Labour Weasels On Venezuela

Combover Crybaby Donald Trump, the living and still breathing definition of an amateur human being, has ordered the armed services of the United States to, effectively, invade Venezuela, which is a sovereign state. Added to this minor breach of international law, he has had the country’s President, Nicolas Maduro, kidnapped, along with his wife.

This is in addition to several acts of piracy upon the high seas, where oil tankers that had loaded up in Venezuelan ports, along with their cargoes, were boarded and seized. Could the charge sheet get any longer? Don’t ask: Maduro has been put on media display, in a flagrant breach of the Geneva Conventions. Worse, Trump did not get Congressional approval beforehand.

But he did consult with the oil industry, so for him, that’s all right, then. He has decreed that the USA is going to “run” Venezuela, which may interest those who remember the chaos in Iraq, when the USA decided to “run” that country. Whichever way you slice it, this is illegal and corrupt behaviour several times over. Which brings us to the international community’s response.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro - whose country is in the line of fire, remember - was unequivocal: “A clan of paedophiles wants to destroy our democracy. To keep Epstein's list from coming out, they send warships to kill fishermen & threaten our neighbour with invasion for their oil”. China has demanded that the US release Maduro. So has Iran.

So, New New Labour, what is the UK Government response to be? How would a confident Government, sure of its interpretation of international law, respond? What would a statesmanlike Prime Minister and his cabinet colleagues do? What would a seasoned human rights lawyer, like Keir Starmer, have done? What would Nietzsche have done?

Sadly, the New New Labour Government, so quick to approve the Israeli removal of water and electricity supplies to Gaza in another display of collective punishment, does not operate on such a lofty intellectual plane, and so the response, when it eventually came, was craven in the extreme.

Here’s Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper: “The UK has consistently rejected Nicolas Maduro’s legitimacy, and called for a peaceful transition of power in Venezuela. I have spoken to our Chargé [d’Affaires] in Caracas, and travel advice has now been updated to advise against all travel to Venezuela … As the Prime Minister has made clear, we support international law”. So you’ll be condemning the US breaches of that international law, won’t you?

As if you need to ask. Instead of any kind of condemnation, Mike Tapp, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Migration and Citizenship, has appeared before the inquisition of Sophy Ridge of Sky News, where he was asked if he would condemn any move by the Trump gang to annex Greenland. “We’re not going to give a running commentary”. Christ on a bike. And it got worse.

He couldn’t say Trump should not invade Greenland? “Diplomacy is delicate, which means we're not here to give a running commentary in the news”. It’s not an intellectually demanding call. Flagrant breaches of international law should be condemned. And what of the UK’s Prime Minister?

Here it comes, per the Guardian. “I want to get all the material facts together and we simply haven’t got the full picture at the moment - it is fast moving”. Meaning he spewed out a word salad of excuses rather than show a hint of backbone. Also, he needed to talk to Trump first. And there we all were believing that the UK was a sovereign state. Silly us, eh?

Steven Swinford of the Murdoch Times has, since then, asserted “Britain will refrain from criticising the US over the capture of Maduro amid concerns about angering Donald Trump”. Airstrip One Redux. He wants to seek closer relationships with the EU, but with his tongue firmly up Trump’s arse, the EU might not want to know. Diplomacy is delicate, dontcha know?

What will it take for New New Labour to get it? Invasion of Greenland? Invasion of Colombia? Handing Ukraine to Putin? Voters who have left Labour will not be returning if this is the level of leadership on show.

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Reform UK And The Rise Of Ignorance

Opinion polls continue to show a rise in support for Reform UK, headed by its self-appointed Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, with the result that the clueless coterie which is claimed to be running the Labour Party has become concerned enough to take action. Their problem is that the ship has already sailed, and no matter what they do, they can’t out-Farage Farage.

Ignorance is strength!

Reform UK may be a shambolic affair, with no shortage of revelations concerning the views of its newly-elected representatives, usually revealing sneering and vicious racism, coupled with staggering ignorance and an inability to understand that Great Britain and England are not interchangeable terms. This last was exemplified by new Lincolnshire Mayor Andrea Jenkyns.

There had, she argued, to be a way to stop the “Pull to England” which brought so many refugees. Perhaps if they arrived in Scotland or Wales, all would be well. No matter though, her pals at Reform UK have diverted the attention of voters with claims that the councils they now control will ban all that Woke Nonsense, although they probably couldn’t define “Woke”.

Richard Tice (he’s not very nice) has gone as far as to assert that Reform UK councils will crack down on planning applications for new wind farms. His problem is that pre-judging such applications is highly likely to lead to those councils being sued and costing a significant amount of public money in the process. He is also dishonestly blaming Net Zero for, well, anything.

None of this deters the voters, though. Nor does the further ignorance displayed by Tice’s unappealing partner Isabel Oakeshott, who recently trilled “[Reform UK] will go to court to close asylum seeker hotels in [Reform UK] council areas. When it comes to ending this scandal, the party means business”. That would be outside a council’s remit. Still, details, eh?

One might have expected an alleged investigative journalist to have thought that through before shooting off their online mouth, but there’s prejudice to spread and ignorance to feed, so off she goes. One incoming Reform UK councillor didn’t seem to know that you can’t obtain British citizenship without being able to speak English. Others will defend anything Farage supports.

The 3D chess ain't making it

So when the Economist looked at Reform UK’s spending plans and concluded that they would result in a worse fiscal shock than Liz Truss’ infamous intervention, there was the Reform UK brains trust claiming that this was only “The MSM” and they always lied about their hero. Farage is a congenital liar, but there are none so blind as will not see.

So what has Labour’s ruling clique done in response? Tried to out-Reform Reform. This is a colossal act of stupidity: Reform UK is a safe haven for racists, and they are not going to jump ship for Labour merely because they are pretending to be tough on all those migrants, which in practical terms means Scary Muslims™. Still, off they went, to no effect whatsoever.

Bringing the unedifying spectacle observed by Adam Bienkov of Byline Times: “Yvette Cooper gives an exclusive interview to GB News about her immigration plans, during which the interviewer tells her that some of their viewers live near asylum seekers and their ‘children can't leave home’ … No push back from the Home Secretary”. That was bad; Kier Starmer was worse.

One hates to go all Neil Kinnock on the PM, but here we had A Labour Prime Minister - A Labour Prime Minister - scuttling round media outlets saying “We risk becoming an island of strangers”. So close to Enoch Powell’s “They found themselves made strangers in their own country” from his infamous 1968 “Rivers of Blood” speech as to make no difference.

