What caught our eye this week.
Hello campers, TA here – standing in for TI, who’s off on his annual hols this week. That means topping up his monitor tan in some seedy foreign hotel instead of his seedy London lair. Ah well, a change is as good as rest as they say.
Right, with that piece of libel out of the way, I understand there’s a big event coming up on 4 July that simply cannot be ignored. That’s right, my assault on the Bitchfield pie-eating record. Oh, and this news just in: there’s a General Election on, too.
So as reluctant as I am to spend all day fighting fires in the comments section, I can’t rightfully ignore the political earthquake incoming.
Personally, I chart a wavy political line: weaving around the traffic cones of the centre ground.
I’ll happily borrow my opinions and remedies from the sane of the centre-left and centre-right. My vote goes to whoever I think will best govern in the interests of the whole country.
In 2010, I felt Labour could do with a spell in opposition. They needed time to think again.
So here we are in 2024 and we’re faced with a choice: more of the same or time for a change?
As ever, it’s Red vs Blue.
But governments shouldn’t be judged like football teams … “I’m Accrington Stanley until I die,” or whatever.
Governments should be judged like football managers: on their track record.
Why as citizens would we offer politicians our unconditional support?
Either they put the country on a sound footing and create the necessary conditions for prosperity, or we turf them out.
It’s the only leverage we have. If you’ve done a bad job, you have to go. And, my god, have any of the country’s problems appreciably improved over the last 14 years?
- Low productivity
- Economic competitiveness
- Public services: NHS, social care, education, welfare
- Housing
- National debt
- Immigration (interpret this according to your political taste)
- Regional imbalances
- Environmental protections
How about the two big promises of the last election: Brexit and Levelling Up?
Whatever you think of those two issues, it’s telling that the Conservatives aren’t shouting about their achievements on either count.
They haven’t got a vision beyond staying in power: witness ad hoc policy gimmicks like National Service. Tories were pooh-poohing that idea only weeks before the election was called.
They’re afraid to take difficult decisions to solve the country’s problems: hence the lack of progress on planning reform or social care.
And now they’re laying traps for the next Government by ruling out every tax rise they can think of. The objective being what? To keep the country in a mess until we fall back into their arms? Love it. Essentially, they’re saying: “If we can’t have you, nobody can.”
This from the people who gaslit us with ‘fiscal drag’ – raising the UK tax burden to its highest level since 1950, while simultaneously claiming they’re cutting taxes because they’ve knocked a few quid off National Insurance.
Not to mention the chaos of four prime ministers in five years – at least one of whom was manifestly unfit for office.
Casting a vote for this lot again is like going back to a bad boyfriend who says it’ll be different this time.
You may doubt Labour. “All politicians are the same,” is the cop-out defence I keep hearing. Well, let’s find out shall we?
The ire of the electorate should be biblical. Not because ‘beating the Tories’ is an inherently good thing. But because all politicians need to know that if they screw us around, they’re out.
That if they spend their time spinning and lying and fudging and faction-fighting instead of mending and sorting then they’re goners.
Remember how Boris Johnson’s 80-seat majority was meant to be unassailable? He was being talked about as a two-term prime minister because Labour needed an impossible swing to overturn their historic 2019 defeat.
Thankfully those political assumptions are in the shredder. Unquestioned party loyalty is breaking down. Tribalism is dissolving.
So, if Labour get in, they’re on notice. The electorate is volatile and vengeful.
That’s how it should be.
Some may still be stuck in the trenches, unable to overcome their fear of the Red team. But in truth, neither of our two main parties are radical. They’re usually only elected when the moderates are in charge.
Can things only get better? Definitely not. But tribalism doesn’t help us. It’s the political equivalent of auto-renewing your subscription. You will be taken advantage of.
So it’s time to switch supplier. I’m not expecting massively better service just because I’ve moved from EDF to E.ON or whoever. But it’s the only way to keep them both in line. Hence, I say:
- Vote tactically
- Vote on record
- Do not reward failure
Have a great weekend.
From Monevator
The Minimum Pension Age trap – Monevator
The perils of leveraging your mortgage to invest – Monevator [Members]
From the archive-ator: The floor and upside retirement strategy – Monevator
News
Note: Some links are Google search results – in PC/desktop view click through to read the article. Try privacy/incognito mode to avoid cookies. Consider subscribing to sites you visit a lot.
UK economic growth revised upwards – BBC
Labour won’t end tax-free cash for pensioners – Evening Standard via MSN
UK disposable income growth lags Europe but poorer households outpace richer ones – BBC
When a wealth tax goes wrong – Telegraph via MSN
Ex-Fujitsu engineer changed witness statements at behest of Post Office – Guardian
Productivity resurgence in the North – Business Live via MSN
SpaceX tender offer values company at $210 billion – Bloomberg
Top scientists turning down UK jobs due to visa costs – Guardian
The desert data boom – Sherwood
Election section mini-special
General Election poll-of-polls – Electoral Calculus
Tactical voting recommendations – Best for Britain
The economic challenges our politicians won’t talk about [Podcast] – Institute for Fiscal Studies
Reform activist makes racist comments about Sunak – Guardian
Macron looks to be in deep merde – The Economist
Democrats / Free World panics over Biden debate debacle [Search result] – FT
Mad elections [Podcast] – The Rest is History
Products and services
Best savings accounts beating inflation – Yahoo Finance
Time to lock savings up before interest rates fall? – This Is Money
Sign-up to Trading 212 via our affiliate link to claim your free share and cashback. T&Cs apply – Trading 212
Best travel insurance – Which
Open an account with low-cost platform InvestEngine via our link and get up to £50 when you invest at least £100 (T&Cs apply. Capital at risk) – InvestEngine
eBay seller’s tax guide – Yahoo Finance
Beautiful homes faintly connected to politicians, in pictures – Guardian
Comment and opinion
The happiest and unhappiest nations on Earth – Our World In Data
The seven laws of personal finance – Scott Burns
Why you need to stop hoarding cash – Cautiously Optimistic
Spendthrifts vs tightwads (which are you?) – Morningstar
Persuading elderly parents to downsize: how not to do it [Search result] – FT
Is Nvidia a good stock? – Bloomberg
The small cap premium is dead. No! It’s only resting – A Wealth of Common Sense
Can US stocks keep outperforming? – Morningstar
Five retirement regrets and how to avoid them – Which
Five things an investor shouldn’t care about – Safal Niveshak
The cost of following England at the Euros (possibly the most joyless article I’ve ever read. Had to share!) – Yahoo Finance
Why European stocks have lagged US stocks – Albert Bridge Capital
The World’s top retailers by revenue – Visual Capitalist
Empty inside: the eerie feeling of abandoned mansions – Yahoo Finance
Naughty corner: Active antics
Cancelled! TA is in charge this week. Say three Hail Mary’s and read Passive vs active investing as penance for even thinking about timing the market.
