Heroes: Much Ado About Nothing 

 

‘Foolish pride 

That’s all that I have left’ 

 

Last week’s cabinet reshuffle was just foolish pride, moving people around to create the illusion of action. New portfolios have been created by mashing up and re-slicing the old departments for business, international trade, digital, culture, media and sport.  

The appointment of Greg Hands as party chair appears sensible, but then there is Hands deputy, Lee Anderson, an aggressive culture warrior, best suited to  qualified crass provocation. Sunak clearly isn’t a serious leader, simply one trying to knit together the diverse stands of a party in chaos with itself. 

Anderson is the quintessential pub politician, the one who shouts down everyone else. His beliefs are pre-historic; food bank users waste money on fags, booze and Sky TV, and the real problem is people not knowing how to cook.  

There’s no doubt that some voters share his views, my mother is one. Maybe it’s useful for a government overseeing so many people plunging into poverty to have as its human smokescreen a man who was once hard-up himself, but still seems to think poor people have it too easy. 

There’s little doubt that the government will now have to disown some of his views, when as a backbencher they could have just ignored him. I suspect his appointment is deliberate, to woo voters who might defect to ReformUK. 
 

‘Anderson is the quintessential pub politician, the one who shouts down everyone else’

 
Perhaps they are a cunning double act; Hands reassuring the soft, remain-voting southern Tories currently fleeing to the LibDems, while Anderson talks to northern leavers. 

The question is, are redwallers more concerned with bringing back hanging, than raising their towns from the doldrums? 

Whist they might be frustrated with the petty violence, vandalism and antisocial behaviour that makes older people scared to go out, and leaves town centres or parks looking depressingly rundown. Focus groups show that whilst they wanted more police, they also wanted more youth clubs and things for teenagers to do. 

Similarly, while some Tory voters do share Anderson’s views on supposed welfare ‘scroungers’, soaring energy and food bills seem to changing people’s perception; 60% of Britons now want targeted support for people struggling with these basics. 

Anderson showed his true colours within 48-hours of being appointed, lauding capital punishment as ‘100% effective‘ and urged Royal Navy frigates to ferry asylum seekers ‘straight back‘ to France 

He then clashed on air with a BBC journalist who raised previous accusations of dishonesty by the MP: ‘If I say something that is supposedly outrageous in that place [the Commons], I get back to Ashfield on a Thursday, people will come out the shops and say, ‘You say what I’m thinking.’  

Really? Constituent Karl Woods of Kirkby Sales and Exchange, said. ‘He’s not a nice person at all. Those death penalty views are just so archaic. He even turned down one of our Christmas giveaway prizes, because it’s pre-owned; he probably thought he was a bit above it.’ 

Another said; ‘We should be helping people who are fleeing to the UK, not turning them away.’  

Many voters know Anderson for his suggestions that families using food banks were victims of poor budgeting and could live on meals cooked for mere pennies, hence the nickname ’30p Lee’. 

On this subject, one said ; ‘he’s from a working-class community, he’s meant to be the person who backs you. He’s on such a huge amount of money and yet he’s decided to show no sympathy. As for the 30p meal, what about the nutrition? What’s he expecting us to live on? Gruel?’ 
 

‘Dont’ tell me what’s it all about 

‘Cause I’ve been there and I’m glad I’m out 

Out of those chains, those chains that bind you 

That is why I’m here to remind you’ 

 

Which brings me neatly onto ‘levelling-up’. In case any readers have forgotten this was the electoral pledge to level the north up to standards in the south, a pledge that won the Tory’s the 2019 election. 

Michael Gove’s, the minister for levelling-up, department has been banned from spending money on new capital projects without Treasury approval amid concerns about how well public money is being managed. 

Insiders suggest that Gove’s speech in Manchester on 25 January had prompted fears of rogue spending as he announced plans to fund a new round of local grants in northern counties. In that speech Gove pledged to provide £30m to fund improvements to substandard housing, after a 2-year-old boy in Rochdale died after being exposed to mould in his family’s flat, had prompted fury among Treasury officials. The Treasury denied this. 
 

‘The government’s strategy isn’t to reach a settlement, but to starve them into submission’

 
Of course, all of this is due to a lack of funds bought about by the Chancellor’s political decision to restrict government borrowing. Effectively, a return to austerity as any public worker can tell you. Whilst most of the public sector strikes grind inexorably on, one, by the firefighters looks like it is being resolved. The reason is simple; the government aren’t involved and negotiations were with the National Joint Council that represents local authorities. 

In response, the GMB’s public services national secretary, Rachel Harrison, has said that the offer to the fire brigades was ‘massive‘ and said that if her ambulance workers and other strikers were offered that, ‘we’d definitely suspend action and call it off immediately‘. The views of others unions were similar. 

The government’s strategy isn’t to reach a settlement, but to starve them into submission, assuming   that low-paid public workers, some already using food banks, would surely be hurting from the lost pay. A sign of their callousness is the new NHS payslip system, which deliberately highlights their strike day deductions. 

