In the new world, the terms left and right are meaningless

I've been deliberately not writing this blog for a few months now. The one thing I always said I wouldn't do is pretend to be a political pundit spouting baseless opinions. What I'm about to write, I've been thinking for the best part of this year, but I now think the facts support what I am going to say.

With the rise of Reform, the political situation in the USA, the events in the middle east, many people have been forced to shift from very long held positions and reinvent their political stance. The odd thing is that whilst this is happening in people's front rooms, in pubs and clubs and in the queue for the bus, the one place it seemingly isn't happening is at the top table of our political parties. The leaders of Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems, Reform, The Greens, etc all are stuck in the old mindset.

Until the election before last, we largely had three national parties that mattered. The big two of Labour and The Tories and the Lib Dems, who every so often were in a position to hold the balance of power, most recently 2010-2015. We thought we knew what each party stood for.  At the last election, Reform got a hell of a lot of votes, but were to badly organised to transform this into actual seats. The Tories seemed to give up, it is a wonder to me that they got the number of seats they did. Labour ran a brilliant campaign, in terms of organisation, where not a lot of votes, gave them a super majority. The Lib Dems also rana  classic Lib Dem campaign. If the Tories hadn't given up the ghost, they would probably have held the balance of power. Labour very quickly learned that winning is actually the easy bit. Governing is a hell of a lot harder. The Tories learned this after 2015. Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak all soon found that actually running a country is a difficult job. In the year 2025, it is almost impossible. 30 years ago, we had to wait for the nightly news before we knew what was happening in the world. Now, a Prime Minister can stand up for question time and with Twitter (etc) by the end of the session, the whole political situation will have changed. It is almost impossible to be properly briefed in such a world. 

Historically, we have divided politics into three blocks. These are left, right and centre. I used to believe that the left believed in social justice, equality, wealth redistribution from the rich to the poor and state control of key industries. As to the right? They believed in free trade, market force, self sufficiency and dereuglation. The centre believes in a mix of the two. Labour has always been (whilst in power) centre left and the Tories centre right. True believers on both sides of the divide have always been frustrated, as neither party ever really followed a hard line agenda. Even the most doctrinaire Tory leader ever, Margaret Thatcher was far more of a centerist than her supporters want to believe. This is a fact, not an opinion. She never dismantled the NHS, she never privatised rail and the post office. She never reall cut benefits to any great extent. The problem for a centerist party such as the Lib Dems always was that both Tory and Labour had stolen their patch. In coalition, they got the blame for all the Tories worst policies (hiking tuition fees), and the Tories took the credit for their most successful ones (raising tax thresholds for lowest band tax payers). 

Now however, we are seeing something completely different happening. To me, it is rather odd. The rise of reform has seen two rather contradictary patterns. The first is that tradition Labour voters, who would never vote Tory are defecting to Reform. This is fuelled by the notion that Labour is doing nothing, except shafting the ordinary man in the street. What I find bizarre is that Labour's leadership seemingly cannot be bothered to address this view. There is a narritive that Labour is so obsessed with small, vocal pressure groups, fringe movements and other vested interests, that they have lost interest in their core vote. As Reform are not Tories, the core vote are finding the message of disaffection attractive. As the Tories did nothing for them for fourteen years, the Tories are simply not credible as an alternative. The other strand is that a string of, mostly oddball, Tories from the more right wing fringes of the Tory party, have defected to Reform. You would think that these people would totally put off traditional Labour voters, but I detect a sort of "we are as fed up as they are" mentality, so at the moment it is being ignored.

There is however another trend. We have seen this recently with the flag protests and also with Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson) rallies. I have watched quite a lot of footage of Tommy Robinson. The more I see, the more the I think that Robinson is a classic example of the old saying "in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king". I personally think Yaxley-Lennon is a fraud, anyone who changes their name to sound less posh is a fraud in my book. I have a posh name and I'd never change it. But what he is doing is saying a lot of things that chime with the heartlands of Britain. As he is the only person who is actually confronting difficult issues head on, many who previously identified as being left wing and Labour get what he has to say. There is absolutely no push back from Labour, who seem terrified to raise these issues, let alone confront them. In laymans terms, Sir Keir Starmer has gifted Yaxley-Lennon an open goal. Starmer seems to think that if you ignore difficult problems, they go away. The demise of Peter Mandleson and Angela Rayner is proof that burying your head in the sand simply doesn't work. 

