I’m So Bored With the USA: I am the Resurrection 

 

 

“Don’t waste your words
I don’t need anything from you” 

 

 

Last week in “Tumblin’ Dice”, I bemoaned the lack of gravitas in today’s politicians. I could also have added charisma, ability, and real world experience. 

 

The current Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, is perfect example of this; robotic, colourless, dazzled by her own ability, and oblivious to any failings. This, whilst seemingly irrelevant, means that the official opposition is rudderless, bobbing along on a sea of “we should be in government”, and mini-me Reform policies. 

Also, in “Tumblin’ Dice”, we featured former Tory PM, John Major, who warned of the risks of a merger with Reform.   

Despite this, and a warning from Tory HQ, Newcastle University’s Conservative society merged with the Reform UK students. 

Henry Bateson, a one-time Conservative student who switched to Reform UK and is now president of Newcastle’s merged Conservative and Reform UK society, said: “Interest increased tenfold. I think we Conservatives were just becoming a bit irrelevant.”  

Recent opinion polls suggest nearly half of Tory members would support a merger with Reform. While Conservative leaders have dismissed the idea, on campuses those on the right, such as Bateson, see it differently: “If we chose one party then we would lose half of our numbers and probably struggle to survive. I’ve now jumped on the Reform bandwagon. Kemi Badenoch is not cutting through at all.” 

YouGov’s most recent poll shows Reform supported by 10% of those aged 18 to 24, with the Conservatives on 7% – both well behind Labour and the Greens. 

 

‘I’ve now jumped on the Reform bandwagon. Kemi Badenoch is not cutting through at all’

 

Jack Eccles, who launched Lancaster University’s Reform society in January, is another former Conservative supporter who says he “switched straight away” to Reform when Nigel Farage returned as leader. 

“Farage represents more British values. He just resonates with working-class people a lot better,” Eccles said. “It’s just a ticking timebomb for the Conservatives; young Tories are getting fed up. I think all the younger people on the right are switching to Reform.” 

Predictions of the Tory demise are nothing new in this column, but I was interested in this part of Eccles comment:  “Farage represents more British values. He just resonates with working-class people a lot better.” 

This comments has two component parts, the first “British Values” fascinated me, yet I was unsure of a definition, so I resorted to Google and AI, which provided the following: 

“British values are a set of fundamental values that underpin being a citizen in a modern, diverse Britain, and include: democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths and beliefs.” 

 

I decided to test this against Reform’s populism: 

 

• Democracy; populists start out with democratic values but tend to use then to subvert democracy, seeing themselves as the “will of the people”.  

• Individual liberty; only if it agrees with their views.  

• Mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths and beliefs; NO.  

 

Turning to: “He just resonates with working-class people a lot better”, this is the very essence of populism, smoke and mirrors, reducing the most complicated issues to simple solutions. That’s the theory, in practise all populists are found not to have any answers, but are skilled at deflecting issues, usually by playing the race card. 

For an example of how they deal with inflation and the cost-of-living there is Argentina, under the arch-populist, Javier Milei. 

 

‘populists start out with democratic values but tend to use then to subvert democracy, seeing themselves as the “will of the people”’

 

Elected in December 2023, Milei, an economist and former TV pundit, launched a deep “chainsaw” austerity plan, cutting federal spending, freezing wages and pensions, halting public works and slashing subsidies. 

To meet his zero-deficit target, he also introduced a “shock therapy” approach to the peso, initially devaluing it by almost 55%. 

Whilst this did reduce inflation from >211% in 2023 to 32% by September 2025, average incomes also fell reducing purchasing power, while household debt rose, and the poverty rate climbed above 50% before recently easing to 31.6%.  

After the initial devaluation of the peso, Milei sough curb inflation by selling dollars to prop up the currency’s value. Not only did this leave the peso artificially overvalued, it diminished the country’s foreign currency reserves to such as extent that a $20bn loan from the IMF was needed, followed by $40bn bailout from the US. 

The president also lifted restrictions and lowered tariffs on imports, drastically impacting domestic production and employment. As a result, between 205,000 and 250,000 formal jobs – those subject to labour laws – have been lost, mostly in construction and manufacturing, and about 18,000 businesses have closed. 

