Of A Time

Unless you are a vegan, then tell me what is wrong with whaling.

Has anyone here ever tasted whale? It is now on my bucket list.

Line of Actual Control

The dispute between India and China over Arunachal Pradesh, currently in India, and the Aksai Chin plateau, currently in China, is real. In 2020, it led to their first fatal confrontation since 1975.

But that lot holed up in Taiwan does not claim jurisdiction only over China as it now exists, although it does claim all of that, including Tibet and Xinjiang, each of which contains part of Aksai Chin.

Rejecting the authority of the present Chinese Government to resolve territorial disputes, it also lays claim to all of Mongolia, as well as to parts of Russia, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bhutan and Myanmar, together with Arunachal Pradesh.

Rank and File

No one complains when the Education Secretary has never worked in education. No one complains when the Health Secretary has never worked in the NHS, which is the largest employer in the country. Yet it is considered objectionable that the Defence Secretary has never been in this country's tiny Armed Forces, which are that size even though Britain has the sixth largest military budget in the world. Don't ask, don't tell. What good has it done the Armed Forces to have had a succession of khaki fetishists as Secretary of State?

A Health Secretary with some experience in the field might have avoided the coordinated strike action by the junior doctors and the consultants, action that is both utterly unprecedented and absolutely correct. You do not have to be poor to be right. If your pay has not kept pace with your private employer's profits, then you have a legitimate claim. Or if, like the NHS doctors, your pay from the currency-issuing State has not kept pace with inflation, then you have a legitimate claim.

There are things that are too big to fail, and then there is the National Health Service. Since the situation has been 15 years in the making, then all three parties that have been in government during that period need to explain how things have reached this stage.

Strikes are supposed to be disruptive, and arranging them to cause the most disruption is fundamental to them. The parties are bewildered at the popularity of the increasingly successful strikes, to the point of denying it, and of outright lying that strikes in the NHS posed a threat to life, as if Aneurin Bevan, of all people, had never thought to put the necessary safeguards in place. I'll give you a clue. He did, so they are. The NHS flourished in the glory days of British trade unionism. Strikes have always been planned for. There is no threat to patient care, and any Health Minister or informed commentator knows that in detail.

Labour is firmly committed to the Blair Government's signature domestic policy of the privatisation of the NHS in England. That idea existed only on the fringes of the thinktank circuit until Tony Blair, Alan Milburn and Paul Corrigan took office in 1997. Since then, it has been the policy of all three parties except under Jeremy Corbyn, and of most Labour MPs and all Labour Party staffers continuously.

Other than Blair, Milburn and Corrigan, no one has done more than Jeremy Hunt to privatise the English NHS, but to the glee of the liberal-capitalist commentariat, Wes Streeting has openly sold the pass. NHS privatisation would now face no Official Opposition of even the most notional kind. Keir Starmer has endorsed Streeting's views, effectively naming Streeting as his successor in the course of the next Parliament, at the end of which Starmer will be 67 to Streeting's 46.

But when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.

No Dewey Aye

You would never guess it either from the BBC or from Guido Fawkes, but it was the Morning Star that broke the story, complete with photographic proof, of the Mayor of Hackney, Philip Glanville, partying with his "close friend" and erstwhile "flatmate", former councillor Tom Dewey, two weeks after Dewey's arrest for child pornography. The Labour Party has suspended Glanville, because it pretty much had to once the BBC had picked up the story, but the amount of this sort of thing on the Labour Right is very startling indeed.

I have been pushing the story of Harriet Harman and the Paedophile Information Exchange longer than anyone else who is still alive. Everyone knows it. Everyone who is anyone has always known it. But no one cares. They might if she were a Conservative, although they might not. They certainly would if she were part of what was briefly the Corbyn Coalition. But as it is, they just don't. The rules are different.

The first reference to it on here was on 31st October 2006, and since then there have been scores, possibly hundreds. I have also posted it in numerous other corners of the Internet. This blog started in April 2006, and by then I had already been working on that story for 10 or more years. You can see why the safeguarding-industrial complex hates me. Nothing brings me greater joy than that hatred.

Harman's PIEmate, Patricia Hewitt, took over Greville Janner's seat. Then she passed it on to Liz Kendall, so it is obviously a right-wing Labour fiefdom. Britain is internationally known for the prevalence of kiddy-fiddling, but even within that, the right-wing Labour machine is something else. Having inherited his father's seat, a man whose proclivities were common knowledge for 70 years (and who, like his father, was about as Socialist as Christian Wakeford) handed it on to a PIE lady, who served in Tony Blair's Cabinet before handing it on to the most overtly right-wing candidate for the Labour Leadership since 1994. Glanville and Dewey are firmly in that tradition. Dewey is the Right's enforcer in Hackney, a fact not unconnected to the elevation of his "close friend" and erstwhile "flatmate", Glanville. So much for whoever they had planned to put up against Diane Abbott.

Ghislaine Maxwell is another right-wing Labour dynast. Peter Mandelson stayed at Jeffrey Epstein's apartment while Epstein was an incarcerated sex offender and Mandelson was a Cabinet Minister. First Secretary of State, in fact. Deputy Prime Minister in all but name. This post is this site's thirty-fourth mention of the connection between Mandelson and Epstein, with the first having been as long ago as 16th August 2019, and with most of these posts having been substantially the same as comments on Guido Fawkes. Yet no one seems to think that this is news, even though Mandelson is the star turn at major right-wing Labour fundraising events, and even though he would undoubtedly be in any Cabinet of Keir Starmer's, probably as Deputy Prime Minister in name, and certainly as such in practice. Even from his cell, Epstein was still making donations to "Petie".

And now, Petie's former live-in lover, Peter Wilby, has been convicted of having had 167 indecent images of children, including 22 of their being subjected to penetration, bestiality or sadism. That provides some context to the fact that Starmer was the Director of Public Prosecutions when the decision was made not to prosecute Jimmy Savile. In the words of Doughty Street Chambers, on its page about Starmer, now amusingly removed from public view: "He was Director of Public Prosecutions and Head of the Crown Prosecution Service from 2008-2013. As DPP, Keir was responsible for all criminal prosecutions in England and Wales." Therefore, Starmer would have been responsible for the decision not to charge Savile even if he had never set eyes on the file.

But that is in any case inconceivable. We are talking about Jimmy Savile here. That Starmer took the decision not to charge Savile has been repeated all over the place, far beyond parliamentary privilege. Starmer has yet to sue anyone for having made it. Starmer's "experience" as DPP is held up by his supporters as his qualification to be Prime Minister. Yet now they insist that it was a purely titular headship such as might have been given on an unpaid basis to a minor member of the Royal Family. Or, in his heyday, to Jimmy Savile.

