Theresa May says the election is about Brexit. Leading EU opinion says it will make no difference. I happen to think the EU negotiators are right: May has all she now says she wants on Brexit, so the election is about something more than that.
What, then, is that 'something'? That is the question that needs to be asked. I think the answer is apparent. It is about advancing the neoliberal cause. Brexit may not have been May's choice, but advancing the interests of a few in society is always at the core of Conservatism, and whatever the circumstances that is what Conservative's do best. And that is what May will do now. Brexit provides an opportunity to do that. She wants to take it.
And she needs to do so. As I have argued, a UK economic downturn looks likely, and soon. Massive problems also exist in the NHS, education, the justice system, social care, housing, energy, earnings and elsewhere, all of which are going to become increasingly apparent over the next few years with backlashes likely on most that Tories will wish to ignore.
Give her five years with a big majority and May thinks she can ride out these storms. She may only be a single term prime minister: the possibility of political realignment in what may be a reduced UK by 2022 is already becoming apparent. But that does not worry her, I suspect. Like all neoliberals her one goal is to push back the state and increase inequality. And that is what she has the chance to do.
The so-called Great Repeal Bill, with its Henry VIII clauses that willdeny accountability, will reduce employee and environmental rights, harm the protection for those with disabilities (as if that could still be imagined), diminish universal rights to health care, harm security in old age, damagingly bias markets in favour of big business and foreign owned companies, remove legal protections, probably claw back against LGBT rights, undermine social stability and encourage the break up of the Union. But none if this will matter to May. She will have fostered the self interest of the few, increased their access to the state as a means for appropriating its common wealth for private gain and will have put in place mechanisms that will be contractually hard for successors to unwind. That is the goal.
And that is what this election is about. Under the smokescreen of Brexit Theresa May is pursuing class warfare against most of us. And with a mass propaganda machine behind her she is getting away with it, aided and abetted by an official opposition that is seemingly dedicated to trivia. This us the general election of 2017. And it's not pretty.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
You forgot to mention environmental protection. I suspect water, air and food quality to be vastly reduced. But don’t forget the fish are so happy about Brexit they are having a love fest – multiplying in their millions and our great fishing industry will return to the 1970’s (or perhaps not; the slow recovery of the Grand Banks fish stock is a warning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_northwest_cod_fishery).
The GE will also scupper any chance to form a working Northern Ireland executive; just when it needs one most as Brexit will have dramatic implications on Norther Ireland.
I’ve put some resources on our soon to be launched site at http://www.progressivepulse.org/tactical2017/ which will be updated regularly.
I agree with all that Sean
Richard
Where have all the big political thinkers gone?
Barely a mention, let alone solutions for the coming social care crisis.
My 95 year old grandmother has spent 8 years in her care home, and 3 of the last 5 months in hospital. However she is in really good health generally and of sound mind. There is no point in pretending this doesn’t come with a massive cost to the public purse, or that this won’t be an increasing issue with demographic changes and improved longevity.
If the population of people requiring social care homes increases three fold (entirely possible) in the next 10 years it raises huge questions:
1. Where will they live? Try getting into a care home now – almost impossible.
2. Who will care for them? We’d need to triple a workforce whilst reducing immigration to under 100k(!)
3. How will this care be funded? A full state pension will pay for about 10 weeks in a care home.
4. If the minimum wage is to rise and immigration is to be reduced why would you work in a care home rather than a supermarket? There will be a surplus of jobs, all at the same pay level, so why would anyone do it for any other reason than the goodness of their hearts.
We need massive state intervention in planning, training, technology etc.
This is just one small example yet all we hear about is Brexit, trivia about “strong leadership” which apparently means doing nothing but saying how strong you are.
Excellent questions
As a Tory told me not long ago – if they’d wanted to live to old age they should have saved for it
That was his answer
And yes, he did mean the state would not care if they had not
I was just going to comment saying surely none of these people set out to actually increase equality, no one would do that. But this answer seems to show that, actually, they do. Which scares me no end.
I think you can safely say that is exactly what some people set out to do
I found this exchange utterly chilling – especially Richards report of what the Tory said. Amazingly, I also found part of my reaction was to come to the defence of SOME Tories; as the heartless, feral Tory of Richard’s note I do not think is representative of the Ken Clarkes of the brand.
