GB News has, I note, reported comments made by Nigel Farage both on how Elon Musk might, in his opinion, take on the task of reforming government in the USA, and on how such ideas might be replicated in this country, which approach Reform approves of.
As they reported, he has said:
“This is the sexy bit: Elon comes in and takes a knife to the deep state. Just like when he bought Twitter he sacked 80 per cent of the staff.
There are going to be mass lay-offs, whole departments closing and I'm hoping and praying that's the blueprint for what we then do on our side of the pond.
Because that's what Reform UK believes in - that we're over-bureaucratised and none of it works. This assault on the bureaucratic state is the thing that's really exciting.
They'll all be gone. They'll all be fired. Why do we need Whitehall with all these useless, ghastly Marxists? Universities have all become madrassas of Marxism. The whole thing is appalling."
Note the many similarities to what Badenoch is saying.
I always find comments of this sort both bizarre and troubling. I also have to resist the temptation of laughing at the person who makes them because how they think whole departments of government might be closed down baffles me.
Which departments is he going to close? The NHS? The Department of Work and Pensions? Education? Defence? The Revenue, maybe?
Or is it going to be Environment, as a result of which flooding will become ever more commonplace, which is going to make him intensely popular (I jest).
Or is it agriculture?
I could keep going, but the point is that I can think of no government department that could be shut.
Farage might respond by suggesting the Arts, Media and Culture, but I have a very strong suspicion that there would be outrage from many Tories if he were to do so because the evidence is that the department in question does, in fact, quite heavily subsidise the wealthy.
Alternatively, he might, of course, suggest that he would close International Development, but that department has already gone, and the reason why we do international development is that nothing is more effective in keeping migrants away from this country than the aid that we supply to the countries where they currently live. It would be deeply ironic if he did not understand that.
So, what does he want to get rid of? I forgot to mention transport, or anything related to energy, climate change, or the devolved administration of the UK. Is he really suggesting they should go?
Alternatively, is he just, as usual, talking a lot of nonsense? And anyway, why use Musk as an example? He might have sacked up to 80% of Twitter staff when he took that company over, but as a consequence, he very badly damaged its business model and simultaneously destroyed the value of the investment that had been made in that company by others, following his lead. Is Farage really an exponent of the destruction of value as a method of government? That would be absurd.
So, why even ask these questions? I do so because I have little doubt at all that comments of this sort are going to come up time and again over the coming months and years. This is even more likely now that Trump looks likely to become President of the US because, with Badenoch as leader of the Tories, it is certain that her Party will be dedicated to the idea that government must be shrunk.
She did not deliver on that promise as a minister, and nor did her colleagues. Instead, they mis-spent with the intention of undermining the credibility of the government, but without ever reducing its overall level of spending. If she or Farage are to promote something different, then we need to get used to asking precisely what it is that they mean by the provocative comments that they make because unless we and the media do so they will perpetuate the idea the government is wasteful when generation after generation of Tory politicians have never found any serious ways of reducing the scope of the government activities or responsibilities, despite their perpetual claims that this is their objective.
These people are charlatans. We need to point it out. That is why we need to know what they are saying.
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Reportedly, the Department of the Environment had 70% budget cuts between 2010-2015, (and has been cut further since) so it ceased to have the capacity to deliver its statutory remit almost a decade ago.
What deregulation looks like is where we are already.
Paradoxically, what we probably need now is a few exceptionally large and destructive weather events in close succession, to highlight what the free market actually delivers in environmental terms – sad though that will be for the victims.
“Paradoxically, what we probably need now is a few exceptionally large and destructive weather events in close succession, to highlight what the free market actually delivers in environmental terms – sad though that will be for the victims.”
Happens in Florida all the time and the US Federal Government has done very little to mitigate the causes of destructive weather.
Sadly, while you have a group of people, some in positions of considerable power, thinking its FEMA who are actually creating those storms, there’s not much hope of any comprehensive US policies to achieve anything approaching the goal of net zero, which won’t actually reduce existing extreme weather patterns anyway.