Kindle book bargains
A Man for All Markets by Edward O. Thorpe – £0.99 on Kindle
Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth – £0.99 on Kindle
Taxtopia by The Rebel Accountant – £0.99 on Kindle
The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau – £0.99 on Kindle
Environmental factors
How global companies are rowing back on green targets [Search result] – FT
How to avert mass extinction – Guardian
Futuristic Saudi city, The Line, cut short (absolute shocker) – BBC
BP doubles down on fossil fuels (absolute shocker #2) – This Is Money via MSN
Robot overlord roundup
Bill Gates thinks AI will be net good vs climate change (presumably because it’ll kill us all?) – Guardian
What happens if humanity’s AGI dreams come true? [Podcast] – 80,000 Hours
Overthrowing our tech overlords – Noema
I’m sorry Robo-Master, I didn’t mean it when I said you’d kill us all [Grovels, sobs].
Sex click-bait! [New section]
The tyranny of the female-orgasm industrial complex – Atlantic
Can 25% of people orgasm from tickling? – Guardian
Better read these fast before TI returns to crush my awesome new editorial initiative.
Off our beat
Glasto in pictures! – BBC
How to choose between competing theories (send to the conspiracy theorist in your life) – Clearer Thinking
The loneliness of the tennis player who isn’t quite good enough (or how the dream dies) – Guardian
Why the West is not to blame for Putin invading Ukraine (spoiler alert: Putin is to blame) – Institute for the Study of War
Late bloomers: those who succeed later in life – Atlantic
How to think about differences in ability between groups – Clearer Thinking
German viral comedy-rap sensation (instant antidote to election blues) – YouTube
The correct way to hang toilet paper (this will change your life. Not for the better, obviously) – Unilad
And finally…
“Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.”
– Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
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Thanks for the links, I would say two of the last 5 PMs were manifestly unfit for office, I’ve been reading the Anthony Seldon books on them. Truss was obviously mad but Johnson’s mendacity, gaslighting and disregard of standards in public life have done more in my opinion to reduce confidence in politicians and politics generally.
Yes, you flummoxed me with “at least one [prime minister] whom was manifestly unfit for office”. It seems a very generous position to hold.
@TA,
Can’t find anything to argue with your summary of the past 14 years, possibly, you could have highlighted the sleaze i.e. party gate, betting, Tory donor racism etc.
I’m like you and not expecting much from the new Government, which in a way is quite sad. The financial constraints will be quite limiting and sometimes I think the current Govt has got us in this mess, let them sort it out!
I’d say it’s quite radical being not able to say that you will protect biological females from biological males and establish safe spaces in toilets, changing rooms etc.
It won’t cost Labour this GE, because the tories are unelectable, but I suspect that Starmer will get less votes than his previous anti semitic boss, partly because he has alienated a fair proportion of 51% of the people, and huge inroads by Reform into the Tory vote will give Labour more MPs but not more votes.
You make many good points, but it’s easy to view Labour as a different check of the same ass. Hence why there is increasing support for independents and Reform.
I do predict a huge Labour majority though, more than 250. But the next parliament being a hung one.
May I live in interesting times…
Just a heads up, the TSB switching deal that Be Clever With Your Cash discusses ended last Monday. May as well ditch it from this weeks links.
All seemed fair enough to me.
The “population” isn’t constant from one year to the next and it can have a major impact over a relatively low number of years:
-ageing population. 10% more 65+ isn’t 10% more NHS support needed…
-Less workers to non workers/pensioners
– more sickness due to ageing and lifestyle and imaginary
– more self selecting as being “too ill to work, disabled, anxious” etc. there was a ridulous comment this week about 16% of the population being disabled
– less hungry work force, less hours, less hustle, more apathy
It’s hard to blame the current govt for all of this as most of it is demography and culture. Frankly we need really hard leaders who can make tough decisions that upset many in the short term to secure our future
– less benefits
– less secure social housing
– lower benefits / time limits
– Limited conditions for NHS
– better use of the 20m spare bedrooms
More personal responsibility and lower entitlements
A biblical analogy might give historical context to the eternal human condition?
In the “olden” days -the population had rulers(politicians) and priests (civil and local government officials) who did the day to day stuff well or if badly then a prophet arose and duly castigated all and sundry ,brought down the ship and the game restarted with hopefully a better cast of”leaders”
We await a prophet -not really many candidates in view yet though Farage seems to be creating a lot of waves
“Beige on beige” is a good description of the current players
xxd09
@xxd09 — Looking for an autocrat / Biblical flood would concern me if I had children.
I agree the global mood is going in that direction but I don’t see it elevating a charlatan like Farage and think to myself “cometh the hour cometh the man” even on his own terms, let alone the historical precedents.
Other than in my very first, I don’t vote in political elections, not even our village parish council, for the straightforward reason that there has never once been a political election in which I have been entitled to vote and in which the local result for me has been decided by a single vote.
I hear the clamour of voices saying, “What if everyone did that?”. My response is that then I would vote.
So, on with the motley on 4 July, and I shall adapt intelligently to whatever the outcome is.
Always wanted to vote Labour but there are too many Blairite floaters bobbing about. Blairism is just nihilism by another name and Labour will descend into infighting between the left and authoritarian right. I recall if they go below 40% in election poll-of-polls then this historically predicts a leadership battle within 2 years – Angie in the red corner!