What seems to have happened is that the tradition left vote, is now leaning towards the right. But what has happened on the right is perhaps slightly more interesting. The traditional position of the British right, which is pro trade, pro business, pro self sufficiancy, pro free speach and anti regulation is falling apart. Traditionally, it was the Tories, not Labour who encouraged immigration, as this gave businesses cheap labour. The pro self sufficiency mantra is also not part of the Yaxley-Lennon mantra. His appeal is very much based on saying things like "council houses should be given to British (white) people" rather than migrants. The right used to hate the idea of anyone, especially British people living in council housing. The right invented the stigma around living in a council house. Thatcher cemented her position by selling council housing cheaply to tenants, as she hated the whole thing. That was the seed of the current crisis.

The only major party that, to my mind at least, has a long term consistent position is the Lib Dems. Being staunchly centrist is something that they have not deviated from. Labour? I have no clue what they stand for. They have a super majority, but nothing they are doing is vaguely left wing. They are not interested in reversing privatisation, they have done nothing to lift the burden of cost from students with loans. I have no idea whether the NHS is safe with them. It is probably safer than it would be by any party funded by American billionaires, but that is not a vote of confidence. Kemi Badenoch has managed, in less than a year, to make the Tories seem completely irrelevant. She has accidentally moved the party to the left, mainly by making many of her most right wing supporters decamp to Reform. And then there is Reform. We tend to think of Reform as a Right wing party, but some of what Nigel Farage is saying is actually rather left wing. Clamping down on immigration is a long term aim of the Trades Unions, as the lack of cheap labour forces up wages. Other policies such as abolishing the House of Lords, abolishing interest on student loans, banning the UK from exporting waste seem to me to be more Jeremy Corbyn than Jeremy Corbyn.

I am not sure that the term left or right wing mean anything at all anymore. To me, the biggest problem is that Great Britain simply doesn't seem to have any serious politicians. To me Starmer is a lawyer in the wrong job. He's clever, but he is not a politician. Only possibly Andy Burnham actually looks like a politician with a grip on reality in Labour. Kemi Badenoch? The Tories should sack her tomorrow and simply replace her with James Cleverly. He is far from perfect but at least he is someone who can string two sentences together without making everyone in the room roll their eyes. Ed Davey is a good leader of the Lib Dems, if they want to always be a protest party. Then there is Nigel Farage. The more I see of him, the clearer it is to me that the man is a complete charlatan. He has had a big influx of Tories, who I assume will want to actually run the party as a professional political organisation. Farage is very good at being a fringe opposition figure. When he faces proper scrutiny, he becomes a different beast. I've no idea where this will lead us. I suspect that if any of the non reform parties get their act together, they might well clean up. I expect Reform to implode over the next two years. If you look at the likes of Anne Widdecombe, Nadine Dorries and the other Tories who have joined them, it is hard to see them ever evolving a harmonious party and winning strategy. They will need to do more than not be Labour to actually win a general election. Some Reform types are getting very excited about the idea of an early general election. The one thing I can guarantee is that turkeys don't vote for Xmas and whilst Labour are behind in the polls, with a super majority, their MP's will happily keep the wages rolling in. And as for Yaxley-Lennon and his dreams of an English civil war. It won't happen. We are British and we just don't do that. 

This government may well end my blogging career!

The insspiration for starting to write blogs about politics, for me, was that I thought that the Tories running Barnet Council were useless, but the vast majority of people were unaware of this. Furthermore, I realised that there was no proper press coverage exposing just how bad they were. I spent a decade scrutinising council papers, doing my best to alert people to the mistakes the council were planning to make, trying to rustle up support locally to oppose the stupid policies that anyone who bothered to look, knew would cost Barnet residents a small fortune. Despite this blog clocking up nearly 4 million hits, not enough people listened to the warnings. The Tories won the Council elections in 2010, 2014 and 2018 and introduced the devastating scheme that became known as One Barnet. When they were finally booted out in 2022, they left a devastated and demoralised council that was struggling to provide basic services. There period in charge had been so bad that OFSTED made them bring in Essex Council to sort out their educational services. 

