For hundreds of years, the Tories have been one of the two parties that have at all times dominated UK politics. The other might have changed from time to time, but the Tories have been a constant. That, though, can no longer be assumed to be the case. Now, they might be heading for extinction. Does that matter?
This is the audio version of this video:
And this is the transcript:
What is the point of the Tories? I have to ask the question because they are, of course, meeting in their party conference this week, and most of the world will ignore them.
Now, that's not surprising. They have spent 14 years in government and then lost the last general election so badly that they are reduced to a rump of the party that they used to be. I think there are around 131 members left in parliament.
They are the official opposition.
They do have the right to stand up and question Keir Starmer every week as Prime Minister about what he's doing.
But the truth is, at this point in time, they still have Rishi Sunak as leader; they haven't chosen a new one, and they don't appear to have any clue where they're going.
That fact is represented by the choice of candidates that are being put forward to be that leader. Now, some have already dropped out, and we know that more will very soon. But whoever becomes the Tory leader, we can summarise their policy position very simply.
They will be on what, in conventional terms, was the far right of the Conservative Party. Not only, in conventional terms, the far right of the Conservative Party, but the far right of British politics.
We are not used to having leaders who are so anti-government, so anti-migration, so anti-support for those in need, as are those who are standing to lead the Conservative Party. They are in a space that we are simply unfamiliar with in the lifetime of almost anybody with a political memory in the UK now.
So, the Conservative Party is in an extraordinary position, without a leader at the moment, without an idea, and with a political policy agenda that appears to appeal to a tiny minority of people in this country but where they are directly challenged by Reform, who have a much more charismatic leader - barmier policies without a shadow of a doubt, but a stronger appeal to a public who are looking for something completely different from mainstream politics, which the Tories are still thought to represent. So, they are in the most extraordinarily difficult political position.
There is no doubt that the Overton window of UK politics has shifted to the right. The Overton window is a term used to describe the broad positioning of the political playing field when it comes to what is deemed to be acceptable political debate at any point in time. So, narratives around left-wing politics have virtually disappeared from public debate at present, and everything is around various forms of right-wing thinking.
That's partly because the Labour Party, as we know, has shifted heavily towards the right. Frankly, these days, there would be very little to choose between David Cameron in 2010 and Keir Starmer in 2024 - both weak, ineffectual men without any idea of how to run a government or how to run a country, offering an agenda which is meant to be a broadly based appeal to a population who voted for them in desperation. They are both centre-right politicians, and that is what the Tories used to be and what Labour is now.
On the other hand, on the other side of the Tory party, there is, as I've already said, Reform. And they are now stuck in a pincer movement between a centre-right Labour party and a far-right Reform party, and they're trying to move to the far right to differentiate themselves from Labour, whilst also taking on Reform, against whom, frankly, they have little to offer.
I'm not saying that Reform are great: I'm just saying that if you're going to put forward barmy political opinion, then Reform are better at it than the Tories.
So, this matters. And it matters for one simple reason. We have a two-party political system in the UK. We have done for centuries. And within that century's old tradition, the Tories have existed for apparently over 300 years. The longest single political force in world political history. And yet, they are at risk of disappearing, squeezed out from the centre-right and from the far right to the point where they might not exist.
And that matters because in a two-party system, you need an effective opposition that can appeal to sufficient people to pose a threat to the government in office so that it believes that it has to deliver policies that are acceptable to most people in the country, or they face the credible threat of not being re-elected.
We are in the position where, at present, the Tories may not be able to offer that credible threat, and I doubt that Reform can either because whilst they have a limited appeal with up to maybe 20 per cent of the population of the UK, beyond that I think there are few who would actually be willing to countenance voting for them. So, they do not create a credible threat, and nor does, as we have seen, a right-wing Tory party do anything like that either.
So, what's really at stake at present is not just the Tory party and its future, about which to some extent I am indifferent, but our whole current political setup in the UK, to which Labour is dedicated.
If we could move past the first-past-the-post electoral system and have a much more representative system of electing parliaments, the demise of the Conservative Party would not matter one iota. Somebody would come in and fill the natural void that they will have left. But when we do have only two political parties who can, it seems, at any time, dominate the political scene, the demise of one that has been there for two to three hundred years really does matter because it means that Labour is not going to be challenged.
And the barmy politics of Reform will be there, on offer, unable to challenge Labour, but present enough to destabilise the whole democratic process.
