Heroes: Zero Tolerance 

 

‘Oh, I can sense your needs 

Like rain onto the seeds 

I can make a rhyme of confusion in your mind’ 

Home Secretary is one of the great institutions of government. To be a member of the cabinet meant you were part of a government that represented one of the worlds ‘great’ democracies. 
 
Recent Tory PM’s such as Truss and Johnson, along with Brexit has undone much of the above, yesterday, in New York, the home secretary, Suella Braverman set about trashing what was left of our reputation.   

‘Uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration and a misguided dogma of multiculturalism have proven a toxic combination for Europe over the last few decades. 

‘Multiculturalism makes no demands of the incomer to integrate. It has failed because it allowed people to come to our society and live parallel lives in it. They could be in the society but not of the society.’ 

Fine words from a multi-cultural person. Her parents, Uma (née Mootien-Pillay) and Christie Fernandes, are both of Indian origin, who immigrated to Britain in the 1960s from Mauritius and Kenya respectively. Her husband is Jewish. In other words, she’s about as multicultural as it gets! 
 

‘Suella Braverman set about trashing what was left of our reputation’

 
Braverman also questioned whether the UN’s 1951 Refugee Convention, which was drawn up after World War Two, was ‘fit for our modern age‘. 

Laws had morphed from helping those fleeing persecution to those fearing bias, she argued 

She said fearing discrimination for being gay or a woman should not be enough to qualify for refugee protection 

Much of what she said was inaccurate. 

Her claim that the UN Refugee Convention conferred refugee rights to 780 million people, was disputed by the UN’s refugee agency, who estimates the world had around 35 million refugees at the end of 2022 

Regarding her comments on gay people seeking refugee status; 1.5% of the 74,751 asylum claims in the UK last year cited sexual orientation as the basis for their claim. 

There has been considerable condemnation of her words: 

The UNHCR issued a statement defending the 1951 refugee convention and highlighting the UK’s record asylum claim backlog. It came after the home secretary refused to rule out leaving the convention and said that the international community had ‘collectively failed‘ to modernise international laws. 

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary writing on X (Twitter); ‘Suella Braverman has so lost grip of Tory asylum chaos, she is targeting & scapegoating LGBT people. Deeply divisive, damaging political game playing – unworthy of her office. Instead of blaming people persecuted in places like Uganda for who they love, she should sort chaos at home‘. 

The Green party co-leader, Adrian Ramsay, said Suella Braverman’s speech would not be ‘out of place on a far-right conspiracy website. This is a horrifying speech from a British home secretary that would not be out of place on a far-right conspiracy website. It is language straight out of the gutter that should have no place in a fair and compassionate society.’ 

The Labour MP, Ben Bradshaw, said on Twitter: ‘Any LGBT or other Tories prepared to condemn Braverman for this? She doesn’t seem to grasp that simply being gay is enough to result in persecution or death in many countries.’ 

Interestingly, only days before Braverman’s speech, Maria Grazia Chiuri, the Creative Director of Christian Dior opened Paris fashion week with a diatribe against sexism with a collection the designer said was ‘a rejection of the fashion industrial system which dictates women must conform to an hourglass idea of perfection‘.  

Giant video screens splashed images of housewives in makeup and Marigold gloves, and of curvy models bending obligingly over cars, while feminist placard slogans flashed with neon urgency behind the catwalk. The words: ‘Take your hands off when I say no, take your eyes off when I say no’ were spelled out on video screens as the first model marched past.  

The language used against woman enables creeps like Russell Brand to hide in the shadows, treating woman as objects. 

This week on Dan Wootton’s GB News program, Laurence Fox went on a misogynistic on-air rant about the political journalist Ava Evans as they discussed comments made by her about men’s mental health. 

Fox called Evans a ‘little woman‘ and went on to say: ‘Show me a single self-respecting man that would like to climb into bed with that woman ever, ever, who wasn’t an incel. 

‘We need powerful, strong amazing women who make great points for themselves. We don’t need these sort of feminist 4.0. They’re pathetic and embarrassing. Who’d want to shag that? 

Laurence, aside from being a total twat, who do you think is going to shag you now? I doubt you could buy one! 
 

‘Laurence, aside from being a total twat, who do you think is going to shag you now? I doubt you could buy one!’

 
Unfortunately, politics of the gutter and from the gutter are the lifeblood of the hard-right, where populism meets fascism. Their brand of politics is the solution to nothing, and serves only to provide a platform for little people that like to strut around shouting their bigotry. 

Their supporters are equally little people, with sad lives, seeking to find something and someone to blame for their own shortcomings. 

This column has long warned of the resurgence of fascism and Braverman’s speech is just the latest in a long-line of such prejudice. 

New PopuList research by 100 political scientists in 31 countries, found that almost one-third of Europeans voted for anti-establishment parties in national elections held last year.  
 

• Half of that number voted for the far right, which is increasing its vote share among these disaffected voters most rapidly.  
• In 15 of the 27 EU states, support for the hard right is currently above 20%. 
• Illiberal, nationalist parties hold power in Italy, Hungary and Poland.  
• They have a share of it in Finland and Sweden and anti-establishment forces are likely to achieve similar in forthcoming elections in the Netherlands and Slovakia.  