I think it is really important that we do not frame everyone Tory within the feral prism as a lot of the discussions following seem to be doing, otherwise we lose the opportunity to appeal to those who, like Clarke, have sufficient humanity to keep self interest partly in check. I add at this point that defending Tories is the last thing I envisaged myself doing!
And, and, and, your questions Tim got me thinking about why we are where we are in terms of the potential car crash in our nurturing of the older members of our population. A little bit of research found this fascinating, although rather lengthy, report analysing the availability of formal and informal care, historical and projected, conducted by the CPA (Centre for Policy on Ageing) in 2014. There are some good graphics quickly highlighting the situation and its hypothesised causes in terms of changing demographics from P9 onwards.
http://www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/EN-GB/For-professionals/Research/CPA-Changing_family_structures.pdf?dtrk=true
IT is well written and well worth a read.
The issues here are really complex and multidimensional but the stand out message is that changing economics and demographics within the family situation have driven this change since the 1980s (since neo-liberalism kicked in and nuclear families walked out). So it has been a long time brewing and unilateral solutions are not the answer.
And here lies the nub of the problem. Politicians of all sides have not taken an holistic view of the dynamics of a developed economy, been honest with the populace about how interconnected the economy is: ie divorce rates/rise of single person households; low wages coupled with high consumption expectation; loosening of nuclear family ties; the expectation that the state will provide due to the ‘no such thing as society’ culture -“I pay my tax and council tax so they can look after mum/dad, I dont have time” etc etc.
If they had, they would have explained that just plugging one gap, ie providing social care to all who need it – which is unsustainable when funding is inadequate – requires certain sacrifices such as paying realistic tax rates; valuing the care sector and paying realistic wages; in many cases giving a balance of state and private provision; giving value & financial recognition to care inside the home provided by family member (remember carer’s allowance for providing THIRTY FIVE HOURS pw plus of care is a WHOPPING £62.70; where is minimum wage in that equation?). Where is the cost benefit analysis that a responsible government would have provided to its electorate to manage their expectations, engender realism about how to run an economy and provide the safety net everyone wants and is prepared to pay for? It comes back to Richard’s treatise of The Courageous State.
I don’t think this feral bunch of Tories represent at all what the people of the UK want (nor many centre Tories either). The difficulty is tribalism (two legs good, four legs bad) and that they have a hell of a marketing machine and are utterly unashamed to lie about their intentions by telling people what they want to hear. Putting BS in their manifestos and using it as toilet paper immediately after they are elected.
But out here in the real world I have usually found individuals to be concerned and sympathetic to the plight of others. Very few seem as rabid and uncaring as some of the politicians we now have who have reached prominence. Somehow, those politicians who actually do care, and beleive in society as a good in itself which as a result gives economic prosperity, need to break from their tribalism, come together and explain to people what is really going on and how it needs to be fixed.
Left, right or centre leaning there are not many people who would think it is ok to live in a country where it is OK for THEIR OWN granny to die in a pile of her own excrement.
And we need to be careful ourselves of not assuming that because a politician comes from a particular party, that they are tarred with the worst that that party represents.
I do wonder if, in 18 months time, we might find ourselves glad if Theresa May is only persuing class warfare. When you consider her election pitch – Strength in Unity, silencing opposition at Westminster, railing against the unelected Lords. These are not the words of a woman who believes in restrictions on power.
Christ, shes already referring to Scottish Nationalists in the same terms as Islamic extremists. What is she setting the stage for?
Is anyone 100% sure she won’t go full Erdoghan on us if we hand her this?
My first reaction when she announced the election was that she was doing an Erdogan
If she gets her ‘enery the Eighth powers I bet this is the last election she’ll be announcing.
Richard – she’s a Tory! What do you expect? Whatever they say – and however ‘sincerely’ they say it – they always end up doing the same … whatever it takes to protect private asset values. They pretend to be a ‘one nation’ political party but in practice it is only pretence because at their core they’re a single issue party, litttle different to UKIP. It’s just thst since 1834 they’ve learned a lot of effective tricks as to how to dupe the electorate i.e. how to speak, how to dress, and how to speak convincingly to financially aspirational people from any social class. This may sound facetious but underneath layer upon layer of subtle deception lies the kernel of their political objective. And, as we now know, their economic model is dangerous ideological nonsense – at last since 1971.
