Starmer believes in government by private equity fund managers. The EU doesn't. That's why Starmer will never get close to Europe.
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This is the transcript:
Why can't Kier Starmer ally with the EU?
I think there is a very clear and obvious explanation for the reason why he won't do that and why he is almost inevitably embedded in a relationship with Donald Trump, much as I hate to say it, and much as I really do not like thinking about it.
The reason is quite simple. Kier Starmer, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, has decided that he is wedded to the private equity and hedge fund sector.
When he talks about foreign direct investment into the UK, for example, who does he go and talk to? The very big pension and private equity managers. The people like BlackRock and so on, who are in control of trillions of dollars of funds worldwide, provided to them by savers and in particular by pension funds. And he believes that these are the people who will be funding whatever it is that he wishes to do to fuel growth in the UK, although we all know that there is no sign of that happening as yet.
He does not believe in the power of government to create that growth.
He does not believe it is the job of the government to attract savers' funds through the issue of bonds, or through the issue of dedicated ISAs, as I have proposed, to raise money to do direct investment into the things that we need, like new schools, new hospitals, new transport infrastructure, new energy systems, and so on.
Instead, he is wedded to the role of these fund managers who will, he thinks, provide him with the money that is required to undertake these tasks whilst they cream off, in effect, the benefit of government revenues for their own private benefit, a little of which might just trickle down for the benefit of those for whom they manage the funds.
That is why Starmer is allied with Trump, because let's have a look at what's happened in the US already, since Trump has been in office.
One of the big issues that has arisen there is Trump's demand that Panama hand over the Canal Zone to the US to administer because Trump claimed that it was under the control of China.
Now that wasn't quite true. The ports at either end of the canal zone were under the control of a company which is controlled by a person who is Chinese, and that is where Trump's claim came from. And since he has been in office, that person has agreed through their quoted company to sell those ports and a whole pile of other ports to BlackRock - one of those fund managers - and they've done that on behalf of Trump. They have, in effect, become the instrument of the US state to achieve the policy goal that Trump set out to deliver, which is to effectively bring the Panama Canal Zone back under US control. But he's done it via private equity.
That is astonishing.
The Chinese government is still objecting, but I suspect it's going to go ahead anyway.
And the point is that this is exactly the sort of deal that Starmer wants to do. He doesn't know what to engage directly in investment activity. Look at GB energy if you want to see that. GB Energy has no employees as yet, but supposedly it's going to transform the energy systems of the UK. That's nonsense. It is simply a private equity operation in which the UK government has a 25% stake. It cannot deliver what is claimed for it because it doesn't even have people employed by it. It's just a financial operation, and that's exactly what Keir Starmer believes in.
But why does this mean he can't ally with the EU? Well, the answer is quite simple and quite straightforward. That is not the way in which the EU wants to go forward. The EU wants to go forward in a way where it will be investing directly into the infrastructure that it requires. That is the tradition in European countries. They don't buy into the Anglo-US style of capitalism, which is all about outsourced fund management to people like BlackRock. And they would instead prefer a direct involvement from government when they're talking about infrastructure.
So, as a consequence, the fundamental philosophy of the funding of government and the involvement of third parties from the private sector between the UK and the EU is at odds with each other. And in a sense, it always has been.
Of course, this is about the role of the City of London and the financier inside the UK economy, which has always been in conflict with what has happened within the EU, where that dominant financial sector has never really existed, even in Frankfurt and Paris, which are the largest two financial centres in the remainder of the EU block.
So, can that problem be overcome? Not, I suggest, while Starmer is in office. He is just too close to these people.
And I also fear that so close is he, that we will actually see increasing privatisation during the time that he is in office.
For example, it looks like the abolition of NHS England is in fact a direct precursor of some form of privatisation of the NHS. I can't see another explanation for why this has happened. And so we have a direct conflict of philosophy between the UK and the EU on this issue, which I think is irreconcilable as things stand.
Starmer is allied with Trump in believing that he has no answer to any question, just as Trump does not because Trump believes that all the answers to every question are to be found in the private sector, which is precisely of course why he has put Musk in charge of the government, and in the same way he's looking to people like a fund manager to buy the Panama Canal Zone to solve his foreign policy problems.
