“This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end”
As regular readers will be aware, much has happened since this column started life in 2016. The column was born out of Brexit and the ensuing chaos, and grew as I began to explore why we have voted “leave” and took up the mantle of inequality. Now, is the time to pause the column, and to decide what next.
This chapter of our story ends with the world in a bad place. The US, under a resurgent Trump, is a rogue nation, meddling in Latin America, using the threat of withholding funds to keep his preferred candidate in-power. The recent invasion of Venezuela was more about their oil reserves than anything else. Columbia could be next, or even Greenland.
The Venezuelan president, Maduro, supposed crime is “narco-terrorism”, but, given the depth of their oil reserves and how quickly US oil companies have been to seize the “opportunity” this does stretch the imagination. Especially, if you consider Trump has recently pardoned the former Honduran president who had already been convicted of “narco-terrorism” in a US court.
The situation in Venezuela has the potential to see the US and China squaring-up, as the Maduro government was one of China’s key “all-weather” strategic partners in Latin America, the term officially adopted in a joint statement signed by Maduro and China’s president, Xi Jinping, in 2023.
China has, unlike European countries, led the charge in condemning the US’s actions in removing by force the head of a foreign state. China has also called for Maduro’s release and backed a UN security council meeting, requested by Colombia, to debate Trump’s decision to seize him.
Domestically he is dismantling the levers of government, including the judiciary, restricting the media.
Economically, his policies are causing more inequality with tariffs importing inflation, and legislation that serves only to make the rich richer. The latest being the US exempting themselves from the OECD’s policy of implementing a global minimum 15% corporation tax, which was supposed to stop multinational corporations, including Apple and Nike, from using accounting and legal manoeuvres to shift earnings to low- or no-tax havens.
‘he is dismantling the levers of government, including the judiciary, restricting the media’
As a result, the big corporations, many of which are Trump donors, will continue to avoid paying their fair share, starving government of the revenue needed to improve the lives of the majority
Looking back at how much has changed since then, there is the realisation that the warning signs of a major political realignment had been festering for the 8-yrs post the GFC.
If we want to look back further, then it’s 1980 and the beginnings of Thatcher and Reagan, when deregulation, privatisation, free trade, wild gambling by bankers, union-busting, monopolisation, record levels of inequality, stagnant wages for most, staggering wealth for a few, big money taking over our politics all have their genesis.
Whilst inequality had been increasing since 1980, it went into orbit after 2000, due to the double whammy’s of QE and zero interest rates creating a perfect storm for rentiers and inflating a giant asset bubble.
Today the driver for that growth is AI
In 2000, Bill Gates was the worlds richest with $60bn today Elon Musk has >$400bn.
Stockmarkets boomed; the S&P 500 from a post-GFC low of 800 to C.7,000, the FTSE 100 from 3,800 to C.10,000.
GDP tells a very different story (for the sake of common sense I have excluded Covid influenced data); with both the UK and US hovering around 2%.
This is the real story; mundane economies, allied post-Covid with inflation, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer
In the UK, a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (“IFS”) found that by April 2019 median weekly earnings were still 2% below their April 2008 level, despite growth of 2.1% since April 2018.
‘This is the real story; mundane economies, allied post-Covid with inflation, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer’
For the low paid it was even worse; between 2008 and 2014, for men at the 10th percentile of the weekly earnings distribution, pay fell by 20%. Whilst it has recovered, by 2019 it was still 12% below its 2008 level.
In the US, CEOs take home 300 times the pay of their workers.
A report by the Joseph Rowantree Foundation found that wealth inequality is rising and more than income inequality.
The bottom 50% owned <5% of wealth in 2021, and the top 10% 57% (up from 52.5% in 1995). The top 1% alone held 23% (World Inequality Lab, 2022). The ratio of wealth to income has risen in the UK from 2.3 to 1 in 1948, to 5.7 to 1 in 2020.
This data has formed the basis of the majority of my past articles. There are no nations which have high levels of economic inequality and low levels of poverty.
Poverty, it has been one of the big growth areas; 21% of the population, 14.3m people, were living in poverty in 2022/23. Of these, 4.3 million were children. In summary, C.2 in every 10 adults are in poverty in the UK, and C.3 in every 10.
2016 was the watershed year, the UK voted to leave the EU and Donald Trump was elected for his first term as president.
Both had striking similarities; campaigns that offered simple solutions. Brexit would sort out all our economic woes and free-up £350m a week to fund the NHS. Immigration would be curtailed as we took control of our borders. Trump offered similar, and a wall to keep-out Mexicans. Lastly, the establishment would be bought to heel.
