Mr Brightside: Reflections 

 

“Trapped in a world
That’s a distorted reality” 

 

As the festive season beckons it’s time to consider the highs and lows of the past 12-months; we start with sport….. 

 
Rafa was finally defeated by age and injury, bringing an end to a magical career of which there are numerous highlights, not least the amazing rivalry with Federer which, aside from some wonderful tennis, showed sportsmanship and mutual respect of the highest degree. Hopefully, we can look forward to Alcarez and Sinner delivering more of the same. 

Sadly the same cannot be said for football, where both clubs and the sport’s governing bodies. EUFA and FIFA, simply cannot bask in enough money. The selling out to the Gulf States, especially Saudi, shows FIFA setting new lows. 

Musically, it was all about Taylor Swift and her “fill yer’ boots” tour….enough said! 

One of this year’s winners should be Labour and PM Starmer, however it was a year of two halves. The first saw them deliver a sweeping election victory, perhaps bigger than anyone expected, whereas the second half has seen them consistently tripping over themselves with some very naive politics. Where they go next is anyone’s guess. 

The Tories, who suffered a humiliating defeat,  showed that they had learnt nothing, deciding that true Conservatism was what voters craved, and they punished Rishi Sunak’s party for failing to provide it. “We talked right but governed left,” their new leader, Badenoch, said. 

She believes that communism has reinvented itself since the cold war and has “hacked” liberal democracy, and cites examples such as compassion for refugees and anti-racism.  
 

‘there is a new kind of socialism, which, instead of the state controlling the means of production, is a stealthy manipulation of citizens’ lives’

 
Economically there is a new kind of socialism, which, instead of the state controlling the means of production, is a stealthy manipulation of citizens’ lives. As I wrote in “Madness” Badenoch is an admirer of Argentina’s radical libertarian president, Javier Milei, a well-known climate denier and overseer of an increase in both unemployment and poverty. 

As for woke, forget it; Kemi believes we are experiencing the suffocation of free speech by censorious “woke” ideology.  

As for public services….she told the CBI conference that it is hard to make the case for a smaller state because people “want the government to solve everything, and if you ever sound hesitant, you are made out to be a cruel, unfeeling person”. 

Ultimately, her madness may not matter as Nigel Farage’s Reform are contesting the Tories traditional position as the standard bearer of the right.  

Badenoch’s positioning of the party seems to ignore reality, ignoring the structural threats to their position in the real world of our politics, and casting herself as a visionary warrior against phantom hordes of neo-communists mustering in Whitehall and on university campuses. 

As a result, it’s difficult to see this year as anything other than a loss for them. Much of their traditional support in the home counties and shires has been eroded by the LibDems, who have benefitted from the Tories tack to the right, and their racism, anti-woke, and climate change denial.  

With 72 MPs, 2024 was a very good year for the LibDems. 

Whilst in January Reform might have been seen as little more than an irritating outlier, the return to active politics by Nigel Farage, has turned Reform into this year’s success story. 
 

‘Badenoch’s positioning of the party seems to ignore reality’

 
The party received 14% of the votes cast in the general election, and are currently ahead of Labour, and only 2-points behind the Tories in the polls.    

With much of the electorate short of hope and an all pervading feeling that nothing works, the conditions are set fair for Farage. He thrives on despair, and taps into any national discontent. “A man for all grievances”.  

Of course, he has no real solutions to anything. Simply cutting immigration to zero won’t begin to address the systemic problems within the economy. It’s just typical right-wing rhetoric providing the masses with a scapegoat. 

As the uber rich seem happy for the status quo to continue he is their type of leader. No red tape, small state, and low taxes means the beano continues for them. 

Which might explain why another billionaire, Nick Candy, is to be the new party treasurer, promising a cool £1m to the party’s coffers. In addition, he expects his well-off mates to chip in, promising he can raise £40m to fight the next election. And  there is the promise of Elon Musk’s’ millions still to come. 

