This comes from Newsnight on Tuesday night. Victoria Derbyshire, who is one of the best interviewers the BBC now has, was interviewing Torsten Bell, the pensions minister, about benefits cuts.
Until recently, Torsten Bell was at the Resolution Foundation.
The position he took in this interview - very aggressively and utterly inappropriately - making claims along the way that are utterly unjustified about young people supposedly being written off by the benefits system when, in reality, he is seeking to coerce young people unable to work to do so in a way that might be profoundly harmful to them - is wrong.
As Victoria Derbyshire pointed out, the Resolution Foundation has criticised what he is defending.
But let me be clear: I do not believe for a moment that they believe what they are staying either.
As I often pointed out when Bell was at that so-called Foundation, he is profoundly neoliberal to his very core. People told me otherwise, but I knew I was right. Now everyone can see that he is.
I still think the Resioltuon Foundation is staffed by people who are. That's what supposed left-of-centre think tanks are like. They are made up of people whose ambition is to become an MP when they sell out all the principles they once claimed they possessed so that they can deliver the neoliberalism they were taught at university - which is the closest they have ever come to reality.
I never trusted Bell. I now know I was right not to do so.
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Yes neo-liberal ‘ideas’ have captured most ‘think tanks’. I am rather pleased that I have dismissed their assertions!
There is a book called ‘Late Soviet Britain’ by Abby Innes. It argues that neoliberal Britain is a mirror of the last days of the Soviet Union, in structure and statecraft, and its adherence to a failed doctrine. The fact that all our institutions churn out neo-liberals, whose only response to the failure of neoliberalism is more of the same, makes me certain that we are headed for the same collapse as the USSR. Regimes usually last between forty to fifty years, this regime has about run its course. Hopefully, we get a better outcome than the Russians did.
Worth reading – although I admit I have only scanned parts of it, but more than get the gist
Thank you, Tom.
I have a feeling that the powers that be have this in mind, the coming collapse, and have Reform (or a successor company owned by Farage and Yusuf) in mind to make sure whatever emerges from the wreckage tacks right.
As I began to work on regulatory and trade policy from July 2007 and engaged the likes of civil servants and attend events, one could detect the more far sighted and perhaps leftist ones give the system / UK two or three decades before collapse. 2008 and Brexit were not what they had in mind, but banking veterans thought the world was due another crisis around the turn of the decade. These veterans thought it would involve capital, but not liquidity. This said, liquidity is a substitute for capital and was left unaddressed by the Basel I accord.
John Christensen said the same thing in his recent interview with Catherine Austin Fitts. It’s truly bizarre how it’s managed to turn out like this.
The most disturbing thing is the reason the BBC’s Adam Curtis made “Trauma zone” about the collapse of the Soviet Union was because he said the UK could end up going the same way.
Re Torsten, I’ve spoken to him. I didn’t get the sense of a bad person – he seemed to genuinely care about people who couldn’t manage because they didn’t have enough hours to work. I suspect he’s telling himself that it’s better if he’s in the room rather than someone else.
Of course the rhetoric about young people not working is deeply damaging though especially when there simply aren’t enough jobs and it just lets the Hard Right become even more aggressive. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – I don’t believe Labour will make it to 2029. I think there will be an election well before then and if the Tories or Reform get in, they’ll make unemployment benefit time limited to six months and then you’ll be on your own.
The problem with Torsten Bell is that the letters e-n-d are missing from his surname.
Thanks PGS for giving both me and my husband a fantastic laugh! We’d both just watched that awful interview with him. I don’t know how Victoria Derbyshire managed to not punch him in the face, but I guess she’s just a really great broadcaster so was able to hold herself back.
I think she was tempted
She’s charming whenever I engage with her – and I do
I agree.
He’s a nasty little neoliberal piece of work. Watched him talking at Victoria Derbyshire and decide he’s a bully with a misogynistic streak.