A new breed of voters appeared, a hybrid of left-wing economic values and socially conservative. These were the voters who have been left behind economically, and, or, those disillusioned with progressive, woke politics.
To serve them we have a new breed of politicians, such as Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, social media savvy, anti-establishment, they were referred to as populists. However, as this column was quick to highlight, their instant solutions, and nationalism wasn’t new, it was a return to the politics of the 1930s. Then they were fascist, or Nazi’s; same dog different fleas.
‘as this column was quick to highlight, their instant solutions, and nationalism wasn’t new, it was a return to the politics of the 1930s’
Trump, after losing in 2021, even if didn’t accept the result, returned to power last year and has become a textbook example of right-wing, fascist authoritarianism, displaying mindless cruelty, blatant attempts to silence critics, wanton destruction of much of the US government, open racism and misogyny. There is also the ongoing lie of falling prices are when everyone knows they’re rising
Trump had promised the left-behind a quick fix of the economy. Instead, voters got his signature legislation, the “one big, beautiful bill”, (the Working Families Tax Cut Act) , which, critics say, will transfer wealth from the poor to the rich and strip healthcare from millions of people. Meanwhile the president’s disruptive policy of aggressive tariffs has led to higher prices for consumers.
Wendy Schiller, a political scientist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, said: “The greatest self-inflicted wound that the president has brought on himself and the Republicans are the tariffs. In the first administration, they were primarily directed at China and you can make an argument about that.
“In this administration they are so much broader and more sweeping and it’s showing in supply chains, in consumer purchasing, in pricing, in every corner of people’s lives. Whether it’s a supermarket or it’s holiday gifting or whatever it is, they’re feeling it.”
In addition, anyone dissenting, from law firms, media outlets, and universities have been ruthlessly dealt with. Skye Perryman, president and chief executive of Democracy Forward, said: “This administration has been ruthlessly breaking the law, disregarding the protections that are provided through American law for people and communities. It has been governing in a way that is on a collision course with the constitution.”
Interestingly, voters seem to be catching-on to the fact they have been conned. A recent Gallup poll showed Trump’s job approval rating down to 36%, the lowest of his second term, while disapproval had risen to 60%. Notably his approval rating was underwater on crime (43%), foreign affairs (41%), foreign trade (39%) and immigration (37%). This suggest that groups who moved towards Trump in 2024 – including young voters and Latino voters – are now deserting him and returning to the Democratic fold, animated by jobs, inflation and healthcare.
As is often the case when polls turn against leaders domestically, they start flexing foreign policy muscles. Last year’s National Security Strategy signalled the administrations intentions, with European countries highlighted as being at risk of losing their national identities, cultures, and sovereignty due to the EU, immigration, and weak government.
The paper made it clear that Trump would intervene where necessary to support European parties sympathetic to, and in-line with his own policies and objectives.
In reality, Trump is no different to Putin, Netanyahu, or Zi, all are equally likely to use force to take what they want. Whilst their actions are often in breach of international laws, this is a new paradigm where the winner sets the rules.
One of the few European countries to have Trump approve government is Italy. However, all isn’t quite what it seems.
‘Trump is no different to Putin, Netanyahu, or Zi, all are equally likely to use force to take what they want’
Whilst Trump and European populists detest the EU, Italy’s PM Meloni is maintaining a delicate, often contradictory dance with the Brussels establishment, E.G., she is a staunch supporter of arming Ukraine.
Also, despite Meloni’s supposed status as a “Trump whisperer”, Italy haven’t been exempted from tariffs; an “America First” trade war may yet devour the very “Made in Italy” brand Meloni champions.
Last month thousands took part in a general strike against a budget bill they say is defined by stealth cuts and a chronic lack of investment in public services. The country is struggling, with purchasing power still below pre-Covid levels, and inflation crushing consumer spending. As a result, C.5.7 million people are living in absolute poverty, nearly one-tenth of the population. Whilst the government is quick to tout rising employment numbers, many are precarious, underpaid jobs and there is still no national minimum wage.
Meloni appears to be looking stateside for inspiration, seeking even greater control over the narrative, with a high-stakes campaign for judicial reform, a move critics argue will give politicians excessive control over the state’s legal apparatus while distracting from the country’s economic emergency.
Turning to the UK, we don’t yet have a populist government, or even a popular one! Our own decaf Trump, Nigel Farage and Reform are leading in the polls, but there are signs that they may have peaked. There is also the left-wing populism of the Greens under their new leader, Zac Zelenski.
As with all populists they offer quick, easy fixes. Reforms come competed with racism, whereas the Greens champion the planet.
‘Turning to the UK, we don’t yet have a populist government, or even a popular one!’
The overwhelming them in politics post- Brexit has been a race to the bottom, with the traditional parties trying to become more hardline than Reform.