Will be interesting to see how Ed Milliband’s destruction of our oil and gas industry will go. I can’t think of any other ideological destruction of an industry since Thatcher and the coal industry. Meanwhile, Norway has ramped up production and licensing to meet EU demand….more revenue for the sovereign wealth fund…health care….schools…
Perhaps our youth will follow those in the EU and migrate to the right.
Could be all over within 5 years.
I’d like to vote for Labour, but they’re putting in no effort whatsoever in this constituency. It’s not quite at the level of the New Forest or Canvey Island, but round here they normally just weigh the Tory vote rather than bothering to count it.
Ironically, this time though MRP polling suggests that the Tories are down here to 40%, which is a ~25% drop on 2019.
But Labour’s refused to cooperate with Libs (who used to come second here) and the Greens; meaning that there looks to be no chance of unseating the Tory incumbent.
And the Labour candidate lives 80 miles from the constituency, unlike all the others.
It doesn’t reflect well on Labour tactics in safe Tory seats, especially rural ones like ours where people are deeply and profoundly p****d off with the Tories, but still reasonably want to know what Labour would actually do for the countryside and the constituency.
I think that I’ll have to vote Green or Lib as a protest vote this time.
Investor-Rather like investing I don’t really believe “it’s different this time”
I just “stay the course” and regard the current shenanigans as one would regard a stockmarket drop -ie normality
Life goes on -though have often thought about being a hermit as an alternative lifestyle !
However 3 children and 8 great grandchildren later still in the market and playing the game -seems to be a winning formula -so far!!
xxd09
The really sad thing is if BJ was still PM, this contest would be a lot closer. Despite the lying, the laziness, the partygate, the Russian links, the failure to deliver anything except failure, he’s still “just a good old boy, don’t you know” (I despair).
I much prefer the beige on beige to what the USA and France are getting!!
I hope the Tories get a major kicking but while Sunak is so rich, he can not conceive of how real people live, I don’t believe he is corrupt.
It’s the next election that frightens me – the one in 2029. Because I doubt things will be much better in public services etc. and there will be an appetite for the extreme parties then. Because the “normal” ones will have failed – assuming the Tories haven’t become one of those extreme parties (which they currently seem inclined to become (eyeroll).)
Also anyone who votes for a party that wants to remove us from the ECHR really needs their head examined.
You seem to consider only two options @TA. There is also of course:
– Spoilt ballot paper, which does get counted (my preferred option)
– Independent candidate if there is a good one
– One of the other parties (although all the others are also most likely part of the uni-party anyway)
@ Andy T – thank you. My bad. Have removed the link.
Have replaced it with this German rap duo whose comedy tongue-twisters have gone viral. This just made my day:
https://youtu.be/ZYkBf0dbs5I?si=volBKJOLZjjF0BD4
@ Gary – Your comment caused me to look up gender policies and the BBC have written this balanced report of the various party positions:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4nng2j42xro#:~:text=In%20its%20manifesto%2C%20Labour%20has,to%20change%20their%20legal%20sex.
I do think Starmer got himself into a muddle on this one previously, but I guessed Labour had adopted a reasonable, centre-left position on it more recently as it hasn’t become a live issue during the campaign. Lo and behold that’s exactly what’s happened. Clearly what they’re not saying is: we won’t protect single-sex spaces. What they are saying is: we’d like to ensure spaces are safe for everyone, it’s a complex issue, and we don’t have all the answers yet.
@ Factor – what if thousands of people are acting the same way in your constituency? Watching declining turnout rates but noting that the majority is more than one. Yet if those many thousands came out and voted then perhaps there would be enough of them to change the result.
What if turnout declined so that only 1,000 people voted in your constituency? The majority would still likely be more than one, and you could still say: “Yep, no need for me to do anything yet.”
I don’t get what voting costs you?
@ Sarah – I hear you. I fear your 2o29 prediction could be quite prescient. The US and French examples are particularly worrisome because Biden and Macron have both done quite well economically. Labour have five years to get it right, or at least be heading in the right direction. I hope they’re bold enough, but bold means upsetting people.
@ Algernond – only two parties can win the election. But voting tactically can help you engineer the right result if you can’t stand to vote for your historic enemy or if it’s the only way to eject the incumbent. Spoiling your ballot paper seems pointless to me. What’s the message? That you’re all rubbish? Well, they’re the best we’ve got.
Compared to the likes of the French or US elections, the UK one is a non-event. Labour will win. Starmer will talk “change” but will find it very hard to deliver any. The room to manoeuvre is too small and time isn’t on his side.
The problem really stems from the electorate. They want easy answers to very complex problems. Their expectations are too high and they have no patience. So evolution selects for politicians that are willing to provide simple, quick answers and overpromise. Those that want to offer complex answers and realistic expectations go extinct.
The risk is that later in the decade, the UK start to follow other countries that are sliding into electing populist demagogues. Hungary, Italy and Netherlands are there. The risk for that in France is very high (whether left or right).
Most terrifying, the USA wants to elect Trump and throw away democracy. Bizarrely, he has become a cipher for a minority of Christian Nationalists who desire a change from a secular to theocratic state. Saying that feel I feel like I been reading some dystopian novel but it’s seems this is our reality.
I’m thinking that for the first time ever I’ll spoil my ballot paper in protest at what we’re being served up. I won’t vote either Conservative or Labour because:
Both main parties – the ‘conspiracy of silence’ about the real and serious challenges/state of finances that the IFS has noted – this is directly undermining of democracy, as how can our choice be informed and free under these circumstances?
Tories –
Brexit (massive black mark)
Partygate
Johnson and Truss (both unfit for office; Johnson worse than Truss, indeed I regard him as unfit for any position of responsibility)
The party’s a magnet for chancers and wastrels
No vision other than keeping power and performing ‘government’
Won’t get a grip on food and drinks industry that contributes to make people unhealthy and costs the welfare bill and NHS a fortune (‘nanny state’)
Labour –
CGT hit
VAT on private school fees
Stance on trans issues
Won’t get a grip on that proportion of ballooning welfare & NHS costs caused by people having made themselves unhealthy through obesity, etc (no such thing as ‘undeserving’)
That leaves the Lib Dems and Greens, and at least the Lib Dems have said they’d return to indexing CGT, but neither party really inspires.
