I’m So Bored With the USA: Tragedy

 

“When you lose control and you got no soul

Its tragedy”

 

 

 

 

Before I am accused of BBC style misrepresentation, I must apologise for mixing-up the late Robin
Gibb, and Robbie Gibb.

Robin, of course was a singer / songwriter who found fame with his brothers in the Bee Gees, who crafted some of the better pop songs.

Whereas, Robbie Gibb, who was Theresa May’s former communications chief before he was
appointed to the BBC’s board during Boris Johnson’s time as PM.

Robbie, it appears has a chip on his right shoulder when it comes to the BBC not being sufficiently right-wing, as used the opportunity of Panorama’s edited video of Trump to amplify criticisms in key board meetings that preceded the resignation of the director general, Tim Davie, and the head of BBC News, Deborah Turness.

Now, before writing anymore, the BBC was wrong to edit the video of Trump in a way that supported their narrative, rather than fact. In some respects this whole saga might be seen as something and nothing, a few media luvvies having a tiff.

Only, it isn’t. It cuts to the very heart of what is British, and what it is becoming, because the two are very different.

It cuts to the very heart of what is British, and what it is becoming, because the two are very different.

 

What makes, perhaps made is more accurate, is our tolerance, our innate sense of right and wrong, and an acceptance that everyone is entitled to their opinion within the accepted norms.

Unfortunately, the traits I describe above, are, like myself, somewhat out-of-date. They have all be swept away on a tide of social media and populism. The reaction to the BBC’s error of judgement, is endemic of where we have arrived at; a descent into authoritarian and totalitarian government, spearheaded by Trump and his acolytes around the globe.

In my view we are now at an inflection point. Empire has gone, our influence on the European stage has been severely diminished by Brexit, we are now isolated, a somewhat little island left on the outside looking in. Whilst it obvious, is that we made our choice, throwing out lot in with the US irrespective of the direction they are taking.

Starmer doesn’t have the backbone to do anything else, Badenoch is irrelevant, and Farage is besotted with Donald.

I can’t help thinking we are backing the wrong horse. To summarise what I wrote in “Walls come Tumbin’ Down”, the US is rotting from the head down, its led by a bully who is meeting his match.

In “Chinese Takeaway” I likened Trump and Chines premier Xi to two boxers, with the former a punch-drunk old champ about to meet his match, and I see no reasons to change that view.

Returning to the domestic politics, since Labours election victory the right-wing media have done everything in their power to trash the government with a constant deluge of negative stories, some true but mostly false about the governments failings and the country’s demise.

 

Empire has gone, our influence on the European stage has been severely diminished by Brexit, we are now isolated, a somewhat little island left on the outside looking in.

Perhap,s for some of this rabid media their will disappointment that the winner is Reform rather than their beloved Tories, but a racist is a racist.

The charge against the incumbents at the BBC was led by Michael Prescott, a former external adviser to the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee (EGSC), and also a former political editor of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sunday Times, who made broad claims of bias at the organisation. Claims that were leaked to the Telegraph, known for being right-wing.

Trump aside, Prescott also made accusations over the reporting on Gaza and trans rights. This is all follows a pattern, the criticisms were all made from the same political perspective: the
BBC’s reporting on such issues was too liberal and it had ignored these concerns.

It appears that people within the Corporation say the political background to this crisis has its roots in Boris Johnson’s time in government and his attempts to shift the stance of institutions such as the BBC, who were seen as too liberal and left-wing.

There does appear to link with Gibb being placed on the BBC’s board during Johnson’s tenure. The Guardian reports people saying that Gibb, in turn, was the driving force behind handing Prescott his advisory role on the EGSC – on which Gibb also sits.

As a member of the EGSC, a small but crucial committee in overseeing the BBC’s editorial output, Gibb also had a say on the issues investigated and the reports commissioned.

For the prosecution and its supporting media they don’t allow their enemies mistakes. Whereas, one of their own is allowed to run riot.

What they fail, or perhaps don’t want to understand, is that the BBC remains one of Britain’s few genuinely national institutions; ministers say it is a “light on the hill” for people here and abroad. The BBC is the most trusted source of news in the UK, and among the top five worldwide.

 

BBC remains one of Britain’s few genuinely national institutions

 

A YouGov survey shows the BBC as the most trusted news brand in the UK, and most amusingly the bottom- are; Telegraph, GB News, MSN News, Mail, Mirror and Sun.
Source: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2025/united-kingdom This saga glosses over the real fight. For the right, whilst they champion freedom of speech, it only goes so far as what they find acceptable.

Trump is playing to his audience, and furthering the cause of his UK acolytes. What they fail to understand is that this then becomes a national issue; a British institution is under attack from
overseas. It is at this point that their faux patriotism fails them, as they happily kowtow to the US tyrant.

Starmer’s likely response will be to do little or nothing, in the hope it goes away. This would be a mistake. He should be championing the BBC’s editorial freedom, and that media independence and sovereignty over the infosphere as a national security issue.

Mistakes happen but you have to move on. The campaign to silence the BBC, and sell it off to a media mogul will put us on the same footing as the US where much of the media could be described as under Trump’s influence.

There is a much bigger picture to this whole saga, it is an assault on democratic infrastructure. The question is whether Britain will defend its power to tell the truth.

What we are seeing here is the continuation of attacks on the BBC by right-wing populists have been attacking the BBC, which they have variously described as the “mortal enemy” of the Conservative party. Nigel Farage called the BBC “the enemy”.

