“The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die”
The final nails are going into the PM’s coffin, although his premiership was over before it began. In 2023, when it became clear that the policy he proposed when standing for labor leader were discarded. “Light-blue Kier”, as I christened him, was just a malleable stoolpigeon for the Blairites
Voters wanted change and got continuity, bought-on by the Blairites painting the government into a corner with their self-imposed fiscal rules.
When the dust settles on Starmer’s time there will be few, if any, positives.
Unemployment is, once again rising, reaching 5%, with 16-24 unemployment at 16.2% – up from 14.2% a year ago – one of the highest in Europe.
Whilst demand for workers of all ages is weak the future will be bleaker still should the BoE chooses to increase interest rates in response to the supply-side inflation caused by higher energy prices created by Trump’s Iran war.
‘When the dust settles on Starmer’s time there will be few, if any, positives’
As a result, voters are disenchanted, disappointed, and seeking an alternative; cue Reform and Farage, maybe even Restore and Rupert Lowe.
Unfortunately, only more disappointment beckons.
One of the few buoyant sectors is the net zero economy. Which, of course, the right doesn’t believe in.
Figures compiled by the Confederation of British Industry, a bastion of conservatism, found that the net zero economy employs over 300,000 full-time workers, while supporting the jobs of 1.1 million. The sector is worth £100bn already, and is likely to grow by hundreds of billions more. The rest of the green economy directly employs a further 600,000.
In addition, the government has announced plans to create another 400,000 jobs through its green energy plan, benefitting those leaving the fossil fuel industry, school leavers, ex-offenders, veterans and the unemployed. Training centres and colleges will be built in places badly hit by deindustrialisation. It’s the first realistic plan for a vast increase in skilled manual jobs in many years.
In contrast, the oil and gas industry provided only 27,500 jobs, and supported a total of 205,000 in 2023. History, shows that this trend will continue, as despite the new licensing rounds and tax breaks the Conservatives gave the industry, it shed 70,000 jobs between 2016 and 2023. The Rosebank oilfield, a cause célèbre for Reform and the Tories, would, if extraction is approved, directly generate only 255 jobs over its lifetime.
The Reform energy message is, like most of its ideas, superficial and incorrect. The party’s deputy leader and energy spokesperson Richard Tice claims “there is decades and decades and decades of gas in the North Sea”. In reality, even if further licenses are granted for the potentially viable fields, by 2050 our gas output will fall by 97% from 2025 levels.
New licenses are a red herring, the fields are largely played-out, and it can take up 28-yrs between approval and production, whereas, large-scale wind and solar take C.4.
Reform’s boast that there is sufficient resources to satisfy demand for “decades and decades and decades”, is fantasy.
‘One of the few buoyant sectors is the net zero economy’
The result of their policies will be unemployment; Transition Economics estimates that, within the first 3-yrs of a Reform government, they would destroy 500,000 jobs rising to 1.4 million by 2040.
Of course, as with Trump, there will be a few winners.
Analysis for “DeSmog” found that 67% percent of Reform’s funding to date has come from donors with financial interests in fossil fuels, a total >£24m .
A further £2.4m has been donated by individuals who have disputed basic scientific facts about climate change.
Reform, however aren’t having it all their own way. Restore are more extreme, and, as polls for the Makerfield byelection show them cannibalising the right-wing vote, leaving prospective labor leader, Andy Burham, in front.
As a result, Reform, are hardening their anti-immigration stance, with Farage saying he would ban foreign nationals from social housing and then deport them if they could not find private-sector homes. He said. “veterans and long-term local residents will be preferenced for social housing.”
DEI was dismissed as a “deeply sinister act of social cleansing” and the Equality Act would be abolished.
Turning to healthcare, Farage said Reform would “cap the recruitment of foreign doctors to ensure that British patients are not being put at risk”. And in education it would insist that university admissions were “purely meritocratic” to stop white students being “squeezed to make way.”
The chief executive of the housing charity Shelter, Sarah Elliott, was both right and wrong when she condemned Farage’s plan, saying: “These divisive plans risk kicking thousands of our friends, neighbors and colleagues out of their homes and the communities they are part of, without justification. This would lead to increasing homelessness, put extreme pressure on councils and rip apart the fabric of our country for no reason.”
