Heroes: Aladdin Sane 

 

‘Who’ll love Aladdin Sane 

Battle cries and champagne just in time for sunrise 

Who’ll love Aladdin Sane’ 

 
This column is in its 7th year, and has witnessed and commented on momentous events. 

In terms of PM’s with Theresa May who failed to govern her ungovernable party; Boris Johnson who lied and cheated his way closing parliament, winning a sweeping majority, gaining a criminal record and ‘retired’ disgraced; Liz ‘of 49-days’ Truss whose delusions cost C. £30bn: and, Rishi Sunak who has achieved zero! 

There have been several topics that have been a mainstay of the column; income inequality, the age-divide, Brexit, the return to the politics to the 1930’s and the ascent of the hard-right, and Nigel Farage. 

This week we have been treated to all in them in the madness that is the Tory party conference. Which, most amusingly, was held in Manchester, which won’t now be served by HS2. 

The decision can, at best, be described as controversial; former PM David Cameron said the decision showed the country was heading in the wrong direction. 

Sunak, after confirming he was axing the Birmingham to Manchester line, said the £36bn saved would instead fund a number of other transport schemes, described as ‘Network North‘. 

The failure to complete one single high-speed line, which France was able to roll out nationwide > 30-yrs ago is a devastating verdict. It is hard to dispute Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham’s verdict that the north has been treated as a ‘second-class‘ part of Britain 
 

‘This week we have been treated to all in them in the madness that is the Tory party conference’

 
But, for Rishi trains seem to so last year, his latest hobbyhorse is motorists; vroom vroom Rishi just can’t get enough of them. Drive what you want as fast as you want.  

Aside from opposing the extended ULEZ, vroom vroom Rishi Sunak is preparing to set out his ‘plan for motorists’ that will limit the number of 20mph speed restrictions and favour drivers over bus passengers by restricting the number of hours a day that car traffic is banned from bus lanes.  

In addition, he proposes to curb local authorities’ ability to impose fines – and thus raise revenue – from traffic infractions caught by automatic number plate recognition cameras, and on the use of such cameras in box junctions. 

Vroom Vroom Rish’s plan is the latest in a recent series of contentious policy ideas, including backtracking on net zero targets, designed to revive his government and create clear dividing lines with Labour. 

As policies go, and considering the mess everything is on, Vroom, Vroom fluttering his eyes at motorists is simply pathetic. 

More disconcerting is the news that 60, equally deluded Conservative MPs have joined Liz Truss’s Growth Group. Technically, this could threaten Sunak’s majority in parliament, as former cabinet ministers say ‘we cannot accept the status quo‘. 
 

‘Vroom, Vroom fluttering his eyes at motorists is simply pathetic’

 
Truss spoke to a packed fringe meeting where she promised to cut corporation tax, build 500,000 new homes and resume fracking to cut energy bills. She suggested the Conservatives were no longer the party of business, arguing the state had become too big, with taxes and spending unsustainably high. 

As political commentator Benedict Spence said: ‘It’s not so much about her as an individual; she’s a figurehead for an ideology that’s rather difficult to get too excited about in purely ideological terms.’  

Theoretically, this suggests that a hard core of Conservative voters and MPs want to reduce the amount of revenue government raises at precisely the point it has run out of money, and is spending more on servicing its debts than at any time in the past 20-years. 

Truss showed no signs of contrition after her disastrous reign as PM, saying Sunak should be willing to take tough decisions to help grow the economy even if they were unpopular. A sentiment echoed by the former home secretary Priti Patel, who said: ‘We cannot be timid any more, we cannot be risk averse and we cannot accept the status quo.’ 

Inevitably this puts pressure on Sunak and the chancellor before the king’s speech and autumn statement in November. Hunt acknowledged in his conference speech that ‘the level of tax is too high’, though added he was focused on tackling the ‘long-term’ challenge of inflation first. 

Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank said, ‘I don’t think there is space for tax cuts, unless we can think of some pretty radical ways.’ 

‘It’s not just the immediate pressures that we’re seeing in public finances, but we know that we’re going to be needing to spend more on health and pensions, social care and everything going forward as a result of demographic change. So I think the chances of tax cuts are very remote.’ 

Quite how we cut taxes and maintain, let alone improve public services, is rarely explained.  