There is a much bigger picture to this whole saga, it is an assault on democratic infrastructure

Their idea of what the BBC should be can be seen in Trump’s America where he has crippled America’s public broadcasters with funding cuts, banned journalists from the Pentagon, and brought a $10bn lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal.

This is about being British. It will be an interesting test on those on the right to see just how British they really are.

Public opinion of BBC bias is split along partisan lines:

 

 73% of Reform voters and 52% of Tory voters think the BBC are too left wing, compared to
only 16% of Labour voters.
 Labour voters are twice as likely to say the BBC is biased towards the right wing (31%) than
the left, while Lib Dem voters are fairly evenly split 19% left / 22% right.

 

We now turn to Labour, who’s personality crisis just rolls on…. onto a road to nowhere?

 

Whilst Reform continue to lead in the polls, there is a new kid in town; Zack Polanski’s Greens. The latest YouGov poll shows them rapidly closing the gap on Labour, who are subsumed by pre-budget gloom and recriminations, whilst the Greens surf an optimistic wave of voters looking for a British equivalent to New York’s upbeat new socialist mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.

As with Farage, Polanski has modern communication skills. He isn’t afraid of being blunt and saying what other politicians try to fudge, which scores well on social media, especially TikTok.
Analysis by the PR consultancy “Be Broadcast”, shows that Polanski has more broadcast mentions than the Liberal Democrats’ Ed Davey and almost as many as the Tories’ Kemi Badenoch between 1 September and 20 October. Also, the Greens amassed the most positive, solution-focused coverage.

 

there is a new kid in town; Zack Polanski’s Greens

This presents a problem for Labour who have relied on supporters who grudgingly voted for them to beat Reform, driven by a belief that a more radical leftwing party could never actually win. As this column has written before Labour, in their fear of Reform, are forgetting to look behind them and forgetting how their lurch to the right alienates more left orientated voters.

Which begs the questions; where now for Labour? Ongoing firefighting aside, the budget is the big one. I hesitate to call it their defining moment, but that might not be overstating the case.

Whatever legacy issue she may have inherited, chancellor Reeves problem is of her own making; her own fiscal rules have left her with no room for even small changes in the economy .
Rather than ending this drama by relaxing her fiscal rules, she has framed her decision to break an election promise not to raise income tax as unavoidable. She told BBC radio: “It would, of course, be possible to stick with the manifesto commitments, but that would require things like deep cuts in capital spending.”

 

Whatever legacy issue she may have inherited, chancellor Reeves problem is of her own making

This simply isn’t true. She’s blaming her rules for cuts that aren’t necessary.

Having already changed her fiscal rules last October to allow for public investment, there is now no room to manoeuvre between tax rises and capital spending. The predicted increase in income tax will reassure markets, and provide £3bn of the extra tax revenue to fully reverse the two-child benefit cap, which would have the immediate effect of lifting C.350,000 children out of poverty.

However, this is only a start; unemployment is rising and investment remains weak, meaning the economy is running at stall-speed. Unless households, or business step-up, if no state support is forthcoming the economy will stagnate.

Increasing income the basic rate of income tax hasn’t happened since Dennis Healey was chancellor in 1975, for obvious reasons; C. 66% of Britons oppose income tax hikes, as it directly impacts their take-home pay. However, research by Persuasion UK shows it to be more popular than failing on public services, energy bills and child poverty, especially with Labour 2024 voters for whom rebuilding the public realm was key to their support.

unemployment is rising and investment remains weak, meaning the economy is running at stall-speed

In today’s politics, the how you sell something almost takes precedent over the what. This starts with a positive message: perhaps refocussing on the cost of living by spending tax receipts to lower energy bills – while stressing fairness: everyone chips in, but the richest most of all.

Another suggestion I have seen, is to invite investors to swap short-term gilts for longer-dated bonds at modest fixed rates, which, with interest rates falling, could be an attractive option.

There is historical precedent to this and from a Tory; in 1932, the then chancellor Neville Chamberlain reduced debt costs by 0.6% of GDP, bolstering spending by the equivalent of £17bn a
year today.

The downside……

 

 

“But it was just my imagination, once again

Running away with me”

 

 

One of those weeks when the saying, “a week is a longtime in politics” seems apt.

We started with the BBC, Trump, lawsuits, and the pernicious influence of right-wing media, and ended with a full blown government leadership crisis created by the leader!

Actually, who leads Labour is becoming irrelevant, just as it was to the Tories last year.

Labour is broken, too far gone. A new leader will just be “a dog with different fleas.”

The party is now directionless, and this is the consequence of Starmer, who, as I have written before, has had a “Personality Crisis” since assuming the mantle.

He was the man who campaigned to be leader on an explicitly left ticket; he amplified his hinterland, as a friend to the striker, the protester, the activist, as a human rights lawyer; he portrayed himself as Jeremy Corbyn in a suit.

He fooled enough members to win. What osmosed from a previous believer in human rights, was a leader who defended Israel’s right to starve a population, an environmentalist who suddenly couldn’t stand tree-huggers.

With the benefit of hindsight the signs were there. The leftwing elements of the party, who couldn’t be persuaded or encouraged to keep quiet, were sidelined and expelled.

From its current crop of “talent”, there appears to be no one that will enable the party to recover its purpose or its popularity. It will only recover when it believes in something, unfortunately with Reform on one side and the Greens on the other, Labour could be squeezed as happened to the Tories in 2024.

This all looks like too little, too late.

Lyrically, we start with the Bee Gees and “Tragedy”, hard to think of anything more appropriate. We end with “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me) by The Temptations, because, well, look at the last suggestion … .far too imaginative for our government.

Oh well, enjoyment is overstated anyway….

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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