Heroes: I See No Ships 

 

‘I see a ship in the harbour 

I can and shall obey’ 

 
As the country goes to ruin Rishi is still obsessed with ships; small ships landing here are his biggest worry. Hell, even Suella Braverman, his former Home Secretary, who dreamed of sending them all to Rwanda doesn’t believe in the policy anymore. Of course, her reason is somewhat  different, she thinks it doesn’t go far enough. 

In fact, I am of the opinion that we should offshore the racists to Rwanda and let those on the small boats stay here! As Rwanda is such a nice, safe place, I am sure they will love it! 

It was most amusing watching him have a hissy fit yesterday when the Lord’s weren’t playing ball. Unfortunately, that’s the downside when you perceive yourself as the Chosen One. He has it all, and it came so easily, wealth, status, everything but the things he most craves. Respect and trust. 

In the end he got his way, but is there a point? The civil service are fearful that disobeying courts might be outwith their code of conduct, and lawyers will challenge ‘deportations’ in court. Then, there is the election which he will lose, and Labour will, at the very least, amend, if not cancel the plan. 
 

‘it came so easily, wealth, status, everything but the things he most craves. Respect and trust’

 
Another area the party keeps plugging away at is Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, and her tax affairs surrounding the sale proceeds of her council house. The Daily Mail seems to be unable to talk about anything else. It’s as if this could be key that sees them rebound in the polls, when, in truth, few outside of the Daily Mail actually care! 

Labour have rallied behind Rayner; in PMQs  Sunak had a go at the subject and came a cropper when the Labour leader jabbed back about ‘a billionaire prime minister‘ whose family ‘used schemes to avoid millions of pounds of tax, smearing a working-class woman‘. 

The whole saga came about as a result of a book published under the name of Michael Ashcroft, big past donor to the Conservative party and a man extremely fond of Belize, the Caribbean coastal state that promoters laud as ‘the last great tax haven on Earth‘. He’s been a non-dom.  

Then there is Nadhim Zahawi, the former Tory chancellor and ex-party chair who was fired for serious breaches of the ministerial code by repeatedly failing to declare an HMRC investigation into his tax affairs. That concluded with a £5m settlement, including a penalty. 

As this column has continued to predict, Sunak, is his desperation to steady the ship (boats, again!) is steering a course further, and further rightwards. 

After immigration, the latest old Tory standby to see the light of day is ‘sicknotes’. The PM, in a recent speech, attempted to turn mental ill health into ‘another front in the culture wars‘, as he plans to explore withdrawing a major cash benefit claimed by people living with mental health problems and replacing it with treatment. 
 

‘After immigration, the latest old Tory standby to see the light of day is ‘sicknotes”

 
However, charities said treatment was not available now for many, with 1.9 million on the NHS waiting list for mental health services and some experiencing worsening conditions while they remain without help. 

Scope, the disability equality charity, said the proposals were ‘dangerous and risk leaving disabled people destitute’, as well as making people’s ill – health worse by increasing their anxiety. James Taylor, the charity’s director of strategy, said the speech ‘feels like a full-on assault on disabled people‘. 

Launching a review of the personal independence payment (Pip), a non-means-tested benefit helping disabled people with the extra costs of their health problems, Sunak said the government would seek to be ‘more precise about the type and severity of mental health conditions that should be eligible for Pip’, and that it was ‘not clear they have the same degree of increased living costs as those with physical conditions. 
 

‘the speech ‘feels like a full-on assault on disabled people”

 
‘When you look at the numbers, half of people becoming inactive over the last year citing depression and anxiety, tripling in the number of people that have been signed off as sick in the last decade, that doesn’t quite strike us as right.’ 

Even by the low standards of his government, Sunak’s speech was disappointing. Worsening public health across the UK is clearly a serious challenge, and having 2.8m working-age people ‘economically inactive’,  is neither a good or sustainable situation.  

Sunak’s use of the term ‘sicknote culture‘ was nothing more than more fuel of the culture war pyre. Statutory sick pay in the UK is low by international standards, and UK workers take fewer sick days than those in France, Germany or the US. 