• Austria’s Freedom party, ostracised at the time of its emergence in the 1990s, is well ahead in the polls, with elections due next year.     

 
Aside from their expected anti-immigration stance, research has shown that the climate emergency, the cost of living crisis, various culture wars and post-lockdown conspiracy theories have allowed the  parties to diversify and create new coalitions of voters. 

They are succeeding in normalising agendas that until recently would have not been considered. In Germany, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (‘AfD’) has successfully mobilised anxieties about net zero measures, orchestrating a backlash which (as in Britain) is creeping into mainstream politics.  
 

‘little people, with sad lives, seeking to find something and someone to blame for their own shortcomings’

 
A fact often overlooked is that as the ‘major’ parties accommodate more and more of the radical right’s agenda, it becomes mainstream policy. For example, in Germany the AfD’ success has led to a hardening attitude inside the establishment parties on immigration, resistance to recent climate laws and undermining support for military aid to Ukraine. 

The AfD is regarded as a hard-right party, but, on issues such as immigration and climate change there is little to choose between them and the Tories. 

As I have written numerous times, austerity, followed by the pandemic and the Ukraine-related cost of living crisis, has led to chronic economic insecurity for less well-off Europeans, providing the ideal conditions to foster fascism. In Poland, the Law and Justice party has demonised minorities and irregular migrants, but also offered generous welfare benefits to struggling families. 

There is little or no difference between now and what we saw in the 1930’s; post the Wall St crash economies slumped and fascists vilified communist and Jews blaming them for everything. 

The gains made by the hard-right have been at the expense of social democratic and left-wing parties who have been slow to realise the significance of events post the GFC. 

In Britain, as Labour contemplated its navel, Nigel Farage realised the opportunities represented by the GFC and the following policy of austerity. The less well-off referred to above became the bedrock that enabled Brexit. 
 

‘There is little or no difference between now and what we saw in the 1930’s’

 
What parties of all colours fail to do is recognise issues and address them.  

For example, the UK housing crisis cannot solely be blamed on a lack of building, another factor is the advent of residential property as an investment class. 

Whilst Airbnb was originally envisaged as a tool for people who wanted to rent a room in their property, it has been hijacked by ‘professionals’ who are letting properties through it. In London, of the 81,000 Airbnb properties available, more than 50,000 are entire properties, meaning at least one in every 74 homes in the UK capital is available for short-term let.  

In the States, New York has recognised this and has put in-place what has been described as a ‘de facto ban’ by the company.  

New York’s law requires hosts to register with the mayor’s office and prove they will live in the home they are renting out for the duration of the stay. More than two guests at a time are not allowed – effectively banning families – hosts violating the legislation can be fined < $5,000. 

Studies show that short-term lets through Airbnb do have a direct impact on rents; a report shows that the introduction and expansion of Airbnb in New York may have raised average rents by nearly $400 annually for city residents. A resident of south London’s new high-end apartment development Elephant Park was quoted saying: ‘There is a lot of Airbnb in our building, it’s hard to say how much but we see a lot of strangers coming in and out, although it’s against the terms of our leases as we’re not allowed to do short-term lets. There are security concerns and they make a lot of noise.’ 

It isn’t only New York that has recognised and is acting on the issue. Other cities now place limits on the number of nights a year that hosts can rent out a property, with a 90-day limit in London and 120 days in Paris, however the rule only works if it is strictly monitored.  

Property management companies such as Houst, which says it finds London’s 90-day limit ‘too restrictive’, list homes on multiple platforms, including Expedia and Booking.com, as well as Airbnb.  
 

‘Airbnb is only a part of much larger problem that is causing rent costs to soar, to unaffordable levels’

 
In England, the affordability crisis in tourist areas caused by second homes, combined with soaring rents in large parts of the country, is likely to lead to some change, with the government consulting on a possible registration scheme for short-term lets. In his response to the consultation, the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, called for the introduction of a licensing system, claiming that many property owners are renting out homes illegally and breaking the rules limiting Airbnb hosts to 90 days. For example, Camden council recorded more than 4,400 short-term lets last year, of which almost a quarter exceeded the 90-day limit. 

Airbnb is only a part of much larger problem that is causing rent costs to soar, to unaffordable levels, and excluding all but those on high incomes from getting on to the housing ladder. Airbnb are just a facilitator for investors who now regard residential property as an investment class rather than a home. The route of the problem is QE and zero-interest rates as a result of the GFC which facilitated a credit boom and hunt for yield. 

The net effect has been two-fold; rentiers have become even wealthier exacerbating income inequality, and, as inflation has led interest  to rising interest rates, rentiers have passed this on to tenants, pushing up rents,  and creating an unsustainable housing market. 

This is what governments should be addressing, not strutting around victimising sections of the population they don’t like, or picking on people trying to find a home from tyranny. 

As I have written numerous times before when you start victimising people for their colour, creed, race, religion, gender, or sexuality it isn’t where you start that’s the problem, its where you finish.  