I was one of the people who didn’t agree with you that TB is neoliberal. It doesn’t come over in his book I had just read. Now I do agree you are correct. But then again it is probably in his best interests to toe the Party line now that he’s a rising star so who knows what he really believes?
He believes he can put his soul up for sale
“so who knows what he really believes? ”
Come on Mr Hargreaves, we all know what Mr Bell endlessly believes in ………himself and what is good for Bell ends a conversation.
I do hope that was not too naughty. It might have been naughty but it was the truth.
Another parasite leeching off the UK body politsic.
Criticism accepted, Mike. I was bamboozledby his book.
Thank you and well said, Richard.
They also act as gatekeepers and prevent the likes of Prem Sikka, Gary Stevenson and your good self from getting on air or in print.
It’s time for a bottom up socialist and social democratic mass movement away from Labour and the Greens and think tanks like Resolution, Compass and IPPR.
There are also quite a number of other alternative voices – maybe heterodox , and not all singing from the same hymn sheet, but all saying that reducing public spending to promote private sector growth is economic illiteracy and creates a downward spiral. Murphy, Stevenson, Sikka, Stephany Kelton, Mazzucato, Will Hutton, George Monbiot, .Danny Blanchflower, Kate Raworth, . Mary Mellor,. Varoufakis, Carolyn Sissoko, James Meadway, Daniela Gabor and probably many others.
That would make a more powerful think tank than RF and the others put together. They just need to agree to be counted in an ‘Independent Economists Group’? IEG? – whose salience would be impossible to ignore by BBC etc . ‘Anything we can actually do we can afford’ would be a good Keynesian slogan.
(But would such independent thinkers agree to do that? Maybe not.)
Their ideas would influence existing parties, Labour, Greens, SNP etc – who would then begin to attract mass membership again .
Doesn’t need to be labelled as a new ‘socialist or social democratic’ mass movement but the power of ideas – ie merely an understanding how a modern economy works or doesn’t work – used to take over existing parties……
Thanks
Thank you. I agree and am glad that you mentioned Carolyn and Daniela.
In France, there’s Sophie Alsif.
Neoliberalism is designed to extra profit from everything, at the expensive of everything.
Profit before people, their health, and their lives.
The last 40 years have demonstrated that neoliberalism is a complete failure (unless you are obscenely rich).
The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came to Control Your Life)
George Monbiot (2024). https://amzn.eu/d/gOqD0ZD
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwHTd7AnZ7c
The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era
Gary Gerstle (2022). https://amzn.eu/d/d2dJGv1
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW2Tz4Lg_nc
In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West
Wendy Brown (2019) https://amzn.eu/d/eU5WL9e
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYvd_yOi_80
Thanks
“The global class war” by Jeff Faux is also very good
I wonder who writes the notes she uses.
I know she does a lot of resaerch…
I feel Mr Bell learns his ‘lines’ well and has a confident, if rather sneering, delivery.
We WASPIs have already experienced his ‘broken record’ replies, he’s now adding a tranche of vulnerable people to those of us who have suffered injustice at the hands of the DWP.
I feel he has rather an inflated view of himself, and is definitely not to be trusted.
Sneering is the right word
He’s also like that face to face
I watched an interview Bell did with Politics JOE and at no point did he suggest that any additional tax burden should be leavied on the most wealthy. I think Bell fancies himself as party leader if not PM. Even among the midden that is the PLP, Bell stands out as one of it’s most egregious shysters.
@ Maggie Wallace
Spot on! I was feeling just as you and your husband until my wife forcibly removed from watching. She couldn’t stand the ranting any longer!
Just looking at his smug face and his inability to look Victoria D in the eye whilst pedalling his crap was rapidly reaching the coronary point.
@PSR
You’ve got it in one.
I sent this to Louise Murphy of the RF yesterday:
“Dear Louise Murphy,
I have read your evidence to the above committee, alongside the Resolution Foundation’s commentary on the DWP Green Paper.