So, the Tories really do have a responsibility to do something for the good of the country as a whole still. And that is to move back into a centre ground, which they abandoned some time ago; to provide an alternative narrative to Labour, which will in turn force Labour to move left, to pick up voters from areas which they have abandoned, and to then recreate a dialogue of narrative around what we as a country really need, rather than to play in the gutter on the right.
Will they do that? Will they offer us this opportunity to actually restore the political well-being of the UK? I doubt it. I can't see the Tories are going to go there at all.
At the present point in time, the leadership candidates on offer are all, frankly, failed cabinet ministers without an idea between them of any consequence. So, I don't see this possibility. But it really does worry me. We do need a functioning political system in the UK or we don't get effective government. The Tories do matter in the sense that they formed part of that functioning political system for so long that their absence will be destabilising. And I don't think we need that instability.
We either have to pray that the Tory party comes back into some shape where it might be elected, God forbid, or we have to pray that Labour might see the light and allow us a proper proportional representation system for elections in the UK.
But if neither of those things happens, the question has to be, will we have a functioning political system in the UK? And because the demise of the Tories lets us ask that question, they do matter, however repugnant they might be.
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“We are not used to having leaders who are so anti-government, so anti-migration, so anti-support for those in need”
Oh dear, that seems to describe the Labour leadership too. 🙁
Might any rightward movement in the mainstream media, possibly including the B B C, be a relevant factor in any rightward movement in major political parties?
Ditto state education?
Ditto a general, unstated, possibly passive, acceptance of Neoliberal ethics by the general public?
“Ethics”? Neoliberalism is the ideology of those who celebrate greed and selfishness, surely, and who live by Hayek’s “Noble Lie”.
Not too off-thread I hope (I know this annoys some readers), but I wanted to settle an observation on Kemi Badenoch’s remarks on maternity; with its preference for its supposed excessive impact on business (effectively profits) and “personal responsibility” over childbirth. Presumably childbirth with maternity pay is irresponsible. The facts are very different. In Scotland the fertility rate has collapsed to 1.3 births per woman. The population replacement rate is 2.1 births per woman. Scotland is on an extinction curve. England and Wales are also well below population replacement. Let us be clear. That is catastrophic for Britain, and for the economy. It is a world problem for advanced countries. As living standards rise, birthrates fall. It is a function of the modern economy (the subject Badenoch doesn’t understand). China has hit the same problem. After having the most ruthlessly penal policy against childbirth in the world (people were only allowed one child, families were severely penalised for having more than one child), China now has a falling population and has reversed its policy, and is now encouraging childbirth – because they fear the consequences of not doing so. The Chinese know if you do not want the huge problems that follow a falling population, you have to provide inducements and support to encourage childbirth in the modern world. These are the facts.
Badenoch doesn’t understand the issues. She is an arrogant fool who actually thinks she is the smartest person in any room. The only place she is the smartest person in the room, is in a meeting of Conservative Party members and among the more extreme, thoughtless neoliberal ideologists. Badenoch realised soon after opening her foolish mouth on this subject that it had misfired. She then claimed she had been “misrepresented”. She hadn’t, she dug this hole for herself, because she is aggressive and thinks she can be controversial and browbeat opponents. Blaming others is an essential part of her technique. Badenoch’s way of fighting is to be aggressive, look for a fight, but if anyone hits back (that she can’t blame on social media hate or somebody else), she runs away: all the characteristics of a bully.
In an astonishingly ill-informed and ill-conceived attempt to brush-off the Badenoch blunder, Rachel Hamilton a Scottish Conservative spokesperson on BBC Radio Scotland GMS, has compounded Badenoch’s blunder, arguing that the Scottish Conservatives are putting the priority on women returning to work. She said she had two children and Britain had among the best maternity policies in the world.
In a European context that is false; Britain ranks low. The Conservative Party has also defended a two-child cap, now questioned “excessive” maternity pay, and has a priority for women returning to work in the economy, over the wider demands of childbirth. The failure of the Conservatives to think a problem through is demonstrated by this disastrous approach. Britain is in the middle of an undiscussed, unrecognised but critical population crisis that the Conservatives clearly do not understand, recognise, or care about. They cannot see the wood for the trees; their focus is on business and business alone, but business does not deliver the population on which it depend: only government, with a larger perspective then business, can do that. The facts are quite different from the bizarre folly of Scottish Conservatives (who should know better, because Scotland is in a deep population crisis), and only government can address the population-demographics problem.