Who is driving the Labour bus? If, as has been claimed by those close to The Great Man, it is the cabal headed by Morgan McSweeney, maybe he should be the one defending this disgraceful descent into scapegoating and bigotry. And, as a side order, explaining why Labour can’t leave Mr Thirsty to his racism and just improve voters’ lives. Because that’s what they’re there for.

They thought they were so clever in throwing the 2019 election. But the dirty tricks won’t win voters back. Now they are lost. And ignorance is king.

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Dale Vince Bursts Fawkes Bubble

The previously accepted myth concerning the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines, for so long the presence behind the Guido Fawkes blog, was that his vehicle for attacking, smearing, selective and partisan politicking, and crawling his way into the media establishment was difficult-to-impossible to sue, because it was registered in an offshore jurisdiction. This has now been disproved.

We know this as a result of a legal action taken by green energy promoter and environmental campaigner Dale Vince, whom The Great Guido claimed had called Hamas “freedom fighters”, which he had not. Staines and his pals have now thrown in the towel following a preliminary hearing finding that what they published were statements of fact, and defamatory of Vince.

Press Gazette told “Guido Fawkes has settled a defamation case brought by Ecotricity founder Dale Vince after a preliminary ruling went against the political blog. Guido editor and owner Paul Staines said the decision to settle instead of continuing to fight the libel case at a full trial at the High Court was a ‘purely commercial’ one to avoid potentially ‘ruinous’ costs”.

It was purely because the Fawkes rabble lost, and yes, it would have been “ruinous” to continue - and to lose rather more. But do go on. “Guido had raised almost £100,000 from donors to fight the case, which related to two articles published in March 2024 about comments made by Vince on Times Radio about the 7 October 2023 terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel”.

So he’s only 10k short, according to Vince’s own estimate. What’s his problem? But there is more. “The first article included a 16-second clip of Vince’s comments, which he said ‘distorted the views that he had expressed across the whole’ interview, and asked: ‘If Labour thinks donor’s cash donations should be returned when they say extreme things, what do they make of Vince’s views?’” Ah yes, Fawkes and anti-Semitism.

That’s the game where the Fawkes massive jump down the throats of any Rotten Lefties™ against whom they can call “anti-Semitism”, while back in the day when Ed Miliband was Labour leader, indulging in bouts of virulent anti-Semitism. Which, the last time I looked, were still live chez Fawkes.

Worse for The Great Guido, “Staines had sought to defend the case on the grounds of honest opinion but Mr Justice Pepperall decided what he published amounted to statements of fact. He said the website created the impression that ‘the statements that Mr Vince described Hamas as, and thinks that Hamas are, freedom fighters are statements of fact’”.

And the inevitable conclusion, “The publication was also found to have been defamatory. The judge wrote: ‘Given the nature of Hamas and the appalling atrocity committed on 7 October 2023, the imputations about Mr Vince’s statements and beliefs were plainly defamatory at common law. Indeed, it is not argued otherwise.’” Vince also demolished another Staines claim.

Which was the idea that The Great Guido was somehow defending FREEZE PEACH. “People that support Palestinian rights are not terrorists and free speech is not the freedom to be dishonest”. Moreover, free speech does not immunise the speaker from the consequences of that speech. There was equally bad news for those among our free and fearless press.

Vince again: “Rinse and repeat - The Daily Mail broke a promise not to repeat a false allegation against me - so today in the high court they apologise again - and pay costs and damages - again. Their cash is on the way to Gaza again”. The thought enters that the Mail may have thought they could indulge in more of that “studs up litigation” and thus deter Vince.

Only this time they, and the Fawkes rabble, came up against someone with the means to take them on. The grubby end of the media establishment fought Dale Vince, and Dale Vince won. They were so determined to smear him as anti-Semitic that they veered across the defamation line. They so wanted the smears to be true, but they were not. Now they are undone.

The Great Guido is full of crap. But you knew that already.

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Ukraine Extortion - Trump Fans Silent

There is no finer example of how populist politics is a total crock of crap than the reaction of its leading British practitioners to the brazen attempt by Combover Crybaby Donald Trump and his gang to extort a significant amount of Ukraine’s mineral resources, while giving that country no security guarantee. To this, the Trump fans in the UK have fallen silent.

As Josh Rogin told his followers on Twitter, X, or whatever Muskrat’s calling it this week, “Multiple lawmakers here in Munich told me the U.S. Congressional delegation presented Zelensky with a piece of paper they wanted him to sign which would grant the U.S. rights to 50% of Ukraine’s future mineral reserves. Zelensky politely declined to sign it”.

Do go on. “This plan, which I have now seen, was presented to Zelenskyy by U.S. Ambassador Bridget Brink several days ago, in advance of Secretary Bessent’s trip to Kyiv … In today’s meeting with U.S. lawmakers, Zelensky was telling them about this paper, which many of them didn’t already know about, not the other way around. Zelenskyy said he could not sign it because it didn’t contain any security guarantees for Ukraine”. That’s extortion.

Added to the outburst by alleged Vice President and confirmed moron J D Vance, and the talks about Ukraine that have not included invitations to any European countries - or Ukrainians - and we see the intended endgame of the Trump gang - to sell both Ukraine and the rest of Europe down the river.

Quite apart from the immediate loss of US soft power, and indeed influence, this dereliction of duty to its allies had the FT’s editorial writers concluding “Europeans need to start preparing fast for the day when the US security guarantee to Europe is definitively removed … It should also mean a European mutual defence pact, outside NATO, that extends beyond the EU”.

There was more. “Trump will use any leverage he has to force America’s European allies into compliance on issues from trade and security to their domestic politics. That means that Europe must now start the painful process of ‘de-risking’ its relationship with the US, looking for areas of dangerous dependence on America and stripping them out of the system”.

Which is a way of saying it’s serious. So what of the Trump cheerleaders? Former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who was, let us not forget, kicked out by his own party in disgrace, has tried a little too hard to spin his way out of it: “Trump is not betraying Ukraine”. Fraid he is, Bozo. But that bit doesn’t get a mention. Not in selective Bozo world.

But at least he admits Europe will have to “step up”. Something that does not trouble Liz Truss, the very temporary Prime Minister who was outlasted by a lettuce. She’s too busy recycling rubbish from the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph. So what of Farage, biggest Trump fan of all?

Nige is banging on about putting a windfall tax on renewable energy, in a move which would increase household bills significantly. That’s the level of populist idiocy coming out of Reform UK. Oh, and he’s still whinging about nearly losing his Coutts bank account. No word on Trump’s attempt to extort a significant amount of Ukraine’s GDP in return for nothing at all.