Please can you provide actual evidence to support your claim in both publications that people “are incentivised” to claim LCWRA rather than remain on standard UC? This is a claim repeatedly made; it implies that everyone claiming LCWRA could either be lying or exaggerating their medical conditions for pure financial gain.
Your oral evidence to the Lords was quoted in their letter to the Secretary of State, and has been taken up by her as one reason for slashing benefits for disabled people. Despite this, I can find no evidence to support your statements.
Please would you provide me with the evidence to support your statement.
Yours sincerely,
They take it as self-evident that people would want more money. And of course some may.
But as you say it immediately sends out the message that *everyone* receiving that rate of benefit must be swinging the lead.
I’ve been an admirer of Victoria Derbyshire for a long time. As you say, the best interviewer on the BBC’s books, and has been for years. She is fair, she does her research, she is robust and courageous, she can also do the “empathy” stuff when she is interviewing someone who has suffered.
She is one of the only interviewers currently on TV who knows exactly how to press a shyster who is using all the tricks to avoid the question, so that it is obvious to all those watching that the shyster IS avoiding the question, and that the shyster would rather look stupid and shifty on air than give an honest answer. She did that superbly with Torsten Bell ending up with HIS humiliation.
She also has recently been through breast cancer.
I think Starmer will soon have to resort to a visit to a military facility so he can put on some superhero kit. I think things are too serious for the hi-viz/hard hat PR treatment, this crisis needs camo gear. I see he is already playing the “tough on Putin” card to try and look statesmanlike. He’ll be in a flak jacket within a week or visiting a submarine, naval dockyard or airfield. Maybe a trip to Akrotiri? Or Faslane? Or if things are really bad maybe it’s time to go to Kyiv and channel some of that Zelensky magic? Whatever MacSweeney thinks best.
But what can we do with Rachel Reeves to get ready for the crisis budget (sorry that should read spring financial statement). Should she go for the stern business suit, or do we soften the hair a little and move towards the pastel shades? And what props? Perhaps a baby or two? A visit to a care home? Or the full Iron Lady look and send her to look round a new prison or maybe somewhere they are making missiles for use against Yemenis? She could borrow a neckscarf from Liz Truss to try and look both feminine AND like Maggie T. Maybe ride a tank from the Treasury to Parliament with her red box strapped to the turret?
Personally, I’d lock her in a broom cupboard with a reading lamp, a pencil and notebook and a copy of the Taxing Wealth Report 2024. But it might unhinge her.
RobertJ
On what basis do you believe Reeves to be hinged?
Mrs Hodgson: I understand that she is very good @ opening (hinged) doors & perhaps this would be the profession that she could enjoy and where she would de least damage (ditto much of the LINO cabinet).
Thanks for that, sadly it cheered me no end!
The British government and many influential think tanks are dominated by professional-class, well-educated—at least self-educated. They debate policies that often have little direct impact on their own lives, making their discussions detached from the realities faced by millions.
This is why asking them, “Could you live on £70 a week?” is pointless. The question assumes they can meaningfully empathise with the experience of poverty when, in reality, they will never have to make those choices. They will never face the stress of deciding between heating and eating or skipping meals so their children can eat.
More importantly, framing the debate this way misses the bigger issue: policy should not be based on whether those in power could endure hardship but on ensuring that no one has to. Instead of asking decision-makers to imagine poverty, we should focus on drawing in the electorate who are not personally impacted by it. Many people live comfortably, untouched by growing inequality, and don’t see the urgency of the issue.
If we can encourage these people to recognise, care about, and advocate for those less fortunate, we may begin to shift public opinion. Real change won’t come from waiting for politicians to acknowledge the struggles they will never experience—it will come from building a movement that pressures them to act in the interests of the many, not just the privileged few.
I mustb finish my post on this
Author needs to proofread before posting, the mistakes are a little embarrassing.
So is your sentence construction.