If there is a setback coming for Farage, it might come from a surprising direction. It is generally assumed that he and president-elect Trump are best mates. However, word from the US is that Trumps’ apparatchiks are suggesting that “the president-elect regards Nige as an eccentric fanboy, basking in the reflected glory.” 

Talking of Elon Musk, it has been a very good year for him. His wealth continues to multiply, and, despite loosing users, “X” is serving its purpose as a platform for all manner of ghastly individual and their equally abhorrent views. 
 

“the president-elect regards Nige as an eccentric fanboy, basking in the reflected glory”

 
I am told the term for these individuals is “influencer(s)”. Based on the fact they influence others. 

One of the higher profile influencers is Andrew Tate, a former professional kickboxer, who is purported to have 9.9m “X” followers.  

Tate has been dubbed the “king of toxic masculinity”, has called himself a misogynist and is politically described as both right-wing and far-right. As of August 2024, he is facing five legal investigations—three criminal and two civil—in Romania and the UK. 

He is reported to be part of a wider network, known loosely as the “manosphere”, which comprises anti-woke culture warriors, get-rich “crypto bros” and Donald Trump supporters. 

In a 2022 interview, Tate claimed that  has previously met Tommy Robinson, the EDL co-founder, was “doing his very best to protect England from Islamisation”. Somewhat bizarrely, later that year Tate converted to Islam! 

Many of the people influenced by the likes of Tate are this years losers. For that matter, they have been losers most years. 

When Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader, many young people had a sense of hope that the state could improve their lives, with promises of rent controls, the abolition of tuition fees, free travel, free wi-fi and an increase in the minimum wage. 

Corbyn was badly defeated by Johnson in 2019, and Labour turned to light-blue Kier and all of these promises, and more, have fallen by the wayside. As a result, many young people are increasingly turning to individual solutions peddled by online influencers. “Why dismantle the system when you can become one of its beneficiaries? Why favour higher taxes that might one day come at your expense?” 

This year’s biggest winner president-elect Trump has demonstrated there is a pipeline of men of colour subscribing to right-wing influencers online and voting for right-wing parties. A record 46% of Hispanic voters opted for Trump – a 14-point increase from 2020. Trump also saw modest gains among Black men. Minority communities have suffered from the effects of globalisation, deindustrialisation and decline. 
 

‘Trump has demonstrated there is a pipeline of men of colour subscribing to right-wing influencers online and voting for right-wing parties’

 
Today, centrist politicians can no long take for granted the votes of Black and Asian communities. 

Brexit is often depicted as the revolt of the white working class, but diverse towns and cities such as Luton, Bradford and Birmingham also voted to leave the EU.  

A new report by UK in a Changing Europe shows British Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean and non-white Muslim and Christian voters are particularly likely to hold socially conservative views on issues such as crime and foreign aid in comparison with those from other ethnic or religious groups.  

British Indian and Chinese voters are more likely to hold right-wing economic views. Many ethnic minority voters already hold right-wing views, and we may see this point of view grow in younger generations as the online culture they consume is dominated by the right. 
 

‘time is running out for the Labour party’

 
As these young people reach voting age, time is running out for the Labour party. 

Another big winner this year is Israel, who, despite accusations of war crimes and genocide, continue to have the support of the countries that seem to matter. I am fascinated by the fact that 70-yrs ago rabid right-wingers perpetrated the holocaust, today the same sort of people regard any opponents of Israel as antisemitic. Today’s pariahs are Muslims. 
 
Saving the best to last, this year’s biggest losers are……. 
 
The British public!  
 
Accepting the award is PM Starmer, who is his acceptance speech makes  special mention of Messrs Cameron, Osborne, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, Farage, Starmer and Reeves for their part in this achievement. And apologies to any he has overlooked! 

Where do I start? Even the PM admits it’s all broken. 

Inequality is, in my opinion, this biggest issue facing this country, and is subject we have covered numerous times. Even the Tories under Boris Johnson in 2019 agreed, as he won a sweeping majority promising to “level-up” the country. 
 