Due to Savile's fame and connections, of course that decision was not made by anyone other than Starmer, just as of course he was sly enough not to have left a paper trail. Why did Starmer let Savile off? Why is Starmer so dependent on Epstein's closest associate in Britain, indeed one of Epstein's closest associates in the world, who is also an ex-partner of Wilby's? What sort of person therefore wants Starmer to become Prime Minister?

But when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.

This Monumental Waste

This makes me laugh. A lot. Aletha Adu writes:

Labour has spent more than half a million pounds as part of its lawsuit against five former staffers accused of leaking an internal report on antisemitism, The Guardian understands.

The party has spent at least £503,260 in its bitter battle with ex-staff members, including Jeremy Corbyn’s former chief of staff, Karie Murphy, and his former director of communications, Seumas Milne.

That sum is said to relate only to the total costs accrued for a recent hearing, that involved a failed attempt to gain access to Murphy’s private emails. The party has been refused permission to appeal.

In total, the Labour party could face a legal bill of between £3m and £4m.

In a high court order handed down this month, Mr Justice Chamberlain ordered the party to pay £90,000 as an interim contribution towards Murphy’s costs. Murphy, Milne and the three others – Georgie Robertson, Laura Murray and Harry Hayball – deny leaking the report by Labour’s governance and legal unit in April 2020.

The report, titled The work of the Labour party’s governance and Legal Unit in Relation to Antisemitism, 2014–2019, was compiled in connection with an investigation by the equalities watchdog into allegations of antisemitism inside Labour. It leaked days after Keir Starmer became party leader.

It included details of staffers’ private conversations expressing hostility towards Corbyn or his close allies and bemoaning Labour’s better-than-expected performance in the 2017 general election, and revealed instances of sexism and racism.

Starmer supporters said it was leaked in an attempt to “smear whistleblowers” who had exposed antisemitism. The leak prompted those named in the report to launch legal action against the party for failing to protect their data, invasion of privacy and libel.

Other legal costs incurred by Labour so far include £99,108 towards the five employees’ application for the lawsuit against them to be struck out, and £103,626 towards an anonymity application by the claimants in the case whose names were revealed in the report.

Investigations by Martin Forde KC, the senior lawyer commissioned by Starmer to investigate the Labour party’s culture, the Information Commissioner’s Office and an independent external investigator, Morag Slater of CMP Resolutions, were unable to establish the source of the leak.

Labour instigated the legal action against those accused of leaking the report in 2021, and it is understood that the substantive trial may not take place until the second half of 2024, possibly on the eve of a general election.

A legal source with knowledge of the case said: “Labour will be facing a bill of several million by the time this saga ends and a media-fest airing Labour’s dirty laundry just before or during a general election.”

With the trial expected to last at least two weeks, coupled with new revelations about the cost of the hearing, there are growing concerns among some in Labour that the lawsuit is racking up costs that could have been used for campaigning.

A member of the ruling national executive committee (NEC) from the pro-Starmer wing said Labour should be “questioning this monumental waste of members’ and affiliates’ money pursuing what appears to be a pointless political vendetta”.

They said: “The NEC has been kept in the dark about these costs, which are spiralling out of control. Candidates will be up in arms that we are gambling with the party finances needed to win their seats. We need to have a laser focus on getting the Tories out.” An insider has pointed to an increase in Labour’s income, primarily from donations, totalling £47.2m, which was 50% higher than the Conservatives received.

A Labour party spokesperson said: “The party has conducted a wide-ranging and appropriately thorough investigation following the leak and is confident of the case it has presented to the court. That remains the case.”

Stick Close To Your Desks And Never Go To Sea

Sore at not having been promoted to Secretary of State for Defence from her present position with no policy role, Lord High Admiral Penny Mordaunt, who ought to enter all rooms to the sound of Sir Joseph Porter's Song, has managed to get herself into the Daily Mail anyway, by flogging the dead horse called National Service. As if they would turn up. Or as if the Armed Forces would want them to.

Ben Wallace's military credentials are barely less questionable than Mordaunt's. But ignore anyone who advocated a military intervention unless you could imagine that person as an 18-year-old in battle. In Ukraine as in every case, the call for war is coming from the liberal bourgeoisie. That is the class least likely to join the Armed Forces voluntarily, or to see combat even in periods of conscription. Operationally, that is of course just as well. But if there is not a strong enough case for conscription, then there is not a strong enough case for war. Unless a country needed to mobilise its entire healthy and able-bodied male population of fighting age, then it is not under sufficient threat to justify going to war at all. Britain is not.

Back On The Path?

"The Ministry of Defence is back on the path to being once again world class with world class people," writes Ben Wallace, which must be why he has resigned.

Only "back on the path", and who steered it off that path in the first place? Who was Secretary of State for Defence for four years until this morning? Which party has been in government for 13 years?

I could have taught Claire Coutinho in school, but I am used to that sort of thing now. What really strikes me is that Wallace is only seven years older than I am, yet he looks as if he could be my father.

Vaz Automatic

The suspension of Leicester East Constituency Labour Party suggests that a by-election is on its way. Keith Vaz will probably not be the candidate, but he may as well be. In October, Vaz was once again appearing on Labour leaflets in Leicester. Who funds his two staffed offices in Leicester East, which have had queues down the street since Claudia Webbe's trial began, on the assumption that he was already the MP again, bar the formality of a by-election? Knowing that his suspension would lapse with the dissolution of the Parliament that had imposed it, Vaz has continued to send a calendar of himself to every address in the constituency, as has been his custom since 1987.

Webbe is on borrowed time. Once Labour was good to go at Leicester East, then she would be banged up for breach. All that they would need would be another complaint of harassment. You cannot be acquitted of harassment. Two solicitors and a barrister have confirmed that to me, and I was told in writing that I would have no lawyer if I tried to plead not guilty. The crime consists in having made the complainant feel harassed. If she says that she was, then she was. That was literally the only evidence presented against Webbe. She was convicted, and her conviction was upheld on appeal. She is about due to be convicted again, and therefore imprisoned. What matters is to be well enough connected that the Crown Prosecution Service will take up the case. That is not a problem if you are Keir Starmer.

The Safeguarding Challenge: Day 52

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Board of the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency, currently Nazir Afzal, Amanda Ellingworth, Wesley Cuell, Bishop Paul Mason, Carol Lawrence, Jenny Holmes, Sister Frances Orchard CJ, and Sir David Behan.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Committee, currently Monsignor Andrew Faley, Gail McGregor, Paul Weatherstone, Father Christopher Hancock MHM, Father Jeff Dodds, Canon William Agley, and Catherine Dyer.