Business cannot fix this. Only Government can fix it with maternity and tax incentives to increase the birthrate, and a social and cultural framework entirely different from the obsessions of Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives. Ironically, with a pro-birthrate tax and maternity system Business would be in a far better condition to meet its challenges.
The Conservatives are not just the nasty Party; they are exactly what they were long considered to be in the nineteenth century, in Parliament and in the country: the Stupid Party.
Yes John, off topic but worth a read as you’ve perfectly summed up the ghastly Bad Enoch, who it seems to me is the black equivalent of Enoch Powell.
A descendant of immigrants who hates immigration, and a mother who hates maternity rights.
So a perfectly suitable candidate to lead the 2024 tory party.
Her positions lack any logic
Thank you and well said, John.
I know exactly what you mean and have come across in the City, including her other half. I used to work with him.
Thank you, John.
I should have added that the fertility rate collapse can be found in Mauritius, too.
Down there, even the oligarchs are Keynesian. The government and firms are beginning to subsidise child care. They already support transport and housing and plan to support first time and young buyers more soon.
Seriously, any of you able and willing to relocate there will find a warm welcome. Many Europeans and even some Americans are coming
SMP – statutory maternity pay is paid to employees by their employers, and the employers then claim it back from HMRC. If they need to they can claim it back in advance of paying it! Small employers recover 103% of what they pay. So there is little direct cost to business. Businesses may suffer because of the absence of a member of staff, but that applies whether they are on any kind of parental leave, study leave, sickness absence or if they leave. So why is Kemi so exercised by it?
SSP – statutory sick pay is paid entirely by the emloyer and is not recoverable from HMRC. I would suggest that if she wanted something to attack, SSP is the one. Except, of course, that what is needed is much more generous SSP, preferably recoverable by the employer from HMRC.
@Cindy Hodgson
“…Small employers recover 103% of what they pay. [in maternity leave]”
I didn’t know that. I’ve always felt it was unfair that the employer should pick up the tab and now I discover it is not so. Good.
Apologies that this is something of a diversion, and off topic, but both as a demographer and environmentalist, I have to challenge the relevant content in JSW’s post on the Tory leadership candidate Badenoch, who I anyway regard as a nutjob, even described as a ‘loose cannon’ by Peston. I think we’d agree that far.
I don’t have the time or space for another full debunk of the polemic that we *need* continued population growth, either in Scotland, or across the planet. We absolutely do not. There really is no “extinction curve”.
Annually, globally, we are currently consuming at 1.7x the level of resource capacity possible for renewal.
In 2000 there were 6.1 billion humans on Earth and we currently have 8.2 billion people on the planet.
Current estimates are that it *might* just top out at about 10 billion.
The real “extinction curve” is in NOT allowing the populations of post industrial western economies to slowly reduce, requiring adaption of our social and economic system to manage that. (just as earlier civilisations have had to repeatedly undertake).
Individually we, in developed nations, consume up to 550 x the resources and energy of the less industrialised. We are still contributing disproportionately to the problem.
The entire global renewables capacity installed since 2000 has not even kept pace with growth in energy consumption.
The existential threat to both humans and wider planetary welfare comes from mindless pursuing of continued population growth when the ecosphere is already seriously degrading – and we are not even close to meeting the current globally agreed targets.
We cannot support current GDP economic growth practices even now, and our current capitalist model requires both rising consumption and indefinite growth.
There really are limits to materiel usage on a finite planet.
Resource depletion is a huge issue.
Unsustainable energy use of fossil fuels already poses an existential threat
And, more locally, the UK has suffered the worst loss of biodiversity of any nation in Europe, continuing with a population growth model can only lead to even more environmental degradation and reduction in biodiversity.
Whose “extinction” does that involve ?
Tony,
You describe the problem and solution, as if you are adjusting a thermostat. You are simply re-heating Malthus. The answer to Malthus was science and technology. It is the only usable solution that will work. We have very limited capability in efficiently and effectively managing our economy or the wellbeing of people, even when we have given no thought at all to our own population. The idea that we can effectively manage an economy with a falling population is based on no evidence, nor any credibility based on our economic management track record, or any adequate attempt even to address the problem. Scotland has had a falling population before; it was the most disastrous period in Scotland’s history (in the 1690s); that ended in a Union few Unionists really wanted, or had long sought. It was the only viable way out they could see; nothing more. The wellbeing of people requires more than you offer.
