I’m So Bored With the USA: Long Hot Summer 

 

 

“And however much we try
We can’t escape the truth and the fact is
Don’t matter what I do” 

 

 

Today is Bastille Day, the opening salvo of the French Revolution, a timely reminder that you can’t solve the problems of society with cake and undeliverable promises.

 

Listening to hard-right politicians we appear to be a nasty little island, full of mistrust and loathing, represented by an angry and dominant section of the electorate that terrifies the politicians in the main parties. 

The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, divides people into “makers” and “takers”. Her latest wheeze being to restrict non-British nationals’ access to disability and sickness benefits. Reform talking about focusing their belief in Elon Musk-style budget-cutting on children with disabilities.  

Despite this noise they aren’t truly representative of the country, they simply shout longer and louder. 

The best example this minority is red wall, which has assumed a life of its own, being seen as a political barometer . Only, it isn’t,   

The Tories have become so focussed on this sub-set at the expense of everywhere else, as a result their traditional support in the commuter-belt home counties is shrinking fast, mainly to the Lib Dems. For Labour, millions of liberal, left-ish voters are so disappointed and unrepresented by the Starmer’s government, that they are defecting. But, the majority are going left, to the Lib Dems and Greens, not right to Reform. 

 

‘result their traditional support in the commuter-belt home counties is shrinking fast, mainly to the Lib Dems’

 

 

The real story can be seen in polls that focus on issue-specific statistics: 

 

• 40% against new limitations on disability benefits. 

• 45% think Israel’s actions in Gaza are genocidal.  

• 49% “strongly support” a wealth tax.  

• 45% think that immigration should either increase or stay the same.  

• 61% of people either strongly or “somewhat” support the government’s net zero target, with only 12% “strongly opposing” it. 

 

Like the red wall, Reform are taking on an importance that belies reality. The number above confirm that we aren’t a seething reactionary country irrevocably wedded to a Reform government. 

Reform offer a lot of noise, but little substance. 

Before the local elections in which Reform won >670 seats and took control of 10 councils, Farage and other senior party figures repeatedly talked up the amount that could be saved by cutting diversity and inclusion (DEI”) roles. A proposal based on the US and Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” or Doge. 

Flushed with success, Farage said staff at these councils working on diversity had “all better really be seeking alternative careers very, very quickly”. 

Research by the Guardian totally dispels this as myth, showing that councils run by Reform have an average of fewer than 0.5 DEI roles each. As a result cost savings, in the overall scheme of things, might be described as a rounding-error. 

Reform had suggested that cutting such schemes in central government could save £7bn a year, whilst official statistics show the actual amount spent in 2022-23, the last year for which figures were available, was £27m. 

Reform based their numbers on sums compiled in 2022 by a right-wing thinktank, Conservative Way Forward. However, this also covered government budgets for any charities and quangos that carried out what the report saw as “woke” activities. 

After the elections, the party’s then-chair, Zia Yusuf, hinted that some authorities had tried to hide equalities roles by giving them to “other people who have basically that same job but under a different title”. 

Amanda Hopgood, the Liberal Democrat opposition leader on Durham council, who heads the party’s “Reform watch” group, summed-up the situation: “Reform’s Doge programme makes a mockery of what it is supposed to achieve. They are more concerned with stoking division than actually saving councils any money.” 

‘a quiet revolution happening elsewhere, as the left makes a stealthy comeback’

 

Whilst the noise made by Reform is proving an ongoing distraction for Starmer and Labour, there is a quiet revolution happening elsewhere, as the left makes a stealthy comeback 

A poll by More in Common found that 10% of voters would back a Corbyn-led party, rising to almost a third of 18-24-year-olds. According to YouGov, 18% would consider voting for such a party. 

Not only would voters look left, it would seem that a number of Labour MPs might feel more comfortable there rather than being closet-Tories. Even after backbenchers forced significant concessions from the PM over his welfare bill, 47 Labour MPs still defied party-line. 