And that purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Team, currently Meriel Anderson, Ian Colling, Paul Brown, Lisa Short, Yvonne Brown, and Robert Appleby.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide. I should emphasise that there is absolutely no risk that I might ever give anyone the satisfaction of my suicide.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The CPS Challenge: Day 52

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of its organised persecution of the opponents and critics of Keir Starmer, which is its principal national priority.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from contesting the next General Election.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from seeking the position of General Secretary of Unite the Union.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a thinktank to strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a weekly magazine of news and comment, a monthly cultural review, a quarterly academic journal, and perhaps eventually also a fortnightly satirical magazine.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from taking journalistic, political or other paid work for fear of losing my entitlement to Legal Aid.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service out of the same racism that has caused it to refuse to prosecute the Police Officers in the case of Stephen Lawrence.

And I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to incite my politically motivated murder, a murder that the CPS has already decided would never lead to any prosecution.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Board, currently Max Hill KC, Monica Burch, Rebecca Lawrence, Mark Hammond, Simon Jeffreys, Dr Subo Shanmuganathan, and Kathryn Stone.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the CPS senior leadership, currently Dawn Brodrick, Steve Buckingham, Mark Gray, Sandra McKay, Gregor McGill, Grace Ononiwu, and Baljhit Ubey.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Audit and Risk Assurance Committee, currently Simon Jeffreys, Mark Hammond, Michael Dunn, and Deborah Harris.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Nominations, Leadership and Remuneration Committee, currently Max Hill KC, Rebecca Lawrence, and Monica Burch.

And each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the 279 members of staff of the CPS North East Area, by definition including, but not restricted to, Chief Crown Prosecutor Gail Gilchrist, and the Area Business Manager, Ian Brown.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Clergy Challenge: Day 755

I invite each and every bishop, priest and deacon of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if he thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me.

Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know. The current total is zero.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Representatives Challenge: Day 755

As already stated on the day after my release: "The instant that Labour lost control of Durham County Council, then I was granted an unsolicited tag for more than 10 weeks of future good behaviour. I invite each and every Member of Parliament for the area covered by Durham County Council, each and every member of Durham County Council, and each and every member of Lanchester Parish Council, to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know." The current total is zero.

Furthermore, I invite each and every other candidate for the parliamentary seat containing Lanchester to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. In this case, names most certainly will be published, including as part of my election literature. The current total is zero. If that remained the case when the next General Election was called, then my literature would state that each and all of my opponents, by name, did not think that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. At least in that event, then I challenge Oliver Kamm to contest this seat.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

Conviction Politics

A convict who refused to attend sentencing would already be in contempt of court if the judge so ruled, and the guidelines already allow for reasonable force, although of course the Prison Officers would need to be properly trained and resourced. That is not an argument against making this statutory; if anything, the reverse. It is merely the context for the Government's latest bandwagon-jumping and grandstanding.

Similarly, whole life orders already exist, and we do not have mandatory sentences in this country. There are a handful of minimum sentences, but the judge retains discretion above those, and there is the technically mandatory life sentence for murder, but even then the judge either sets a minimum term, thereby creating the high probability of release, or discretionally imposes a whole life order with extreme rarity. Anything beyond that would rightly never pass Parliament.

The death penalty for murder was not mandatory, there was no understanding that anyone not executed for murder would never be released from prison, such releases were not unknown, and no such commitment was ever made when capital punishment was abolished. If you doubt that last statement, then produce that commitment. No one in a position to give it ever did anything so un-British, and perhaps especially so un-English. In this country, we have judges.

No, the Conservatives are going nowhere with all of this. They would do much better to recognise that, after Rachel Reeves's ruling out of a wealth tax, the idea has captured at least the politically engaged public's imagination that unearned income should be taxed at the same rate as earnings, as it was under Margaret Thatcher. That strikes almost everyone as only fair, as only common sense. So it is. It would also raise £15 billion. Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt should spring this one on Reeves and on Keir Starmer.

And when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.

Downright Corrupt

Adam Ramsay writes:

Senior Labour figures accepted valuable gifts from Google in the days before abandoning a plan to tax digital giants more, openDemocracy can reveal.

Labour’s shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, his senior parliamentary assistant (who is his wife), and Keir Starmer’s political director all attended Glastonbury festival in June as guests of YouTube, which is owned by Google. Including accommodation and ‘hospitality’, Reynolds estimates his Glastonbury package for two was worth £3,377 – significantly more than the cost of two regular tickets, which were £335 each.

The next day, reports emerged that Labour had ditched its proposal to hike tax on digital businesses like Google.

The Digital Services Tax, introduced in 2020, is a 2% levy on the UK income of online companies like search engines and social media platforms. In August last year, Reynolds and his shadow chancellor colleague Rachel Reeves had called for an increase in the tax to 10%, saying the income would be used to fund a slash in tax for small businesses.

As recently as 5 June, Reynolds was still talking about the policy. Yet on 26 June this year, the day after Glastonbury ended, The Times reported that the policy had been ditched, with Labour saying it had “no plans” to raise the digital service tax when in government. Reynolds declined to comment.

It was not the only time senior figures in Starmer’s team accepted luxury gifts from Google in the months before the party’s U-turn. Shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell’s political adviser, Labour’s executive director of policy, and the party’s head of domestic policy all accepted tickets and transport to, and ‘hospitality’ at, the Brit Awards in February from the digital giant. Powell’s register of interests estimates that the adviser’s ticket was worth £1,170.

Starmer’s political director also accepted transport to and ‘hospitality’ ahead of the event from Google, though his ticket, along with that of Starmer’s private secretary, was covered by Universal Music.

YouTube will sponsor an event at Labour’s annual conference next month with the chair of the business and trade select committee, Darren Jones. The talk, hosted by the New Statesman Media Group, will be on “harnessing tech for growth”.

Last week, openDemocracy revealed that Starmer had accepted a £380 dinner from Google for him and one staff member during the World Economic Forum in January.

In total, openDemocracy estimates that Labour shadow cabinet members and their staff accepted luxury gifts from Google worth nearly £10,000 over the months before they announced their policy U-turn. By contrast, the value to the British public of the policy Labour appears to have ditched is estimated at around £3bn.

Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, said: “This is a really very worrying set of events which suggests that big business has far too much access to senior opposition politicians.

“But this isn’t simply about foolish behaviour on the part of the individuals concerned. In office, Labour needs to radically restructure our economy if it’s to have any hope of creating a more sustainable and equal society, and undoing the damage of recent governments. To do that, they must take on vested interests, like the Big Tech monopolies, which have far too much wealth and power.”

Staff for other Labour shadow cabinet members have also accepted valuable gifts from controversial companies. A political adviser to the shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, accepted two ‘box’ tickets to a Harry Styles concert worth £700 each from BT. In the 2019 Labour manifesto, the party committed to nationalising BT, a measure the company opposed. It’s not clear whether the party maintains this policy, but Reeves has distanced herself from other nationalisation plans.

