Heroes: What Can we Expect From 2024 

 

“Stranger things will come before you 

Always out of the way” 

 

Happy new year to all. 

 
We start this year with the scandal that is our privatised water industry. In December the column commented on the potential of Thames water defaulting on a loan as it struggles to upgrade neglected, outdated infrastructure and servicing its debt pile. 

Analysis by the Guardian of financial data for all 14 English water companies found the industry has used close to 20% of its revenues servicing debt on average over the past 5-years.  

In contrast, Scottish Water, which is publicly owned, spent just 10% of its revenues on financing debt in 2023. As of March, English water companies have run up combined debts of £60.3bn. 
 

‘English water companies have run up combined debts of £60.3bn’

 
My provider is Affinity Water; 25% of my payments go towards servicing their financial mismanagement (debts). They have amassed debts of £1.3bn, or £809 per household, and paid £1bn in dividends since 1990, £666 per property. In short, they continue paying dividends the business hasn’t the wherewithal to support.  

You can check yours at: 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/18/how-calculated-revenue-english-water-firms-pay-debt 

Alongside piling-up debt they have also piled on the shit – literally. Anyone wishing to indulge in the long-established Christmas seaside swim runs a serious health risk. 

Rather than ensuring that companies are punished for their abhorrent behaviour, Tory MPs earlier this month blocked a Lib Dem amendment that would have allowed anyone who got sick as a result of illegal sewage dumping to claim from water companies. 

Statistics analysed by the Lib Dems have found that this year, festive swimmers will be using beachfronts where 4,574 hours of sewage has been spilled. Between the 32 event locations analysed by the party, almost 1,000 sewage spills were found to have occurred this year. 

Sticking with the subject of shit, I turn to the economy. This is straightforward; austerity, inflation, rising interest rates and a cost-of-living crisis equals recession. 

A breakdown of GDP for Q3 2023 shows consumer spending down by 0.5%, while the savings ratio rose from 9.5% to 10.1%. 

Business investment, which had been showing signs of recovery, also fell, by 3.2%, although this be explained by spending on new plant and machinery being brought forward to beat the April 2023 deadline for the end of the government’s superdeduction tax break. 
 

‘Sticking with the subject of shit, I turn to the economy’

 
As a result, the ONS now estimates that the economy contracted by 0.1% in the 3-months to September rather than showing no growth. It also revised down growth in the second quarter from 0.2% to zero. 

Given that Q4 started with a 0.3% decline in October, recession looks imminent. A technical recession is where GDP falls for 2-consecutive quarters. 

Since growing by 0.5% in the first quarter of 2022 the economy has gone nowhere. In Q2 and Q4 of 2022 it grew by 0.1%; in the third quarter it fell by 0.1%. Growth of 0.3% in the first three months of 2023 has been followed by the weakness in the second and third quarters. 

Of course, the season of goodwill to all wouldn’t be complete without some Tory bile  

James Daly, the MP for Bury North, was outlining what the New Conservatives group of MPs stood for when he presented his perspective on how important a family unit is in giving children “stability”. 

“When you think about the family, it’s about stability. Most of the kids who struggle in Bury are the products of crap parents and so what do we do to try to address that issue? On the left it would just be: we’ll throw money at this and hope something sticks. Somebody like me thinks about this more fundamentally.”  

Daly seems to have a thing about bad parents. At the Conservative party conference this year, he told an event, “we have appalling parents bringing children up in appalling ways”, adding “there are no excuses … I blame parents”. 
 

‘Most of the kids who struggle in Bury are the products of crap parents’

 
Daly is a member of the  most vocal of the right-wing caucus, predominantly made up of “red wall” 2019 and 2017 intake Tory MPs, who have intervened repeatedly on immigration issues. 

Ahhh, I couldn’t move-on without the mention of the “I” word (immigration)! 

Just over 2-weeks ago the government announced a series of measures to limit legal migration which it estimates will reduce numbers by 300,000. It was a robust package that would have significant economy impact. It was broadly welcomed by Conservative MPs, particularly right-wingers who are the most vocal over the issue. 