Britain does not have a ‘sicknote culture‘. It has a record-high NHS waiting list, widespread food poverty, stagnant wages, low benefit rates, crippling housing costs, a broken social-care system, poor long Covid support and inadequate mental-health services. These are structural issues, that have evolved over time as an  all too predictable consequence of public services slashed by years of austerity, Brexit and a negligently handled pandemic. 
 

‘record-high NHS waiting list, widespread food poverty, stagnant wages, low benefit rates, crippling housing costs, a broken social-care system, poor long Covid support and inadequate mental-health services’

 
Post-Covid, the number of disability claimants has increased by 850,000, half of whom are suffering either from anxiety or depression. Rising poverty, much of which is caused by government policy, and waiting lists for healthcare are two reasons for this decline in the population’s wellbeing. But changes to the benefits system have also contributed. Specifically, the removal in 2017 of a top-up payment that used to be offered to claimants with a limited capability for work, took away an incentive for people who were partly incapacitated to work towards getting a job. 

The electorates attitudes to benefit claimants have changed during his party’s 14 years in power. Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation last year showed that voters think politicians are out of touch with the degree of hardship that people are facing. Whilst Sunak professes his support for the principle of a social safety net, his priority is reducing the £69bn disability benefits bill. 

As with the ‘boats’ this is Sunak trying to appear tough on measures that appeal to his electorate, or what is left of it. This is simply desperation with a capital ‘D’, grasping for votes by scapegoating marginalised people, and leaving division and misery in his wake.  
 

‘grasping for votes by scapegoating marginalised people, and leaving division and misery in his wake’

 
Are either of these nasty proposals vote winners? Yes. But only with those who would vote Tory anyway. At best, it might stop a number defecting to Reform, which might lessen the size of his defeat. 

The big vote winner is 2019 was Brexit, now it is barely mentioned, conspicuous by its absence. 

This might be party explained by the fact that post-Brexit border rules, due to come into force on 30 April, will require many meat, dairy and plant products from the EU to be physically checked at government border control posts (BCPs), and the fact that businesses have described our plans as being in ‘complete disarray’ after it emerged the introduction of some checks on EU imports will be delayed. 

Under the rules, medium- and high-risk products, which include meat and dairy products, as well as most plants, could be subject to checks at the borders as part of a move to enhance the UK’s biosecurity. 

Whist the FT reports that these checks will be delayed because border systems were not fully ready, the government insists the checks would be commencing on 30 April but indicated they would be focusing on higher-risk products and scaling up checks on other products in a ‘sensible and controlled way‘. 

There have already been five previous delays to the implementation of the checks, which were initially set to come in in July 2021. 

Martin McTague, the chair of the Federation of Small Businesses, said the system was in ‘complete disarray‘ and businesses were having to ‘decode messy and unclear messages’ from Whitehall over whether they would face checks. 

In January, the first phase of the border target operating model was introduced, with medium- and high-risk goods having to secure plant health and vet sign-offs before they could be exported to the UK. 

Despite being just 11 days away from implementation, businesses have said there are gaping holes in the government’s regime, which are affecting their planning. 

Delays to the government publishing its charges for goods coming through Dover has meant a number of private BCPs at ports across the country have yet to publish their rates for importers. 

It has also emerged that the government’s Sevington BCP in Kent, which will process all Dover and Folkestone goods, has yet to receive formal designation that will allow it to carry out the checks. 

Keeping up the theme of boats and the sea, we turn to water, which, along with just about everything else, goes from bad to worse. 
 

‘we turn to water, which, along with just about everything else, goes from bad to worse’

 
It is well known that water companies are dumping large volumes of raw sewage into rivers and seas from storm overflows but recent investigations reveal that the industry’s ‘dirty secret’ is bigger, broader and deeply systemic. 

By law, every wastewater treatment works must treat a minimum amount of sewage as stipulated in their environmental permits. Four whistleblowers have told Watershed that a large proportion regularly fail to do so and are not reporting it to the environmental regulator. 

The insiders say the amount of sewage reaching a works is being ‘manipulated at the front end‘ by ‘flow trimming‘, which can be done a number of ways including by ‘manually setting penstocks to limit the flow‘, by ‘dropping weir levels‘ and by ‘tuning down pumps at pumping stations‘. The diverted raw sewage makes its way into ditches, rivers and seas. 