While it’s necessary to reveal the ‘truth’ behind their deceptive policies, more important is to focus energy on building an alternative. Of course the GE is an expensive and unnecessary diversionary tactic – but May and her cronies saw the opportunity and took it. That’s politics. The ‘Progressive Pulse’ initiative is to be applauded as a counter-tactic. However, so far what I’ve read from the opposition party leaders (except Caroline Lucas) isn’t very encouraging, but there’s still time to reach a pragmatic agreement. Corbyn’s attitude continues to beggar belief; I only hope there are more cooperative discussions taking place behind closed doors.
Unless all non-Conservatives co-operate then I fear the country is in for a decade-long pollitical ‘Dark Age’ with devastating results for the fabric of our society. Yes, it’s that serious. What will it take to enthuse the under 35s to vote? As is likely in the French election, reactinary parties get disproportionately more support from the elderly and the wealthy. The future really is in the hands of the next generation both literally and tactically.
So much more to rabbit on about. Yet voter fatigue is already a negative factor. For the next 6 weeks the UK blogosphere will be in overdrive, with the perennial trolls having a field day. Suffice now to say yet again – thank you for providing such an important and credible platform for inormed discussion. I appreciate how time-consuming it must be, not forgetting you have a challenging day job. Thanks also to Mrs Murphy and the family for their patience and background cooperation.
There’s a war to be won. Happy St George’s Day!
I fear it is not fear mongering to argue all these points. We are in such a hugely important phase for our democracy and decent way of life. I think we should notice what we did or didn’t do during the referendum campaign and not repeat the same mistakes now. Now that we have 6 weeks to claw something back. We should use every opportunity to engage with young voters and get the to vote. The outers are more emotionally and viscerally engaged to make sure we get out of EU at all costs and that the Tories ascend to their dominance of the UK. Mobilising that same kind of energy by every means we can is our duty I think. So many people seem unaware or lazy in their thinking about what is happening in plain sight. People I know who voted remain are now saying well, maybe it will be ok after all. Help!
John D
Happy St George’s day indeed! An interesting debate is to be had as to why St Patrick’s day is so much more celebrated; the Great Wall of China was floodlit (or at lest a small section) in green this year for example and when I have been in the US on St Patrick’s day I have been bought drinks all night; though they do dye the beer green which is a bit weird.
The positive side of English nationalism needs to be tapped into; somehow it seems to be hijacked by right-wing elements.
As one of the founding members of “progressive Pulse” thanks; I do hope we are ready for an official launch next week; but Richard will make an announcement. Please call by; we welcome contributions from like minded people.
I spoke briefly to Caroline Lucas in December about a progressive coalition and indeed there are members of the Labour party very much in favour and also about economics – she said Richard was great! I do have faith in her and indeed am now a Green rather than a Labour party member.
Don’t loose heart there are millions of decent English people; I do worry that they have been however subjected to 40 years of agnotology – which is my word of the month.
Sean – thanks for your words of encouragement. And also for ‘agnotolgy’. It’s now my word of the year! It explains so much of what’s going on, doesn’t it. I suppose you’ve seen this – http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160105-the-man-who-studies-the-spread-of-ignorance.
With greater inequality ahead perhaps we should be prepping for economic collapse (says science!) http://evonomics.com/science-flow-says-extreme-inequality-causes-economic-collapse/ Maybe the Tories now feel they can survive without the host and are indeed trying to bring about the situation described in Caroll Quigley’s ‘Tragedy & Hope’, a land of bounty and resource empty of all but the very rich (the rest of us having died off).
It’s tempting to over-think the reasons behind the election but I cant believe the Tory Expenses scandal hasnt been mentioned as being the prime motivator.
I liked Alex Salmond’s question in the House the other day where he asked the PM to confirm that Sir Lynton Crosby’s company were commissioned by the Tory Party to survey a dozen or more seats potentially affected by the expenses scandal. He also asked for confirmation that the first report from the Crown Prosecution is due by 20th May and that by the early part of June (You can bet it wont be before the 8th) a decision will have been made on whether to prosecute more than a dozen Tory Mps. He went on to ask if she would confirm that she was acting on the advice of Sir Lynton and others to hold a GE now rather than face the elimination of her majority by the consequences of Tory Party corruption.