One of the most controversial measures was the proposal to raise the minimum income for family visas from £18,600 to £38,700. This plan was only expected to reduce migration numbers by a figure in the tens of thousands (out of 300,000), but it was the proposal with the biggest direct impact on the Telegraph-reading classes (or, to be more accurate, their children), and Rishi Sunak soon came under pressure to change his mind. 

As a result Home Office has decided to increase the family visa threshold to £29,000 in the spring, with the full measure coming into force “at some point”.  

This change of heart has been received predictably by the New Conservatives, yes, them again!  Jonathan Gullis, a prominent member of the  faction, posted a message on X saying this was “deeply disappointing”. 

Immigration is becoming a global issue.  

In France, President Macron, has been accused by the French left of accepting an immigration law so repressive that it has been applauded by Marine Le Pen. The left-wing politician Manon Aubry called it “the most racist law we have seen” in France; errr, what about the Vichy regime? The health minister, Aurélien Rousseau, has resigned over it. 
 

‘proof that desperate moderate right leaders are turning to the policies of the hard-right’

 
The far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, originally condemned the legislation as too feeble. Then, in an opportunistic U-turn she announced it was an “ideological victory” for her party, claiming that her longstanding demands for “national preference” and putting “the French first” had been enshrined in law. In truth, the legislation falls far short of the discriminatory measures demanded by Le Pen, such as jobs reserved for French citizens and fees for foreign children attending state schools. 

What we are seeing however, is proof that desperate moderate right leaders are turning to the policies of the hard-right and, as a result giving them the credibility of normality. 

In recent weeks we have seen Rishi Sunak in Rome attending a far-right rally with Giorgia Meloni, the Italian PM. Now, France’s “radical centrist” Emmanuel Macron is being lauded by the far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen.  

Both are marriages of convenience. They are seeking to restore their popularity by turning to the anti-immigrant politics of the far-right. The one-time arch-globalist Mr Macron now stands behind a bill that will allocate housing and benefits not on the grounds of need, but on degree of “Frenchness.” 

Sunak’s anti-immigrant posturing is a bewildering humiliation. When the son of east African migrants became PM, it was hailed as a triumph of multicultural values. Now he warns  that new arrivals to Europe threatened to “overwhelm” the continent. Language of this nature shows how the Tories have lost their moral compass; in 1968, when Enoch Powell made his “rivers of blood” speech, he was promptly sacked as a shadow minister and never again held a senior political post. Nowadays, worse is said by leading Tories who hope it might help them become party leader. 

What we are seeing is a reconfiguration of European politics, where the centre-right are posing as radicals and the nativist right are donning the garb of centrists. The latter are the only winners in this race to the bottom. 

And, right at the bottom is where we find presidential hopeful, Donald Trump. 

The supreme courts of Colorado and Maine have already declared Donald Trump ineligible to hold office again under the US constitution’s insurrection clause, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. 

Both states are largely Democrat. 

Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, said; “I do not reach this conclusion lightly. I am mindful that no secretary of state has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on section 3 of the 14th amendment. I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.”   
 

‘I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection’

 
These judgements sets up a likely showdown in the nation’s highest court to settle whether the January 6 attack on the Capitol amounted to an insurrection, and whether Trump’s involvement disqualifies him from running for office. 

Given the conservative super-majority of the US’s highest court, we have to assume that both decisions will be overturned. 

However, despite this and also the other 91 felony counts he is facing, Trump’s popularity is undimmed. A survey commissioned by the New York Times shows that US voters are largely unhappy with President Biden’s handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; he had a 57% disapproval rating.  More remarkably, in the same poll, 46% of voters expressed the opinion that Trump would be making a better job of it than Biden, with only 38% more inclined to trust the president. Overall, Trump leads Biden by two points in the election race.  

Trump doesn’t need Colorado to win. In the 2020 election, he lost the state by 13 percentage points. It is possible with Trump’s anti-establishment following that the rulings might actually help him. The narrative Trump has crafted for himself of the patriotic outsider pursued by deep state special interests might be absurd, but large numbers of his supporters buy into it.  

In effect, he has created the perfect catch-22; each time the state tries to censure his transgressions his popularity with Republican voters increases.  