Farage’s delusion extends to portraying Himself as the next Prime Minister. But not a peep on his pal Donald selling the whole of Europe down the river, so not a peep on what he would do when faced with a whole host of those Difficult Decisions about a European army that he’s been frightening the crap out of his target audience over. Not that he’s a Putin apologist, you understand.

Whatever your opinion of Keir Starmer, he is prepared to tackle the problems posed by the Trump gang ripping up the USA’s security guarantees that have helped keep the peace since 1945. Bozo is editing it out, Liz Truss isn’t talking about it at all, and Farage … don’t make me laugh. Mr Thirsty is more concerned about his current account status to bother with that.

Populism meets political reality. And promptly scuttles off elsewhere.

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Khan K Exposes Press Racism

Whenever there is an accusation of racism levelled at our free and fearless press, they close ranks, issue forthright denials, and of course restate the claim that they wouldn’t dream of such things, they have all cleaned up their acts since Leveson, and generally attempt to get everyone to Look Over There at whatever dead cat they can, in the meantime, dream up.

It was the same when the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph was called out for anti-Semitism in the wake of its attack on George Soros. It was the same when the Mail, under the less than benevolent control of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre, launched a viciously anti-Semitic attack on the memory of the late Ralph Miliband. Now it has come round again.

And again, it is the Telegraph and Mail being exposed as racist newspapers, after both of them launched a spiteful and petty assault on London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan, who has been knighted in the New Year’s Honours. Khan has won three terms as elected Mayor. He has helped to reduce the capital’s chronic pollution. His free school meals initiative helps the least well off.

He has also tried his best to keep a lid on public transport costs. His prospectus has won through against a variety of Tory opponents, two of whom, Zac Goldsmith and Shaun Bailey, have since been ennobled. By complete coincidence, you understand, there was no press outcry about rewarding failure by sending Tories who failed to the Lords.

But enough of that: let’s see what the Mail and Tel have ponied up for the delectation of their unfortunate readers. The inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker have howled “PM’S ‘REWARD FOR FAILURE’ AS SADIQ KHAN IS KNIGHTED … London Mayor row risks overshadowing New Year Honours”. A row which the Mail and Telegraph have concocted. So it’s their fault.

Not that they will admit that. But do go on. “SADIQ Khan has been handed a knighthood in the New Year Honours - prompting furious claims of a ‘reward for failure’ [you said that already] … Leading Tories pointed to his ‘track record of failure’ in the capital, including over tackling knife crime and dramatic hikes in council tax, congestion charges and emissions levels”.

Emissions have not seen a dramatic hike, but hey ho. They probably mean the ULEZ, which failed to get Khan defeated last time round, much to the annoyance of the same right-wing papers that are now pouring out spite. The Telegraph offers “PM knights Khan in ‘reward for failure’ … Starmer accused of putting party before country as he hands honours to ‘cronies’”.

Those quote marks are doing seriously heavy lifting. So what else is testing the Tel? He allegedly “waged war on London’s drivers with the Ultra-Low Emission Zone and capitulated to unions over Tube strikes”. He did? “He … handed Tube drivers a 5 per cent pay increase”. And ended a disruptive series of strikes, which don’t affect the Tel’s rich bosses, so they don’t care.

There is more of this tedious drivel. But one person escapes any criticism, and to no surprise, that person is the disgraced former Prime Minister and occasional former Mayor of London Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who bequeathed a mess to Sadiq Khan which he has had to sort out. And it was Bozo, let us not forget, who brought the ULEZ to London in the first place.

It was Bozo who foisted a thousand vanity buses onto TfL, for which a premium over conventional buses had to be paid. It was Bozo who shelled out tens of millions on the Garden Bridge fiasco. It was Bozo who spaffed millions up the wall (his own happy phrase) on the impractical Thames Estuary Airport study. It was Bozo who caved in to George Osborne and relinquished TfL’s subsidy from central Government. And so on.

But Bozo escapes the ritual and spiteful slagging off because he’s a Tory, he’s one of their own, and he’s white. Sadiq Khan, for all his efforts to make life better for all Londoners, will get no more than abuse, because he’s a Rotten Lefty™, he’s brown, and he’s a Muslim. The attacks are straight-up racism.

The racist and hopelessly out of touch right-wing press don’t care about ordinary Londoners. Sadiq Khan does. But you knew that already.

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Behold Lord Tobes Of Bellend

And so it came to pass that the time of year meant party leaders nominating a variety of the undeserving and otherwise underemployed as new members of the House of Lords, the Other Place that the current Government was so keen to abolish, but now, seemingly, isn’t. Labour has put forward thirty names, but most of them will escape scrutiny, thanks to Kemi Badenoch.

As ever, at times like this, the opposition rides to your rescue: Ms Badenoch, not content with making herself and her party look less credible with every week’s PMQs, has put forward one name guaranteed to put those of Charlotte Owen and Ross Kempsell, ennobled at the behest of disgraced former occasional PM Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, in the shade.

Because the latest name in the Tory prospective peerage frame is none other than the loathsome Toby Young, who has for many years been full value for his nickname of Captain Bellend. I first observed the deep and sincere affection his peers in the media held for Tobes some years ago.

At the launch event for the HuffPost UK, Zelo Street was there in the auditorium, sitting in the back row as the launch presentation and debate began. Some 20 minutes later, the entrance door to my left opened, someone walked through it, and a chorus of booing ensued. What, I asked the bloke to my left, was all that about? “It’s OK, it’s only Toby Young” came the reply.

It got worse: Tobes was apparently having difficulty finding a seat. The disruption was brought to a swift end when Arianna Huffington recognised The Great Man, and no doubt also knew about all the snarky abuse that he had dispensed in her general direction. “Would you like to join us?” she asked, at which point Tobes thought better of making an even bigger arsehole of himself, and found himself a seat with remarkable swiftness.

That is the memory coming to the fore every time our free and fearless press attempts to polish the turd that is Captain Bellend: the foot-soldiers of this industry have a rather lower opinion of his munificence than their bosses. So most of the crap being spoken about him in reaction to the peerage nomination can be taken with one gigantic piece of salt.

Pride of place in that department goes to the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph proclaiming “Free speech champion Toby Young awarded peerage”. As Billy Connolly once said, there’s going to be some swearing … FUCK OFF. Anyone and everyone has the right of free speech. But all too many on the right don’t like actions having consequences.

It gets worse, as a perusal of Tobes’ Wikipedia entry demonstrates: “Young has admitted using cocaine at the Groucho Club in central London, and also supplying drugs to others. He was subsequently expelled from membership of the club in late 2001 for writing about the cocaine use of friends he had supplied with the drug during a 1997 photo shoot for Vanity Fair”.