Immigration is an alternative to a falling population. That worked well for Scotland in the EU, and the population was stabilising; but post-Brexit (and no slowing in the inherent birthrate decline) the position is now deteriorating. There is no prospect of offering immigration as an answer in the current British political context. It is in any case both a European, and world scale political problem of the greatest seriousness, to which there are no reachable answers on offer. The rise of the far right is everywhere an effect of the exploitation of immigration (and the effect of turbulent politics elsewhere in the world, where there is little ability, or willingness to manage chaos – by anyone).
You may ‘debunk’ all you like; you are over-simplifying far more intractable problems than you acknowledge, and you not able to offer real, functional, practical answers. Oh, and Marx in ‘Capital’ did not begin to understand that the most advanced countries would suffer population decline, since it didn’t fit his ideological Capitalist schema.
“the UK has suffered the worst loss of biodiversity of any nation in Europe”.
Scotland has not suffered loss of biodiversity through overpopulation; “continuing with a population growth model”. The proposition in Scotland’s case is absurd. We do not have a population growth model. We have a [population decline model, and it is killing us. Scottish Government analysis, ‘A Scotland for the future: opportunities and challenges of Scotland’s changing population’ provides evidence: “The Expert Advisory Group on Migration and Population has assessed the impact of the ending of freedom of movement and projected a reduction in annual overseas net migration to Scotland of between one third and one half after 2020 leading to a reduction in our working age population of between 3% and 5%”. Scotland has no ability to fill that gap, and that has real consequences for people’s imminent future, and wellbeing.
Scotland has suffered all kinds of losses through the invariably atrocious mismanagement of Britain, in almost every conceivable way; over centuries – not just decades. The mistake Scotland has made is allowing this imbecility (to which it subscribed for far too long), to continue into the future.
@ JSW
You sought to use Malthus in a previous attempt to deny the reality of a finite planet, and have again misunderstood his model and/or purpose. Your apparent attempt to use his name pejoratively is no deflection from your own absolutely unworkable proposition.
If “We have very limited capability in efficiently and effectively managing our economy or the wellbeing of people, even when we have given no thought at all to our own population”
….then why do you persist in advocating an extremely destructive model of ever increasing population growth that offers no solutions whatsoever ? …… and certainly not wellbeing, unless you really do desire indefinite consumer growth. ?
The need for a permanent condition of global population growth, to feed the machine, is based in consumer capitalism, and especially free market neoliberalism.
Nothing to do with Marx.
It is neither necessary nor desirable.
It is unachievable.
Your doom loop opinion that the current low birth rates in the UK will be terminal for British society and that we need a fertility rate of 2.1 to supply labour for the economic system, to expand both the pool of labour and provide new consumers, with anything else being a total disaster, cannot conceivably succeed, whether demographically, environmentally or economically. It is so evident as to not to need debunking.
Japan’s fertility rate first fell below 2.1 in 1975 and it has stayed that way since.
It is also a country with relatively low levels of immigration.
Yet it is still the 3rd largest economy globally.
It already has higher demographic demands than we do in the UK and western Europe, and a declining population,.
Surely it ought to be a total basket case, fifty years after it fell below population replacement levels?
Is Japan really on an “extinction curve” and in an “existential crisis”, or are they just managing Stage 5 of the demographic transition quietly and in their own way ?
They seem to be doing reasonably well, and the Bank of Japan is certainly managing their fiat currency in a much more controlled manner than most others.
Their current situation is no different from our own might be some fifty years in the future, so I’d recommend a very close look at how they are dealing with your allegedly “intractable” problems.
Immigration might seem to offer an immediate short term fix, but it also places additional demands for housing, new infrastructure and services.
It would be fine if the UK was running efficiently, but many of the indices say otherwise.
With young families, the ‘dependency ratio’ – which is the problem you seem to be seeking to resolve with blindly pursuing population growth often increases, and this is maintained for some 20 years or so.
Beware of unforeseen consequences.
You have still to explain why it is basically a good thing that the 8.2 bn people on the planet are still growing, and increasing the demands they are making on global resources, when we already have 2.2bn people on the planet in absolute poverty, mostly because of misallocation?
What was wrong with 5bn people, or 3bn people, why do we still need more ?