Last week, more than 100 Labour MPs backed a new group focused on living standards. In a sign of growing activism on the backbenches, they called on party leaders to talk less about the G7 and more about the price of groceries. 

Even the Greens aren’t immune, with the party facing a leadership contest from Zack Polanski, an anti-Zionist Jew who advocates radical “eco-populism” targeting billionaires, water companies and corporations. 

Rob Ford, a professor of political science at Manchester University, sees a rebirth of the left, saying: “The left, far from being dead post-Corbyn, has never been stronger in the form of the Greens and the independents. I would say this move by Corbyn and Sultana is a consequence of the evident desire in parts of the electorate for a leftwing alternative, rather than a driving cause of it.” 

Ford said that disappointment in the Labour government was a significant factor, but another was the “rapidly changing and fragmenting political landscape” in which voters were rejecting the main political parties. More than half of the electorate are consistently saying now that they want to vote for somebody other than Labour or the Conservatives – that has never happened before. 

“My working assumption is Labour is going to get an absolute hammering next year, from the left and from the right.” 

 

 

“My working assumption is Labour is going to get an absolute hammering next year, from the left and from the right.”

 

If proof was needed as to how out-of-touch this name-only Labour government is, then it came last week as Unite, its largest donor, spoke out. 

The straw that broke the camel back was the ongoing Birmingham bin dispute. This started in January, and was based around the city councils plan to fire and rehire 170 bin lorry drivers’ whose pay could fall from £40,000 to £32,000 as a result. 

The local authority said the number of staff that could lose the maximum amount (just over £6,000) was 17 people and they would have pay protection for six months. 

At last weeks Unite conference, Angela Rayner, the deputy PM was censured by the union over her role in the strike, although party sources said Rayner resigned her membership of Unite some months ago.   

In some ways, given that Rayner had already resigned, this could be viewed as largely symbolic. However, it marks an escalation of wider tensions between the party and Unite, one of the most leftwing affiliated unions, which has been campaigning against the cuts to the winter fuel allowance cuts and disability benefits. 

In addition, the threat to cut or further reduce financial ties with Labour would be damaging for the party at a time when it needs to maintain healthy funds to fight off the threats of Reform and the Conservatives. 

The union gave around £2m to Labour in the year before the election. It has scaled back its financial support in recent years, with Unison now contributing more, but it is historically the party’s biggest union backer, having given more than £70m raised from its members since the Electoral Commission’s records began in 2007. 

The Unite general secretary, Sharon Graham, accused the Labour-led Birmingham council of carrying out action similar to fire-and-rehire as striking workers were being replaced by agency workers and faced the possibility of redundancy, saying: “Angela Rayner has had every opportunity to intervene and resolve this dispute but has instead backed a rogue council that has peddled lies and smeared its workers fighting huge pay cuts. 

 

“People up and down the country are asking whose side is the Labour government on and coming up with the answer: not workers.” 

 

“The disgraceful actions of the government and a so-called Labour council is essentially fire and rehire and makes a joke of the Employment Relations Act promises. People up and down the country are asking whose side is the Labour government on and coming up with the answer: not workers.” 

Labour has sought to playdown the situation, highlighting Rayners contributions to worker rights, and suggesting this is little more than political posturing by Grham ahead of next year’s general secretary election. However, a senior Unite source said the motion was not a stunt and represented real anger at the conference among delegates about Labour’s position on the bin strike. They said Graham was representing her members and suggested a falling-out with Labour was a growing prospect. 

Another issue that is diving Labour is the situation in Gaza, with up to 60 MPs demanding that the UK immediately recognises Palestine as a state, after Israel’s defence minister announced plans to force all residents of Gaza into a camp on the ruins of Rafah, which, they warn, is ethnic cleansing. 

Ministers plan to recognise Palestine as part of a peace process, but only in conjunction with other western countries and “at the point of maximum impact” – without saying what that is. 

Overall, the situation is Gaza is continuing to deteriorate, with the government seemingly blind to it. 

Ravina Shamdasani , a UN human rights spokesperson told reporters in Geneva: “Up until 7 July, we’ve recorded now 798 killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF”), and 183 presumably on the route of aid convoys.” 