One industry insider says they ‘have personally surveyed works and found valves operated and diversion pipes installed so that part of the flow arriving is deliberately diverted to an environmentally sensitive stream, rather than into the works, so that the works passes compliance of sanitary parameters. 

Whilst none of the water companies could be said to cover themselves in glory, Thames Water continue to plumb the depths. Due to almost constant financial mismanagement the network they operate has more leeks than the government. Undeterred, Thames proposes to fix this by increasing bills by up to £627 a year to pay, as part of its promise to invest up to £3bn more over the next five years. 
 

‘Whilst none of the water companies could be said to cover themselves in glory, Thames Water continue to plumb the depths’

 
This proposal was part of the suppliers new spending plans, following the proposals it made to Ofwat last October, when the business, pledging to spend £18.7bn over the period, and raise bills by 40% to £610 excluding inflation which would see bills increase by 56%. 

The company has now said it will spend a further £1.1bn – totalling £19.8bn – to address environmental concerns over sewage dumping in the sector. 

Thames said it could spend £1.9bn on top of this, taking the total to £21.7bn over the period. In this case, of  bills for Thames’s 16 million customers would reach £627 by 2030, a 44% increase, excluding inflation. 

This might all sound well and good, increased spending, fixing the system, but its all being funded by customers. The business is still nothing more than a failed basket case which should be nationalised. 

Mike Keil, the chief executive of the Consumer Council for Water, said: ‘On the surface the proposal for more investment from Thames Water is a positive step for its customers that have endured some of the worst customer service in the sector. 

‘We should not lose sight of the fact that only 16% of its customers thought the company’s proposed bill rises in its five-year plan were affordable. This announcement appears to offer nothing to ease the fears of those already struggling to pay.’ 

It is clear, the country is all at sea! 
 

‘Burning my bridges and smashing my mirrors 

Turning to see if you’re cowardly’ 

 
‘I see no ships’
 

The last 10-days have seen the Tories plumb new depths of desperation. Immigration, sicknotes, Angela Rayner’s tax. They are the equivalent of the party’s in-case-of-emergency button: if in trouble, ministers can sound the alarm and the right-wing press will churn out headlines about getting the “jobless” off the “dole”.

The sicknote proposal is their latest incoherent plan. Sunak appears to be bouncing between criticising those on fit notes (people who are employed but are off work temporarily and receiving statutory sick pay) and those who are said to be milking the benefits system (people who are unemployed due to long-term health problems and require out-of-work sickness benefits).

I guess the nuances are irrelevant so long as it stirs up voters and the media. The time was also bizarre, coming barely 48 hours after Sunak announced his urge to get people off disability benefits, the government axed the £100m Work and Health Programme, operating in England and Wales, that helps disabled people get into work.

As with the policies on asylum seekers, this isn’t about tackling the problem but targeted to make voters confused and angry.

The Tories clearly need all the help they can get, as the latest Opinium poll shows that the over-65s is the only group in which the Tories lead Labour, but by a narrow six points. However, the 35% support the Conservatives now enjoy among that group is lower than the 39% it recorded in the last Opinium poll published before Truss’s resignation.

There is also evidence that pensioners are now heading to Reform, who’s support among the over-65s stands at 18% in the latest poll, up from 13% just a fortnight ago.

Much of this disquiet is based around the chancellor’s plan to abolish employees NIC, with pensioners fearing what that means for the state pension, the NHS and for their children and grandchildren. It also raises the unfortunate comparison with Truss’s doomed mini-budget.

Key government figures are clearly worried, one senior minister despaired of the “utter madness” on display. “Do we really reflect society as a whole? I hope not for the sake of humanity.”

The local elections on May 2^nd will reveal much of what we can expect to be repeated in a general election. One MP warned that there was a danger that angry colleagues could inadvertently trigger a no confidence vote in Sunak after the local elections. A vote is held once 53 Tory MPs submit a letter calling for one.

“There’s a version where, a little bit as happened with Theresa May, you accidentally trickle over the line of a confidence vote,” said a former minister.

All in all, chaos abounds.

Lyrically this week we have a real treat, with two of my favourites. In keeping with the nautical theme, we start with New Order’s “Blue Monday”, and exit with Echo and the Bunnymen’s “Seven Seas”. 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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