Yes, it will increasing homelessness, and put extreme pressure on councils, but ripping apart the fabric of our country is exactly what is intended. Their extremism is designed to sow the seeds of discontent.
‘ripping apart the fabric of our country is exactly what is intended’
Any attacks on white people by immigrants is met with howls of fury, whilst other attacks pass them by.
They promise to protect woman but were nowhere to be seen when Sarah Everhard was murdered, or Jo Cox.
Clearly, only “Some lives matter”, which is all rent-a-mob, such as the Southampton Patriots, White Vanguard and the Portsmouth branch of the National Rebirth Party.
They seem to love a good riot, with the footage from Southampton showing the mob having a great time; drinking, laughing, football songs, music pumping out of a portable speaker daubed with a “Stop The Boats” sticker.
The same was true for Belfast, where there was a carnival atmosphere, with people posing for selfies and drinking beer. One man hoisted up his young son for a better view of a burning house. “Get a duke at that,” he said. “Wow,” the boy replied.
In Belfast, it appears that an isolated incident is being used as an excuse for violence, as migration of any kind to the province is low. The 2021 census showed that C.97% of people described themselves as white. As of 31 March 2024, only 2,248 asylum seekers, in a total population of 1.93 million people, were in receipt of government support in NI.
If they want change and something to get riled-up over they should target the concentrations of wealth and power, instead of migrants, minorities and other convenient scapegoats.
What we are seeing is that there is now no such thing as too right-wing, meaning that society, as we know it, is at risk.
‘Each year we celebrate our defeat of fascism, whilst, ironically, many of those celebrating are now embracing facism’
One of the rights main voices is Tommy Robinson, a self-styled patriot, whose racially charged ultranationalism is at odds with our traditions of pluralism and tolerance. Tommy’s true colors were revealed when, after his recent trip to Moscow, he admired “the beauty of a civilised society”. Not the usual reaction to Putin’s repressive authoritarian regime.
Each year we celebrate our defeat of fascism, whilst, ironically, many of those celebrating are now embracing facism.
WW2 reduced Europe to rubble and killed 17 million people. After fascism was defeated, a political consensus created a cordon sanitaire, where far-right parties were deemed politically illegitimate, an existential threat to democracy. #
Today, traditional centre-right parties are adopting far-right polices, given them credibility and making them part of the mainstream political discourse.
In the US, the Republican party was taken over by the far-right. Today, the US president calls Somalis “garbage” and says “we don’t want them in our country”, “their country stinks”. This is the new normal.
By comparison, progressive politicians describing Israel’s activities in Gaza as genocide are viewed as extremists. History shows us that this imbalance causes, where the left is demonised, lays the foundations for the advancement of right-wing authoritarianism.
Farage’s response to the riots is telling: “I think the worry is, over the course of the summer … unless you give people hope, this stuff will get worse.”
Is this a threat or a warning? You decide.
“Of everything that stands, the end”
As you can see from the title, we’re picking up on the World Cup with a football theme.
The PM looks done. In reality, he was done before he started.
The resignation of the defense Secretary shredded any semblance of authority Starmer has maintained, highlighting his a technocratic ditherer.
If, as is hoped—perhaps even expected—Burnham sees off the right in Makerfield, a change of leadership, and therefore PM appears imminent.
I suspect, like many my breakfast was interrupted by Starmer droning on about banning under-16s from social media. When the dust settled that seemed inadequate, and too little too late.
The whole social media situation sums-up much of what is wrong in society.
Regulators are toothless, and the providers are simply self-interested. They should be capable of self-policing the situation, but, as with big tobacco, money talks, and they simply don’t care about their victims.
Their power is absolute and absolute power corrupts. The providers are American as wealth accumulation, self-interest and limitless power are the order of the day.
When a president has cage fighting to celebrate their birthday, you know there is something very wrong!
Such a dystopian message needs a suitable song, in this case “The End”, by The Doors.
Philip.
@coldwarsteve
Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.
Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s
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