I’ll certainly agree that both national governments and transnational organisations have been ineffective so far in the adequate allocation of global resources.
But the current system runs by creating shortages anyway.
This is not because of lack of solutions, but lack of will, and basically because it does not fit with the prevailing economic system.
The 17 UN sustainable development goals are evidently achievable – excepting SDG 8, which is predicated on growth economics.
And then, why not lower the DR ? Why should an increased BR be necessary when lowering death rates and improving health care would have a comparable demographic impact?
As for immigration, why rob less developed countries of their better qualified economically active cohort when, with constructive policies, we could improve work participation for both those older folks in reasonable health, and improve working conditions for the currently less healthy, as an immediate alternative, and which would minimise the needs for long term immigration?
it was reported last week that we have had roughly 750k people not working in 2024 but who were economically active up to 2019, mostly it seems with Long Covid.
Surely addressing this ought to be the top priority for problem solving and adapting work place conditions ?
Meanwhile technology is still reducing labour demands, especially in the productive economy, so aggregate labour demands are and will continue to decline in time.
(And that is before beneficial immigration is considered.)
I can only repeat that the proposition that, without population growth, the polemic of “we are on an extinction curve, and it is coming very, very fast down the track” is fundamentally wrong.
And that is the polite way of dismissing it.
On Japan,
“it’s common knowledge that Japan isn’t an outlier when it comes to low fertility rates, merely a front-runner. The same demographic crunch is starting to hit other nations, notably South Korea and China. Fertility in every European Union country is below replacement level. When the debate quickly turns to the benefits of immigration, Japan is often painted as hostile, if not downright xenophobic, and rejecting the choice of foreign workers.
Take a closer look at that data ……… It shows the number of foreign nationals rose 11% from a year earlier to comprise 2.4% of the total population, or just under 3 million people; as the figures are from Jan. 1 [2023], that milestone has now likely already been passed. It often goes unremarked that the number of workers from overseas has more than doubled in the last decade alone, while the broader foreign community (including students and families) has risen 50%.
Based on population projections, conversation has already been shifting to a future where foreign residents will make up more than 10% of people in the country 50 years from now — similar to the current levels of the U.S., U.K. or France. Naturally, this creates some unease; what Japan may lack in economic dynamism, it makes up for in social cohesion. Civil unrest and large, no-go immigrant neighborhoods are basically unheard of”.
As for misquoting you, that would work if you were not misquoting me. My argument on biodiversity was about Scotland, and Scotland is obliged to follow the UK because the UK determines Scotland’s budget and its immigration policy. Scotland’s birthrate is as low as Japan’s but has no levers to pull on immigration, which post-Brexit has fallen. At the same time we have a two-child cap and threats on maternity pay policy. Technology will not fix everything, because the requirement for personal care (of one kind or another) is not going to fall, it is going to rise, exponentially. As for your population stats., you are looking at total population. What matters over the time is the working population, and there – as The Expert Advisory Group on Migration and Population in Scotland suggests, there is a looming problem for the required working age population. Scotland has a lower birthrate than the UK, and what is holding up your population totals is an older, and older population, requiring more personal service and care, not less. At the same time, your “cynical” point on age is not likely to work out on spend as the population ages, unless the age of death in Scotland remains stubbornly low for an advanced country (a sign of social failure). The downside issues are coming faster than your long-termism suggests; and there is a deep irony in you relaxed view of the urgency of Scotland’s real problems in population, with your frantic urgency over the population issues that happen to interest you.
Indeed if you had read my argument it was very largely from a Scottish perspective not the UK (a political entity from which I candidly have given up expecting anything sensible emerging), but the fact is we are in the Union, and that has consequences for Scotland that I cannot ignore. If there had been no Brexit Scotland would not be in such a difficult predicament, but now, we are where we are.
On the world scale, as Japan is finding out with a birthrate at these levels – something has to give in the real world. I leave you with the job of selling untested theory on managing the economics of falling populations.
This started with an off-tread comment. i think we have bored people sufficiently; don’t you? I think we beg to differ, markedly.
I missed the source of my Japan quotation. It is from ‘The Japan Times’, titled, “Japan is bringing in more foreign nationals than you think” (6th August, 2023), written by Gearoid Ready, of Bloomberg.
@JSW You misquote me., I can only assume accidentally.
As demography is my area of expertise, you will have to excuse my sensitivity to disinformation, and continuing reluctance to accept that.