Any more minus points? “Young has come under criticism for comments he made on Twitter … These included what an Evening Standard editorial called ‘an obsession with commenting on the anatomy of women in the public eye’”. And how’s this for vanity? “Young is reported to have edited his own Wikipedia page 282 times over the course of six years”. Modest with it, eh?

Maybe this comment from Dawn Foster sums up Tobes’ true place in the establishment pantheon: “Young seems to think he is held in high regard by free school advocates. When I mentioned his name in the course of interviewing a former Department for Education employee for the piece, my interviewee headbutted the restaurant table in exasperation. I have found the sentiment, if not the gesture, to be common among his ideological comrades”.

That is merely reinforced by the knowledge that he was taken on, and then sacked, by the Times, under the editorship of Charles Wilson. This part of his career trajectory he shares with Bozo The Clown, someone else who is full of crap and gobby with it. He’s called Captain Bellend. Because he’s a bellend.

Lord Tobes of Bellend, of the borough of Leering in the county of Misogyny. Because they couldn’t find a horse called Incitatus.

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So Farewell Then US Democracy

We may not like the verdict passed by voters in the USA, but it is their right, their call, and their majority preference that Combover Crybaby Donald Trump be returned to the White House for another term as President. What creative propaganda was fed to the electorate we may never know. What we do know is that Trump is not fit to serve a burger and fries, let alone his country.

His all too recognisable mental decline has been on view for some months. His mind is failing him, and those who have backed him to the hilt with their millions know it. They know he is not up to the job. Yet they supported his re-election; Trump is easily flattered, and his business empire almost bust. He gets some praise, some money, and his backers bend the USA to their will.

It is easy to look two years forward to the 2026 midterms, and reason that all will be corrected as the GOP loses waves of House and Senate seats, thus bringing into play those checks and balances for which the Constitution is rightly famous. But Trump has also told his fans that they will not have to vote ever again. He showed you who he was; believe him the first time.

For those in the USA who will suffer the bigotry, the misogyny, the uncaring authoritarianism, some did warn us, like Mehdi Hasan: “People - including top US journalists, perhaps especially top US journalists - don’t quite get how bad it’s going to be. How beyond term one it’ll be. How bad the Musks and RFKs will be. I don’t think even I fully accept how bad it’s going to be and I have been shouting how bad it’s going to be for years”.

Here on the other side of the North Atlantic, though, the problems will be very simply trade and defence. Trump is threatening swingeing tariffs on anything coming into the USA. Maybe NAFTA will not survive. So countries in Europe, inside the EU or not, will have to learn to do without that market.

That is, of course, easier said than done. But it must be done. It will not be easy to do, especially as, more or less at the same time, European countries that had seen the USA as The Great Protector, the one country that underpinned the NATO alliance, will have to learn to look after themselves, singly or, more likely, collectively. Which probably means via the EU.

Those countries will include Ukraine, as Trump has repeatedly voiced his backing for the gangsterist régime of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, and his disdain for the Government in Kyiv. US aid for Ukraine will wither away; either Europe allows the country to be annexed by Russia, or does something to prevent that. Trump’s USA will not ride to our rescue this time.

So where does that leave the UK, with its Government, headed by someone formerly so enthusiastically pro-EU, but now implacably opposed to closer ties with the European Club? Keir Starmer has to realise two things here: One, there is no point cosying up to Trump, who couldn’t give a crap about him. And two, he can’t ride the European Club horse and the Special Relationship horse at the same time. He has to choose one, and only one.

He must also learn to shut out the howling of our free and fearless press at even the mention of closer ties with the EU. Because he has little choice, when faced with an isolationist USA, but to mend fences with the EU, and forget his repeated refusal to countenance rejoining the bloc. In this, Trump and his gang have unintentionally done the UK a great service.

In the meantime, he will fulfil his promise for the USA to engage in no more wars, and instead keep those wars within his own country - a war on women’s rights, a war against ethnic minorities, a war against anyone opposed to his power grab, and a war against the freedom of speech he falsely promotes.

And those countries that have embraced neoliberalism can, in the meantime, reflect on its failure to deliver Trump’s opponents the White House. We might usefully consider re-reading The General Theory Of Employment Interest And Money, whose embrace saved the West from revolution after World War 2, while The New Great Dictator gets on with laying waste to the USA.

Europe needs to look after itself. And the UK has to choose - wisely.

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Labour, Pensioners, And Cruelty

One hates to come over all Neil Kinnock, but right now we have A Labour Chancellor - A Labour Chancellor - scuttling around media outlets trying pointlessly to justify taking pensioners’ winter fuel allowance from them. It is a move which, it is claimed, will placate The City. But The City does not need to be placated. And the move will hurt the Labour Party yet more.

That’s as in, more than the two child benefit cap. More than the alienation of now former activists following the abandonment of Keir Starmer’s “ten points” pledge. More than the alienation following all the expulsions and other needlessly authoritarian behaviour. More members walking away, and not returning any time soon to help canvass and leaflet.

A Government with a huge majority, but only because of parties like Reform UK, domain of Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, eating into the Tory vote. Labour’s share of the popular vote, after posting opinion poll ratings well into the 40s during the campaign, was a miserable 33.7%. 1.6% better than 2019. 6.3% down on 2017. Less than convincing.

And, coming hard on the heels of the refusal to lift the benefit cap, has come another measure guaranteed to generate No Additional Economic Activity At All. As this blog has pointed out more than once, giving the less well off more money is a sure-fire way to generate more economic activity. These are the people with the highest propensity to spend. They will spend that money.

It is no use at all to anyone interested in generating more economic activity to allow that money to be retained by the very well off, those with the highest propensity to save. It is also no use at all to stretch peoples’ credibility beyond its structural limit by claiming that leaving the winter fuel allowance in place will somehow precipitate a run on Sterling, which it will not.

Add to this the pointless misquoting of Keynes, seemingly to suggest that he would have approved of Rachel Reeves’ policies (which he certainly would not), and the authoritarian response of the Labour leadership to anyone demonstrating the slightest empathy towards the least well-off (vote for this cruelty or you lose the whip), and you have a party in imminent disarray.

No surprise, then, to see Zarah Sultana reminding us “We need to defend universalism. Universal benefits like Winter Fuel Payments & demands like Free School Meals for All ensure no-one falls through the cracks. It builds solidarity, reminding us that we all belong to the same society & deserve warmth, food security & dignity”. And avoids the humiliation of means tests.