Even if motivated, I very much doubt that the USA has the capacity to actually reduce the surface water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico and adjacent western Atlantic sufficient to mitigate the energy uptake and intensity of tropical revolving storms.
We’re just over 1.4ºC just now, and I expect the best case scenario of 2.1ºC by 2100 to be well exceeded long before then with the current trajectory.
Realistically it is more likely to be approaching 3ºC.
This is very effective imagery because the destruction of other people’s lives that look stable and ‘better off’ to an increasingly large group who are down trodden and struggling can be quite appealing and a vote winner.
It is a sort of ‘leveling down’ – not leveling up – based on jealousy but also reality. And when these working people have been eviscerated, then other new cohorts who should be brought down can be found based on skin colour, ethnicity, religion etc.
Tim Snyder goes into detail about this in ‘The Road to Unfreedom’ (2018).
But for Neo-liberalism it is a valuable tool aimed at perpetuating a nihilistic and self serving ideology.
Thank you, Richard.
As per discussions with the then shadow Treasury and Business teams last and this year, I think Labour will be happy with that scenario. Why? Labour may not want to close or scale back government to that extent, but read what it has said to the City, including BTL comments from me:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/02/why-is-tony-blair-so-desperate-for-the-uks-national-health-service-to-sell-off-its-patients-health-data.html and
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/05/tony-blair-and-his-associates-are-waiting-in-the-wings-to-seize-back-power-in-the-uk.html.
The same donors are behind Labour. Blair and Gates met the government last month. Gates is not just interested in technology, but in agriculture. His Cascade investment company is a big landlord in the US, south America and Ukraine and sniffing around the Netherlands and UK.
Bill Gates is going to have words with Donald Trump if he starts to to lose money on his huge wealth the majority of which is increasingly from his agricultural land holdings and the Chinese can find repacement sources for their agricultural imports from the Unied States:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascade_Investment
https://fas.usda.gov/data/record-us-fy-2022-agricultural-exports-china
Part of Trump’s message about making America Great Again has to include agricultural exports as well as other types despite agricultural output being a relatively small part of the American economy by value. He has to be wary of losing votes for the Republican Party in states that perceive themselves as primarily agricultural even though this may not reflect economic reality.
The big money will next be turned towards Europe, and this country in particular. Why is everyone so blind to the influencing on social media of our young people, particularly males? The new culture war is misogyny.
You say you cannot imagine any department that could be shut down. Nor could any Argentinian, until Milei started to actually do it. This El Pais English article shows it.
https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-04-02/president-javier-milei-fires-24000-government-workers-in-argentina-no-one-knows-who-will-be-next.html
My grandson has now started an engineering degree in the prestigious Cordoba (Argentina) university, a public institution. But instead of shutting the public funding down completely Milei has said no increases, ever, despite recent rampant inflation. Will my grandson get to finish uni ? And the other youngsters coming after him ? It is staggering what is happening there, yet the IMF are busily congratulating Milei and looking to happily work with the country again.
I see Milei as a forrunner of what Trump could easily do, followed by a Farage type incumbent after the future failure of Starmer to address the grievances of the Left Behind. Yes I can easily visualise departments being shut down.
Mad people are in charge
Argentina has a long history of new Governments’ rewarding political supporters with civil service sinecures, no need to turn up and actually work, just collect the monthly payment. The so called “Gnocci” ghost workers on the payroll.
As a thought experiment, imagine we had a fixed term Prime Ministership of 4yrs, not removable by their party, removable only by death or maybe health grounds. And the newly elected PM was Liz Truss.
She was not elected by the country. Nor was Badenoch. They have a lot in common.
As with the Foreign Office absorbing the Dept of Overseas Aid & Development, more Govt Departments could be amalgamated to reduce costs.
That has been disastrous for overseas development
Why do you want disastrous government? What’s your policy aim?