Labour won a landslide in 2022, but took over a council in such chaos that even the most competent of administrations would have struggled, and no one would ever accuse Barnet Labour of being particulary competent. I have found it rather difficult to write blogs condemning Labours ineptitdue, as I realise that they have been bequeathed a shit sandwich and I don't envy them. Some of the things they are doing are really stupid, such as bidding for the 'London Borough of Culture' when the Borough doesn't even have an established music venue and the local music festivals, such as the East Barnet Festival are struggling to survive. My view is that they'd have been better off giving the festival money, than the expensive consultants engaged to make the bid. Compared to the mistakes of the last Tory administration, it is small beer. Some of the things they tried to do, such as ending after school respite care for the parents of heavily disabled children at Mapledown Special School were plain inhuman. To the extent that it was blocked by a revolt by formerly loyal Tory Councillors (all of whom were deselected). 

I keep an eye on Barnet Council, but I don't have the time or inclination to snipe at small stupidities. I am sure that sooner or later, the Tories will find a blogger to do that for them. As for National government, I've not really blogged too much about them. Not so much because I have no opinions, but because there was coverage and it was far better than I could offer. I broke this rule as chaos enveloped the Government as Boris Johnson rose to power. The reason for this was a I had a source at the heart of his government (a source that has now run dry). The source was not sympathetic to my viewpoint, but it suited them to get information in the public domain. It also suited me to highlight the splits in the Tories. 

I assumed that Boris Johnson was an abberation, an outlier, a bumbling populist maverick, who the Tories chose to get their electoral fortunes back on track after the shambles that was Theresa May's reign. When Boris was elected in 2019, I thought that he was lucky to have been elected at a time when the economy was generally sound. I doubted that Boris could bugger it up too much. I also assumed that the Labour party was done for a generation. The Corbyn era had destroyed it's credibility in the country. As Boris had a massive majority, I thought he'd give us a couple of years of bonkers Tory ideolgical policies, then a couple of years of retrenchment, to strengthen the Tories electoral position, in time for an election last year that he'd romp home in. The pandemic put paid to that. 

Within a year, it was clear that Boris was toast. What came next shcoked even me. The Liz Truss debacle. To see a hard right Tory skewered by the free markets she espoused would have been hilarious, if it hadn't cost me a fortune in higher taxes and interest rates. When Rishi Sunak replaced her, I assumed we'd get a sensible, pragmatic and rather boring leader, who would get the countries finances back on track.  Last week, we found that the UK is yet again in recession. The man I thought would be a competent, if undynamic, manager turned out to simply be a man out of his depth. It is now clear that he appeared to be a good chancellor because Boris was his boss. His chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who does at least have an air of competence, has been doing his best to face off the Liz Truss faction of the Tory party, seeking tax cuts the country can't afford. Hunt reminds me of the adage "In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king". 

Then there is Sir Keir Starmer. Anyone who doesn't recognise the achievement of making Labour appear electable does not understand politics. Starmer has made a whole career of saying nothing and having no opinions. He's been leader for nearly four years and I have no idea who he really is. He seems to have taken the Tony Blair playbook and removed the messianic zeal that Blair brought to the table. What will Starmer be like, if he makes it to be Prime Minister. At one point, I would have said "He can't be any worse than  what went before", but I thought that after Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson and Truss and in their own way, each has been a downgrade. 