And Richard Murphy telling “I am so bored of hearing Labour ministers talking about ‘difficult decisions’ they didn’t want to take when there is no reason whatsoever for them to have taken them”. With Mick Lynch of the RMT adding “We cannot balance the books by cutting off the heating for our pensioners. Labour has to find a better, fairer way”.

On top of that is the inevitable charge of hypocrisy, Paul Lewis bringing the inconvenient reminder “Chancellor tells her MPs to blame Conservatives for her decision to raid Winter Fuel Payment … so she is blaming the party that in 2017 said it would do that but backed down when Labour said it would kill 4000 pensioners. Oh dear”. This whole charade is pointless.

Worse for Labour, the steady alienation of members will only accelerate. It was clear during the General Election campaign that some constituencies would have gone to The Red Team, if only more canvassers and other activists could have been mustered. Next time, there will most likely be even fewer of them. Added to a disheartened and disillusioned electorate.

Who suggested this path? Did anyone in Downing Street, or any of those advising the Labour leadership, bother to think through what consequences might flow from imposing more misery on the least well off? One has to credit the brains behind New New Labour with the notion that, if they did all this to a deliberate plan, they must have also figured a way out of it.

Because if they haven’t - no. Just no. You don’t want to go there.

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Grenfell - Westminster’s Shame

“The simple truth is that the deaths that occurred were all avoidable, and those who lived in the tower were badly failed, over a number of years, and in a number of different ways, by those who were responsible for ensuring the safety of the building and its occupants”. Thus the words of Martin Moore-Bick, who chaired the inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire. There was more.

“They include the Government, the tenant management organisation, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, those who manufactured and supplied materials used in the refurbishment, those who certified their suitability for use on high rise buildings, the architect, the principal contractor, and some of its sub-contractors”. 72 deaths, and every one avoidable.

Worse, deputy PM Angela Rayner has noted that “Of 4,630 buildings identified with dangerous cladding, 50% are in remediation works”. However, “only 29% have had the remediation completed”. Moreover, there is a “culture in this country where [tenants] are considered lesser people, and that's disgraceful”. So one might think the Government is taking this seriously.

But one would have thought wrong, if the scenes in Parliament immediately prior to Keir Starmer’s statement on Grenfell are anything to go by. This came after Prime Minister’s Questions; for this event, the Commons chamber is packed out. But then, after PMQs concluded, the Commons began to empty.

In fact, it was more of an exodus: scores, if not hundreds, of MPs from both sides of the House making themselves scarce before Starmer made his statement. Some commentators recoiled at this display of indifference, one of those being ITV political editor Robert Peston, who was simply aghast.

“I was genuinely a bit upset, actually, when I looked at the chamber. Actually, vast numbers of MPs simply left after Prime Minister’s Questions, that was not … I thought, for this statement, it would be bursting at the seams with MPs - it wasn’t. There were lots and lots of empty seats there, and I was quite shocked by that, actually. I mean, this was one of … Grenfell, for I think anybody … who’s not a child, was one of the defining moments in this country’s history, of the last thirty years”. He was not alone.

Over on BBC Newsnight, Vice-Chair of Grenfell United Karim Mussilhy told “The Prime Minister’s about to give [his statement] … you just see a flourish of bodies in Parliament heading out, leaving … that room was more than half empty. This is the culture we’re talking about. How are we supposed to get justice when they don’t even care”. Even some new MPs walked out.

Easily identifiable by his gait, his appearance, and indeed his walking stick, was Labour’s “spreadsheet overlord” Luke Akehurst. Those no longer welcome in a Labour Party where Akehurst and his pals wield power were reduced to making their voices heard from outside the Commons. One of their number was former MP Emma Dent Coad, who did not mince her words.

“What we want is very clear lines of accountability ... we need to know who is actually accountable, who made the decisions ... and who can be pinned down and charged. Most people, when I talk to them, they want to see people in jail”. But she’s a Rotten Leftie™, and they get the blame dumped on them.

As I noted at the time, the assembled idiocy of the Tory right blamed her, Sadiq Khan, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour councillors, and definitely not anyone who had anything to do with The Blue Team - people like Eric Pickles, who wanted the Grenfell Inquiry to know that he was a very busy man, and had had to work terribly hard to fit his visit to that inquiry into his diary.

Corbyn said in the aftermath of the Grenfell fire that it “should never have happened. Every single one of those deaths could and should have been avoided”. Now, the game playing faction of Labour’s NEC just walks out of the Commons before Starmer makes his statement on the inquiry. Anyone might think that they didn’t give a flying foxtrot about ordinary people.

Who is it MPs are supposed to represent? Looking at the Commons scenes, one might think some of them would have a problem answering that one.

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Labour And A Bad Landlord

Remember all those deselection scare stories put about by bad faith actors when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader? All the claims of constituencies having candidates imposed, sitting MPs of inconvenient thought being removed, alleged “Trots” substituted? It made for lots of scary copy. It was also total horseshit. But since Jezza stood down? Ah well.

Jas Athwal

While one particularly blatant attempt to remove a left-leaning MP failed (that being Ian Byrne in Liverpool West Derby), there was an especially fractious deselection in Ilford South, with incumbent Sam Tarry being forcibly replaced by local council leader Jas Athwal. This may have met with approval from those holding power in the Labour Party, but was not well thought through.

Tarry had been disciplined for having the audacity to stand on a picket line with his fellow Trades Unionists. The incident, which happened at London’s Euston station, clearly got his card marked. And while the game-playing adolescents who hold sway in The Red Team might have thought they’d put one over on the Rotten Lefties™, the deselection has returned to bite them.

Because Jas Athwal is now in a whole load of trouble, and for reasons that are causing serious embarrassment to Labour. Athwal owns properties (plural), which are rented out. Yes, he is a landlord. As the BBC has reported, “Jas Athwal, the newly-elected MP for Ilford South, owns 15 rental flats, making him the biggest landlord in the House of Commons”. There was more.

“A Labour MP rents out flats with black mould and ant infestations, the BBC has discovered”. Oh dear. Do go on. “In one block of seven flats owned by Mr Athwal nearly half the tenants said they had to regularly clean their bathroom ceilings to remove mould. Mr Athwal has now also admitted his flats do not have the correct property licences required under a scheme he introduced as Redbridge Council leader. He had earlier claimed to the BBC that he had complied with the rules”. Didn’t follow his own rules. Lied to the Beeb.

But all would be well, because there would be remedial action. “Mr Athwal said he was ‘shocked’ and ‘profoundly sorry’ to hear of residents' issues, which he had not been aware of due to the properties being managed by an agency, and promised repairs and maintenance will be completed ‘swiftly’”.