Maybe, some of our student are too are easily pleased, and looking for simple solutions? Or, perhaps they are just frustrated Tory’s seeking political advancement via a nascent Reform. 

There is nothing Reform are proposing that deals with Neighbourhood-level deprivation; a relative measure and far broader than poverty calculated via incomes, and extremely difficult to deal with. 

Since the 1970s,  governments have sought to deal with this by collecting data to ensure that funding is directed where it is most needed, and to make possible place-based initiatives alongside those aimed at individuals or households. 

The latest data is weighted towards income and employment, but also includes health and educational outcomes. Virtually all the areas in England either trapped in the “most deprived”, or climbing up the ranks to join them, are in Labour’s urban or post-industrial heartlands. 

 

‘Virtually all the areas in England either trapped in the “most deprived”, or climbing up the ranks to join them, are in Labour’s urban or post-industrial heartlands’

 

“A neighbourhood in the Jaywick & St Osyth area of Tendring, near Clacton in Essex, has the top spot…., in the index of multiple deprivation, for the fourth time in a row. Seven of the top 10 places are filled by neighbourhoods in Blackpool. Middlesbrough, Birmingham, Hartlepool, Hull and Manchester also feature heavily.” 

Analysis by the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods shows that investment in the NE during this parliament could be 7x higher than it was under Boris Johnson. Labour’s successor scheme, Pride in Place,  which offers benefits such as youth clubs, and reviving hight streets, will see 169 communities in England receive £20m each.  

The biggest change to the official figures, compared with six years ago, is due to the decision to calculate incomes after rather than before housing costs, which has highlighted the impact of high rents in areas including inner-London.  

The result is likely to be higher funding settlements for some of the affected councils. This should help focus the government on the urgent need for affordable housing, and support for family finances in the meantime. 

If neighbourhoods stuck in deprivation for decades are to have a chance, the children in them must be given opportunities. The latest deprivation data strengthens the case for removing the limits placed on benefits by the Tories, including the two-child benefit cap.  

Real problems such as this don’t appear to be a priority in the world inhabited by Starmer’s Labour party. This is a world so nebulous that it’s impossible to discern what it might be, other than a tribute act to whomsoever they see as their main political rival. 

This total lack of definition or beliefs, leaves the forthcoming budget even more uncertain than usual. Worries about what trick the chancellor might have up her sleeve, are being replaced by worries of, is there anything up her sleeve at all? 

 

‘Worries about what trick the chancellor might have up her sleeve, are being replaced by worries of, is there anything up her sleeve at all?‘

 

Last year, Chancellor Reeves’ hugely painful budget, the second-largest tax raiser in postwar history, was the budget she swore never to repeat. But with £20-30bn in tax rises and spending cuts scheduled, the big question is, is the government preparing to break its election promise not to hike any of the big three money-raisers of income tax, national insurance or VAT?  

The answer is almost certainly, Yes. Which begs the question, where is the chancellor and PM? They should be out there, preparing taxpayers for exactly how they’ll have to suffer.  

Of course, this would highlight a structural issue. What we are suffering for isn’t more spending on schools or the NHS, but to preserve the fiscal rules imposed by Reeves herself last year.  

Prior to being a Reform tribute act, Reeves et al were closet Tories trying to be more disciplined, more orthodox, as they sought to highlight the follies of the short-lived Truss government.  

Rather than ditching her economic straightjacket as previous chancellors have done, Labour’s strategy so far is based on blaming the OBR for belatedly downgrading its forecasts for productivity, and the role of  Brexit in weakening the economy. 

Governments are elected to solve problems rather than simply highlighting them. However, there appears to be no discernible attempt to resolve our trading relationships with Europe. The added benefit would be distancing themselves from being a Reform tribute act and pushing Farage into defending an ill-judged Brexit.  

The inevitable conclusion is that this a directionless government, with no identity, and no guiding principles. They are increasingly guilty of wasting a historic majority and leaving the door to No 10 wide open for Farage and his band of chancers.  

Turning to America, plots abound regarding a third-term Trump presidency. Regular readers will know that I have long speculated about that, and the likelihood of democratic elections still being in-place in 2028. 