@TA. I would agree with you if spoilt ballot papers weren’t counted, but they are. E.g., if more than half are spoilt, then I think that would send a clear message.
@ZX, I’m not sure where you get your info. from, but I haven’t seen anything that indicates ‘democracy’ with Trump in the US is more under threat that it has been with the regime of the last 4 years… (I’m not a Trump fanboy BTW).
I agree strongly with @Sarah and was going to make the same point:
> It’s the next election that frightens me – the one in 2029.
Any outcome that weakens Reform and damaging radicals on either side of the political spectrum is a good one for me – the situation’s bad enough as it is.
Farage is a demagogue, which I’ll define as being someone “who preaches what they know to be untrue to people they consider to be idiots.” Not content with UKIP leading the charge into the great failure that was Brexit (obviously because “we haven’t done it right” aka No True Scotsman) – like the proverbial turd that won’t flush, Farage rebrands as “Reform” which is more of the same, only harder. All the while mysteriously attracting racists to the cause. It amazes me how many supposedly intelligent people cannot see through it. Even to the point where Farage can stand up on TV proclaiming what a stand up guy Putin is and parroting Russian propaganda. Rightly, other crackpots like the infamously Stalin-esque Mr G Galloway aren’t given the time of day by most. Yet Farage still manages to bewitch people with his John Bull standup routine by posing with a pint at his local country pub. Heaven help us – wake up people.
Keep democracy working!
@Sarah – a Tory/Reform merger might be on the cards by 2029 with BJ and NF both in there. It would be a tragic endpoint to the appeasement of Farage that began with Cameron’s 2013 promise to hold *that* referendum. Boris and Farage may not see eye to eye on Ukraine but, sadly, they both pull in the votes.
@ZX: the aversion to confronting the world’s problems is only going to get worse as the climate, productivity, demographic and resource crises exacerbate and feed off each other as the century goes on. Populism will come in waves.
@ Tyro – I feel fully informed on the choice I’m making because I don’t look to political parties for that information. I rely – as you indicate – on organisations like the IFS, good journalists and commentators, and reading between the lines.
Relying on the main parties is like getting my information from the front of a cereal packet. Was it ever different? I don’t think so but ZX has rightly pointed out why our politicians can’t be open: because if they are, the electorate punishes them.
For example, Theresa May in 2017 when she tried to get a grip on social care.
You seem to be role-modelling this very tendency because Labour have said they’ll look at CGT and remove the VAT exemption on private schools in order to recruit more state school teachers. Will both of those costs hit you personally?
Meanwhile, teacher recruitment and retention is a raging binfire in the state sector which the majority of kids are relying upon for some semblance of an education.
The Atlantic piece ‘The tyranny of the female-orgasm industrial complex’ is paywalled, so I was unable to, er, finish it…!
@ Martin T – you can register for a free account and they’ll let you read one or two pieces per month
Labour will be similar to the Tories but with less corruption. I’ve never voted Labour before, but definitely am this time.
@TA, another great read, thank you.
“if they spend their time spinning and lying and fudging and faction-fighting instead of mending and sorting then they’re goners.”
Even if / when this happens, they don’t comprehend that they themselves are responsible.
Too arrogant, too up their own backsides, too stupid.
MPs betting on election dates ?? I rest my case.
And to misquote @John Charity Spring, they all consider us plebs to be idiots.
For the first time in decades of voting, I’m seriously considering spoiling the ballot paper.
@The Accumulator #16
Thanks for your response. I see no need to say any more than I’ve already said.
Great article in links from Ben Carlson/ AWOCS on small caps. Just add to it that to the extent (which is debatable) that small cap is a factor premium in and of itself, and not just a diversification benefit (I’m on the fence, but constructively critical), then it may be significantly attributable to small cap value (SCV) companies – with small cap growth having a negative relative return to large caps (and even large cap growth IIRC). So, when diversifying from large caps, I look to SCV as far as possible, rather than to small caps per se.
On the BBC piece on the ludicrous Saudi Neom/The Line project: Real Life Lore has an excellent video from 2 weeks’ ago on this on YouTube. The Line project is even crazier than the BBC make out. Imagine the fiasco of HS2 multiplied a hundred fold. At least one advantage of democracy is that it’s usually possible to stop the barmiest ideas. Unfortunately, that’s not true in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
New election: I vote @TA to replace @TI! (Love the brackets and scattered snide humour) ….
And serious request: could Mrs @TA have a go at a weekend post too?
@ Delta Hedge – yes, agree that small cap value is where it’s at. Shame it’s so hard to invest in.
I don’t even believe they’ll build 2.4km of The Line. It’s MBS’ marketing department gone mad. Will check out that vid.
@ London ALTA – would love Mrs TA to write more, but she’s a shy and elusive creature. Her w/e reading would be hilarious. You could expect zero articles about investing.
This just in from Mrs TA: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/picture/2024/jun/29/from-the-big-red-bus-suit-to-unused-ppe-its-all-in-the-torys-closing-down-sale-the-stephen-collins-cartoon
The biggest threat in this election is the rise of poundshop fascism. For that reason I encourage ( can’t believe I’m saying this) every sane citizen of Clacton to tactically vote Tory.
@Algernond. I too am thinking of spoiling my ballot paper as a protest against the shower of sh1ts lining up to govern us. Very sad there hasn’t been a mass campaign for this on social media.
Democracy is messy compromise. Change is needed. Be part of it. If the next lot let you down – vote them out.
I agree with Mark Twain who said “Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason”.
I am also one to vote for whoever looks most competent, a valence voter. Who would I want in charge when the next unforeseen crisis arrives?
A small part of me is attracted to reform as although they are only offering simple (undeliverable) answers to complex problems at least they are willing to acknowledge complex problems exist – pub room bore type approach. The mainstream parties aren’t interested. I wouldn’t like to see Nigel Farage as prime minister though (understatement). If we don’t start having a conversation about these difficult issues, fringe parties will possibly become more and more popular.