The only people who vote Tory are home-owners who are either retired or close to retirement, whereas Margaret Thatcher, revered as a tax cutter, drew more support from the working-age population, which might explain why her governments constantly reiterated the trade-off between taxation and welfare spending. The problem for the Tories is that whilst it wants low taxes older voters do not want cuts in NHS, pensions or social care spending. 
 

The only people who vote Tory are home-owners who are either retired or close to retirement

 
Sunak’s problem is that he has been chancellor or PM during a parliament that has seen taxation at its highest level since records began 70 years ago. Mr Sunak’s decision in 2021 to freeze income tax thresholds helped the Treasury to reap about £100bn a year in extra taxes. 

Despite the higher tax take, the NHS is in disarray, prisons are falling apart and sewage is being pumped into rivers. Whilst wea are spending more on public service, Covid, inflation and a decade of austerity cuts have diminished the state’s ability to function effectively. Debt interest in 2023 will consume C. 10% of government spending – £110bn, a sum bigger than every department budget apart from health.  

The party could, like Ronald Reagan, cut taxes, embrace deficits, and higher government debt ratios. In August alone, the state spent £12bn more than it got back in taxes. However, Sunak sees his fiscal orthodoxy as a dividing line not only between him and his internal party rivals but also with Labour. Without unlocking growth, Sunak faces being a high-tax politician who fails to spend the money to fix Britain, at a time when the public expect more from the state now than ever before.  
 

Sunak faces being a high-tax politician who fails to spend the money to fix Britain

 
Turning to inheritance tax (‘IHT’), the always good for a laugh Jacob Rees-Mogg argued that what he called the ‘pernicious‘ tax should be scrapped. 

However, new analysis compiled by Labour showed that plans to scrap IHT would benefit wealthy parts of the country. 

Labour argued that with only 4% of people liable to pay IHT, there were large regional divides between who would benefit. London and the SE account for more than 50% of the estimated IHT take, compared with only 8% in the north-east and north-west, 5% in Yorkshire and the Humber, and 10% in the Midlands. 

You would think that, one day, Labour might get it; of course it benefits the few, the wealthy, it’s a Tory policy. It’s what they do! 

From economic incontinence we turn to immigration, or should that be, turn back? 

The home secretary, Suella Braverman, in her speech, warned of a ‘hurricane‘ of mass migration and attacked the ‘luxury beliefs‘ of liberal-leaning people in a  fascist populist speech aimed at cementing her position as a standard-bearer of the Conservative right. 

Playing to the braying racists, she told delegates at the Tory party conference that the Human Rights Act should be renamed the ‘Criminal Rights Act‘. 

She argued that ‘Britain would go properly woke‘ under a Labour government, with people ‘chased out of their jobs for saying that a man can’t be a woman‘ and ‘scolded for rejecting that they are beneficiaries of institutional racism’. 

The 28-minute speech, which sought to rally the party around defending the rights of ordinary British people against an out-of-touch elite, came after three days of jostling between rival party factions over who might succeed Rishi Sunak if he loses the next election. 

Braverman began her address with a warning that the world was facing unprecedented mass migration. 

She continued saying, ‘People with luxury beliefs will flock to Labour at the next election because that’s the way to get the kind of society they want. 

‘They like open borders. The migrants coming in won’t be taking their jobs. In fact, they are more likely to have them mowing their lawns. They love soft sentences. The criminals who benefit from such ostentatious compassion won’t be terrorising their streets. They are desperate to reverse Brexit. 

By comparison, in his speech the PM said, ‘never let anyone tell you this is a racist country: it is not‘. He then destroyed the myth by using himself as proof; privately educated and the richest MP in Britain. His words echoed that of trade minister Kemi Badenoch, who boasted this week that Britain is the ‘best place to grow up Black‘. Meanwhile, the home secretary, Suella Braverman, stirs up fears of a ‘hurricane‘ of migration about to land in Britain. 
 

‘Kemi Badenoch, who boasted this week that Britain is the ‘best place to grow up Black‘. Meanwhile, the home secretary, Suella Braverman, stirs up fears of a ‘hurricane‘ of migration about to land in Britain’

 
Braverman also attacked the Human Rights Act introduced by Tony Blair’s government which, she said, had given criminals and ‘illegal migrants‘ the upper hand. 