In April this year, BT announced a 14.4% average increase in its prices, and £1.7bn in profit. An Openreach spokesperson said: “As you’d expect from any major employer investing billions into the UK, we engage regularly with a range of stakeholders to support the interests of our people, our customers and our business. Any hospitality is consistent with the rules, fully declared and transparent.”

Labour did not respond to requests for comment.

Air, Water, Fire

"Our air is not for sale," Andrew Smith told a cheering Labour Party Conference in 1996. You know what happened next. The last Labour Government, the archetype of any future one, privatised air traffic control. See how that has worked out.

Placing itself to the right of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Labour Party also supports the Government's plan to repeal the laws against water pollution, laws that it will have come as a surprise to most people existed at all.

I do not recall any absence of complaints about dirty water when we were in the EU, just as I do not notice any such absence while we are still in the ECHR, which will present no obstacle to the dismantlement of even the minimal standards that we nominally already enjoyed, just as neither the ECHR nor the EU prevented the privatisation of air traffic control or of anything else.

But when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Keir Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.

Bongo Drummed

40 per cent of the young men in Gabon are unemployed, and 34 per cent of the population is in absolute poverty, yet the ruling family is so fabulously rich from the country's oil that it once imported fake snow for Christmas. In 2015, President Ali Bongo paid Lionel Messi €2.5 million for a one-day appearance. There are only 2.4 million people in Gabon. Every one of them should be rich. Today, they have decided that they would no longer tolerate being poor.

France still taxes 14 of its former colonies for "the benefits of colonisation", and forces them to use a currency that it issues, the CFA franc. That is pegged to the euro and so on, for be assured that, for all the cheap jokes about French military cowardice, their utter ruthlessness in Africa is an integral and important part of "the rules-based international order", the rules of which are such as these. The French and the Americans alike maintain a huge military presence in those countries. They are not there as rivals.

With that backing, Omar and Ali Bongo ruled Gabon from 1967, 10 years before Emmanuel Macron was born, until today. A single individual, the 90-year-old Paul Biya, has been President of Cameroon since 1982, the year that Macron turned five. And so on. Oil-rich Gabonese starve. France has the world's fourth largest gold reserves but no goldmine except in French Guiana, while gold-rich Mali has no reserves. France has the world's highest rate of nuclear energy but no uranium, while only 18 per cent of people in uranium-rich Niger have electricity at all. But not the least of Africa's overflowing natural resources are a median age of 18.5, a mean age of 19.5, and a birth rate of 4.2 per woman. And the youth is in revolt.

That Russia and the Wagner Group will want their cut is not, for now, seen as a problem in Africa. The Russians never colonised the place, they were the lynchpin of its liberation struggle, and they still are. By contrast, the United States did and does support the colonial powers and oppose the liberators. Whether as the Russian Federation or as the Wagner Group, the Russians will be welcome to a share of the spoils of the liberation as far as Africans were concerned. Russia earned them in the last stage of The Struggle, and it has already begun to earn them in this stage. That is how things are seen there.

France is not the only bad guy in Africa, and this uprising has notably begun under its first ever Anglo-style centrist President. Hence the silence of the likes of Black Lives Matter. Those are wholly owned subsidiaries of the Democratic Party, which is the most successful white supremacist organisation in history based on how and for how long it ran the South, and of its intercontinental network of wannabes. Including Macron's Renaissance. And including all main parties here.

But when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Keir Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.

The End of Françafrique?

Nabila Ramdani writes:

African wars were an essential part of the age of empire. The first were linked to invasion and conquest, the next to the quelling of revolts, and then there were armed liberation struggles. France was one of the most ruthless military colonisers, prosecuting savage conflicts across the African continent. Its most famous army units – most notably the Foreign Legion – sealed their reputations defending stolen African outposts.

As a huge swathe of Africa once again appears to be on the verge of war, it is no surprise, then, to find France back at the centre of the maelstrom. Tension is highest right now in Niger, the former French colony, where a democratically elected government headed by President Mohamed Bazoum, and still fervently supported by Paris and the West, was deposed by a military junta at the end of July.

Neighbouring states belonging to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have threatened to attack the Nigerien coupists, led by General Abdourahamane Tchiani. Such an intervention could easily be backed by the French, who retain a 1,500-troop garrison and airbase in Niger, but they have so far kept their powder dry.

If this changed, and the shooting started, then the French military would be up against fighters sharing a visceral opposition to Françafrique – the neocolonial system set up in sub-Saharan Africa following the collapse of the official French Empire in the mid-20th century. Françafrique encompasses a range of ties, from economic to security ones, that are all centred on Gallic values, including the French language.

Niger, a country rich in uranium and gold, is typical of the allegedly independent nations France wanted to hold on to through Françafrique. Beyond its natural wealth, Niger is of massive strategic importance to France, especially in the fight against terrorist militias, such as al-Qaeda.

There is no doubt that the French still view Africa as their pré carré, or backyard. The ongoing covetousness of the self-styled Gendarme of Africa is now made even more dangerous by the sight of other powers moving into France’s sphere of influence. Chinese, Russian and Turkish troops are just some of those on the ground across the massive Sahel area, stretching thousands of miles east to west, between Eritrea and Senegal.

The problem for France and its Western allies, including the US, is that their enormous aid programmes – some $2 billion a year in development assistance to Niger alone – have not made them any more popular. Massive youth unemployment and an illiteracy rate of 60 per cent are just some of the endemic problems that are blamed on former colonial masters and their associates. The US maintains around a thousand military personnel in Niger.

This explains all the Russian flags and cries of ‘Up Putin!’ when a mob attempted to sack the French Embassy in the Nigerien capital of Niamey last month. It is too early to talk about a new Scramble for Africa – the violent acquisition of large chunks of the continent by imperialist European countries following the infamous Berlin Conference in 1884-85. But questionable regimes are certainly longing to exploit new power vacuums, and to replace the French.

Speaking on TV, Tchiani said of any combined invasion involving overseas and African nations: ‘If an attack were to be undertaken against us, it will not be the walk in the park some people seem to think.’ Many believe that such bellicosity cannot be matched by French president Emmanuel Macron, who has no stomach for a proper fight. Paris senators alongside 94 members of the the National Assembly have already criticised Macron’s overriding policy of retreat, suggesting that France is doomed to be ‘erased’ from the African continent.

Referring to upheavals in various states that have led to planes packed with expats jetting back to Paris, the parliamentarians wrote in a letter to Le Figaro earlier this month: ‘Today Niger, yesterday Mali, the Central African Republic and Burkina Faso have rejected France, French forces, and French businesses.’ The letter added: ‘Isn’t it time to reset our vision of Africa and its relations with France? It probably is when Africa, a friendly continent, no longer seems to understand France and contests its role and presence more and more.’