I would remind those moaning about ‘is this the best we can vote for’ / ‘spoiling their ballot papers’ that in a modern democracy the electorate more or less gets the politicians they deserve.
So how do I change things? Easy, Join a political party – your relative influence on uk politics will be exponentially higher. Which one – probably conservatives as they are historically the party of govt. don’t believe me? If another 30k voted for Hunt or 15k for Sunak, Boris and Truss would never have happened. I’m not saying that’s a good or bad thing. I’m illustrating the influence you can have currently as political parties – particularly the conservatives have very very small membership bases. I feel confident that if 100k 25 year olds join the Conservative party the leaders desire to influence housing policy will increase significantly. You don’t need to be a right wing / wing nut or even a conservative voter to become a member.
But most people just want to moan and do nothing. It’s the human condition. It also why if yyou are willing to work hard in a place like the UK you can do better than the vast majority of people.
If it hadn’t have been for Truss we wouldn’t have had the energy price guarantee – Rishi initially wanted to channel all the energy help to universal credit, so I don’t regret voting for her. It was that energy price guarantee though that was the most expensive part of the mini -budget, not the tax cuts – and Liz was simply unlucky to take the fall. The bank of England didn’t like her challenge to orthodoxy, and didn’t lift a finger to redirect the blame at putin etc, and when it did it’s emergency bond buying it leveled the blame at the mini budget, becoming overtly political.
Liz wasn’t the mp’s choice, so many of them didn’t lift a finger to save her, to get Rishi in. It shows though that members should always vote for the MP’s choice because otherwise the MP’s won’t support them.
The debt we have always shot up in crisises – the gfc, covid, and energy crisis, I argue this government simply had an unlucky hand, and other governments around the world also suffered energy costs and interest rate spikes.
If you look at what services in our society have the shortages, it’s the ones with price controls (like the NHS, etc) – not the private sector.
I also would argue now though that austerity *is* a form of growth strategy by getting gilt yields down, you get corporate bond yields down, enabling growth. More austerity means lower interest rates.
@SeekingFire — Yes this is what I call the Barry Blimp “common sense” man in the golf club philosophy. It’s very appealing because it simply states problems and adopts the posture that a dozen sensible minded blokes could roll up their sleeves and take the tough decisions to enact never-exactly-explained solutions.
Unfortunately challenges such as low U.K. productivity, regional disparities, agglomeration affects that favour London and certain other cities in the 21st century, energy requirements vs longer term climate imperatives, or even immigration and house building are hard if not intractable problems, which is exactly why they aren’t solved by a few sensible Blimps over a pub lunch.
I think we may be entering dangerous times. When someone so wise as you can be persuaded by the half truths and omissions emanating from the Labour party at present it is sobering. We could be in very dangerous territory because behind the leader is an army for radical left who will push their agenda hard.
Not sure that, economically, this election is a game changer in any way. No new plans or major changes being mooted by either side. I don’t see Labour doing anything batshit crazy. More tinkering around the edges. That is what our politics has been reduced to these days.
Politically, though, it sounds as though it will be a seismic event, especially if the Tories are reduced to below 100 seats as some forecasters are predicting, which will be an existential crisis for the Conservative party. So, definitely interesting from a political/historical perspective.
You’re fretting about phantoms. Labour have always governed from the centre ground. It’s a broad church party just like the Tories. And just like the Tories, the headbangers only get their chance when the party is defeated. Electoral success empowers the moderates, not the lunatic fringe.
As for half truths and omissions, name me a party that isn’t trading in those? This is politics.
The difference, perhaps, is this… The Tories expect to be in power. They’re in charge two-thirds of the time, afterall. And this time they’ve squandered their chance.
Labour, meanwhile, know they’re on borrowed time from the moment they get in. They’re more likely to enact genuine change because they do not enjoy the intrinsic advantages of the Conservatives. Hence most of our reforming governments have been Labour, and we’re certainly in need of reform right now. (Not the Nigel kind).
@ Seeking Fire – great point about political membership. I’m tempted to join.
While I do understand the urge to spoil ballot papers or not bother voting (because what difference does it make?) it is self-defeating.
We know this because hard-voting pensioners have the Triple Lock while state support for the young has been slashed since 2010.
Average age of Conservative Party membership is circa 65 and I would suggest largely middle class / pink trouser brigade, golf club society, rotary club etc etc. nothing wrong with them obviously but Totally unrepresentative of wider society. But if you remember the hustings for BoJo and Jezza Hunt, good old hunt started warbling on about sending one of our aircraft carriers into the South Pacific seas to rattle china’s cage. He knows that’s as daft as it sounds but was simply pandering to the membership. It’s why Rory Stewart got no where. Moderate centres are just not very attractive to the c. party faithful. Anyways it’s £15 a go and just think only circa 50k elected the last prime minister…..
@Andrew Barber #37: whilst I suspect our politics are opposite (I have strong ‘hard left’ sympathies tbh – i.e. economically left wing and progressively internationalist, but moderately socially conservative); I wouldn’t entirely rule out the risk you highlight. However, it’s a risk that I think largely lies in the Labour Party’s past. The Trotskyist left (SWP + Alliance for Workers Liberty these days) have always advocated entryism and ‘a march through the institutions’. But, after 1983, Kinnock stymied their advance in the constituency Labour Party (through the vehicle of the Militant Tendency) and, despite organisations like Momentum under Corbyn, they’ve never recovered their own political momentum within the labour movement.
However, I acknowledge that the relative extremes of left and right have more chance of exerting influence in the main Parliamentary parties when membership levels are so low as compared to history. At the peak of mass UK political participation in the early 1950s:
– Conservative Party membership peaked at around 2.8 million in 1953.
– Labour Party membership reached over 1 million in the same year.
Whereas, as of recent years:
– Conservative Party membership was reported at a mere 172,437 as of September 2022.
– Whilst Labour Party membership at the same time stood at just 432,000.
And I think that if the Tories get wiped out next week then Farage has an inroad, tactically speaking, on pulling off a reverse take over of the rump of the Conservative Party. A Tory extinction level event on Thursday may turn out, therefore, not to be in either Labour’s or the country’s longer term interests.