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said, ‘Suella Braverman’s speech was devoid of practical policies and divorced from the reality of Tory failure over the last 13 years.’  

Natasha Tsangarides, associate director at the charity Freedom from Torture, said: ‘Despite a cost-of-living crisis and collapsing public services, she continues to use marginalised groups as cannon fodder to win cheap political points.’ 

I think it’s now safe to say that after the 6+yrs of this column the Tories have finally descended into the depths of fascist madness. 

Their conference can be summarised as a slew of complaints about the decline of the country, with no sign of contrition for having caused this presided over its decline. 

Taxes are too high, borders are too porous, international human rights treaties are too binding, teachers and the police aren’t doing enough, there are too few doctors and too many civil servants. Children spend too long on their phones; benefit claimants are too lazy; speed limits are too low. 

They have been in government for 13-yrs, these are problems of their making, instead they are trying to divert blame. 
 

‘after the 6+yrs of this column the Tories have finally descended into the depths of fascist madness’

 
Brexit was the beginning of the blame game; initially EU membership had emasculated the country, and then during the exit negotiations they were try to deny us what rightfully ours.  

This led to a battle between the faithful (leave) and the unbelievers (remain), with the latter accused of trying to subvert the will of the people. In short, democracy, our fight to have a different opinion,  was cast aside. Typical of the fascists they were fast becoming. 

Along with bearing no criticism, they have the need for an ongoing war against any opposition. Having defeated facts on the road to power, the revolution sustains itself on perpetual war against reality and the ‘establishment’. 

This explains the ongoing popularity of Liz Truss, she has the requisite evangelistic zeal, championing a policy programme that she maintains was misrepresented by servants of discredited orthodoxy before it could work. 

The right, long the proponents of conspiracies and the stab-in-the-back theory, dismiss failure as faulty implementation. This is the case with Brexit, once it was shown to be flawed utopianism, we were told it hadn’t been implemented properly and sabotaged by non-believers. 
 

‘They have been in government for 13-yrs, these are problems of their making, instead they are trying to divert blame’

 
It comes as no surprise that Nigel Farage was in the audience for Truss’s rant. His presence serving only to confirm his capture of the party, rather than as a hostile force had previously been the case for the majority of the Tories.  

On Monday evening he was filmed at a GB News party dancing with Priti Patel, the former home secretary, as they both sang along to Can’t Take My Eyes Off You. 

 
‘The sight of you leaves me weak 

There are no words left to speak’ 
 

Its simply too ghastly for words! 

Farage was a Conservative party member but left in 1992 over the signing of the Maastricht treaty. However, a possible return has been questioned after Brexit. 

Jacob Rees-Mogg told the BBC he would back the idea of Farage rejoining, calling him a ‘very effective campaigner’ with whom he shared ‘most of his political views‘. 

Asked if he might join the Conservatives, Farage said: ‘Would I want to join a party that’s put the tax rate up to the highest in over 70 years, that has allowed net migration to run at over half a million a year, that has not used Brexit to deregulate to help small businesses? No, no and no.’ 

He added: ‘I achieved a lot more outside of the Tory party than I ever could have done from within it.’ 

Whilst Farage isn’t wielding the knife aimed at Sunak’s back, his is the guiding hand; Sunak is now leader in name only. The party is being consumed by factional in-fighting, and is further pushing the part to the right of politics.  

As a result the party no longer represents a functional government more a platform for protest. Addressing the public anger by exploiting it. 
 

‘Whilst Farage isn’t wielding the knife aimed at Sunak’s back, his is the guiding hand’

 
As the downward spiral continues, the claims and policy ideas become more outlandish; . The 15-minute city is a harmless concept for pedestrian-friendly urban planning becomes, in the twisted imaginations of far-right conspiracy theorists, such as Mark Harper, the transport secretary, it becomes a ‘sinister‘ plot by local authorities to ration road use and monitor shopping habits with CCTV 

Then there is  ‘the Blob’ (a catch-all term covering civil servants, local councils that aren’t controlled by Tories, academia, the creative industries and non-governmental organisations). Freedom is  suffocated by wokery. 

All of this is necessary to replace ‘Brussels’, which served for so well as the original target to explain our decline.  

The party is regressing, partly because it has no ideological successor to the doctrine of Thatcherism. As a result they resort to fighting new and imaginary battles against anyone who dares oppose them.  