Such an assessment of Macron’s Africa policy will be welcomed by the likes of Russia and China. In this sense, yet another horrific war in Africa could be the final undoing of the entire Françafrique project.

The Dawn of the Brics World Order

Thomas Fazi writes:

Last week’s Brics summit was supposed to herald the dawn of a new world order. It would announce the end of the American era and the rise of another, this time belonging to developing nations. It would even, according to excitable analysts, be remembered as another Bandung Conference, the 1955 meeting that paved the way for a non-aligned movement during the Cold War.

And on that front, the gathering in Johannesburg succeeded. The organisation announced its first expansion since its founding in 2009: next year, the five original Brics members — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — will be joined by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia and Argentina (provided the current government wins the upcoming elections, which seems unlikely). Even more significantly, the summit underscored the bloc’s inclination to use its increasing economic clout to challenge the Western-dominated global order. The combination of these two elements — growing economic muscle and political boldness — means that the bloc (to be renamed Brics Plus) has become a full-blooded geopolitical actor that can longer be ignored.

In demographic and economic terms, the power of the Brics, especially in light of its recent expansion, is all too evident. With its new members, the bloc will represent almost half of the global population. In terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), the most appropriate measure for comparing the relative economic size of countries, it already represented nearly one third of global GDP — more than the US-led G7’s economies, which account for 30%. The latest additions will bring its share up to 37%.

This gap with the West will only widen, considering that emerging and developing countries are predicted to grow at much higher rates in the coming years, and that more countries are likely to join. More than 40 countries have reportedly expressed interest in joining, and 22 of them have formally asked to be admitted. In other words, the overwhelming majority of the world’s population lives in countries that are either already in the Brics or aspire to be.

The importance of this becomes even more apparent if we look at what countries produce, rather than just how much they produce. Over the past decades, Western economies have become increasingly financialised and seen their industrial production stagnate, meaning that a large part of their GDP doesn’t represent the production of actual goods but rather of financial assets. If we look at actual production — manufacturing — the gap between the West and the Brics is even starker: the G7 countries as whole contribute to global manufacturing output roughly as much as China does on its own.

But the growing power of this new alliance is about much more than just GDP and the production of stuff; it’s also about resources. The integration of two of the world’s top oil producers — Saudi Arabia and the UAE — means that the Brics members will account for more than 40% of global oil production. The fact that two of America’s staunchest allies in the Persian Gulf have decided to join a China-led (and increasingly politicised) alliance exemplifies better than anything else the paradigm shift underway. US officials can downplay the significance of the event as much as they want, but its symbolic value is clear — especially if we consider that the two Gulf countries are joined by Iran, one of America’s most notorious arch-enemies.

For the US, however, the consequences are likely to be more than just symbolic. The move potentially represents a serious threat to the petrodollar system. During the Seventies, Saudi Arabia made a deal with the US in which it agreed to list its oil on the global market in dollars; the dollars received by Saudi Arabia for its oil sales — the so-called petrodollars — would then be recycled back into the US in the form of deposits and purchases of US Treasuries. This, combined with the fact that any country that wants to buy oil has to purchase dollars to do so, has allowed the US to run a massive trade deficit for decades without seeing the dollar depreciate. It has been one of the keystones of America’s post-war global hegemony, allowing Washington to sustain a regime of perpetual war, on top of exercising financial dominance over much of the world.

In recent years, however, cracks have started to appear in the petrodollar system. Not long ago, Saudi Arabia announced that it was considering pricing its oil in other currencies — first and foremost the Chinese yuan — while the UAE has already sold oil to China using the yuan. Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s entry into the Brics is therefore likely to provide further momentum to this gradual shift away from the petrodollar system.

As a group, too, the Brics has leaned towards an explicitly pro-de-dollarisation stance. Last year, for instance, they announced plans to develop an international currency along the lines of the synthetic alternative proposed by Keynes 70 years ago, the bancor. At last week’s summit, Brazil’s President Lula reaffirmed it as a priority, though it is unlikely to happen anytime soon. In the meantime, the Brics’s plan is to encourage the use of local currencies in international trade, as well as increasing the percentage of the bloc’s loans financed in local currencies.

Equally symbolic, in political more than economic terms, is the admission of Ethiopia. Not only is Ethiopia Africa’s second most populous country, after Nigeria; it is also where the headquarters of the African Union are located, in the capital Addis Ababa. The move here should be read as a message to the entire continent that the Brics is open to any African country that may want to join, as well as an affirmation of the bloc’s commitment to helping developing countries — Ethiopia is also one of Africa’s poorest countries. In his speech (read by the Chinese commerce minister), Xi Jinping in particular insisted on the role of the Brics as a fundamental vehicle for the development and emancipation of the Global South — primarily Africa.

Not that these countries need much convincing. Many African nations have already asked to join the Brics, along with several more in the Middle East and Latin America. There are strictly economic reasons for this: the bloc’s approach to global affairs and development — based on the principles of inclusive multilateralism and sovereign equality, and opposition to economic coercion — is seen by many nations as a better alternative to the current Western model, and as an opportunity to break away from economic and financial Western control.

As ever, there are deeper factors at play, too. For some, the Brics represents a “geopolitical umbrella” ostensibly offering a degree of protection in the face of the West’s increasingly aggressive foreign policy, epitomised by the Biden administration’s “dual containment” strategy against China and Russia, and the expansion of Nato and Nato-like alliances around the world. For others, the motivation might be the opposite: they might, as Branko Milanovic suggests, view the Brics as “the only place where nations not interested in participating in the new Cold War, or even in a possible hot war between the superpowers, can ‘runaway’ in order not to have to choose sides”. For others still, the motivation is more ideological: it is about explicitly challenging and weakening the West’s 500-year-old grip on global affairs, in what may be likened to a new decolonisation movement. This is particularly evident in some African countries.

On this issue, however, not everyone in the bloc is on the same page. Russia and China, for obvious reasons, favour transforming the group into a full-blooded political organisation speaking up for the Global South, countering US and Western hegemony, and spearheading the creation of a more equitable multipolar world order. In his speech, Xi said that the US “has gone out of its way to cripple emerging markets and developing countries; whoever is developing fast becomes its target of containment; whoever is catching up becomes its target of obstruction”.

South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, meanwhile, drew a direct parallel between the Johannesburg summit and the Bandung Conference of 1955: “The Conference called for the recognition of the equality of all nations, large and small. We still share that common vision of a fair and just world.” Isaias Afwerki, the President of Eritrea, one of the many non-member countries invited to the summit, was even more scathing: “US exceptionalism — or pax americana — has unleashed malaises that have gravely impaired global progress for almost a century now. Illegal and unilateral sanctions; weaponisation of US dominated financial, economic and judicial institutions; as well as other punitive instruments in their toolbox are routinely invoked [by the US and its allies] to punish those who do not toe the line…”

Yet not all members agree with this confrontational approach. Modi’s India, in particular, which has very good relations with Washington and the West, including in the security field, is concerned about the Brics’s evolution into an explicitly anti-Western organisation led by China and Russia, and favours a more neutral approach — non-Western but not anti-Western. For the time being, however, it appears to be losing ground to the latter two, whose anti-hegemonic stance enjoys widespread support in the Global South.