‘Even the PM admits it’s all broken’

 
We have covered this in-depth many times, most recently in “Left Behind, Inequality, and Why it Matters”, and “Left Behind, Inequality, and Why it Matters part 2” 

In the UK, the bottom 50% of the population owned less than 5% of wealth in 2021, and the top 10% a staggering 57% (up from 52.5% in 1995). The top 1% alone held 23% (World Inequality Lab, 2022). 

In terms of income inequality, the OECD reported that the UK has the 9th most unequal incomes of 38 OECD countries. 

Turning to poverty, in 2024 the Joseph Rowantree Foundation reported that 22%, 14,4m people, lived in poverty in 2021/22. This included: 
 

• 8.1 million (C. 20%) working-age adults 

• 4.2 million (C. 30%) children 

• 2.1 million (C. 17%) pensioners. 

 
And to make matters worse, in 2016, 52% of the electorate voted to make matters worse. It was called Brexit. 

Last week, during PMQs, The Reform leader, Nigel Farage, told us: “It’s done! Get over it! It’s eight years ago! We’re independent and we’re free!” 

He’s right, we are now independent and free (sort of!). But, it would seem it’s not done. 

A report by the European Council on Foreign Relations (“ECFR”) thinktank said that a majority of Britons who voted to leave the EU would now accept a return to free movement in exchange for access to the single market, according to a cross-Europe study that also found a reciprocal desire in member states for closer links with the UK. 

Based on polling of more than 9,000 people across the UK and the EU’s five most populous countries – Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland – in the weeks after Trump’s election win in November, the ECFR study found the strongest enthusiasm for renewed ties were in Britain.     

Fifty-four per cent of Britons who voted leave, including 59% of voters in “red wall seats”, said in exchange for single market access they would now accept full free movement for EU and UK citizens to travel, live and work across borders. 
 

‘in exchange for single market access they would now accept full free movement for EU and UK citizens’

 
Perhaps they had seen last month’s official estimate, which showed that in the past three years C. 2.4m more people arrived in the UK than have left. By way of comparison, net migration in the three years leading up the Brexit vote was 865,000. 

Among all UK voters, 68% of respondents would now back free movement in exchange for single market access, with 19% opposed and majority support among supporters of every party apart from Reform UK (44% of whose voters also backed the idea). 

Among British voters, there was clear support for a closer relationship with the EU, with 55% saying they would back closer links with the bloc, against 10% preferring more distant ties and 22% wanting to keep them as they were now. 

The report found about half of Britons believed greater engagement with the EU was the best way to bolster the UK economy (50%), strengthen security (53%), effectively manage migration (58%), tackle climate change (48%), allow Ukraine to stand up to Russia (48%), and for Britain to stand up to the US (46%) and China (49%). 
 
And that’s 2024, lows, bigger lows. Highs? 
 
Winners; Trump, Musk, Farage. Loser’s pretty much everyone else!
 

The winner takes it all 

The loser’s standing small” 

 

‘Inevitably, as another year comes to an end there is an assessment. Who won? Who lost?

Unfortunately, my assessment is this. In the 7-years I have been writing these columns, overall nothing has changed. There are a few winners and the majority lose. Put another way, the rich continue to prosper while the poor just get poorer. If anything has changed it’s the depth of the poor. As we saw in the US this is becoming more a middle-class issue and the cost-of-living continues to bite.

When you look at the winners I have listed it resembles a rogues gallery, composed of hard-right politicians. The question is why are they winning?

Well…traditional parties in many countries are delivering little or nothing. Their members are technocrats, obsessed with data and target, and who communicate poorly. They talk at people, not to them. Whereas, the right delivers simple messages that talk to their voters. They rarely offer solutions, but they excel and tell everyone what is wrong.

If they do offer solutions, it is either immigration is the root of all our problems, alongside championing individual freedom, which means a small state which supposedly frees up money to lower taxes.

And then, when it goes wrong a la the GFC, or Covid, its where the state when you need it.

More of this next week.

Musically we start with a Motown classic, “Reflections” by the Supremes. To finish we go somewhat off-piste for this column, with Abba and “The Winner Takes it All”.

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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