The problem as a blogger is that justs pouting negative opinions is perhaps the least interesting thing that it is possible to read. Someone recently asked why I am 'not covering politics anymore'. If you look at this year, this is not entirely true. This year, I've posted four politics related blogs, four more than the rest of the Barnet bloggers have written about politics etc (Mr Mustard has kept up his output of parking related blogs). But I've never blogged for the sake of it. The things I write about are things I find interesting and that others may as well. This blog has given me an extraordinary platform, the thousands of hits I get are a privilege that I appreciate. I don't take the people who read it for granted, but I also feel a responsibility to write blogs that have something to say that you won't read anywhere else. The things that interest me currently are music, the environment, Football (especially grassroots football), Barnet transport issues and the silly things that make life liveable. I find it almost impossible to find anything interesting to write about local or national politics. The biggest problem with this government is that you can write a blog and a week later, it is completely out of date as they've lurched into another crisis. 

I must add one thing about Barnet politics. Prior to the election, several Barnet Labour Councillors were very friendly with me and we'd have nice chats occasionally. They don't want to know now. One recently got themself into a spot of bother, having made some rather unwise comments on Twitter. Two years ago, I'd have spoken up for them, when the inevitable nasty comments came from the likes of disgraced Tory Brian Coleman. Having realised that they viewed me as a 'useful idiot' when Labour were seeking power in Barnet and now they are in they have no use of me, I was not in the least inclined to chip in and say "Hang on, this is a bit out of order coming from someone convicted of assault". It seems to me that Labour think that they've got the Hendon and Finchley Parliamentary seats sown up and so want to keep 'loose cannon bloggers' at arms length. I am quite happy to leave them to it, as it means I can get on with stuff I enjoy. I am not sure whether Rishi and Barnet Labour have effectively cured me of my urge to blog about politics, but writing about other things is far more fun.

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Talking of which, my band, The False Dots are doing a gig on Sat 23rd March at the Beehive in Bow. Check out our trailer for it! Tickets: bit.ly/42qVHCN

A Playlist to welcome Rishi Sunak

 I am sure that there will be a million comments and opinions on the new PM, Rishi Sunak. I have to say that it's perhaps the strangest feeling I've had about a new Tory PM taking over. The good things? Well it shows that the Tory party is less racist than I thought, which has to be a good thing. Whether Sunak will do for equality what Margaret Thatcher did for feminism has yet to be seem (just in case you didn't guess this is called irony). He is also not Liz Truss. He did not tank the economy as chancellor, something Liz Truss managed more or less as soon as she got her feet under the desk. 

The bad things? He's yet another unelected PM, he's a Brexiteer, he happliy supped with Boris Johnson.I am all out of comments though, so I thought I'd put together a playlist to say what I thought of it all. Draw your own conclusions.

Twitter, Politics and stupidity - A dangerous mix

I have come to the conclusion that Twitter is a dangerous and corrosive form of Social media. It is especially dangerous and corrosive when people use it as a political campaign tool. Now I am not going to be a hypocrite here. I am just as guilty as the next person of indulging in silly political point scoring as the next person. If someone is rude about me or a friend of mine, I am rude back.  I have come to realise that Twitter has become a playground for developing the worst aspects of human behaviour.

I resisted the desire to Tweet for a long time. I found it banal and boring. Occasionally I'd have a look at it, just to see what was going on. Eventually, following requests from readers of the blog, I succumbed and started a Twitter account. My original intention was simply to use it to inform readers when I'd posted a blog. Sadly Twitter is like very corrosive addictive drug. You think you will simply post one message, to let off steam and then you end up wasting a morning exchanging tweets of ever increasing banality with people who you would not normally pass the time of day. People I would normally cross the road to avoid can engage me in discussions I don't want and get me to expend energy I'd rather not waste, simply correcting untruths and deliberately misleading statements.

Occasionally someone I follow will post something of such utter stupidity that, despite the rational part of my brain saying "don't bite", I get involved in a completely pointless debate. The worst thing though is when they are simply rejurgitating opinions on behalf of political masters, because their particular party machine has deemed it "time to get active on Twitter". What these people don't quite get is that most sane, normal swing voters don't follow politicians. The people who generally follow politicians are other politicians and political wannabees. Parties encourage their "attack dogs" to follow opponents, so that "claims can instantly be rebutted". Sadly often both the original Tweeter and the rebutter are completely clueless about the subject they are discussing.