Next year, then, will prove crucial for the future of the Brics — and of the world as a whole. Not only will membership of the new countries become effective, but Russia will also assume the annual presidency of the bloc. In other words, a country engaged in a de facto military confrontation with the West — assuming the war is still ongoing — will be representing an organisation encompassing half of humanity. If last week’s summit didn’t mark the start of a new world order, it will certainly start then.

Poor Company

Is an Associate Professor a Reader in old money? Anyway, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, for heaven’s sake, you are to the right of one of those at UCL, writing in The Guardian, and still starry-eyed about Joe Biden. Josh Ryan-Collins writes:

Labour’s shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, confirmed last weekend what many progressives have long feared: the party has no serious plans for reforming Britain’s regressive taxation system. There will be no new property taxes or wealth tax. Nor will tax rates on capital gains – unearned income from increases in the value of property or financial assets – be raised to match those on wages.

The politics of maintaining the tax status quo can be debated. History suggests that Britain’s swing voters in marginal constituencies may be particularly averse to tax rises or reforms. But the economics of this stance are unambiguously flawed, and here Labour is taking an almighty gamble. For without major tax rises and reforms, it is impossible to see how Labour will generate the levels of growth it has made one of its central missions when in government.

Reeves asserted: “I don’t see the way to prosperity as being through taxation.” This would appear an implicit backing for “trickle-down” economics: encourage the “wealth creators” by keeping taxes low and the cake will get bigger for everyone. This central tenet of neoliberalism has been thoroughly discredited. There is no evidence that the reductions in taxation on the rich that have proliferated over the past half century have led to higher rates of growth; rather, they have simply increased inequality.

Reeves claims to be a supporter of “Bidenomics”. But Joe Biden’s administration has fully and publicly rejected trickle-down economics, embarking on aggressive tax rises to support a massive fiscal expansion as part of the Inflation Reduction Act that has helped the US so effectively recover from the pandemic.

The truth is that the UK is a leading global example of an economy where the tax system incentivises a form of “wealth creation” that doesn’t actually support growth. By taxing capital gains less than income (as much as 50%, less according to a recent study) and instigating a swathe of tax breaks favouring property ownership and housing investment, we have supported the creation of a sophisticated form of “rentier capitalism”.

In such a system, the majority of investment flows into the capture and ownership of assets such as property, infrastructure or financial assets. This money does not then flow into the creation of new businesses, inventions or socially useful infrastructure, nor rising wages for middle- and low-income earners.

Instead, it goes to private domestic and international investors and households lucky enough to own property, whose assets further inflate. None of the income generated goes into productive investment. Instead, the rest of society faces higher house prices and rents. The banking and asset management sectors have fully embraced this approach, preferring bigger loans against less risky assets, such as property, to lending to small firms.

This capital misallocation is a key structural driver of the UK’s stagnant growth and low productivity. A key mission of the Labour party is to have the highest rate of growth in the G7; but to do so, the country must move from the bottom of the G7 league table for private capital investment.

Factors other than the tax regime have also contributed to this record of course, including the lack of an industrial strategy, a national obsession with home ownership and, since the financial crisis of 2008, fiscal austerity. But to pretend the tax system has nothing to do with this is deeply flawed.

Added to this long-term, structural problem of capital misallocation is the more immediate challenge posed by inflation. The major increases in spending on public services and the green transition that Labour will be expected to deliver become much more challenging in an environment of high core inflation, which – in the UK, currently, at least – is proving persistent.

The way to temper the inflationary effects of such spending is to tax spending power out of other parts of the economy where it is less needed: most obviously from the wealthy. By raising taxes on capital gains or other forms of wealth while increasing public spending and investment, Labour has a good chance of repeating what Biden’s administration appears to have managed: a progressive deflation where the wages of lower earners are allowed to catch up with those of the rest, and growth remains healthy.

What is even more remarkable about the Labour leadership’s current position on tax is that it is out of sync with nearly the entire official economic establishment. The OECD, IMF, Institute for Fiscal Studies and Financial Times have all come out in favour of higher taxes on property and wealth in recent times as a means to support public investment and growth and reduce inequality.

Labour finds itself siding with an increasingly small minority of economists who continue to believe that taxing wealth less than income will support growth. It’s poor company for them to be in.

Austerity Is Labour’s Choice

Grace Blakeley writes:

Things have now become so bad for the UK economy that almost no one disagrees it is time for radical change. On the rare occasion that public debate turns to issues of political economy, you almost never hear the question, ‘But how are we going to pay for it?’

Much as doctors in most private hospitals would triage a gunshot victim before turning to questions of payment, immediate action is required to reverse the UK’s horrendous economic fortunes. ‘Paying for it’ has become a secondary consideration.

But this message has yet to reach Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, who seem intent upon resurrecting an austerity politics pronounced dead by none other than Boris Johnson. The pair are absolutely adamant that no new spending commitments can be announced by the opposition unless they are fully costed.

The very obvious problems with this policy were outlined by Keynes nearly a century ago. Namely, that when private spending and investment drops, the resulting reduction in demand can become self-reinforcing. Only the state has the power to step in and arrest the cycle of declining economic confidence by investing where private actors will not.

One might respond by pointing to the fact that while private investment is weak and incomes are constrained, inflation remains high. Public spending must therefore align with monetary policy in constraining demand in order to keep inflation low.

But inflation, as I have argued many times before, is a political phenomenon. It is not enough to ascertain the level of inflation – you also have to look at which prices are rising and at whose expense.

As several economic studies have now shown, the inflationary pressure we are experiencing today is largely the result of corporate greed rather than excessive government or consumer spending.

Large corporations are using their market power artificially to inflate prices, with the inflationary climate acting as a convenient excuse. After all, the consumer doesn’t know how much of the increase in the price of their loaf of bread is due to rising grain prices and how much is supermarket price gouging.

The only way to tell is to look at corporate profits — and profits have been extraordinarily high during what most people are experiencing as extremely hard economic times.

The big oil companies made record profits in 2022. Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP and Total raked in $195 billion in profits in 2022 — up 120 percent on 2021, when profits were also sharply higher than the year before.

