Mourning - A Deflection From Reality

Royalty, so the right leaning part of our free and fearless press likes to remind any member of the Royal family who passes adverse comment on the shortcomings of the Government that press supports, should not involve itself in politics. That, though, does not stop the same part of that media class involving the same Royals in politics, as cover for harsh reality.

This involvement may not peak until the late Queen’s funeral next Monday, and the following day’s front pages, but today’s closing of the ranks to put little more than yet another image from Westminster Hall - albeit this time featuring The King, and his siblings, taking their turn to guard Brenda’s casket - is sufficient proof of the determination to shut out the outside world.

Pageantry. Royalty. Ceremonial. Uniforms. Lifetimes of Service and Devotion. Flags waving. Bells tolling. Guns firing. For the likes of former Murdoch editor Andrew Neil, in yet another turgid diatribe for the Mail, “This week proved Britain ISN'T the declining power the liberal elite portrays us as”. Deflection, this time by inventing a mythical “liberal elite” which is doing down Britain.

But there is no need for anyone to do down Britain, and well Neil and his media pals know it. For them - Neil lives in the south of France - the world may be excellent: not for most in the UK, though. And that reality is where the Royal mourning provides such good cover: with the distraction of this new momentary interest, enough people can be persuaded that all is well.

There is no need to “do down the country”. All that is needed, to confirm that the UK is in decline, is to allow reality to get a look in, to show for a moment what is really happening outside Westminster. Shining a light on that world, the world inhabited by the vast majority of the population, has been John Burn Murdoch at the FT. And his conclusions make for sobering reading.

“In 2007, the average UK household was 8 per cent worse off than its peers in north-western Europe, but the deficit has since ballooned to a record 20 per cent. On present trends, the average Slovenian household will be better off than its British counterpart by 2024, and the average Polish family will move ahead by the end of the decade. A country in desperate need of migrant labour may soon have to ask new arrivals to take a pay cut”.

On the basis of that data, those new arrivals may not want to come here. The Tories’ attempts to appease the not really racist right, honestly, by trying to stop asylum seekers coming here may have to be matched by a willingness to allow many of them to remain here, and get them into the labour market.

Current Tory priorities will not help alleviate the decline: new Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng is set to scrap the cap on bankers’ bonuses. In this, he has been applauded by all those right-leaning Astroturf lobby groups who cling to the highly orthodox economics of a time before Keynes, and indeed perhaps before Alfred Marshall. And thus the problem.

Giving the already well-off more money will not kickstart an increase in economic activity: the rich have a high propensity to save, and so much of the money thus gifted will go into savings, will remain unspent. Had extra money gone to the less well-off, with their high propensity to spend, little or none of it would be saved. It would be spent, thus increasing that economic activity.

What the less well-off spend that money on may not be to the liking of the media class; that is not the point. The money gets spent, businesses thrive on the back of that. Their owners, staff, suppliers and others who depend on them benefit in turn, creating that virtuous circle which brings growth, an increase in tax revenues, and thus better public services and infrastructure.

Instead, the Truss gang is set to hobble the economy, and our free and fearless press cannot provide cover for such misguided economic policy for ever. Nor will the wider world accept this state of affairs without visiting the consequences of the Tories’ ineptitude upon them.

As Stephen Flynn, who represents Aberdeen South for the SNP, put it, “Five days in broken Britain … Mon: UK trade deficit is worst on record … Tue: Rich to get twice as much cost-of-living support as poor … Wed: Food inflation at highest level in 14 years … Thu: Plan to scrap cap on banker bonuses … Fri: Pound falls to 37 year low against Dollar”.

And John Burn Murdoch at the FT concluded thus: “income inequality in US & UK is so wide that while the richest are very well off, the poorest have a worse standard of living than the poorest in countries like Slovenia … Essentially, US & UK are poor societies with some very rich people”.

Slovenia was part of communist Yugoslavia until proclaiming its independence in 1991. Poland was a totalitarian satellite state of the former USSR before 1989. Heck, even Ireland was noticeably poorer than the UK in the 1980s and 1990s. Now it is we who are poorer than Ireland.

Still, there’s always the ceremonial. We’re good at that. Mustn’t grumble.

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