This blog has on several occasions covered the need for the government to do well to head off the threat of populism. Whatever your politics, unless you are a Reform UK supporter (this is not your type of blog, I suspect…), a bit of Labour success would be good for the UK from a number of perspectives.

That is why the lack of competence exhibited by ministers is so frustrating. Botched announcements on spending cuts, a failure to grip house building, the small boats crisis, any social care reform proposals kicked into the long grass. The list goes on with the addition this week that some dangerous prisoners have been mistakenly released from incarceration early.

The headline of this old political advertisement still seems relevant today…

And we are in the run up to the Budget which will surely make or break this government once and for all. There is a £30 billion deficit to fill and that means there will be no good news for anybody. As a small business founder, if I hear from politicians that small businesses are the backbone of the economy, I shall scream. Both Conservative and Labour governments have raised taxes on small firms, taken away incentives for entrepreneurs to take risks and smothered them in red tape. If Reeves doesn’t understand the ingredients for growth now, she never will. I am not optimistic.

Public spending must be reined in but Labour backbenchers don’t seem to have the appetite to make even minor cuts. There is a review of benefits being undertaken but it is not due to report for some while so not much expectation that cost savings will be found in this area soon. It is incredible to hear that one in five people of working age are not in employment and receiving benefits for one reason or another. This is not sustainable. Truckloads of cash are thrown at the NHS whilst doctors keep striking, but it has already been announced health spending will be ring-fenced. Local authorities are going bankrupt across the country as they struggle to recover from austerity whilst spending ever more sums on the private provision of social care.

So, more taxes on the rich, and short-term spending cuts which will probably be chaotic as there isn’t the time, before the next election, for thought to be given to strategic, meaningful targeted reductions. This should have been done long before now.

Farage has no solutions, the Tories are irrelevant, LibDems have nothing to say on economics, the Greens under their new leader come across as anarchists. Oh dear. We need Labour to succeed but expectations of them doing so are very, very low. If only ‘Abstain’ was a political party…

The latest opinion poll in The Times has Reform in the lead on 27%. No surprise there but, if I were Farage, I would be disappointed. Particularly after the Caerphilly by-election. Reform was expected to win but came a distant second. At this stage, it needs to be further ahead.

Not much solace for any of the occupants, even Farage…

What is more disturbing for Farage is the state of the other parties. Superficially, good news that Labour has slumped to 17% (we will come back to this) alongside the Tories who are also on 17%, but, alarmingly, the Greens have surged to 16% with the LibDems on 15% (we will come back to this too).

This is peak Reform-time. Labour and the Tories appear hopeless but surely have little further to fall. The strength of the Greens and LibDems suggest when everything is going wrong for the government, the election result (nearly four years’ away) still points to a red/orange/green alliance.

There is plenty of time for Starmer to pull back some support and plenty of time for Reform to at least partially blow up. The recent comments from one of its MP’s (Sarah Pochin) that she was driven mad by “seeing adverts full of black and Asian people” provoked a rare apology from Farage. The electorate for all their frustrations does not like such overt racism and one suspects there is more to come.

Meanwhile Labour keeps failing to deliver. What is wrong with them? Why are they so hopeless at governing and so bad at communications? All Starmer’s competence is being eroded a way leaving an uncharismatic shell at the heart of government with seemingly no guiding philosophy for what he wants to achieve. Pragmatism is one thing but pragmatically achieving nothing is another…. House building targets are already unachievable, small boats keep coming, taxes keep rising partly because of a failure to make cuts where required. The list goes on. Labour really needs these next four years!

But what about the Tories and LibDems? The Tories remain flat footedly useless, still believing a Reform-lite agenda is a substitute for economic competence. But it is the LibDems who should also be disappointed by their opinion poll rating. The Greens are cutting through, yet the LibDems choose to make their opposition day in parliament on the Royal Family. What?? More importantly, still traumatised by their alliance in government with the Tories, they are failing to make an economic case for moderate Tories to switch over to them permanently. They have it in their hands to destroy the Tories for a generation but like electoral reform and reform of the House of Lords are missing a once in a lifetime open goal.