I think these are really important questions given the timing and general incredulity of this decision when she previously said a GE categorically wouldn’t happen. (no less than 7 times!) The official reasons that May cites just do not ring true.I sense by -election fever and the erosion of the Tories narrow majority. The electoral commission has already investigated and fined the Tories for missing expenditure, Over £200,000 is missing or unaccounted for. As Alex Salmond said “To lose a few mps in the next parliament with a predicted majority of 100 plus is careless. To lose them with the current parliamentary majority of 17 is catastrophic.”
I think I have my answer about why she called the general election.
You may well be right
Yes, and a subtle difference that hasn’t been noted much in public discourse is that, if she lost her majority in the current parliament, the result would NOT be (as intuition would suggest) another election (‘so what’s the difference?’) but the next largest party would be invited to attempt to form a government – obviously in this case, Labour. This is why it seems to me that Labour’s backing the dissolution is at best clumsy, at worst suicidal: it would have been worth the gamble to block that, in the hope that the combination of Election Expenses prosecutions and the rapidly worsening economic outlook would have brought them into power in fairly short order. I don’t quite know how this election will turn out – I think it’s far from the slam-dunk that the polls seem to suggest – but the route they’ve taken seems to me to have far less chance of success, and a real prospect of cementing the Tories’ grip on power.
I agree: I have no idea what Labour was doing
Neither, I suspect, did its leadership
I don’t believe May’s ‘official’ reason for calling an election either. There are 3 reasons, the first of which is to avoid the expenses scandal, the second is to take advantage of the Tories’ current poll lead, which leads on to the third, they want to he re-elected now before the real economic pain from Brexit kicks in.
They don’t want to have an election in 2020 when the Brexit fallout is happening. In short, this election is nothing more than an act of cynical political opportunism.
And if Labour had an ounce of sense, they’d have blocked it in Parliament. The expenses scandal in particular really would have had the Tories stewing in their own juices – deservedly, for being the dishonest liars that they are.
England 2017. Two words sum up our politics now: dishonesty and stupidity. We have a dishonest political right, and a stupid political left.
You miss a fourth which is that with a bigger majority they may judge they will definitely be able to get the boundary changes through reducing MP numbers to 60. With her current slim majority it was not guaranteed.
Doh – meant 600 of course..
As I recall the Tories were planning to borrow around £60 billion in one year leading up to the “elimination” of the deficit.
The payment required to finalise our Brexit account will amount to £50 billion yet no-one is talking about the potential doubling of the borrowing requirement.
If May succeeds in obtaining an increased majority can we take it that the elctorate has agreed to this?
If the triple lock on income tax, NIC and VAT is maintained and virtually all GDP growth taken by a tiny minority, what then.
And yet working class communities are intending to vote Tory; Insane.
Insane indeed
It is insane, but the Tories have (fairly masterfully, it must be said), turned politics into almost entirely a game of jealousy and hate.
The unemployed will vote for the Tories because they’re attacking immigrants who “take their jobs”, the working poor will vote for them cos they’re attacking the unemployed who “get it easy”, the relatively well off will vote for them cos they’re attacking the working poor for having “families they can’t afford”.
And of course the rich vote for them because they’re getting massive tax cuts.
The only things voter in this country seem to approve of is something they don’t get being taken away from someone else.
Especially (insane) when one considers they’ll be voting to get higher utility bills at least for the foreseeable future as May’s killed off solar, presumably to maintain utilities as a nice little income stream for her backers. How mad would you have to be to vote to for that?
“Under the smokescreen of Brexit Theresa May is pursuing class warfare against most of us”
I don’ t think she is doing this.
I actually gave a lot of faith in what is going on and I am prepared to trust her!
The real question is, what is the alternative?
Certainly nothing from Labour.
JC on Andy Marr this morning re inforced my long held believe that he is an honest, honourable and well intentioned man and he would be great to have as a long term and loyal friend. But as the leader of the UK no way!
I would have more faith in Labour if there were a wise and measured team to support JC, but apart from Kier Starmer there is no one.
I don’t trust or respect Thornburry, Watson.
And don’t mention Dawn Butler, who disgraced herself on Eddy Mairs program on R4 last week and who is blatantly unsuited to hold the office of MP
And today we have the spectre that is Tony Bliar, you would have thought Labour would have long since silenced him and other coffin dodgers such as Mandy, etc
So criticise May by all means but accept that Labour currently has no alelternative.