Well, that's what Starmer believes too, and this fundamental difference of approach means there's very little chance, in my opinion, that there is going to be any form of progress in creating a stronger alliance between the UK and the EU anytime soon, by which I mean for as long as Starmer is Prime Minister.
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I dont understand it well enough but as you have pointed out The New Testament has a lot to say about economics as does BCE – Before Common Era Philosophy & Theology.
Much of it I gather relates to Usury & ‘making money out of money’ which it doesnt approve of.
Islam has kept some of this
So why cant the UK get its head around the fact that ‘making money out of money’ is generally not a good thing?
This is a very important point I think and worth raising.
I’m reading Michael Hudson’s ‘The Collapse of Antiquity’ (2023) and have just read how Sparta pretended to be a democracy by just hiding wealth and power and also killed or disgraced those who wanted to redistribute resources more equally.
It also turns that the rich Spartans seldom met their obligations to the commons and that even though it had a formidable reputation in war, it seldom had enough public finance to fight one or build public spaces or buildings.
As I read about this ancient history, I am struck by how all contemporary it is. But also, that fairness, equality etc., has always been a struggle. I do find myself wondering now though if this is the last of those struggles and that I will live to be on the losing side.
To counter this though is another factor: the hubris that comes with people like Trump and Black Rock and the lack of self control, the greed, getting carried away, letting their guard down and revealing what they really are.
The ancient world saw addiction to money or the coveting of other people’s stuff as a philosophical malfunction/affliction called ‘pleonexia’ I think invented by the Greeks. I think pleonexia is real.
But going back to your point, this is why I really am down on politicians like Starmer who are nought but corrupted hand maidens for this sort of ‘business’ – publicly elected officials who have already been bought by vested interests, which is why they have no credibility with me whatsoever and remain ‘invalid’ and not worth themselves being treated ‘democratically’. Starmer and much of his party need to be removed. Their aims are not for the public, but for a shadowy rich minority who are happy to provide them with free clothes and reading aids and party funding.
They lied to us about change. They really did. And that is wrong.
Thank you, PSR.
Reeves is still at it with her freeb(rib)ies: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/rachel-reeves-accepted-free-tickets-to-sabrina-carpenter-concert-as-freebies-row-reignites/ar-AA1AY7tH?ocid=BingNewsSerp.
Thank you and well said, Richard.
I have observed.
Richard: “So, can that problem be overcome? Not, I suggest, while Starmer is in office. He is just too close to these people.” I agree and add Streeting and other ministers in receipt of US money.
It’s not just the privatisation of government. There’s some overlap with Zionist money, often sourced indirectly from the US and ultimately the same donors, so control of British foreign policy.
I know some people at BlackRock. I have also worked with them, especially when at the asset management trade body, 2012 – 4. They are purely finance people. They know nothing about infrastructure, public services etc. I doubt they know much economics, either. We are not talking about someone of the calibre of Mike Parr.
China, Panama & Downing Street.
Fact: electricity for London is delivered by UKPN (UK Power networks) owned by a Hongkong company on which sit directors appointed directly by the Chinese politburo. In terms of finance, Starmer is clueless and takes most advice from Reeves. In the book “Get In” it was claimed that when Reeves was a central banker she had focused on Japan and blamed its decade of stagnation on under investment in infrastructure and poor productivity. I worked for Sony in a TV factory. The productivity of the South Wales plant was very good – but not as good as… the Japanese plants. From 1994 through to perhaps 2014 I used to visit Japan at least twice per year. It is not a country lacking in infrastructure – indeed one could argue that it is “fully infrastructured”. The problem with Japan post-1990 was the rise of China. The problem with Reeves and by extension Starmer is that their experience and knowledge is very narrow, their thinking is blinkered (intentionally) and thus you get what you get. In our political discussion last night – I made the point that the drive for more privatisation (basically the NHS) comes mostly from the USA. EU countries mostly recognise the role of the state and tend not to drive the UK privatisation agenda. Obvs gov’ owned companies do take advantage of UK privatisation idiocy – but advocacy? absent. +/- EU states can be regarded as having mostly normal mixed economies – the USA not – it is an outlier.
Thank you, Mike.