People ignoring the climate and overshoot crises is bad enough, in my view, but demography being used as a political football as well, is beyond the pale.
Scotland has not yet begun to see population decline, nor will it for another 20 years.
I stated:
“And, more locally, the UK has suffered the worst loss of biodiversity of any nation in Europe, *continuing with a population growth model can only lead * to even more environmental degradation and reduction in biodiversity.”
My point is that your proposition of applying a population growth model across the UK which has already had appalling habitat and biodiversity losses, and which includes Scotland, is only going to exacerbate existing problems, not remedy them.
I am also going to challenge your deductions from your chosen data in this follow up post.
Scotland’s population will have grown by around 10% between 2000 and 2050, by which time it will be declining very slowly.
Here are the actual figures for Scottish population from 2000, including projections to 2050.
According to the National Records for Scotland (NRS) Scotland had 5.06m people in 2000.
It is currently 5.48m, and is actually still growing, and not reducing at all, let alone catastrophically.
The total population of Scotland is projected to continue rising to 2030, and then peak at 5.53m.
It will then level off, slowly declining to 5.45m by 2045.
So in 2050 there will still be almost half a million more folk than 2000.
This hardly represents a collapse scenario over the previous half century.
The rate of actual decline is projected at 8,000 persons per annum, most of whom will be in the over 70 age group, which, cynically, is a plus as it will gradually reduce the dependency ratio from 2045 and hence also the demographic pressure on social spending.
Incidentally, the NRS have allowed for net immigration of 10,000 per annum for the next 25 years, reflecting current numbers, and mostly working age.
This figure is clearly sufficient to stabilise total population numbers, but is considerably less than the 2014 White Paper guesswork.
As a percentage it is much lower than the SNP have previously claimed is necessary, and even very small levels of immigration are useful in stabilising actual total population.
I entirely agree that a distinctly Scottish approach to our demography is desirable as we face different dynamics to R UK, and this possibility would be best served by independence.
However, a policy of pursuing natural increase in terms of population growth, as you endorse, is just as misplaced for Scotland as it is globally.
Reform and the tories will either merge or do some electoral pact to ensure they win at the next election. That is certain. So the point of the tories is they will form the next government.
@Brian
“…So the point of the tories is they will form the next government.”
The way Labour are shaping-up I’m reluctantly inclined to agree that is a distinct possibility.
OMG what is happening to me, I actually quite like a Tory politician. Step forward Russell Findlay new leader of the Scottish Conservatives.
Yeah I know I’m not supposed to say that but, in the same way that Pepe Guardiola in England and Brendan Rogers in Scotland give off a je ne sais quoi impression that points to them having the quality of being excellent leaders. To my mind at least Findlay gives off the same aura and vibe.
Problem is he’s only been a politician for 3 years and under the D’Hondt system used in Scottish elections he got about 10 per cent of the vote.
He is hideously disgusting polotician at every conceivable level
He may be a charning man. Buit as a politician he is dire.
Important to split the two.
The Conservatives in Scotland are unelectable. That is because PR (even the Party-biased D’Hondt system) allows the votes of Scottish voters actually to count for something. The FPTP system in Westminster is a Party-manipulated corruption of democracy that has fixed us in a permanent mess from which the Party electoral system prevents us extricating ourselves.
Findlay is a journalist. The Conservatives in Scotland rely on journalists – spinners of stories, the creators of empty narratives – for a leadership they think are plausible with the public, and more important, know their way round the press and media network , as insiders. They had Ruth Davidson recently as a “successful” leader (a BBC journalist) by losing elections less badly. It is a game. Downing Street has a revolving door with Fleet Street. None of this delivers good government, anywhere.
Thank you, Richard.
I think Jenrick’s likely election as leader could be poisonous. Why? His wife (and benefactor) is a Zionist. So is he. Readers may be aware of Jenrick jogging around central London with Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist t shirts for the cameras.
One of the reasons for Jenrick’s obsession with immigration is that he and others see it as a coded means of attacking Muslims and others for their solidarity with Palestine. Yesterday, Badenoch was at it, but she’s not taken that seriously and her back story could soon come apart. The pair are likely to keep that pot boiling and drag Starmer, another Zionist, with them.
We will soon get “it’s not immigrants like you, but Muslims we are worried about”, not that immigrants or the children of immigrants, like me, fall for that qualification. Last week, I heard that the son of a friend and former colleague (his mum) and his girlfriend, both Hindu, were attacked in York. The pair, born and raised here, as were their parents, feel like emigrating after graduation.