So no more “When [the BBC] visited the properties, which are above an empty shop in Ilford, the communal areas were dirty and the lights did not work. Fire alarms were hanging loose from the ceiling, and a washing machine had been dumped next to a set of stairs”, then?

And no more “On top of the black mould, the BBC saw evidence of ant infestations in a number of the seven properties” either? Maybe realising he was in deep doo-doo, Athwal let it be known that he was dispensing with the services of his letting agent. But he has convinced very few people.

Also, the BBC noted “[Athwal] added he did not take on tenants on housing benefit to avoid conflicts of interest with his role as the local council leader”, which is against equality law. Small wonder his protestations fell on deaf ears, with the word “Resign” featuring prominently in responses. Moreover, the impression was given that Athwal only took action because he got caught.

Meanwhile, Mish Raman - who sits on Labour’s NEC - mused “I am shocked and sickened that a mould and ant infested property owning slum landlord has the Labour whip while the likes of Apsana Begum, Zarah Sultana, Ian Byrne don't because they voted to remove the two child benefit cap … Keir Starmer's high quality candidate”. Athwal really should resign his seat.

And those at the top of the Labour Party should be pressing him to do so. But then a problem enters: Ilford South should be an ultra-safe seat, but Athwal’s majority was less than 7,000, and he scored just over 40% of the vote, as opposed to Tarry’s 2019 24,000 and 65.6% respectively. The humiliation of losing that seat will have Labour’s power brokers recoiling in horror.

Not winning Chingford and Woodford Green, being handed their arses by Jeremy Corbyn - well, Labour game players, do you feel … lucky?

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Hello Rioters - You’ve Been Had

So here we are, the morning after a day of gratuitous and unjustifiable rioting and indeed looting, perhaps with some afters to come in a few of those towns and cities not already scarred by the attentions of The Fash, or as the more gullible of them like to pretend, “Concerned Citizens”.

He won't be going to jail, and ...

The violence meted out - for no good reason at all - was supposed to have something to do with three little girls dying as a result of a stabbing attack in Southport. But the reality was that it was just a lame excuse, trotted out to give cover for an orgy of violent conduct. Muslims, not involved in the stabbings, got most of the blame. It was just an excuse for racist and bigoted behaviour. Many of the participants did not stop and think about that.

They didn’t stop and think about a sudden surge of bad faith actors sounding off at new Prime Minister Keir Starmer. How, if the problems that led to the riots had been brewing for some time, was the bloke who only came to power last month to blame? How was he the originator of “Two tier policing”, when this pack of lies had been in circulation for months beforehand?

On top of all that, how was getting aled up and kicking off honouring the memory of those killed and injured in Southport? What kind of tribute was served up by trashing phone shops, travel agents, citizens’ advice centres, libraries, and looting the nearest Sainsbury’s Local? And why the constant obsession with Muslims, when they had nothing to do with the stabbings?

Then the $64,000 question, which those rioting may not have considered asking beforehand, but may be doing so now: what happens when all that video is pored over by the authorities, which it will be, with the certainty of night following day? Who gets to wear the electronic tag, get heavily fined, get sent down for a few months and lose their job afterwards?

Already, scores of those accused of rioting have been visited by the cops and taken away for a little chat, after which some will be bailed, and all of those proved to have taken part in the disturbances will get a criminal record. On the other hand, those who egged them on will get off Scot Free. There will be no consequences for those who nudged and winked the rioters into rioting.

... he told protesters to be peaceful. But shouted a bit, too

You listened to Reform UK Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, sitting there at his desk with Union flags behind him, like he was the President of somewhere unstable? More fool you. You took Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, at present on the run somewhere in mainland Europe, on trust? Big mistake. They don’t care about you.

They, along with Richard Tice (he’s not very nice), “30p” Lee Anderson, anyone else at Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”), those at Murdoch noise floor occupant TalkTV, and the dubiously talented convocation of hacks and pundits at our free and fearless press, which hasn’t been whipping up the mob against Muslims, honestly, won’t be there.

Won’t be there when, as barrister Joanna Hardy-Susskind recalled from 2011, “I have never forgotten telling man after man in cell after cell how long they would get in prison for the 2011 London riots. Once enthusiasm for lobbing bins at police has waned, once your pals have been arrested, once the booze & adrenaline subside - you realise. Then regret”.

Farage can (thus far) get away with borderline incitement such as “What you have seen happen in London, Liverpool and Hartlepool is nothing compared to what you could see in the next few weeks” (a privilege not enjoyed by any followers of The Prophet), but if you take that as the green light for kicking off after a session in the local Spoons, you’re up shit creek without a paddle.

And claiming that Starmer is to blame for “insulting” ordinary hard-working people won’t wash, either. As James Ball has pointed out (thread HERE), the PM only tied those rioting to the far right, and that “all violent disorder that flares up, whatever the apparent cause or motivation - we make no distinction…Crime is crime” would be tackled. No two tier policing, sorry.

Hello rioters. You had no excuses. You’re on your own. Repent at leisure.

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Hello BBC - Your Team Lost

Winston Churchill once said that he knew very little about economics, but he did know that shooting Montagu Norman would have been a good thing. Churchill had relied heavily on the advice of the then Governor of the Bank of England when he was made Chancellor of the Exchequer by Stanley Baldwin in the latter’s 1924 to 1929 Government. The sentiment concerned one issue.

A most unfortunate juxtaposition

Norman had been highly supportive of returning Sterling to the Gold Standard, and at the pre-World War 1 rate of one pound to 4.86 US Dollars. The obvious problem was that Sterling was by this time worth no more than around $4.40. The initially lauded return to Gold had the effect of increasing the cost of UK exports by around 10%. So those abroad went elsewhere.

Norman and his counterparts from France and Germany then went to the USA to ask if the folks Stateside could perhaps alleviate the situation by a little loosening of monetary policy, which they duly did. From that point, rather a lot of the easier money went on purchasing common stocks, with the result that an overheated stock market crashed in late 1929.

Now, I know very little about the internal machinations of the BBC, but I do know that removing Robbie Gibb - permanently - from the Corporation would be a good thing. Anyone who is comfortable sharing a platform with the luminaries of the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance, and the rest of the Tufton Street alphabet soup brigade, has no place at our national broadcaster.

Looking at the Beeb’s website this morning, one could be forgiven for concluding that it was the Tories who won last week’s General Election, such is the glaring bias in coverage. The faux “equivalence” is there in the first UK News headline: “Starmer heading to Scotland as Jenrick says Tories failed to deliver”. Who gives a flying foxtrot what Robert bloody Jenrick thinks?