Exxon Mobil — a company famous for covering up early evidence of climate breakdown, sponsoring climate denialism and lobbying against decarbonization — saw the largest increase in its profits, reporting $56 billion worth of profit in 2022, the highest in the company’s entire history. 2023 looks set to be just as profitable for big oil. In the first quarter of this year, Exxon reported profits that were double those of the first quarter of 2022.

The companies that deliver our energy are doing just as well. Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, reported record profits of £3.3 billion — up from just £948 million last year. All in all, the UK’s energy suppliers are set to extract £1.74 billion worth of excess profits from stretched consumers over the course of the next twelve months.

Another extractive sector — finance — continues to profit at the expense of working people. The UK’s top banks made £29 billion worth of profits in the first half of 2023, an increase of 80 percent on the same period in 2021. HSBC — famous for facilitating tax evasion and money laundering — reported profits of £16.9 billion for the first half of this year.

Perhaps most grotesquely, the outsourcing companies that are paid to provide government services look set to increase their profits on the back of the government’s demonisation of migrants and asylum seekers. Serco — accused of perpetuating a culture of ‘institutional abuse’ at detention centres such as Yarl’s Wood — is expecting higher than normal profits for 2023 due to immigration services contracts.

While profits have been more constrained in more competitive sectors, the UK economy is dominated by oligopolies operating in highly uncompetitive markets that are able to extract wealth from workers, citizens and the environment. These companies are using inflation as an excuse to raise prices and increase profits — most of which are distributed to shareholders or used to buy back shares.

This is the answer to the riddle of how growth and investment can be so low while inflation remains elevated. Monopolists are holding up prices while failing to invest in anything other than augmenting their own wealth and power.

In this context, the only way to curb inflation without imposing unbearable costs on workers is to tax corporate profits and the wealth and incomes derived from those profits. The returns could then be invested in decarbonisation initiatives that transform our energy infrastructure rather than imposing costs on energy users.

Yet Rachel Reeves has stated outright that she will not back any increases in the top rate of income tax and ruled out any increase in capital gains taxes or the introduction of new wealth taxes. This comes on top of previous announcements that an incoming Labour government will not touch the top rate of corporation tax.

This is not only economically insane. It’s also contrary to prevailing public sentiment. People know that massive corporations are profiting from the cost of living crisis at their expense. And they back measures to make those corporations pay, like the windfall tax on energy companies.

One could fault previous Labour leaders such as Ed Miliband for following public opinion rather than attempting to lead it on issues surrounding public spending; on being a weathervane rather than a signpost.

But the new Labour leadership can’t even be accused of blowing wherever the wind takes them. Instead, they seem intent on pushing conservative economic policies even when the general public supports much more radical ones.

There is, of course, a very clear reason for this. Under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, public opinion on issues of economics shifted so profoundly as to terrify the ruling class — even without an election victory.

As ‘capital’s B team,’ it’s the job of Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves to shore up support for the status quo. I’m sure that the coterie of advisers and lobbyists that surround the current Labour leadership has convinced them that their approach makes them seem ‘responsible’ and ‘credible’.

In fact, it simply reinforces the sense held by many voters that all politicians are the same and that nothing is likely to change no matter who they vote for. When these attitudes dominate, people start to believe that the only option is to lend their support to far-right extremists who promise to burn down the whole system. Don’t be surprised if the rise of the far right is the only real legacy of Starmerism.

Communicating A Fresh Vision

Professor Kate Pickett writes:

Fourteen years ago Richard Wilkinson and I published our book The Spirit Level. Arguably, the onset of the financial crash should have been an auspicious moment for our work to hit the bookshelves. Just as old economic certainties seemed to have been discarded, we were arguing for a new approach to macroeconomic policy focused on reducing inequality, improving human wellbeing and safeguarding the planet. There could be no better time for a reassessment of the values embedded in and outcomes expected from our economic system.

Of course, the coalition and subsequent Conservative governments chose a quite different path. Motivated by political ideology over and above economic literacy, they opted for swingeing cuts, punitive social security and tax policies engineered to benefit a wealthy minority. It has left our country poorer, weaker and more divided. Healthy life expectancy has fallen, child poverty rates have increased and inequality has grown – and the pain seems only to worsen.

The lesson? Disruptions on the scale of the financial crash open doors to new ideas. These moments of soul-searching have to be seized by progressives or else the narrative will be told by those with less socially minded or ambitious intentions in mind. Labour lost the argument in 2010. I am concerned it is about to lose it all over again.

This is why I joined 70 other economists and human rights experts, and the thinktank Compassion in Politics, in writing a letter to Sir Keir Starmer this week urging him to reconsider his current, too-limited economic vision. My concern is not just that he is about to tie his colours – and the fate of the British public – to several more years of economic suffering. It is also because I fear he is closing the door on an unprecedented opportunity to reshape the economic agenda.

A recent report found that the public already think austerity has failed and weakened our public services. Starmer and other politicians need to build on this opportunity for change, not reverse it. While governments outside of Westminster are experimenting with exciting new ideas – doughnut economics, wellbeing economics, universal basic incomes, and a human-rights focused economic agenda, to name a few – Britain looks set for another four years of austerity (or at least austerity-lite) government. It’s like we are entering the 14th series of a programme that should have been cut right after the pilot.

We don’t have to go back too far in our history to see how differently things can play out. Immediately after the second world war, Britain’s economy was on its knees. Debt had risen to 270% of GDP (three times what it is today). Industries were devastated. Hundreds of thousands of British soldiers had been killed or wounded. International trade was in crisis.

The economic vision that won out has largely been attributed to the genius of John Maynard Keynes, who argued that straitened economic times call not for fiscal conservatism but a generous and ambitious package of public spending. Britain’s postwar economy needed investment to get it back on its feet. That had to be coupled – as William Beveridge argued and championed – with a social safety net that ensured everyone could lead a decent life. The spirit of collectivism that saw Britain through the war had its legacy in the political and economic agenda that followed it.

Fast forward three-quarters of a century and that spirit has, in many political circles, been forgotten. The UN’s special rapporteur to Britain, Philip Alston, remarked in 2018: “British compassion for those who are suffering has been replaced by a punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous approach.” Policies such as the benefit cap, the two-child limit on child benefits, the bedroom tax and the extensive use of sanctions to punish those already in need of financial support are the embodiment of that approach. One would expect that a party seeking its first electoral victory in 18 years would seek to distance itself from the pain and hardship that has been experienced by so many for too long.

And yet, the initial signs from Labour are that the party itself is now trapped, spellbound by an economic argument that is as empty in ethics as it is destructive in impact. Starmer has said the party will maintain the two-child limit on child benefits and the shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves recently ruled out a wealth tax. Like the Conservatives in 2010, they are pursuing a political rather than an economic agenda – believing that by aping Conservative arguments on spending they will march their way to No 10.