I have come to the conclusion that in many ways Twitter is for many people a psychological prop to fill in the gap left by the lack of an active sex life. The logic for this is that anyone with anything better to do would not spend their evenings exchanging 140 word messages with people they don't like in public. Often it is quite intuitive as to why such people are perhaps a bit sad and lonely. A desire to control comes to the forefront. Such people use such manipulations as shady threats of legal action (hoping the person they are threatening isn't aware that litigation costs tens of thousands of pounds). Another common "controlling" activity is to block someone on Twitter and then tell the world about it. Tweets saying things like "I've had to block another troll tonight" following a robust exchange of views is typical of this. To the Tweeter it is a sign of their strength and their ability to control their environment. To the rest of us, it just shows us that they are a bit thin skinned and are better at dishing it out than taking it. Often such people will have several accounts and will continue to keep an eye on the activities of those they "publicly blocked".

What never ceases to amaze me is when people who are intelligent enough to know better say things of such crass stupidity that any sane person simply winces. One such comment was left by a former Conservative PPC yesterday. The comment said

"Labour have called 95% of economic & social issues wrong in the last 100 or so years."

Now of course one would expect a Conservative supporter to be critical of Labour policies, but to make such a sweeping statement. Anyone who understands Politics and policies would realise that such a sweeping statement is idiotic. First, the Conservatives and Labour policies are probably identical for 80% of economic and social issues. Since the second world war we've had long periods of both Tory and Labour government.

Things like the maintenance of the NHS are pretty much agreed by both parties. It is only when you go to the USA that you realise that this is actually a highly political decision and that the Tories are far more left wing than most right wing parties across the globe. Then there  are social issues such as abortion, legalisation of homosexuality, age of consent, euthenasia, adultery etc. There is a broad consensus and we are one of the most socially liberal countries on earth. Neither party supports stoning of adulterers, but this is legal in quite a few countries. Even issues like legislation on drugs, gambling, alcohol, prostitution are issues where there is any great party divide. Again if you look at other countries, many have totally different regimes on these. For instance in Colorado smoking cannabis is now legal, in several states alcohol is illegal.

What about the EU? Again there is a Tory/Labour consensus. Membership of NATO? A Tory/Labour consensus. Even on issues such as privatisation & nationalisation, there is more consensus than the parties make out. Labour had a huge majority post 1997, yet failed to renationalise railways, despite this being the least popular of all privatisations. The first economic decision of Gordon Brown was to follow the Tories spending plans for three years.

So if our commentator is correct, then if Labour have been wrong on 95% of economic and social issues, the Tories by default must have been wrong on at least 75% of these issues as well.

This is the sort of thing which cannot be discussed in 140 lines on Twitter. All that our friend got was  a barrage of people pointing out the error of their ways. Unlike this blog, the format means that none of these issues can be properly discussed.

Now if I was a potential Candidate for Parliament, would I want people to vote for me on the basis of statements I knew to be highly misleading? I for one would not. If people disagree with me, I try and change their mind. If their arguments hold water, I change my mind. If they cannot substanciate their point and lose the argument, I'd hope they would change their mind. Sadly I have yet to see a single case where a politcal zealot has ever changed their mind or admitted they are wrong, even when faced with overwhelming facts. They simply walk away from the argument. As far as I am concerned, that is why this country finds itself in a bit of a financial mess. Politicians are not interested in having a debate. They are not interested in the electorate understanding the issues. They simply want votes with no effort at all.

I started writing this blog because I believed people may be interested in a bit of intelligent comment and debate. To stimulate this I've always encouraged guest bloggers. The fact that there have been over a million hits on this blog show that there is an apetite for a bit of intelligent debate and comment. As far as I'm concerned Twitter is great for witty one liners and for links to stories. I quite enjoy the pictures of three legged dogs playing football in the park. When it comes to politicians campaigning, I'd rather nail my scrotum to the wall than read their tweets. The debates are banal and the level of comment is generally verging on puerile.

As I write this I am sure there are teams of wet behind the ears, chinless wonders devising their nect "really cool Twitter campaign" for their respective parties. They wonder why people are getting ever more disengaged from Politics. I don't

Are you really a Tory?