I find these rhetorics deeply dangerous
And that stiory is very sad
Thank you, Richard.
I was catching up with my friend and asked about the family, especially as this son had done a bit of work experience with us.
What led to that update was when asked about my parents, I said they had been spooked by some racist attacks in Buckinghamshire and want to return to Mauritius.
Further to that, I find it odd that the government indulges, but, at the same time, is courting investors… Said investors are aware of what’s going on here plus high utility costs, public services running on fumes and the lack of rapprochement with the EU. I joked to my parents that said investors probably like to visit UK missions around the world and Lancaster House and other palaces and get their photos taken with the royals.
Very sorry to hear about people getting attacked for no good reason whatsoever. I hope they are ok and the idiots that abused them get punished.
Thank you, Martin.
A bit shaken. The pair have just returned to university. It started with name calling, “requests” about going home (Kent for the son 🙂 and the pair being yanked by their hair.
You are welcome Colonel Smithers.
Thank you, Martin.
I chatted with a colleague after lunch. He’s of Pakistani origin, our leading rainmaker and perhaps the next UK CEO. We talked about our families before talking shop. Some colleagues and I are like that. He’s been here since junior school, lives in Surrey and is also worried about the hostile environment.
As Richard has said about his father and grandfather, starting over is stressful.
It is….
It’s all very difficult. For the life of me, i can’t understand why neoliberal minded people continue with their ways of thinking, even when the disastrous results of their greed and stupidity are obviously creating merry hell on earth.
Thank you and well said, Martin.
Thank you Colonel Smithers
I do not share your ‘optimism’ about reform or the far right. They are heavily represented on social media, courtesy of both Putin and the Atlas network money, and our young people (16-30) generally get ALL their info about the world from that source. It was a salutary shock to find in our mock elections at school that Reform polled at 40%, same as Labour, and Farage was seen as a reasonable potential PM. While we bicker, the far right is curdling our humanity.
Agreed
That is worrying
I bet that polling was heavily from boys
Thank you, John.
There are many US and even Zionist networks on that social media drive.
Their UK arms include Tufton Street, but also the Henry Jackson Society.
UKIP took them over – and there is every sign that Reform will do so before the next election . John Major was very clear last week.
Hopefully somehow people will realise whats needed – investment in public services etc , indeed , they are in favour of public ownership of utilities.
So both parties may swing the window back towards the centre , realising that would appeal to people, but it seems a forlorn hope.
What is the point of the Tories ? Same old, same old….
Arguably the Church of England is still the ‘Tory party at prayer’. The Church has always represented class interests, notions of patriotism, and support for God’s henchman being king.
Divide and rule has been their mantra in holding power, almost since the Peasants Revolt, so stigmatising others, racism, prejudice and xenophobia are absolutely integral to the Tory mindset.
These tools have been used to prise apart those who could take power were they united, and reinforce the power of the conservative elite.
Taken to its extreme, patriotism and xenophobia become fascistic, a direction Reform seem happy to take. National pride is on an entirely different level.
On a daily basis the Tories mostly represent propertied and monied interests. They are the sectional interest party of money.
Over time this has morphed from the upper class landed gentry to include business owners, capitalists, and all those finance technocrats who are skimming off their cut.
Anyone who has financial interests which they wish to sustain or expand is a natural Tory.
The “rule of law” is a pretty good principle when the laws are pretty much all in the interests of the propertied.
Now that 60%+ of the economy is absolutely controlled by corporate interests, as corporations have that hegemony, then the Tories will act for them, whether or not this is in the wider public interest.
The notion that the Tories will stand up for the petit bourgeoisie, as small business, and the self-employed, is now hopelessly out of date. For example, farmers have been progressively sold out to the monopsony of the corporate supermarket sector. (Thatcher’s abolition of the Milk Marketing Board being a policy in point.)
In the starkest Marxian perspective, Tories own the material means of production. This means conservatives are in a position “to extract surplus labour, and hence value” from those who only have their labour to sell.
At its simplest, this Marxian view describes what divides the working class from the capitalist class, and is still pretty accurate in describing the divisions of political power, even though we have been sidetracked into culture politics.
This concealment of the true Tory agenda of economic control of workers has been achieved through Gramscian hegemony.