Scroll down a little and it gets worse: “Who could replace Rishi Sunak as party leader?” Only in the sub-heading does the word CONSERVATIVES appear. Default party = Tory party. Scroll down a bit more, to Latest Updates. “A quick guide to the PM who only lasted 45 days” is followed by “A very quick guide to Penny Mordaunt” and “A quick guide to Rishi Sunak”.

Not only are those features about Tories, but the first two lost their seats. And what’s this? “Gloomy in Looe as fishermen reflect on Labour coup”. Tanks on the streets, was it? It didn’t get any better when the Laura Kuenssberg show had its first post-election airing. Jenrick was one of two Tories given a platform. That’s the party with just 121 MPs. As opposed to Labour with 411.

Ed Davey, whose party put on another 61 MPs to reach a record high for them of 72, was greeted by the grudging “Congratulations, I suppose”. Former Chief Prosecutor Nazir Afzal summed it up: “Laura Kuenssberg seems to be finding it hard to be in opposition”. So Jenrick is kicking off the Tory leadership race? Who cares? They’re out of it. Stop promoting them.

Likewise, the effective awarding of a season ticket for Question Time and other shows to Reform UK Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage has to stop: his is a fringe party with just five seats. If he and his pals get access, so should the Greens. So they got a lot of votes. So did the Liberals in 1974, and the Liberal-SDP Alliance in 1983. Did the Beeb give them season tickets, too?

Giving the Tories such prominence despite their drubbing last week, and worse, giving a platform to the kinds of Tories who belong firmly in the wacko fringe, is out of order. Questionable displays of “impartiality” - pitting those with comprehensive knowledge of a subject against lobby group activists with bad faith talking points - should also be brought to an end.

That means serving up news and current affairs in a genuinely even-handed manner. No Astroturf lobby groups, especially those who decline to say who funds them. Fact check those known to peddle assertions of dubious veracity. No more Question Time audience plants. And let the Tories run their own leadership contest. They’ve got enough pals in the press as it is.

Robbie Gibb at the BBC was for a time, but not for all time. Order the taxi.

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Labour Landslide - Slow Handclap

And so ends the 2024 General Election campaign, the triumphant end point of the mission, so the media narrative goes, to make the Labour Party electable once more, with voters now able to make the positive choice to vote for The Red Team. After all, Labour now had a 170 seat majority, and had won in a landslide. But that electable positive choice was absent elsewhere.

New and electable leader secures for Labour ...

It was left to master pollster John Curtice to bring Labour cheerleaders the bad news: “Actually, but for the rise of the Labour Party in Scotland... we would be reporting that basically Labour’s vote has not changed from what it was in 2019”. In fact, the party garnered fewer votes than in 2019.

You remember 2019? Labour allegedly in the grip of “trots”, beset by claims of institutional anti-Semitism, when rather a lot of people within the party, it has since been alleged, either didn’t bother to campaign for its then leader, or tried their damnedest to throw the contest. Yes, totally unelectable Labour scored more votes than new and totally different Labour.

How such a thing could happen, and with such a different result, is down to the Tory vote collapsing - and the First Past The Post voting system. Labour’s vote share was up on 2019, but turnout was, shamefully, lower at something like 60%. The “Landslide on 34%” has now incurred the displeasure of the Daily Mail, calling it a “Loveless landslide”. There will be more of that.

And while the Tories were duly turfed out, Labour’s stance on the Gaza conflict, Starmer’s clumsy mention of “returning people to Bangladesh”, its below shitty treatment of former leader Jeremy Corbyn, and equally shitty treatment of some of its candidates deserve analysis, as does the patently ridiculous behaviour of some of those client journalists out there.

Corbyn stood as an independent. Labour’s choice of Praful Nargund was staggeringly arrogant: here was someone who had made a lot of money in the healthcare business. A series of party luminaries let it be known that they were campaigning against Jezza. And then came the superior insights of the New Statesman magazine, starting with pundit Rachel Cunliffe.

Here was her schtick, delivered on live TV: “I have always found the argument that Jeremy Corbyn is such a prominent local figure, that he would be able to mount a strong, independent campaign. That has never really chimed with my experience living in the constituency. He certainly wasn’t particularly active in the time that I was there”. Would a Tweet/X/Whatever extolling the analysis of Ben Walker and Finn McRedmond add more?

... fewer votes than his predecessor. Who won his seat, thanks

It certainly would. “A few weeks ago Novara Media tried to claim that Labour's 14-point lead over Jeremy Corbyn in this seat was a narrow gap. It really isn't. But it has narrowed slightly”. Get sneering! Nose a little higher in the air, eh? Corbyn won, with a majority of more than 7,000. The Staggers? Meet the new client journalists, not so different from the old client journalists.

The new authoritarian Labour Party had other problems, too. In Chingford and Woodford Green, the cynical last-minute sidelining of Faiza Shaheen, on whom Keir Starmer had showered so much praise, resulted in her running as an independent, the anti-Tory vote splitting, and Iain Duncan Cough living to fight another day. And no, it was not Ms Shaheen’s fault. It was Labour’s.

Had the ousting not taken place, she would have won. Who did the ousting? The newly authoritarian Labour Party. For party loyalist Jonathan Ashworth, it got much worse: he lost his seat to a pro-Palestinian independent. Wes Streeting came close as Leanne Mohamad got within 530 votes of dispatching him. He described the campaign as “ugly”.

Which is an interesting way of saying “I nearly got humiliated by one of those Scary Muslims™”. How “ugly” is it for tens of thousands of Gazans to be randomly blown to pieces, Wes? Streeting, whose reputation at this blog was shredded when he failed to call out Tom Harwood’s lying on Question Time, needs to ask himself why he nearly lost, which he may not.

Starmer himself experienced a fall in vote share and number of votes cast for him. He also had to contend with a significant independent campaign from Andrew Feinstein. Labour lost Dewsbury and Batley to an independent by almost 7,000 votes. They lost Blackburn. They kicked out and then patronised Jo Bird, who has came second in Birkenhead for the Greens.

Calling for a ceasefire in Gaza is not anti-Semitic, or indeed anti-Israel. Labour could have done that and headed off all the grief. Instead, a large part of their core vote has been alienated. On the other side of politics, the far right now has a presence in Parliament, given yet more airtime yesterday evening by the BBC, which really has had a dreadful election.

Relying on Tory collapse in order to win cannot be repeated. Realisation has dawned that Labour is beatable. Slow handclap, authoritarians.

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Election Day Press Shame

The day has finally dawned, when, if the latest poll is to be believed, Labour will sweep to a tally of well over 400 MPs, with the Tories facing something between annihilation and wipeout. The conclusion to the election campaign is as obvious now as it has been since Rishi Sunak went to see Brian in late May, his pals bet on the election date, and Labour were thereby alerted.