As a result, Trump dominates the Republican race for the presidential candidacy, and recent polls showed him beating Joe Biden in five of the six key battleground states, and besting the president on issues including the economy and national security, in spite of the Biden administration overseeing economic recovery in tough global conditions; but voters aren’t feeling the improvement.  

Trump’s return to the White House would be bad for both America and the world. His first-term was a disaster that ended with the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him. His recent statements go further than anything previously, overtly racist echoing the invective of Nazi Germany: immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”, while “communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs” are “vermin”. 
 

‘Trump’s return to the White House would be bad for both America and the world’

 
This time he is declaring his intentions loud and clear, and his supporters have drawn up action plans to implement them. As a result he faces fewer political, institutional or legal constraints. 

As former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney said, “you cannot count on those institutions to restrain him”. Cheney fears that her country is “sleepwalking into dictatorship”. Unfortunately, amongst republican she is somewhat of a lone voice. If re-elected President Trump would benefit from a more compliant Congress (though there’s speculation that Democrats might win back the House while the GOP takes the Senate).  

His appointees will all be sycophants; Trump boasts that he will “dismantle the deep state”, clearing out career employees. He has suggested that Gen Mark Milley, the outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, deserved to be put to death. 

Legal challenges to his policies would be difficult – the supreme court and lower levels of the judiciary now has a conservative supermajority. He is preparing plans to turn the power of the state against opponents and critics, warning that he would urge his attorney general to indict any political rival even without known grounds, saying: “I don’t know. Indict him on income tax evasion.” His associates have reportedly begun drafting plans to deploy the military against civil demonstrations – as he wanted to do against Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.  

Globally, a second Trump presidency would be disastrous for climate change, Ukraine and Nato, but would benefit Putin. China will be interesting, on the one hand he will seek to hammer them on trade again, but his admiration for autocrats might allow him to come to terms with Xi Jinping on some issues – notably, Taiwan’s future.  

His return to power would embolden all his far-right contemporaries. He is symptomatic of the times, as was the case in the 1930s he preaches the politics of hate. 

America is the world’s leader, where it goes others follow. The world simply cannot afford another Trump presidency. 
 

“All the way from Washington 

Her bread-winner begs off the bathroom floor” 

 
Happy New Year to all, although if Philip’s predictions come even half-way true, there won’t be a whole lot to be happy about; one thing’s for sure, it won’t be boring, and it will be fascinating to see him being ‘even more right’ in 2024.

‘Everyone it seems is still on holiday, or at least in holiday mode.

As such there is little new to talk about, therefore I thought it was opportune to look forward to 2024. Only, I am not sure there is much to look forward to.

The water companies go from bad to worse. They are a typical example of why capitalism in its current post-Thatcherism state no longer serves the people. They are symbols of greed, and mis-management, there to serve only their investors. In this they are aided by a supine regulator, and a government who believes any sort of state intervention is communism.

Economically, we are in the doldrums. We didn’t need Brexit, many foreigners who have gone back under their own steam as they are better off at home. Neither Tory or Labour have the first clue how to change our moribund economy, years of mediocrity and austerity lite beckons.

Liz Truss’s new years honours list was an insult to us all. In power for 45-days during which she caused carnage and now she struts around like a winner. That she still has supporters within the Tory’s beggars belief, but then many of them are totally deranged too, especially the red wall lot.

Immigration is now a global issue and will continue to dominate the headlines home and abroad. There is a new generation of racists, nativist politicians chomping at the bite to make it the key issue. Desperate moderate parties are now jumping onto their bandwagon, legitimising their racism, and making it a race to the bottom.

This is all the things this column has constantly railed against. It gives me little pleasure to say I was right, but I was. We have returned to the 1930’s; moribund economies, out-of-date capitalist methodology, austerity, and the politics of hate. Supported by an underclass that yearns for an illusory past.

Donald Trump embodies this. If anyone can do what Hitler did, I.E., take control of the state using democratic and legal means, he can.

It’s a truly terrifying prospect.

Lyrically we start with the much underrated Beach House and “New Year”. We end with Bowie’s wonderful “Young Americans”.

I usually sign-off by saying “enjoy”, don’t enjoy this, read it, then get off your arses and stop it happening.’

 
@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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