The government has consistently claimed that their ‘doors are open‘ to enter into negotiations, but nothing could be further from the truth. As Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary said, ‘They misjudged the public mood.’  

The government’s claim that the pay rises would be inflationary influences only a third of voters, according to TUC focus groups.  

Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies said: ‘A public sector pay rise is not in itself inflationary‘ as, unlike in the private sector, there are no prices to rise. And the private sector has seen wages rise far faster than the public sector. He regards the sums required to settle as relatively modest: ‘Each 1% on the public pay bill costs £2.5bn.’  

The government’s hope that by prolonging the strikes public opinion would turn against strikers has misfired. Sunak and Hunt won’t be basking in Thatcher glory for their firm stance against ‘militants’? This is a government with no plan other than hope. 

Question, when in a hole what do you do? Answer, cut taxes. 

Ahead of next month’s budget, allies of Liz Truss repeated their calls for tax cuts, whilst other MPs accused the former PM of damaging the party with her comeback. 

Her allies, known as the Conservative Growth Group, a faction designed to galvanise the economic right-wing of the party before the election. 

David Jones, one of the members of that group said: ‘A lot of people, myself included, were concerned that [chancellor] Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement was not sufficiently encouraging of growth. We want the tax burden to come down, and especially the corporation tax burden.’ 

Others have been incensed by Truss’s return 3-months after leaving office, via a 4,000-word article in the Telegraph and an interview with the Spectator, in which she argued that her policies were not to blame for Britain’s economic problems, and that they remained the best way to stimulate growth. 

The Conservative backbencher Simon Hoare said: ‘Truss’s intervention has achieved absolutely nothing. This is somebody trying to be remembered whom the country is trying to forget.’ 
 

‘This is somebody trying to be remembered whom the country is trying to forget’

 
Rather than lauding the dangerous and deranged Truss, they would be better served looking across the Atlantic, to President Biden’s State of the Union speech. 

Biden’s speech centred on a profound issue that also faces Britain, the fundamental question that confronts all modern political economies today. How, in the wake of Covid and at a time of European war, can a government in an advanced capitalist society make the economy generate growth, greater security, greater fairness and environmental sustainability? 

Biden’s answers were a world away from what we are trying. The issues look different in the UK; an economy on the edge of recession, suffering high inflation and rising interest rates, whereas in the US, inflation is falling, employment expanding, and consumer confidence is improving. 

Our recent histories are similar; Covid and high energy prices. Prior to that, both faced a post-industrial working-class electorate that felt abandoned by government and the financier class, voting for Brexit and Trump. 
 

‘All the time this ‘them’ and ‘us’ proliferates we will remain a broken, second-rate country’

 
Whereas both countries responded to Covid and the energy price spike with measures to protect families, Biden has gone further, bringing the full power of government to bear on the wider economic decline and to reverse it with a strategy of investment-led growth. 

Yes, he has had his political battles along the way, but in his speech he was able to celebrate the impact of measures such as his Infrastructure Act, with its 20,000 job-creating projects in transport, utilities and cabling, and the Inflation Reduction Act, which bears down on health and energy costs and marks a major strategic response to the climate crisis. 

The following summed up Biden’s intentions: ‘I ran for president to fundamentally change things, to make sure the economy works for everyone so we can all feel pride in what we do. To build an economy from the bottom up and the middle out, not from the top down. Because when the middle class does well, the poor have a ladder up and the wealthy still do very well. We all do well.’ 

On taxation to fund his programmes, Biden was a breath of fresh air; no one earning less than $400,000 a year should pay more; no billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a school teacher or a firefighter; oil companies should not be able to make billions of dollars out of an energy crisis. ‘We pay for these investments in our future by finally making the wealthiest and the biggest corporations begin to pay their fair share. I’m a capitalist. But just pay your fair share.’ 

Whilst Biden might be frustrated by Republicans using Congress to stop his policies, he has a strategy and a vision, he’s a world away from anything that Britain’s leaders have attempted or embraced. 

Liz Truss, of course, would oppose everything that Biden stands for. She stands for a top-down not a bottom-up or middle-out economic approach, and for tax cuts for the wealthiest people and the richest corporations. 

The contrast helps explain why Britain is still in economic distress and the US is starting to recover. But it isn’t just Truss. No British Conservative leader of the past decade and a half would have said the things Biden said this week. 

In conclusion all the Tory’s can think about is staying in government, anything else, the electorate included, comes a poor second. All the time this ‘them’ and ‘us’ proliferates we will remain a broken, second-rate country. 
 

‘Movies only make me sad 

Parties make me feel as bad 

Cause I’m not with you 

I just don’t know what to do’ 

 
 

Sometimes Philip’s column can be tough reading, because even though things do feel pretty downbeat in ‘broken’ Britain, there remains a temptation to try to believe that it will turn out OK; jutting chin, bulldog spirit and all that.