Turnout looks as if it may be on the high side: good. Sunak might, just might, provide the ultimate Portillo moment of the night as it looks possible that he could lose his seat. Five-figure Tory majorities are set to fall across the country, with at least one poll suggesting that Esther McVey in true blue Tatton could be a casualty. The Tories may end up with fewer than 100 seats.

If The Blue Team does worse even than that low bar, we could be looking at their being replaced as the official opposition by the Lib Dems. All of the foregoing is shaping up to provide excellent spectator sport after polls close at 2200 hours. But for one group of observers, there is a fear and foreboding in the air. They are the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press.

While the Murdoch Sun has done a screeching U-Turn during the week, going from attacking Labour to telling their remaining readers that Keir Starmer and his pals are actually the winning team, and the Sunday Times has also backed The Red Team, the daily title under the editorship of the deeply unpleasant Tony Gallagher has gone into fence-sitting mode.

Not so the Daily Brexit, still called the Express, which is pleading with any readers not yet asleep to back the Tories. The increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph has invented a Labour council tax raid. The Mail is trying to get readers not to back Reform UK. It is in a blind panic.

“Soaring taxes [no citation], uncontrolled immigration [no citation] … rampant wokery [meaningless drivel], betrayal of women’s rights [should be right up the Mail’s street, then], Net Zero mania [there is no mania], weaker defence [no citation], surrender of our Brexit freedoms [what ‘Brexit freedoms’ would those be, then?] - and votes at 16 to ‘rig’ future elections [is that in the Labour manifesto? I blinked and missed it]” And the “Supermajority” crap, too.

As well as the blatantly dishonest “You can stop it”. Right now, those Daily Mail readers with whom the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre had his imaginary “conversations” are queuing up at polling stations to vote out his preferred party of Government. After 14 years of ineptitude, corruption, waste, cronyism, cruelty, gaslighting, dishonesty, and rampant self-interest.

But what frightens the press more is that they have thus far failed to coax any assurance out of the Starmer team that there will be no return to Part 2 of the Leveson Inquiry, and the associated prospect of properly independent press regulation. No assurance that the press will be able to carry on behaving as badly as they see fit. Hence the panic, more lying, and scare stories.

Because a Government with a three-figure majority need not fear what all those obscenely overmonied hacks and pundits do in their efforts to derail whatever agenda is put before Parliament. If Labour triggers Leveson 2, not all the press lobbying in the Western world will stop it. Seeing what the press got up to for all those years will begin to turn the public’s heads. Good.

Worse for the press, the proliferation of poverty, those thousands of food banks, many working full time and still unable to make ends meet, will count against them. Why buy a paper when those who contribute to its production have so little understanding of how difficult life is for those hardworking people whom they claim to champion? They don’t care. Like the Tories.

The voters listened to the press, and their pals in all those Astroturf lobby groups. It got them a country that is in serious decline, a health service that is on its knees, roads that are literally falling apart, public transport that is either absent or expensive, a Police service that is mostly ineffective, and all they see is rich people filling their pockets. Then they see the press.

A press supporting more cruelty and more poverty. Don’t forget to vote.

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Don’t Mention The War, Sorry, Brexit

Perhaps the most surreal aspect of the General Election campaign is that the party most likely to form the next Government - Labour - is steadfastly refusing to recognise the elephant in the Economy room. The Elephant which has resulted in higher taxes, a decline in the UK’s ability to trade freely with its nearest neighbour, and therefore its attractiveness and competitiveness.

The name of the Elephant is Brexit. And Labour would rather not mention it, so frit are they of the fury that would rain down upon them from the general direction of our free and fearless press should they dare to Go There. This level of cowardice before gaining power gives every impression of enduring after Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves take up residence in Downing Street.

But at some time, Labour will have to talk about the Elephant. Meanwhile, the Lib Dems are unencumbered by Labour’s cowardice, and John Sweeney, who is now fighting Sutton Coldfield for them, has put it directly: “I remember listening to the Brexit result in my little backyard and then it started to drizzle. Our wonderful country was conned something rotten: we have ended up with a broken economy, a blighted future and our national security endangered”.

And his solution? “The sooner we are back in the European Union the better and, if elected, I shall campaign for that … Vote for me and I shall fight for you”. Fight is the right word. Because the overmonied and intolerant part of the media class, less affected by Brexit, will fight to keep it.

They will always be able to summon a member of the punditerati to tell whoever reads the final article that the UK imposing economic sanctions upon itself is a small price to pay for the benefit of keeping all those FORRINS from making decisions that affect Brits. Screwing over farmers? Throwing the fishing industry under the nearest bus? Not their problem.

While the comfortable part of the media class can still dine at their reassuringly upmarket restaurants, can still summon tradespeople to patch up their over-valued properties, can still get domestic help without breaking the upmarket bank, and can still use the app to hail a private hire vehicle and therefore keep the hoi polloi away from them, Brexit will be excellent.

Typical of that media class is one Iain Martin, who claimed “‘The Office for Budget Responsibility says UK GDP will be around 4% lower every year than it would have been had we remained inside the EU,’ reports the [Observer]. This is not what the OBR says”, only to be Community Noted and for Jonathan Portes to tell him “This is *precisely* what the OBR says”.

In the meantime, Edwin Hayward, who has written a little on the subject, has put together a thread (HERE) where he groups the benefits of EU membership under the headings of Economic Benefits, Freedom of Movement, Education and Research, Consumer Rights and Protections, Health and Safety, Workers’ Rights, Environmental Protection, Citizenship and Legal Rights, Data and Digital Rights, Cultural and Creative Industries, Trade and Business, Security, Political Influence, and Future Potential.

Put yet more directly, improving the lot of all those Ordinary and Hard Working People without sinking yet deeper into decline and a vicious cycle of higher taxation, and without Sterling losing all remaining credibility, is going to be, er, challenging without returning to the EU. With or without another poll.

It will also involve not giving con men like Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his ability to talk well, but lie badly, equal status with leaders of democratically constituted political parties (which Reform UK, being a limited company with no internal democracy, cannot claim to be). Treat him on merit. Or lack of it.

But above all, Labour has to have the courage to talk about the EU. To be straight with the voters. This may well risk the bad faith lobbyists who lied and conned their way to success last time to crawl out of the Tufton Street woodwork. So what? They will have to be faced down whatever happens.

The average Polish citizen will soon be better off than their British counterpart. John Sweeney is right. The UK has to rejoin. That is all.

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