I can’t think of any example of a moderate governing party falling to entryism in a western democracy. Far-left and far-right parties are usually pretty upfront about their agenda.
Has anyone got an example? It’s probably happened somewhere but it must be pretty rare.
I don’t get the fear stories about Labour. They aren’t backed up by previous experience. The last time Labour took over after a long period of Conservative government they did things like: give independence to the Bank of England, negotiate a political resolution to Northern Ireland’s longterm problems, establish the Supreme Court, introduce a minimum wage, introduce civil partnerships, bring in the Human Rights Act, start a longer term process of investing in health and education. There is no doubt more that doesn’t come to mind at the moment.
That didn’t look like a “radical left” agenda, and the current Labour leadership is well to the right of Blair and Brown. My real worry is that Labour (assuming of course it gets in as the polls predict) won’t have the same energy to fix the accumulated problems that face us.
@TA #41: The Tea Party movement in the US Republican Party: While not exactly a classic entryist group per se, the Tea Party activists quite effectively shifted the GOP substantially rightward by successfully ‘primarying out’ moderate Republicans and pushing for much more radical conservative policies, thereby presaging DJT and the MAGA takeover.
And Farage is aiming for a rerun of the 2003 merger of the Canadian Alliance (formerly the Reform Party) and the Progressive Conservative parties after the Progressive Conservatives (who were more or less akin to our own Conservative Party on the spectrum) went (following Canada’s 1993 general election) from governing to losing all but 2 of their 156 seats and more than half of their vote from 1988. Farage models himself on Canada’s former Reform Party, even down to the name.
On the extreme left, it’s true that entryism has been a failure (not that it’s stopped the Trots from trying though). However, there’s a footnote here about the links between Galloway’s Worker’s Party of Britain, which won Rochdale, and the CPGB-ML (the latter though, whilst definitely Communists, are also very definitely not Trots – in fact they have a burning hatred of Trots: its proper People’s Front of Judea versus Judean People’s Front territory!)
This isn’t New Labour under Blair, so it definately has the potential to be more left-wing. Yet, to get elected, it put itself in a fiscal straightjacket. That will probably take a full term to extract themselves from.
Meanwhile, it won’t be able to deliver any substantive change. It can fiddle while Rome burns. Take the NHS. Labour is basically adopting the Tory spending plan that already requires an additional £40bn in real terms over the next four years (from £180bn to £220bn/annum). That doesn’t actually deliver anything except more staff and higher compensation for those staff. It will then sprinkle over the top a few billion here or there for this scheme or that. Mainly to fudge waiting lists. Finding the money from a small tax rise here or there. All rounding errors in real terms, but it will make nice headlines. Meanwhile, they will not grasp the basic problem that the NHS can only need more and more money to cope with an aging population.
Similarly, they have taken advantage of the “Brexit bonus” by adding VAT to private school fees (something no other European country does and which would have not been allowed if we were still in the EU). They say this will raise £1.6bn but will probably raise perhaps £0.5bn once additional costs for state schools are absorbed. It makes some happy, others pissed off but it’s just another rounding error. It won’t change education.
The reality is, given our level of growth and productivity, it doesn’t matter which govt is in power. Over 90% of spending is basically fixed. Taxes will have to rise to pay for less and lower quality public services. Plus at some point, perhaps very soon, we are going to have to increase defence spending very substantially.
It’s typical of populists to offer simplistic solutions to complex problems, eg cutting immigration will solve all our problems, or, only biological women should have access to women’s ‘safe spaces’.
I saw Richard Tice being interviewed the other day and what was his solution to cutting NHS waiting lists? Why, cut immigration of course, simple! The interviewer politely pointed out that most immigrants are young so hardly a burden on the NHS, and immigrant doctors and nurses are helping fill vacancies in the NHS, so actually immigration is helping cut NHS waiting lists. To which Tice mumbled some non reply and tried to change the subject.
Rishi Sunak in his desperation is now trying to jump on the J K Rowling transphobic band wagon. Anyone would think there was some tidal wave of transexuals coming to a women’s changing room near you, the way they harp on about it. I mean there are major crime problems, eg knife crime, county lines gangs, online fraud, how on earth have they made trans rights the number one criminal concern?
I get it, you don’t want some guy putting a wig on and using trans as an excuse to go in a women’s changing room (or go to a women’s prison as that guy in Scotland tried to do). But consider the opposite, a trans girl who has known all her life she is a girl, has gone through all the trouble and cost of changing gender, legally and physically, who to all intents and purposes is a girl, are we really saying they still have to use the men’s changing room? How intolerant and basically immoral is that? It’s a complex issue and needs a considered approach, not this dog whistle politics we’re currently seeing.
The Tories are no longer adults. Since Boris took over they’ve descended further and further into culture wars, corruption, stupidity, and dishonesty. Sunak’s persistent claims about reducing taxes, when in actual fact they’ve increased them again and again, shows his basic lack of integrity, the very thing he claimed he was going to bring back. (I’m not necessarily against higher taxes, but I do think you should be honest when you increase them that that’s what you’re doing.) The Tories need to spend a long spell on the sidelines and have a real think about who they are and what they believe in. If they do get wiped out by Reform then they only have themselves to blame.
As for Labour I am hopeful they can turn things around, I’ve been reading Torsten Bell’s new book and it is an eye opener (he is the former director of the Resolution Foundation and is now standing for Labour). There are some quick wins I think Labour can implement, eg closer trading relationship with the EU, clamping down on tax avoidance (I notice Jeremy Clarkson suddenly hates Labour again now he’s realised his favoured method of tax avoidance, ie buying up farm land because it’s inheritance tax free, is being looked into), looking at planning permissions and encouraging investment in onshore wind farms (the cheapest form of energy and since 2015 there has been a de facto ban on new onshore wind farms). There are more besides. A stable government with intelligent hard working people in charge committed to growth should encourage private and public investment in the UK which is what will really help make us all better off. One can hope anyway.
@ZX #44: I don’t disagree with the facts of what you’ve said, save that I think you’ve jumped to a conclusion not supported by the evidence in your final sentence about the need to soon increase defense spend, “very substantially”.