However, that’s not what you’d surmise after having read this week’s offering; nor to be honest, if you are hoping to catch a train, be seen at a hospital appointment, or expect your children to catch up on the chunk of education they lost to Covid.

Even those ‘sub-optimal’ situations might feel manageable, if it felt as though there was a plan to make things better; there just isn’t.

A long-running theme to Philip’s work has been inequality, and it’s virtually impossible not to conclude that it really isn’t the case that ‘they don’t get it’ – ‘they’ genuinely don’t GAF. 

How much easier is it to pontificate about the need to learn to cook and budget when in 2021/22 you trousered £186,000 in expenses; does anything say ‘f**k you’ better than one of the wealthiest men in the country bunging three-grand through on expenses for ‘fine-art photographs’ whilst holding the nation’s purse strings.

And on and on it grinds with accusations of fraud, sexual impropiety, bullying and domestic abuse; as the fish that is this country rots from the head, is anyone really surprised by serving police officers going on raping sprees, or rioting in the streets?

Philip often draws parallels with the ‘Winter of Discontent’ and I remember Leicester Square being a bit ‘on the nose’ as I used to walk up to the Marquee, but those disputes were in negotiation; there was a resolution, and in many instances quite generous pay settlements, as Fifty Shades of Beige gave way to ‘Loads-a-money’ Big Bang and then Cool Britannia.
Reckon that’s what those that pull the strings of Briefcase W have in mind? Me neither – they have no intention of engaging; and do you ever want to be more embarrassed than watching our illustrious leader toddling round behind a real Action Man with his adult-sized bone dome on? FMOB.

So what was Philip thinking?

This week we have thots on the reshuffle, pointless. Other than the fascist Rottweiler who is deputy party Chair. Obvious move to appease the right of the party and voters like my mother, and to head off ReformUK.

The strikes grind on remorselessly, a somewhat cynical attempt at being tough ends-up just looking pathetic and unnecessarily cruel.

Biden’s State of the Union” speech sums up the difference between the two countries perfectly. One inclusive and progressive, the other exclusive and regressive.

Brexit is killing us. The reaction to this weekend’s meeting sums it up. A group of “Private individuals are able to come in and discuss whatever they wish. From the government’s position, we are focusing on further maximising the benefits from Brexit.”

 David Frost, a former chief Brexit negotiator, criticised the event,  describing it as “a further piece of evidence that many in our political and business establishment want to unravel the deals we did to exit the EU in 2020 and to stay shadowing the EU instead…..I and millions of others want the government to get on with that instead of raising taxes, deterring investment and pushing public spending to its highest level for 70 years.”

I finish this with my ongoing warning about the far-right, fascism, and racism.  

The violent scenes in Merseyside on Friday night, in which a police van was set alight and stones were thrown, were what we can expect.

As we reported some weeks ago, incendiary language from politician’s such as the home secretary, Suella Braverman, only encourages these sorts of actions. Even after the event, her condemnation was qualified and half-hearted; the “alleged behaviour of some asylum seekers is never an excuse for violence and intimidation”.

Her comments were criticised by the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, who said: “The shameful and appalling scenes in Knowsley show how far-right groups are using social media to organise and promote violence. Everyone should support Merseyside police in dealing with extremism and violence. The home secretary is wrong to dismiss far-right threats for political reasons. Instead, she should be championing vigilance against all kinds of extremism.”

As I have warned over the years, with racism it isn’t where you start that is the problem, it’s where you finish.

Lyrically, we celebrate the late, great Burt Bacharach. As Alexis Petridis, wrote in the Guardian: ”The truth was that no obvious label or category could contain what Bacharach did: his style was once memorably summed up by Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen as Ravel-like harmonies wedded to street soul. He could come up with Magic Moments for Perry Como, but he could also write for the Drifters, Gene Vincent, Chuck Jackson and the Shirelles.”

The Jesus and Mary Chain, one of this column’s favourites, said at the height of their early riot-provoking notoriety, that if they ever wrote a song as good as This Guy’s in Love With You, they would immediately split up, perfection having been achieved.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/feb/10/burt-bacharach-10-of-his-greatest-songs

There was an embarrassment of riches to pick from, however, we open this tribute with “Walk on By”, a song made famous by Dionne Warwick, although other luminaries such as Isaac Hayes and Aretha Franklin had their versions. I have gone with the 1978 version by the Stranglers, it shouldn’t work, but somehow it does. I’m loving J-JB’s bass line.

Following that we have the wonderful “I’ll never fall in love again”, which was made famous by Bobby Gentry and Dionne Warwick, however I have chosen the 1989 version by Scots band Deacon Blue.

We play-out with the classic “I just don’t know what to with myself”, which  was made famous by Dusty Springfield, here we have the White Stripes version, replete with Mossy in the video. 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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