The problem is Thatcherism: we can no longer afford it. This really does look like the endgame of a tired government.  

The electorate seem to think so; a poll Carried out by pollsters Opinium, the survey found that 82% of all respondents backed the growth of Britain’s green industry to boost the economy. This creates a serious problem for Sunak after his series of U-turns on the government’s green commitments in an attempt to create a dividing line with Labour before the election. 

The survey also found that support for the green economy was even stronger among swing voters who supported the Conservatives in 2019 and are now planning to switch to Labour, at 88%. 

When asked which of the chancellor’s five ‘priority sectors’ of the economy were most likely to encourage growth overall, twice as many people thought green industries would have the biggest positive impact on overall growth than any other sector, including life sciences, digital tech and advanced manufacturing. 

Growing investment in renewable energy was backed by 71% of respondents, according to the poll, which was commissioned by trade association Renewable UK. Only 40% of respondents agreed that the Tory party had even partially delivered on this commitment. 

Hopefully, Manchester was their hurrah. Whoever wins the next election, we can expect to see the Tories descent into hard-right madness continue. If, after the debacles of the debacles of the Johnson and Truss regimes they haven’t learned their lessons, they likely never will!   
 

‘Judy and Johnny just walked through the door (walked through the door) 

Like a queen with her king 

Oh, what a birthday surprise 

Judy’s wearing his ring’ 

 
 
An epic from Philip this week – Tory party conference was always going to deliver a rich vein, but who on earth thought it would be that nutty? Take this:

The Tory party conference has finally ended. Depending on your viewpoint it was either a roadmap ofr the future, hilarious, or plain scary.

Frank Luntz, a focus-grouper to the US right, told the audience: “You know the average age of the Labour voter? 38-40. The average age of the Tory voter? Deceased.”

Others quoted the YouGov poll showing only 1% of 18-24s back their party. For under-50s, it’s barely better.

Rishi Sunak’s latest YouGov rating is his worst yet:

·       23% view him favourably, 68% unfavourably,

·       The Tories scored 12% for competence, 8% for trustworthiness, 14% for trying to do the right thing, and 5% for being in touch.

In addition, whilst the Tory party is the only one that doesn’t release figures about its numbers or composition to the Electoral Commission, researchers suggest it is just over 100,000; middle-aged to elderly, almost entirely white, normally comfortably off, almost entirely in the south of England.

This seemingly shows that the Tories are history, unable to win an electoral majority based on their minority support.

But, what if the rules were different? Perhaps increasing the voting age, or, better still, only homeowners can vote. Don’t laugh, they are mad and bad, capable of anything. Johnson’s prorogation of parliament showed that, they supported democracy as and when it suited them

The authentic centre-right is fast becoming history. David Gauke addressed a small gathering, saying that when he was  first elected he was of the right, however when the party turned to Brexit he found himself on the left. He was expelled, but would rejoin if sanity returned.

Listening to the hard-right rhetoric at this conference, that day will be a very long way off. The great barrier is Brexit: without an honest reckoning at some point, the party will stay Ukip at heart.

The real story at Manchester this week was that the party is broken; just as I predicted in “Brexit; the never ending story”.

MP’s and members embraced the failed economic madness of neo-liberalism glorified by the failed  Truss, and revelled in the performative nastiness of Suella Braverman’s speech on Tuesday. Yes, this conference was about an election, not the general election, but the one to replace Sunak.

The party is now a maverick, ungovernable as was by their reckless embrace of Nigel Farage. It is the final throw of desperate people, a combination of electoral fatalism and dogmatic hysteria. But it marks a further collapse of the party into a disintegration that will not be easily retrievable.

Labour may revel in its enemy’s slide towards oblivion. The further right the Tories go, the more beatable they look in the short term. But it should be careful what it wishes for, as the silence of the vanishing one-nation moderates is ominous. When the Tory civil war begins in earnest post-election, the moderates look increasingly invisible. The Tories will be back, and we should all hope it will not be in an even darker incarnation.

Lyrically, we start with the title track from Bowie’s seminal 1972 album “Aladdin Sane”. We finish with “It’s my party (and I’ll cry  if I want to)”, of which there are numerous covers to pick from. Enjoy; if you can!

 

@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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