Mike: “In terms of finance, Starmer is clueless and takes most advice from Reeves. In the book “Get In”* it was claimed that when Reeves was a central banker she had focused on Japan and blamed its decade of stagnation on under investment in infrastructure and poor productivity.” Reeves joined the bank in 2000. It would be interesting when Reeves studied Japan as Mervyn King closed the bank’s international research arm soon after becoming governor and ceased to take any interest in bank supervision (2003). There’s a story about a young official presenting about the risk of contagion from US banks due to subprime mortgages and other weapons of mass financial destruction. In reply, King bellowed, “How is this relevant?” That’s one reason I turned down the bank in November 2021. That sort of attitude persists.
Mike: “The problem with Japan post-1990 was the rise of China.” One could add Korea, too, as the likes of Samsung, KIA and Hyundai began to eat some of Japan’s lunch.
*I’m stunned how factional and nasty the Labour right is and so uninterested in / ignorant of policy.
It seems it was also the governor of the Japanese central bank kowtowing to USA financial neoliberalism (privatization, deregulation, liberalization) by restructuring the economy, loosing their dominant export position and plunging the economy after the property crash into decades of stagnation. Richard Werner’s Princes of the Yen has some detail on this.
Thanks
One other consideration wrt Japanese productivity: probably 2010, Tokyo, lunch with one of the bureaucrats in the Japanese cabinet (I knew him for +/- 35 years business/personally to the point where Japanese corporations were asking me to introduce them to him – very embarassing) – “Parr-san – what do you think of Japanese middle management (which I knew very well) – I hummed and haad (leading question), his response: “well I’d sack 50% of them”. Difficult to disagree (I won’t go into details). I could identify perhaps 10 ground breaking products (not ideas – products) that Japanese corporations could have sold anywhere. The problem was – middle management. Offering one example: biometric ID. Finger vein vs finger print. The problem with finger print as Merc-Benz discovered in the Philippines is that you can chop somebody’s finger off & still “get a result”. This approach does not work with finger vein (think about it). I could go on & on & on. Very very sad. Always liked doing business with Japanese companies – the formalism made me very comfortable – you always knew where you were. (ditto the Germans come to that).
Thank you, Richard.
With regard to “instruments of the US state”, that’s not new and goes back to the 19th century. It could be the other way round as US Marine General Smedley Butler pointed out. The Dulles brothers were Wall Street lawyers.
The United Fruit Company, now known as Chiquita, had the term “banana republic” coined in its honour.
It’s not a Trump thing. It’s an America thing.
That’s why the global south / zone B does not care who’s in the White House. Democrats and Republicans are the same. Trump is at least WYSIWYG. That’s why the global south / zone B supports MAGA, i.e. make America go away.
Recently the USA Département Of Justice /FBI using corruption allegations against the French company Alstom (en Indonésie, en Arabie Saoudite, aux Bahamas, ou encore en Egypte) to force them to sell their Haliade wind power division to US General Electric (GE). This gave GE IP control of the permanent magnet generator designs in US and Europe. They put a couple of USA based French directors in jail for a year or so to force the issue. Alstom also did need to restructure due to its high debts and underperformance.
https://www.economist.com/business/2019/01/17/how-the-american-takeover-of-a-french-national-champion-became-intertwined-in-a-corruption-investigation
Thank you, John.
Does the article mention how Hollande and Macron* had industry minister and “souverainiste” Arnaud Montebourg ousted, so that the sale to GE could go ahead?
There’s a comprador class in Europe. This and the US network in Europe will make a loosening of ties more difficult.
*Former employee of Rothschilds. The Agnelli family owns half of the Economist. The balance is held by the Cadbury and Rothschild families. The trio bought the publication off the Pearson family.
Why wouldn’t the Labour Party itself remove Starmer as PM and replace him by someone else? I realize it hasn’t been done recently, but is that any reason not to act in this particular case?
Thank you, Larry.
Friends who left Labour, first wave (Islington) soon after Starmer took over and second wave (Vale of Aylesbury) a couple of years ago, say what’s left of the membership is Blairite.
McSweeney, the Mandelson protege and brains behind Starmer, ensured that Blairites were selected as new candidates.
In short, I don’t see the ship avoiding the iceberg unless the cabinet revolts this year and new government immediately tacks left.