I don’t want to be accused of underplaying Vladimir Putin’s neo-imperial ambitions here, so let me make it plain that Russia is (and likely will remain) an expansionist hegemon which doesn’t play by the rules based international order and which, if it could do so, would annexe or ‘vassalize’ Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, the Baltic states and possibly even eastern Poland.
But the Ukraine war has shown that the Russian armed forces are extremely poorly led, have absolutely terrible logistics, hopelessly outdated equipment, and sever recruitment and morale issues. Moreover they evidently can’t properly coordinate between different service branches and can’t adapt tactics.
All in all Russia’s forces are generally rather unimpressive for such a large land power.
Does that really suggest then that we need to ratchet defense spending?
Over a little more than 2 years Russia has had 450,000 killed and wounded and lost 4,000 tanks.
In its current offensives Russia is only managing to seize ~0.03% of Ukraine’s territory per month (Russia gained 201 sq km in May).
To me this looks like an unmitigated disaster for Putin, and an unexpected, albeit incomplete, triumph for NATO.
All we have to do now is just keep bleeding Russia dry on the battlefields of the Donbas.
We don’t need to start ramping defence spending to 3% of GDP. It’s just unnecessary. We don’t need to confront Russia directly (as opposed to by proxy) or to escalate. We should take the win.
We had similar debates in the early 80s when we were all told the Warsaw Pact had overwhelming numbers of tanks etc which would soon be smashing through the Fulda Gap heading for the Rhine
Rather less well publicised was that those same tank armies were junk. We saw this when the Pact unravelled in 1989-90 and during the 1991 Gulf War when Iraq’s then million strong Soviet equipped armed forces fell apart.
For some relevant historical perspective (from 1986) I’d recommend reading “The Myth of Soviet Military Supremacy” by Tom Gervasi (Harper & Row, New York).
@DH – would presume ZX was talking about China/Taiwan rather than Russia?
But what can the UK do about Taiwan/ China if that kicks off? It’s 6,000 miles away. The South China Sea is not a NATO operating area. Leave well alone I say. British military adventures against China (the Opium Wars of 1839-42 and 1858-60) does not inspire confidence that we’d not make a bad situation even worse, even if we could make a difference at that range, which I doubt.
@ Delta Hedge – Andrew Barber raised the spectre that somehow Labour moderates are a front for the far-left who will take control after Labour assume power. (Despite the fact this has never happened before.)
The Tea Party aren’t an example of that. The Tea Party pushed the Republicans to the right while in opposition. The consequence was Trump who presented his agenda to the American public in 2016.
And that’s my point. When Labour move too far to the left they become unelectable. But there’s no example I can think of, and certainly none in British political history, where a moderate government has been hijacked by the lunatic fringe.
Re: Russia – I agree with you, the ideal strategy would be to keep Russia tied down in the Ukraine. But what if they win? Or even if they lose? There’s every chance they double down on militarism and become a more potent threat that forces defence spending rises on the rest of Europe.
Moreover, their military is currently in the process of learning how to fight on the modern battlefield aka they’re learning from their mistakes. While economically they seem to have the headroom to increase their military capability further. Given those conditions I submit we’d be wise to bolster our hollowed-out defence forces sooner rather than later.
It’s worth noting that those next in line – e.g. the Poles – are doing this now.
To briefly address your point about the Soviet era. Future confrontation won’t look like this. We’re more likely to be fighting hybrid warfare. Attacks on undersea pipelines and communications infrastructure. Cyber warfare. The gradual subsuming of a Baltic state – challenging us to start a nuclear war over a piece of Latvia etc…
Readily concede(d) that the Tea Party are not an ‘entryist’ example, at least under a narrow definition of the term; but they are a quite striking + important example of a party radically self radicalising. The GOP is now well to the right of where it was under Nixon, Regan and George Bush Jr.
The same could happen to the Tories after Thursday, depending on the result and how the Brexit Sparta, Trussite and Faragist sympathiser wings play their cards.
On Russia, it’s possible they rise up to successfully challenge NATO, but history suggests otherwise.
The Russian armed forces have pretty much always been woeful.
In 1812 Moscow fell and it was General Winter who defeated Napoleon.
In 1854-6 Russian incompetence in Crimea became legendary.
In 1914-16 the Imperial Russian Army all but collapsed against Germany and Austria-Hungary, and in Mar-Nov 1917 Kerensky’s Provisional Government fared even worse leaving Lenin and Trotsky (after the Nov 1917 Bolshevik coup d’état) to sue for a peace with the Germans on any terms.
In the Russian Civil War of 1918-21 the Red and White armies were all hopeless in the field and the Reds won what was in effect a trial of weakness.
In 1920 the Poles bested a numerically much larger Red Army invading force (although it didn’t help the Reds that their two commanders, Trotsky and Stalin, hated and undermined each other).
In 1941 a numerically inferior German force went through Soviet lines like a hot knife through butter and came close to taking Moscow only to be defeated, like the French 130 years before, by the winter.
From 1942-45 the Soviets always lost at least 250 men for every 100 Germans and probably wouldn’t have prevailed in the East without massive Lend-Lease assistance from the US and UK.
The Soviet’s made heavy weather of subduing Hungary in 1956 and couldn’t manage Afghanistan in 1979-89.
In 1994-96 the Chechens bested the Russians and Putin’s rerun of that war from 1999 barely worked out for Russia.
In 2008 the Russians performed quite badly against Georgia, even though – with a tremendous paper superiority in numbers – they did just about prevail.
In 2015 the Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine were close to being overrun.
And since 2022 Russia had screwed up its plans to invade Ukraine, which having regard to the historical record, should have surprised no one.
So I’m not afraid of the Russians, and I don’t think the UK should be too. With US/NATO assistance, Ukraine is doing a very good job of degrading Russian capabilities for a long time to come.
[Quick p.s.: Also consider Russia’s abysmal under performance in their war against Japan in 1904-5, their woeful showing in their attempt to invade Finland in 1939-40 and their resort to barrel bombs and such like in support of Assad in Syria from 2015-19. They’re hardly the next Prussia].