Don’t believe me? Look at Nazi Germany, it happened there, it can happen here, too  
 

‘Don’t try to kid us that if you’re discreet 

You’re perfectly safe as you walk down the street 

You don’t have to mince or make bitchy remarks 

To get beaten unconscious and left in the dark’ 

 
 
 

Scrapping inheritance tax would cost the government almost £15bn a year in lost revenue by 2032, according to analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies that follows calls from Tory MPs for the main tax on inherited wealth to be abolished. 

The thinktank said the latest figures from HMRC showed fewer than 4% of estates paid inheritance tax (IHT) in 2020–21, but the rapid growth in wealth among older individuals meant this number was set to rise to more than 7% over the next decade. 

While London has the most estates liable to pay the tax, hotspots across Sussex, the Cotswolds and around Birmingham will have the greatest number per 100,000 residences. 

The IFS report, Reforming Inheritance Tax, found that in 2024, the wealthiest fifth of donors will bequeath an average of £380,000 per child, and pay inheritance tax of about 10% of this amount. 

By contrast, the least wealthy fifth of parents will leave less than £2,000 per child. 

The authors estimate that if the amount of money bequeathed through inheritances next year were to be equally shared between all 25-year-olds, each would receive about £120,000. 

Anthony Browne, the Tory MP for South Cambridgeshire, said recently that he was concerned that without reform, many middle-income households would pay large sums while the super wealthy used trusts and other loopholes to avoid paying the tax. 

The IFS said the cost of abolishing IHT would be £7bn if implemented this year with about half (47%) of the benefit going to those with estates of £2.1m or more at death. These 1% of estates would benefit from an average tax cut of an estimated £1.1m in their bill. 

‘The 90% or so of estates not paying inheritance tax would not be directly affected by such a reform,’ it said. 

 

An absolute epic from Philip today – and I’m not going to be able to come close to his preamble:

This piece possibly sums up what I have been saying before these columns started; we are seeing a return to the politics of the 1930s.

When you look at many European states, and the UK, the hard-right is becoming increasingly influential. Their success sometimes goes under the radar as more mainstream parties adopt their policies as they seek to remain in power. The Tories are typical of this, looking more and more Faragist as they desperately find policies to fight the next election on.

As ever it is those least able to defend themselves that become easy prey for them.

Braverman is just downright nasty; the only saving grace is that, to date, she has been all talk and no action. Nonetheless, she is clearly aligning herself as the hard-right candidate should a new party leader be required.

In the interim, what government we have is run for their mates. There are two breathtaking recent examples of this.

Remember, we have no money, at least we don’t if what is required isn’t the government’s priority.

In recent weeks the Tories have been discussing abolishing inheritance tax (“IHT”), a policy the IFS   would cost the government almost £15bn a year in lost revenue by 2032.

Figures from HMRC showed fewer than 4% of estates paid inheritance tax (IHT) in 2020–21, but the rapid growth in wealth among older individuals meant this number was set to rise to more than 7% over the next decade.

The IFS report, Reforming Inheritance Tax, found that in 2024, the wealthiest fifth of donors will bequeath an average of £380,000 per child, and pay inheritance tax of about 10% of this amount.

By contrast, the least wealthy fifth of parents will leave less than £2,000 per child.

The authors estimate that if the amount of money bequeathed through inheritances next year were to be equally shared between all 25-year-olds, each would receive about £120,000.

Anthony Browne, the Tory MP for South Cambridgeshire, said recently that he was concerned that without reform, many middle-income households would pay large sums while the super wealthy used trusts and other loopholes to avoid paying the tax.

The IFS said the cost of abolishing IHT would be £7bn if implemented this year with about half (47%) of the benefit going to those with estates of £2.1m or more at death. These 1% of estates would benefit from an average tax cut of an estimated £1.1m in their bill.

“The 90% or so of estates not paying inheritance tax would not be directly affected by such a reform,” it said.

In contrast, a report by Banardo’s highlights the fact that >1m children in the UK either sleep on the floor or share a bed with parents or siblings because their family cannot afford the “luxury” of replacing broken frames and mouldy linen.

The charity says increasing “bed poverty” reflects growing levels of destitution in which low-income families already struggling with soaring food or gas bills often find they are also unable to afford a comfortable night’s sleep.

Acute hardship was forcing families to adopt desperately improvised sleeping arrangements, it says in a report published on Friday. An estimated 700,000 children were sharing beds, while 440,000 children slept on the floor, leaving them tired, anxious and finding it hard to concentrate at school.

Barnardo’s estimate:

·       > 336,000 families could not afford to replace or repair beds in the last year,

·       > 204,000 families said their children’s bed or bedding was mouldy or damp because putting the heating on was too expensive,

·       > 187,000 said they couldn’t afford to wash or dry bedding.

Just another example of the government’s warped priorities.

Lyrically, this is dedicated to Suella Braverman; we start with Chaka Khan “I’m Every Woman”, and play-out with Tom Robinson Band “Glad to be Gay”.

@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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