The GHF proposed by Israel as an alternative to the UN aid system in Gaza, has been almost universally condemned by rights groups for its violation of principles of humanitarian impartiality and what they have said could be complicity in war crimes. 

A GHF spokesperson said the UN figures were “false and misleading” and denied that deadly incidents occurred at its sites. “The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys.“ 

 

‘There is a simple reality here; people are being killed whilst seeking food’

 

There is a simple reality here; people are being killed whilst seeking food. There would be outrage if that was happening in a high street outside Sainsbury’s. What’s the difference here? 

 

We finish with a brief look at growth, or rather the lack of it. 

Since 1980 we have been fixated with supply-side economics, a macroeconomic theory focused on increasing the overall production of goods and services to stimulate economic growth. The basic tenet is that by lowering taxes on businesses and high-income earners, reducing regulations, and encouraging free trade, the economy can expand and benefit consumers through increased supply and lower prices. The so-called “trickle-down effect. 

This was covered in more detail in “Poverty and Inequality.” 

 

As you would expect annual GDP growth fluctuates: 

 

• In the 1970s, the UK economy saw average real GDP growth of 2.7% per year, with a peak of 6.5% in 1973.  

• The 1980s and 1990s saw more moderate growth, averaging 2.6% and 2.1% respectively. 

•  The 2000s saw a further slowdown, averaging 1.7%. 

• As a result of the GFC, there was a significant contraction of 4.6% in 2009. 

• In 2020 there was a record 10.3% fall due to COVID. 

• In 2021, the UK economy rebounded strongly with 8.6% growth. 

• In 2022, the UK GDP grew by 4.8% 

 

 

Source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/timeseries/ihyp/pn2 

 

In summary, excepting bounce-backs after disasters, economic growth has been declining since 1980. 

On the flip-side inequality has increased. 

 

‘Change is needed, Starmer is failing and Reform isn’t the answer’

 

There has been no trickle-down, instead we have seen a torrent flow upwards, the great upward redistribution of wealth. 

This is why we need to look left. The right and their supply-side dream has failed for 45-yrs, becoming a nightmare for the majority. 

Supply-side theory, which has become accepted as economic orthodoxy, has already done for the Tories, and Labour are heading down the same blind alley. Reform offers only noise and illusory solutions such as Brexit and their supposed DEI savings. 

Change is needed, Starmer is failing and Reform isn’t the answer. Perhaps it’s the LibDems? Perhaps now is Corbyn’s time? 

 

 

Something’s happening and it’s happening right now
You’re too blind to see it” 

        

 

‘A totally UK-centric piece today.

Whilst it is nothing new to suggest that the two main parties, Conservative and Labour, are stale, out-of-date, and not working, the direction of their opposition is going unnoticed.

To date, both main parties have become fixated by Reform and, as a result, continue to push further to the right. This, rather than neutralising Reform, benefits them. It legitimises their ideas, and voters tend to prefer the real thing to a tribute act jumping on a passing bandwagon.

Whilst the right represent a noisy minority, the silent majority have been quietly making-up their own minds.

The Tories have already suffered significant losses to the LibDems and to a lesser degree the Greens. Labour suffered a backlash in the local elections.

There is now likely to be a third-option, one that will attract more left-leaning labour voters and MPs, a new party featuring Jeremey Corbyn.

Labour might yet save themselves, perhaps theirs is a long-game that might come good in the next 4-yrs, but, somehow I doubt it.

What might save them is a general economic pick-up, these are often in-spite of government rather than because of. However, the overall situation is muddied by the madness that is Trump’s America.

Who knows? All I can say is you can’t continue to keep people down. At some point there’s a reaction. All we need to know is when, how, who, etc..

Lyrically, we start with the Style Council and “Long Hot Summer”, aimed at the whackos who deny climate change, or the cost of it. We finish with the Stranglers and “Something Better Change”, because, basically, something has to.

Much to contemplate, if not to enjoy!

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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