I’ve just received this link, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/radical-action-plan-to-cut-red-tape-and-kickstart-growth, from my former employer. The CEO, quoted, wrote a cover note and welcomed the government’s pro-growth, i.e. pro-business, agenda.
Not a peep about the EU. The City is increasingly not interested in the EU. The US giants, more the investment funds rather than lenders, who have the ear of ministers, are definitely not interested. As per Richard’s post, that is where the government will take its cue from.
Let’s also not forget that Starmer courted the US war machine as DPP and was aided by them to undermine Corbyn. He’s never been pro-EU other than to use it as a wedge issue.
Thank you, Colonel Smithers. One of the major suggestions in that article seems to be along the lines of “We don’t care about bats, and why bother”! I guess that probably goes for all of nature when you think about it. Reeves and co are loose cannons and should be replaced by people who care more about our country and less about building houses everywhere all over it with looser planning applications. I get that some planning applications are over tight, but Reeves and co just want to tromp all over all of them and do what will only make money for private builders. Who will maximise their profits of course.
How long can a government last without sharing the values of the population it governs? Forty-plus years and counting, apparently. My hope is that the Trump regime will collapse, and some real change will result, rippling out to the UK as we have to align our values with a hopefully more progressive administration. But I won’t hold my breath.
Richard , everyone should read the Sam Bright article on his website:
http://www.desmog.com
” the Heritage Foundation and EU Allies meet to discuss dismantling the EU” which took place last week.
Thanks
Well worth reading
Merci, John. Quelle surprise!
Thank you, John.
This caught my attention: “What we see in the European Parliament at the moment, is a love affair between traditional conservatives and the far-right,” said Kenneth Haar from Corporate Europe Observatory.
I often worked in Brussels from 2007 – 16. I reckon that from about 2011, the two blocs collaborated discretely. Big business / finance, especially the City, facilitated.
The interesting name in MCC Bx is …….Frank Furedi,
With respect to the European Commission – increasingly the discussion is how to reform – not if reform.
That said, ditching policies such as: get off fossil fuels (aka net zero) – for energy security reasons is something that remains core. The chimps in MCC want to stay with fossil fools because this fits quite well with their we-love-Pulter narrative. Obvs, they can’t argue on the economics because it just doesn’t worlk (that ship saild circa 2018).
They are the enemy.
This obsession with unexplained abbreviations gets worse & worse. What the heck is WYSIWYG ?
What you see is what you get
Thank you. I apologise profusely.
Sometimes, most times, acronyms are established in the language as much as words from Shakespeare are. WYSIWYG is one of those.
Perhaps adding this site
https://www.allacronyms.com/
to your home screen would be helpful.
Yes indeed – uK economy already 40-50% owned by overseas corporates ‘the vassal state’ – and following the same ‘attracting international investment’ strategy that ruined many ‘third world’ countries – andthey ended up with debts and ruined economies.
US and its Blackrock agents have their claws and suckers so embedded in the UK , that it’s difficult to see how any govt – Starmer or no Starmer – would be able to extract us from the deadly embrace.
Why do you think that a government has the capability to manage transport and infrastructure developments?
Why do you think Blackrock has?
Thank you.
I have worked with and know people at BlackRock. Why do you think BlackRock does?
Not build infrastructure….
Unlike the government
Richard,
Not for publication unless you feel it necessary or desirable.
Have I missed a memo declaring that you won’t sully Keir Hardie’s “illustrious name” by using it for Starmer?
If not, your spell-checker / automatic transcriber has hi-jacked your post. He shouldn’t be *Kier* on any iteration.
That is aoutcorrect in play
In the video transcripts it’s worse – there he is always Kia
Panama seems a long way away and you may think who controls it is of little significance to us here. However sometimes things can be more significant then you realise. Included in the sale is one of the UK’s biggest ports, Felixstowe in Suffolk. I don’t live there but in Essex near Harwich, Hutchinson owned a lot of land there too, including the land a Sailing Club I belong to is on. I don’t feel at all happy about our landlord being a private equity company who will have no interest in what their assets produce or are used for, just how to make a quick profit from them. Who knows what else in the UK has changed hands.
https://www.multimodal.org.uk/article/hutchison-sells-rump-of-port-business-including-felixstowe-to-msc-blackrock
Much to agree with.
I know Harwich. My father’s ashes were scattered from the lifeboat there