 

The inevitable conclusion is that this a directionless government, with no identity, and no guiding principles

 

Steve Bannon, the far-right provocateur and one-time Donald Trump adviser, said in an interview with the Economist that the president would seek an unconstitutional third term. “Trump is going to be president in 28, and people ought to just get accommodated with that. At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is.” 

Trump commented on the idea soon after, telling reporters following him on Air Force One as he flew from Kuala Lumpur to Tokyo: “I would love to do it.” 

Continuing the delusion, he told reporters that he enjoys the “best poll numbers I’ve ever had”. In the real world his approval rating is a net -19, the lowest of his second term. 

The usually compliant House speaker, Mike Johnson, distanced himself from this nightmare, saying that such an outcome is barred by the constitution: “Well, there’s the 22nd amendment.” 

Unfortunately, Trump doesn’t seem overly troubled by the constitution, which he continues to subvert and ignore, supported by the right-wing legal establishment, including the justices of the supreme court, who appear eager to please Trump at every turn. Recently, supreme court allowed Trump to proceed dismantling of the Department of Education – a body created by Congress, which only Congress has the power to dissolve 

Current form would suggest that the 22nd amendment is unlikely to deter Trump. The 14th amendment, created 157 years ago, says that the constitution confers citizenship to all persons born within the US; “birthright citizenship”. However, when Trump issued an executive order to nullify this constitutional provision, the supreme court intervened, allowing his order to go into effect, and made an unprecedented move to prevent lower courts from easily blocking it. 

 

“Trump is going to be president in 28, and people ought to just get accommodated with that”

 

In “Morals are “so last year, darling!””, I wrote about how parliamentary sovereignty left us prey to any party with a majority and underhand intention, however the US constitution doesn’t seem to offer much more protection for democracy. 

The judiciary, in the form of the supreme court, were intended to be the ultimate protectors of the constitution and its democratic intent, but self-serving politicians, such as Trump, can rig the court in their favour.  

In Trumps’ America, the law seem unable, or unwilling to stop him. If democracy is to survive it is the people who will be required.   

For the few, a Trump dictatorship might be welcomed. Perhaps, by the top 10 US billionaires, whose collective wealth has increased by $698bn in the past year, according to a new report from Oxfam America. 

 

Using Federal Reserve data from 1989 to 2022, researchers also calculated that: 

 

• the top 1% of households gained 101 times more wealth than the median household during that time span and 987 times the wealth of a household at the bottom 20th percentile of income.  

• This translated to a gain of $8.35m per household for the top 1% of households, compared with $83,000 for the average household during that 33-year period. 

 

Meanwhile, over 40% of the US population, including nearly 50% of children, are considered low-income, with family earnings that are less than 200% of the national poverty line. 

Compared to the other  38 higher-income countries in the OECD, the US has the highest rate of relative poverty, second-highest rate of child poverty and infant mortality, and the second-lowest life expectancy rate. 

 

But, don’t worry, Trump has all the solutions, it’s all so simple!  

 

“It’s been twenty-two long hard years of still strugglin’
Survival got me buggin’, but I’m alive on arrival” 

 

‘Some continuing themes this week.

In the UK, mainstream politicians seem to be increasingly useless.

For the Tories, Badenoch is simply oblivious to virtually everything, appearing to inhabit a parallel universe. In this, she is amply supported by the shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, whose stupidity seems to know no-bounds.  I find it especially amusing when he tries to act tough….

For the government, it is just reactive politics, no direction, no leading, just muddling through. To think we have almost 4 more years of this beggars belief!

And then there is the US, where the most popular president in the history of the universe lives in his own private Camelot, replete with a new ballroom.

Still, even if his mother doesn’t love him, his billionaire bros are making out like bandits in a banana republic. All that’s missing is a dictator. Opps!

Speaking of motherly love, we finish with Andrew whatever … .What’s to say, he’s living proof of everything that’s wrong with the concept of monarchy; self-absorbed, self-entitled, underemployed half-wits. He should be put on a plane to the US and made to answer for his actions. Unlike his victims, he still has his freedom.

Lyrically, we pay tribute to all those populists who make everything seem so simple, with “I Am the Resurrection” by The Stone Roses. And, for all those poor, misguided MAGA fools who thought Trump cared, we end with “C.R.E.A.M.” by Wu-Tang Clan.

Maybe this is enjoyment?

Philip.’

 

@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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