No you don't have to tell me, but if you want a bit of harmless weekend fun, check this link (of course you are more than welcome to post your results in the comments box)

http://www.votematch.org.uk/

This website asks your views on various policies and tells you which party your views are most compatable with. Just in case you were wondering (and I didn't cheat) it seems I am most compatable with the Lib Dems policies :-

Figures :-
Lib Dems - 74% agree with
Labour - 59% agree with
Conservative - 39% agree with

I wonder how many of you will vote for a party you don't agree most with. (The website was put together by the Daily Telegraph and Goldsmiths college, so it's hopefully fairly honest and straightforward)

Anyway enjoy !

The Tip of the Iceberg : Hoon, Byers, Moran & Hewitt

As if these four and their dodgy shenanigans wasn't bad enough,  there is a story on the BBC website which names and shames all three MP's in the Borough of Barnet :-


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8580183.stm


I suppose it is too much to ask for the two of them who haven't stood down for the next election to sling their hooks and give someone who isn't tainted by continual scandals a chance? I'm not making a party political point here. Both the local Labour and Tory parties have plenty of members who are fine upstanding citizens and who would have no problem reading the rulebook and following it. It would do their parties chances a power of good to get a clean pair of hands. One of these members is a frontbencher in their party and the other is a member of the Standards and priveliges committee. I don't know any grassroots activist of any party (and I know quite a few from all three parties) who thinks this sort of behaviour is acceptable. It undermines trust in all politicians, it undermines trust in democracy and it has to stop now. There is going to be an election soon, so why not use the opportunity to chop away the dead wood. A local party worker for one of these MP's told me recently that the MP had suggested that the expenses scandal had blown over and would be forgotten by the time people actually had to vote. I do hope that MP was wrong.

Gordon Brown is a Tory

If the Conservatives win the next election, as many pundits are predicting, the reason won't be because the nation has become wildly enthusiastic for the policies of David Cameron. It will be due to a massive "stay at home" by staunch Labour voters. They won't be staying at home due to the failure of Socialist policies. They will be staying at home because of the failure of Tory policies, badly implimented by Gordon Brown. Many people on the left criticised Tony Blair, calling him "Tory B.Liar" I always thought that this was wide of the mark. Blair was a Social Democrat who hijacked the Labour movement.

I formed the opinion that Brown was a Tory from day 1 of the Blair regime. For a Labour chancellor, with the biggest ever majority to announce that he'd follow the Tory spending plans for the next 3 years, gave the game away. It meant that either :-

a) He agreed with Ken Clark and is a Tory
or
b) He was clueless and so couldn't come up with anything better
or
c) both of the above

As chancellor he forced a massive privatisation on the citizens of London with tube PPP. Ken Livingstone, someone who is quite clearly not a Tory, fought this tooth and nail.

As to how he behaved as Prime Minister. His first major Tax reform was to abolish the 10p Tax band. This had a terrible effect on the finances of some Great Britains most vulnerable people. Gordon Brown is a workaholic. If he was a Socialist, his first question would be "What effect will any tax changes have on the most vulnerable people in Society". If he'd asked this question and he'd not been a Tory he'd have dropped the cut.

What about his other measures? A Socialist would have nationalised the banks without compensation to Shareholders when they failed and structured them to make a future privatisation impossible. When the railway companies failed, they would have been kicked into touch and British Rail reconstituted. A real Socialist would have used Sir Fred Goodwins greed as a perfect excuse to introduce swinging taxes on abuse of the pension and bonus system. However you look at it, the Brownite response to any crisis is a Tory response.

Would a real Socialist dream of trying to force through Post Office Privatisation. I can't think of a single progressive policy associated with Gordon Brown. Tory readers will doubtless claim I am talking rubbish. Of course they will, because Brown's brand of Conservatism is not exactly an advert for good Government. If Cameron gets in, all we'll get is more of the same. All we can realisically hope for is a bit better execution of policies. To those who say Labour policies have failed, I say "No they haven't because they haven't been tried"