I am not saying the Labour leadership is the alternative
I have also said we did not need an election
I’m curious. What is “trust” of May based on?
Her record both in competence, and honesty is patchy, at best.
From a Scottish perspective shes lied about consulting devolved administrations, she’s lied about the role and input of the JMC, shes lied about properly evaluating and responding to the “Scotland in Europe” and “Wales in Europe” white papers, and now she’s lied about holding a GE (Its pretty obvious from council campaigning that this was not a snap decision, they’ve been pushing a GE message for months). Christ, her entire basic message is a bare faced lie – a promise to build a fairer country, instead she attacks the poor and vulnerable and returns £1bn to the richest 0.04%
How can anyone trust that?
“I’m curious. What is “trust” of May based on? Her record both in competence, and honesty is patchy, at best”
erm…eh? Competence? patchy? 5 years as home sec’ & what happened to immigration?
http://outsidethebubble.net/2016/12/06/massive-negligence-by-theresa-may-when-home-secretary/
May makes the incompetent bumbling dolts amongst us – look good. 5 years in a senior position in gov’ and she was worse than useless. Her current record as PM confirms her uselessness, re-elected she will be a disaster.
I am also curious about your unwarrented faith in May’s past abilities given what their own paper The Spectator’s analysis of her last year.
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/07/theresa-mays-record-home-secretary-isnt-reassuring/
I too didn’t want an early election knowing that the Tory expenses scandal was looming and their majority could potentially have been vastly reduced. Also, knowing that the stormy waters of Brexit would soon be unpon us showing her up for the incompetent that she is. However, the MSM and especially Laura Keunsberg are at least helping May to keep her Teflon title.
As for Labour. I would have wanted them to have the time to sort out their PLP before elections. However, we must play the cards we’ve been dealt. Some Labour MPs are being tactical in where they stand and how hard they canvas. We have what we have and at the moment re: Labour TINA
The purpose of the Great Repeal Bill is to bring the corpus of EU law under the aegis of the British parliament. The Henry VIII powers are needed to re-word the legislation to make UK agencies responsible for enforcing the legislation.
The next phase (and it may well last a decade or more) will be for Parliament to scrutinise this mountain of regulation item by item and then amend, repeal or continue with each measure.
Simon
Do pigs fly past your window at frequent intervals?
I have to say that if you want to post here it’s best not to use what looks like a very fabricated name that happens to shorten to SS and to then post propaganda
Richard
We shouldnt be surprised. Who were the most vocal supporters of Brexit, and from what side of the political spectrum did they come from?
Anyone thinking that Brexit wouldn’t involve a Tory government looking for opportunities to make wide ranging changes and further entrench their anti state agenda needed to give their head a wobble.
We are going to get pretty much exactly what UKIp and the Conservative right wing have craved. And I fear its going to be even more divisive, unfair, regressive and intolerant than what we’ve seen over the last 7 years.
But the election is clearly to provide extra security. Labour or whoever was in power would do the same.
Its a tactical move to give May a larger majority and hence provide a shield against the wayward Lords and any economic downturn which you and others forecast.
‘Like all neoliberals her one goal is to push back the state …’
I don’t really think you meant that, but language & meaning are important. Neoliberals, especially of the May type don’t push back the state. The state is getting bigger & more oppressive by the day. What they push back is democracy. The dismantling of the welfare state & the deconstruction of social democracy go hand in hand. And it’s all cloaked in Newspeak. Language & meaning, language & meaning.
Oh they push back the state
Try being dependent on it and you will know that is true
The cutting of provision for the most vulnerable is not the cutting back of the state itself. The state is being privatised, and those who now own it are acquiring more and more power over its citizens. We are moving towards a secret corporate state where we don’t have any say, scrutiny or even information on how our taxes are spent. The transfer of public assets to party cronies doesn’t just happen in China.
April 29th 1938, President Roosevelt to Congress on the subject of monopolies:
‘The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group , or any controlling private power.’
Letwin in ‘Privatising the World’ and Hunt and others in ‘Direct Democracy’ paint privatisation as a process of giving greater control to citizens. Contrast that with the actual outcomes of their policies. It should send a shiver down the spine of anyone who’s read Orwell. It’s Newspeak. It’s 180 degrees from the truth.