@ wephway
As a father with daughters, and 5 granddaughters, I’m 100% behind protecting their spaces from people with penises (often with mental problems).
If they pass and have had surgery then it’s probably a reasonable compromise.
TA/TA Feel free to delete if it’s going to cause problems
@Boltt @all — It’s an area that only ever leads to a bitter breakdown of discussion tbh. Let’s say both sides have made their point here now and leave it there I suggest.
Good discussion thread cheers all!
Rather than rushing to a tactical voting website please run your eyes over your actual candidates. Any STEM graduates in the mix?
There’s a lot more to being an MP than voting in the chamber. We need skilled individuals who can work the committees and surgeries etc. My selection for Thursday includes three candidates who deny scientific facts, which rules them out for me. The contentious area might be tiny but it speaks volumes for their approach to problems.
@ Azamino
https://studee.com/media/mps-and-their-degrees-media
Interesting profile of MPs from 2019 by sex, which uni, subject studied
Economics (4th) was nearest to stem from the top 6 subjects (covering 65% MOs) – a poor showing for the scientists
Sample size one for my area – French, politics, Stem (you can probably guess which is which)
To inject a note of optimism and unity – however and whoever we vote for on Thursday, we all have one elemental foe: absolute poverty, which civilisation itself is a rallying cry against:
https://open.substack.com/pub/noahpinion/p/the-elemental-foe
@ Delta Hedge – I’m only carrying this on because I’m enjoying the debate, it’s not meant to be antagonistic…
I don’t think we should be afraid of the Russians and I don’t think we’re likely to face a massed Russian onslaught. But our current level of defence spending is not predicated on facing a hostile Russia in Europe.
The byproduct of current Russian military travails is they are learning how to fight a contemporary war. Their tactics continue to evolve in light of their experience.
Still I think our spending will likely have to rise – not to fight Russian tanks -but to contain Russian attempts to destablise our society and disable Nato. In other words, more troop deployments in vulnerable Nato states, more resources allocated to cyber warfare, protection of critical infrastructure etc, not to mention more arms for Ukraine.
Re: challenging NATO it’s likely to involve the destabilisation of a Baltic state and seeing what we do about it. They don’t need to roll them up with tanks. Continued assaults on civic society should do it, sowing discord, continued provocations against a democratically elected government, funding extremist groups, enabling the election of a pro-Russian government, arson campaigns, sending in the little green men to take de facto control of a border area featuring a sizeable Russian-speaking population…
@Azamino. Given that a fairly large percentage of the population seem to deny scientific facts, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that MPs do aswell. Remember, people want their MPs to be representative of society. We really do get the politicians we deserve. They reflect our ignorance. Personally, I’d prefer my MPs to be as unrepresentative as possible!
@DH. I think you are going a bit parabolic regarding my defence comment.
I’d say we are in a new Cold War with China and her proxies (Russia, Iran, North Korea etc). The only thing I can agree with Trump on is we’ve not been paying our way on defence. It’s not reasonable to expect the US to be our shield forever. Plus, the idea we can ignore the threat of China is nonsense. It doesn’t just operate in Asia. It’s embedded in Latam, Africa, Europe, Middle East etc. Defence spending at 2% of GDP is very low in historical terms. Throughout the Cold War period, defence spending never dropped below 4%, and was regularly much higher (up to 11%).
If we take just part of our armed services, the Royal Navy, as an example, we can see the impact. In 1990, at the end of the Cold War, it has around 200 warships and auxililaries. It now has around 80. Submarines from 29 to 6 (excluding SSBNs), escorts (frigates/destroyers) from 48 to 15. Mine countermeasure ships from 48 to 7. Moreover, we haven’t even got enough sailors to operate this fleet. Many ships are tied up alongside with no crew. The Navy simply doesn’t have enough ships to fight any sustained hot war. It has no resilience, no depth. We could say the same for the British Army and RAF.
Everyone says the NHS is at breaking point but so are our armed services. Why are they less deserving than nurses or doctors? My view is at least the armed services actually protects ALL of us. The NHS increasingly doesn’t. By accident, it’s become a form of wealth transfer. It taxes young workers to pay for older people. Many of whom have the wealth to pay for themselves. Same could be said for our care system.
@ZX @TA: I always take the base case and work back from there. Russia is never as strong as she looks, and Russia is never as weak as she looks. Her military history is one of failures and incompetence. But she can just about manage to prevent foreign invasions and lasting occupations of her own territory, and to hold that unwieldy span of land together.
We could spend an extra 1% p a. of GDP on defence, and either borrow more or spend less on societal infrastructure to the tune, over a 5 year Parliament, of £130+ bn; or we could say ‘let’s keep Putin bogged down in Ukraine for a bargain few billion a year cost to the UK’.
It’s not 1990, less still 1985, even if we are in Cold War 2 (and Noahpinion thinks we are).
The armed forces of the Russian Federation are rated at barely 20% of the overall conventional strength of the Soviet Union immediately pre Perestroika.
We can’t sensibly compare our defence needs now to those we had in 1985 (or even 1990) when the Warsaw Pact forces were still strung across the inner German frontier and central Europe, and the Soviet Armed forces on their own numbered 5.5 mn, as against 1.5 mn under Russian arms now (up from 1 mn admittedly in 2022).
In Cold War 1 there were many Red scares – a bomber gap in the 1950s, a missile gap in the 1960s, a first strike ‘window of vulnerability’ in the 1980s. In the end, it turned out all the gaps were in NATO’s favour.
It would be tragic to fall for the siren song of scaremongering again.
Yes Putin is a terrible man. Yes Russia is an expansionist aggressor. But something is only going to happen if it can happen. On all past performances, I just can’t realistically see Russia successfully jeopardising NATO’s core interests.
On China, over 1964-8 Wilson decided that by 1971 the UK should withdraw east of Suez. Bar the two Gulf Wars + Afghanistan successive governments have since then stuck to that. It was a pragmatic decision then, and IMO still is the right call now.
We’re not a Superpower. Nor are we an Imperial power anymore. We have to cut our cloth to fit. Defence is an even more a bottomless money pit than the NHS.