The Tories were first out-of-the-blocks post-Covid, and once in-power, Starmer’s labor government, terrified of the Reform bandwagon decided to jump on it, too.
Overseas, UK politicians find themselves adrift, no longer part of the EU, unsure of China, and still trying to come to terms with the fact that their former lover, the US, is cheating on them. In truth, they always were, but Trump is less subtle than his predecessors.
The US invasion of Venezuela is a clear breach of international law, but we can’t bring ourselves to condemn it. Starmer is hiding behind needing more facts before reacting, but the facts have been laid bare by a US president who is proud of his actions.
The Tories have been equally noticeable by the silence on the subject.
‘Recent polls show that 80% of households say their financial circumstances are either stagnant or getting worse’
You can almost have sympathy with Putin who was roundly condemned for doing the same in Ukraine,
As we come to the end of this part of our journey, peoples attention has returned to where it began, Brexit.
Just prior to Christmas, Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, said the British public recognized the need for a customs union with the EU to grow the economy, saying: “The government needs to do whatever it can to build the closest possible positive working relationship with Europe economically and politically as well … up to and including the customs union.
“I think that’s been reinforced by the events of the past 12 months where Trump and the White House have proven the US is not the predictable ally we’ve always depended on.”
He warned PM Starmer of the need to focus on the cost of living to improve labor’s standing in the polls, and that would-be challengers they would “not be thanked” by the public for distracting the government from its core focus on the economy. Recent polls show that 80% of households say their financial circumstances are either stagnant or getting worse.
Both the PM and his home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, should heed his warning of not being “Nigel Farage-lite” when it came to the migration crackdown, saying trade unions were worried about reforms to indefinite leave to remain.
Racism has been one of the unfortunate consequences of all this disruption. When these columns began it was just an undertone, prevalent in the minds of a few. Eight years on, and we have a potential PM who’s schooldays appear littered with racist and antisemitic behavior which much of the media has either ignored or dismissed as trendy lefties trying to stop a Reform government.
‘Racism has been one of the unfortunate consequences of all this disruption’
What of the electorate’s reaction? No change, they don’t seem to care.
As with Farage, when I started this column, Trump’s actions would have shocked us. There are some, perhaps more enlightened people, who are horrified by his disdain for the US constitution and political system, international law, and diplomatic niceties. But, the World has changed, we have gone back 100-yrs to the days of the authoritarian state.
And, on this sad note, this leg of our journey ends.
My thanks to all who have read the column, and to my editor for allowing me such free rein.
I wanted to find a suitable quote to sign-off with, and to my pleasure I found the following from an idol of mine, the late Giorgio Armani:
“I find the world today surprising at times, frightening at others. It is open, full of discoveries, and equipped with tools that connect us, broaden our perspectives, expand our contacts, and increase our knowledge. Yet, despite all this progress, it still seems governed by harsh logics of exploitation and violence. There are still too many wars and too much poverty for us to speak of true progress. Having experienced war firsthand, I find this scenario profoundly alarming. I would like there to be more respect. This is a utopia perhaps, but one we should all strive to make real.”
“This isn’t goodbye. It’s ‘see you later’.”
“It’s my entrance
My own creation
My grand finale
My goodbye”
Kicking off with ‘This is the end’ it would be easy to imagine that Philip’s final play in this round would be tinged with self-satisfaction at a job well done and a slightly misty-eyed last hurrah; but that’s not his style
Having exchanged thoughts over the past few days, I share a profound feeling of sadness as the column comes to something of a natural conclusion, but that is tempered by the knowledge that there is so much more to do, and that whatever comes next will be even better than the incisive, insightful and passionate prose we have lapped up over the past ten years (where did that go!?).
We should not be surprised that Philip was, in many cases, years ahead of the pack in identifying trends that fill the news agenda today; perhaps he was unafraid to tread where others feared. Whatever his motivation or ambition with the column, USNewsRank has been greatly enhanced and enriched by Philip’s content, and I know that will continue, as he takes the good fight to the next level.
Having read, and re-read this column, I think it does a job in tying up loose ends and drawing conclusions that I could not hold a candle to, so I’ll not even try.
Philip, I value your opinion, respect your position, and am grateful to you for an enduring and valued friendship; I very much look forward to whatever comes next. Ed.
- Rumours that Philip has been commissioned to pen ‘A Rare Earth Miner’s Guide to Nuuk titty-bars’ have been denied; however, he will soon be publishing a book that will deliver a compendium of his columns, going right back to Brexit, showing just how right it is possible to be, without being afforded proper recognition. Regular readers will hope it’s dedicated to ‘Mussolini’!
@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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