikes (remember them) are a fact-of-life.  

I would say the Tories are electoral history, but, the history of the hard-right and Braverman’s antics suggest that the normal strictures of democracy might not be her things. 
 

‘They better confess 

Well, they better confess 

They started this mess’ 

 
It is a measure of just how fast things are moving that in the few short hours since Philip dried his quill, Call me Dave Cameron is back in harness, and Cruella’s first ‘hate bomb’ has just landed.

I’m sure Philip will do a better job of reporting those developments than I ever could; he also describes ‘Briefcase Wanker’ as swinging both ways, which very nearly seals this government’s pre-eminence in terms of sleaze.

So, get a does of this:

And so ended the reign of Suella the Cruel One. She finally lobbed one hate bomb too many, and has been sent to the naughty stool, the back benches, where she can continue her audition for party leader.

Braverman’s sacking looks like a signal that Rishi Sunak has abandoned those briefly loaned red-wall seats.

To think that she has the support of 50+ MPs is scary, however, I suspect her following amongst party members is considerable, too.

Short of Armageddon Sunak will lead the party into the next election, but he is leader in name only. It now seems inconceivable that he can pull off any sort of electoral miracle, instead a heavy defeat seems odds on.

Once that happens he’s gone. Braverman looks to be the right candidate, and there will be someone from the One Nation Tory faction. Whoever prevails will have a seemingly impossible job reuniting the party. I doubt the right even want to, probably preferring deselection for anyone deemed “left”.

The question I ask is, can the Tories survive?

In the interim, Sunak has reshuffled the pack, and found dogs with different fleas.

There is one stand-out, totally mad appointment. By which I refer to the Old Etonian Cameron’s Lazarus, rising from the political grave, in what looks like a clear attempt to rescue traditional blue seats.

This is beyond desperate, only recently Cameron savaged Sunak for axing HS2, but needs must when confronting the loss of swathes of home counties constituencies.

Cameron is truly awful, words fail me. Him, and the other twit, Osborne, are the root cause of all our problems.

Unnecessary austerity provided the oxygen for Farage to inflate the Brexit balloon. So terrified was Cameron of UKIP that he promised the Brexit referendum. So arrogant was he, that, until it was too late he forgot to campaign for “Remain”. And the rest is history. If he had to pick one person to blame for the whole shitshow it’s him.

And then, of course, there is Greensill. Where he lobbied for taxpayers to save a bust, and possible corrupt business, all to save his share options.

Surely, we are now at the bottom of the barrel.

Lyrically, we start with “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Stones, and, as a fitting tribute to Lord Cameron of Austerity and Misery, we play out with The Wipers “Return of the Rat”. Enjoy!

@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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