I really am no fan of Marx, but he did get this fundamental right, (as well as his analyses of alienation and the impact of technology).
Neoliberalism is then entirely a Tory construct to embed corporate capitalism, founded on the Hayekian notions of absolute freedom and liberty, which in reality only means liberty for those who have assets, as the rest of us have to work for a living, and are the manipulated. The paradox of freedom really did escape our Friedrich.
One does not need to be a cynic to note that, as the Bank of England are deliberately manipulating monetary policy to create employment uncertainty and actually increase unemployment, ostensibly to reduce inflation, but really to protect the value of capital, they are the true agents of Toryism.
In the Scorpion and the Frog fable, we all know how the scorpion acts, and why…
I lived and worked in York for 5 years in the early 1990’s Colonel.
I’m really sorry to hear your story.
The York I remember had you waking up to the smell of dark chocolate from the night shift at Terry’s; where Rowntrees was still making Kit Kats and the railway works still made railway vehicles. I can’t recall York being a truly multi-racial city – usually you got a ‘Now then’ from the locals going to work early in the morning, although in the curry houses they certainly were. But it was a nice, very safe place to live for a long time ,with great pubs and beer (I recall one pub with Timothy Taylor’s Landlord on tap – a nice way to read the Sunday paper after lunch and prep for a frantic week ahead).
All that industry has long gone – with much else. And what is left is anger, ripe for exploitation. It’s a bloody expensive place to live too.
Poor old York. Poor old England. Poor old anyone who does not look as thought they fit in – but fit into what exactly I have no idea anymore.
Thank you, PSR.
The pity is that the youngsters like York and the son was interested in staying and working there.
I think that the Overton window (the term used to describe the broad positioning of the political playing field) is grossly distorted by the mainstream media, and does not lie as far to the Right as the media would like us to think. Just look at a range of issues:
Nationalisation of the water companies
Privatisation of the NHS
Pensions and winter fuel allowance
I think if the left were allowed a level playing field, many people would see some of the benefits they are denied to learn about.
The biggest problem, all across Europe and beyond, is that moving rightward of the overton window. Partys of the centre left abandoned their (principles) ideology, embraced the nonsense of neoliberalism, and left electorates more and more frustrated. As one failed right wing govt after another lowered living standards, decimated public services, re introduced real poverty, and then former left wing party’s did exactly the same, more volatile electorates than our own have turned to the far right as an alternative.
Immigration has been made the scapegoat for all the above as politicians try to avoid responsibility, in itself an act of irresponsibility. Muslims have become the 21st century; Hugenot, Irish, German, jew or West Indian. The familiar cry, sent up again only yesterday by Badenoch; of “look, they’re different, they don’t fit in, let’s hate them” has been shrilly screamed, even in the most ludicrous of places. I mean Ireland moaning about immigration? C’mon lads, you’re taking the piss.
The Torys meanwhile, just as they did in 1997, believe the only way forward is to keep turning right, meaning they don’t progress at all. The same old nonsense about ‘the woke’, ‘the metropolitan elite’, ‘illegal immigration’, and loony Liz’s fave, ‘left wing bankers’. I mean I’m sure there is one, but not at the level that can influence the markets…
All this misasma of bullshit hides the horrible truth though – the Tory’s have no ideas. Tebbit warned in 1992 that they were; ‘just an election winning machine bereft of policies’, and nothing has changed. Brexit, ‘levelling up’, the ‘big society’ all empty ideas to keep the press excited, keep them in power, but no plan how to excute them.
The old, ‘tax the poor and not the rich’ coupled with the neoliberal fantasy that you can have low taxes ‘and’ great public services is long exhausted as a ‘plan’. So what’s left? Bar tilting at the windmills of the last six years, and windmills that as Richard says, Fromage and reform are better at tackling?
Sadly though, you write the Tories off at your peril. They seemed dead and buried after their second succesive thumping in 2001, but New Labours failure to deliver progressive policies, Blairs lies over Iraq, and the banking collapse let them back in.
Whoever becomes leader will be largely irrelevant for the next three years. They cannot overturn Labours majority in parliamentary votes, they are still wedded to playing to the far right gallery, they have no alternatives to their own policies being carried on by Labour.
Doubtless in 2028, if the polls still look grim for them, the ides of march will come again for which ever halfwit wins the lottery of lies. Up until then its opposition by right wing press, and not for the first time…