I agree with Mike W here -although Richard is right to say that state has been rolled back in terms of welfare this is compensated for by expansion of the state in terms of defending property rights and maintaining bailouts for the banking sector and too big to fail finance as well as employer subsidies in order to give the impression they are getting unemployment down. The state also defends the housing bubble by forcing social tennants into greater poverty and using marginalising language towards anyone on benefit – so although the state is being rolled back as one that has social purpose it is bigger in respect to propagandising and passing legislation that supports wealth extraction, inequality and the primacy of debt.
Well.. maybe you’re both right here, as the state is probably growing but poor people can’t rely on it any more as Richard suggests. If you want to run a railway however and be given endless state handouts, or own land and routinely trouser enormous state benefits, all this without scrutiny or critical mention by the media, well, Britain’s the place 🙂
It is perhaps worthwhile to recall the wise words of Joseph Stiglitz in this context.
He said: “Neoliberalism is a misnomer: it is neither new nor is it liberal”
If Richard is as concerned about the Tories as he claims, there is only one alternative: Vote Labour. Otherwise all this is useless huffing and puffing……..as well as diverting all anti-Tory voters from doing what needs to be done. Pee or get off the pot Richard.
Voting Labour where I live would be a complete waste of time
Stop talking nonsense
Or go to https://www.tactical2017.com/ No pots or urine involved, just smart exercise of social democracy.
That’s the Conservative Party agenda, and May is indeed determined to achieve it.
Her own agenda is authoritarian, and reflects the worst elements of the Border Agency and the Home Office; her own magnum opus will be extinguishing all human rights obligations, all mechanisms of judicial review, and a national security and surveillance bill.
My view is that this is not so much a class war but a war on equality.
It is as simple as that for me.
Equality in life time chances.
Equality in life expectancy.
Equality in health.
Equality in education.
Equality in accumulating some form of family wealth.
Equality in basic human rights before the law.
Equality to have a decent place to live within my means.
and so on.
Note that I do not ask to be paid the same as a millionaire – this is not about income. All I want is to be able to work and live comfortably so that I can save, have a decent pension, have a holiday or two, eat well, service any debt, help my children and serve my community.
The possible election of the Tories on 8th June puts all of this at an increased risk for me.
I – like Richard- would be wasting my vote where I live so voting tactically for Labour would be a waste of time. That is why I can vote Green and not lose any sleep over it.
The Greens and Labour were wiped out where I live during the last election. And if I voted for Labour do you think that in the FPTP system that we have that the Tories would give a damn about that and take my views and others into consideration?
No Padraic. So please be a good fellow and get real.
This is why we need to change our electoral system. In an age of crap politics we actually need more choice of whom to vote for and widen the influence of the voter via the parties available rather than reduce it as the present system does.
It is not Britain that is broken nor Ireland, Scotland or Wales. It is our politics that is broken and it needs to be fixed for good.
I totally agree – my vote too will be wasted under FPTP I only hope that analysis of the total votes cast for each party (and the subsequent unfairness of seats allocated) will persuade more people of the need for reform of our outdated election system. http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/proportional-representation
Not sure this is relevant here but I thought this was an interesting admission from Michael Fallon to Nick Robinson this morning. See 09:02 on the guardian live feed.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2017/apr/24/corbyn-may-farron-sturgeon
MF: No. What we can be honest about is saying we hoped markets would have worked better by now, we hoped the power that the big six energy companies have would have been diluted, we had hoped that there would have been more switching. But when that has not happened, it is right to make sure that people are properly protected.
There may be a blog coming on that
This is laughable as they themselves can greatly influence the markets by subsidies here (railways) removal of subsidies there (solar) and lack of any meaningful regulation elsewhere (entire financial sector). Any suggestion by Fallon that there’s some kind of force majeur at work here is pure theatre, more evidence of how stupid he thinks we all are.
On the whole, I’d be cautious about any speculation about Theresa May’s motivation and her personal agenda. She’s made her views very clear on the ECHR, she’s displayed a nasty authoritarian streak in her actions at the Home Office and…
… And that’s it. That’s probably as much as anyone knows, even her cabinet.
Great post Richard, but what do you mean by saying that the opposition are “seemingly addicted to trivia”? I’m no Corbynista (whatever that means) but his speeches have been broadly on the money and I’ll be very happy to give him my vote – first Labour vote since the Iraq War in 2003.
Four extra bank holidays is trivia
And most other Polly announced has little evidence base