So, there you have it. All major parties and wannabee major parties ex the Greens are failing to resonate. Against this backdrop, bizarrely, the electoral landscape still (just) favours the government…

We had Rafael Behr, lead writer at The Guardian speaking at my company’s investment seminar this week and very insightful he was too. His analysis pretty much reflects my own thoughts… and so I thought it was worth summarising below:

Being PM is not proving easy…

• Starmer has no political brain (or political friends) whatsoever. A deeply private man, he just wants to run the country competently. But being PM doesn’t work like this. You have to bring people with you and avoid elephant traps. He fails on both these measures. His colleagues would love to get rid of him believing his polling territory is beyond repair. However, as usual, Labour is incapable of removing its leaders.
• On policy, the government is torn between tearing up its manifesto on tax and raising serious amounts of money to move the dial on public services or dying by a thousand minor cuts. What a mess the election campaign has put Labour in in promising no core tax hikes. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
• No better news for the Tories who have no qualms in getting rid of their leaders. Badenoch will probably be gone by May and the weird Jenrick put in her place. A Reform/Tory pact will be the death of the Tories but, interestingly, Tories are currently toxic to Reform’s brand as they focus on Red Wall seats, so Farage is not interested in this outcome. At least for now.
• Farage is more strategic than he is given credit for. Reform, however, remains a one man band and the major hope for the two main parties is that he falls under a bus between now and the next General Election.
• The betting today is that Labour will probably just pull it off in keeping hold of power at the next election or governing with the LibDems as voters stare into the abyss of a Reform led government. Interesting that Reform polled below expectations in yesterday’s Caerphilly by-election, falling some distance behind Plaid Cymru, when they were expected to win.
• Most of the above could be thrown up in the air with the unpredictable Trump and his approach to global politics.

So, there you have it. All a big mess. No wonder voters tune out of politics…

No Trump analysis today. This blog can’t face it except to say his rambling, bizarre, boastful speech, packed full of untruths, at the United Nations yesterday says it all…

So, over the English Channel to France. France is one of my favourite countries. It is the America of Europe (except for oil) in terms of natural geographical/geological advantages. A Mediterranean and Atlantic coastline, beautiful mountain ranges, varied, outstanding countryside and that is before you get to the wine and food and its rich cultural heritage. Throw in France’s relative low population compared to the more crowded UK, and it seems it has everything going for it.

Except…

Macron fails to land any punches against his opponents…

Its economy and politics, inextricably linked, are in a mess and Macron from the centre-ground who promised so much has ended up being a near disaster. Let’s run through a few of France’s challenges:

• Its debt-to-GDP ratio is 114.1 percent, second only to Greece and Italy in Europe and way higher than the UK’s 96.1 percent. This is forecast to rise to 118 percent in 2026. French debt has recently been downgraded by ratings agencies and the cost of debt is now Euro 67 billion per annum.
• There is no political consensus to reduce these levels of debt. Macron has had seven prime ministers during his presidency (five in the past two years), several falling on their sword due to the rejection of budget cuts. The last premier, Francois Bayrou, lost his job earlier this month trying to push reductions in government expenditure through parliament, being soundly defeated in the process.
• Politics is spiralling out of control and national strikes are commonplace as voters reach for the extremes out of frustration at the inability of mainstream politicians to govern effectively. As the centre-right/centre-left have imploded, the far-right and far-left now control nearly 60 percent of the National Assembly since Macron’s rash decision to call elections in 2024. It means Macron can get nothing done. See above.
• Economic challenges mount. The countryside is emptying out leaving extensive rural poverty behind, fuelling political extremism. Industrial competitiveness is declining sharply, bureaucratic inefficiencies remain untackled. The generous welfare state remains totally unaffordable. It is only a matter of time before the country faces a potentially huge fiscal crisis.
• Europe will hold its breath at the next presidential election. The far-right National Rally gained 33.9 percent of the vote last time and represented by Jordan Bardella, replacement candidate for the currently barred Marine Le Pen, is polling 10 percent ahead in current opinion polls over the far-left. Moderates are nowhere.

In the UK, we may have a deeply unpopular government which keeps shooting itself in the foot but there is a consensus across most parties that many of our similar problems to France’s need tackling and, indeed this is slowly happening. We have four years of relatively stable politics to go to head off the populist threat from Nigel Farage who, to be fair, is probably more benign than the National Rally.

It is worth remembering there are some positives to being in the UK. Just look at our closest neighbour across the channel…