And then what? Find they have no mandate to introduce the kind of changes this country desperately needs. This period of opposition should be one in which they can influence the public narrative on the economy. They can use it to explain why spending actually benefits everyone and stimulates the economy, rather than holding it back. They can make the moral case for progressive taxation. They can debunk the myths that the national economy is in any way analogous to a household budget. And they can tell voters why our shared humanity dictates that we must increase social security and ensure that everyone can lead a good life.

But our letter was about more than just urging Starmer to do better. It’s also an invitation. We know that he has to balance political expediency with economic need. We know that it isn’t easy communicating a fresh vision. We can be an ally to any party that has the courage and wisdom to commit to change. We hope Sir Keir will take our offer seriously.

Now Is A Unique Opportunity For Change

Jon Stone writes:

Top economists have piled pressure on Keir Starmer to break with Tory spending plans amid anxiety over Labour’s policy direction if it wins the next election.

In a letter seen by The Independent, 70 prominent academics say they are “concerned” at the party’s programme for government and warn that failing to reverse cuts would “deepen the poverty and hardship many are already facing”.

Labour last month said its fiscal rules might not allow it to reverse cuts like the two-child benefit limit or bedroom tax, between them responsible for putting hundreds of thousands of families in poverty.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves also announced she would be scaling back the party’s green investment plans, saying spending limits were “non-negotiable”.

The latest warning comes after Jim O’Neill, a prominent economist who coined the term Brics (the grouping of the world economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and who until recently was advising the shadow chancellor, called for “petty and arbitrary” fiscal rules to be scrapped.

In a sign of shifting feeling in the discipline, the former Goldman Sachs chief, who left the Tories to become a crossbencher in the House of Lords, wrote that parties needed to focus on increasing investment rather than trying to balance the books by restricting it.

The latest letter, authored by economists and social policy experts, urges the opposition to revisit the “legacy of the last Labour government”, which they say was “achieved by increased spending on services like Sure Start and child benefit”.

The letter’s authors include South Korean “rockstar” economist Professor Ha-Joon Chang, as well as professors Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson, the authors of the influential book The Spirit Level, which informed speeches by Ed Miliband when he was Labour leader.

Other signatories of the letter include Professor Brendan Burchell, president of Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge, and Professor Ruth Lister CBE, a Labour peer and emeritus professor of social policy at Loughborough University.

“We, the undersigned, are concerned that your current economic programme for government will not transform the economic orthodoxy that has made this country poorer, less cohesive and more unequal than fifteen years ago,” the letter says.

“The maintenance or extension of cuts in the current economic climate will only serve to deepen the poverty and hardship many are already facing.

“We believe it is the duty of an opposition to, where necessary, present an alternative vision for the future and when it comes to economics.”

The economists urge the opposition to move away “from an out of date, economically and socially destructive approach towards a model which improves wellbeing, works in alignment with our environment, and achieves social justice”.

They warn: “Failure to table an alternative will mean not only wasting that opportunity but many lives and futures as well.”

Asked to respond to the letter, a Labour spokesperson told The Independent the party would have to make “tough choices”.

Ms Pickett said: “We need our next government to have a clear vision to protect and promote the wellbeing of both people and planet. New economic models, based on social rights, are there to underpin an attractive and feasible future for the UK.”

The letter says reversing benefit cuts and raising spending on public services would not just help reduce poverty but also benefit the wider economy, providing “a sturdy backbone to household finances” that would in turn stimulate growth – which has been at the core of Labour’s rhetoric.

The opposition has said that day-to-day spending will be completely covered by taxes and that the party will “get debt as a share of our economy falling by the end of the next parliament”.

Koldo Casla, director of the Human Rights Centre Clinic, and co-author of the letter, said: “In the face of global warming, harmful inequalities and rampant inflation, more than an opportunity, Labour has the historic responsibility of presenting a transformational alternative grounded on social rights.”

He said the party should enshrine social rights like housing and health in law to “set a roadmap for public policy” and that these should inform its spending decisions.

Jennifer Nadel, co-director of the think tank Compassion in Politics which organised the letter, told The Independent: “Now is a unique opportunity for change. The public have seen through austerity. An election is on the horizon. Labour – and indeed every party’s – mission must be to show bravery and ambition in articulating a new and better vision for the future of the economy and our country.”

Responding to the letter, a Labour Party spokesperson said: “With Keir Starmer’s leadership, Labour has transformed into a party ready to govern for the whole country.

“We will put a serious, credible and ambitious policy programme to the country, for a mission-driven Labour government that will build a better Britain. That includes growing a strong economy by strengthening workers’ rights and making work pay, underpinned by fiscal responsibility.”

The Safeguarding Challenge: Day 51

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Board of the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency, currently Nazir Afzal, Amanda Ellingworth, Wesley Cuell, Bishop Paul Mason, Carol Lawrence, Jenny Holmes, Sister Frances Orchard CJ, and Sir David Behan.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Committee, currently Monsignor Andrew Faley, Gail McGregor, Paul Weatherstone, Father Christopher Hancock MHM, Father Jeff Dodds, Canon William Agley, and Catherine Dyer.

And that purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Team, currently Meriel Anderson, Ian Colling, Paul Brown, Lisa Short, Yvonne Brown, and Robert Appleby.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide. I should emphasise that there is absolutely no risk that I might ever give anyone the satisfaction of my suicide.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The CPS Challenge: Day 51

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of its organised persecution of the opponents and critics of Keir Starmer, which is its principal national priority.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from contesting the next General Election.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from seeking the position of General Secretary of Unite the Union.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a thinktank to strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a weekly magazine of news and comment, a monthly cultural review, a quarterly academic journal, and perhaps eventually also a fortnightly satirical magazine.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from taking journalistic, political or other paid work for fear of losing my entitlement to Legal Aid.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service out of the same racism that has caused it to refuse to prosecute the Police Officers in the case of Stephen Lawrence.

And I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to incite my politically motivated murder, a murder that the CPS has already decided would never lead to any prosecution.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Board, currently Max Hill KC, Monica Burch, Rebecca Lawrence, Mark Hammond, Simon Jeffreys, Dr Subo Shanmuganathan, and Kathryn Stone.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the CPS senior leadership, currently Dawn Brodrick, Steve Buckingham, Mark Gray, Sandra McKay, Gregor McGill, Grace Ononiwu, and Baljhit Ubey.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Audit and Risk Assurance Committee, currently Simon Jeffreys, Mark Hammond, Michael Dunn, and Deborah Harris.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Nominations, Leadership and Remuneration Committee, currently Max Hill KC, Rebecca Lawrence, and Monica Burch.

And each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the 279 members of staff of the CPS North East Area, by definition including, but not restricted to, Chief Crown Prosecutor Gail Gilchrist, and the Area Business Manager, Ian Brown.

This post will appear daily until further notice.