Filling a vacuum in a post-Brexit world with thoughtful centre-right political commentary from a senior political adviser who is founder of an international marketing and media relations consultancy.
The only place that makes you pathetically grateful for the level of political debate in the UK is America.
It’s an extraordinary comment you might think, but viewing things from the perspective of a business trip to New York, politics is dire over here. Two presidential candidates almost nobody wants; one a convicted felon, the other feebly tottering through public life, resting heavily on cue cards.
Two candidates few voters want but Trump is the real danger to America’s future…
The real difference, however, is that Biden is a decent man who has actually had a successful presidency, with the exception of the lack of border controls that might do for him in the end. The economy is booming, partly powered by green investment initiatives, and much needed infrastructure rebuilding is finally happening. He is also managing the Middle East crisis and Ukraine as best he can.
But Biden gets no credit. The impact of inflation, not his fault, still lingers, and illegal immigration dominates public discourse even with Democrat voters I have spoken to. This is now being addressed through an executive order, but it should have been a priority from day one. Biden looks and sounds too old for a second term, and moderates are in despair at the gamble Democrats are taking with him that may let Trump triumph.
As for Trump. He is a grotesque. Nothing truthful comes out of his mouth. He is a narcissist who doesn’t care a jot for the institutions of state or, for that matter, democracy and the voters who vote for him. He is setting community against community and voter against voter. Think an extreme version of Brexit. Yet he is marginally ahead of Biden in the polls and has just raised US$140m in donations on the back of his conviction.
You just despair for the future of this amazing country. Voters are taking for granted all they have, and it feels we are witnessing the start of the collapse of an empire. cAD400 all-over again…
Trump and Biden need each other as they only have a chance of winning against each other. But it comes at the expense of the extreme polarisation of public discourse and the fracturing of American society.
Democrats are campaigning weakly, Republicans have shamefully been taken over by the cult of Trump’s personality.
America is looking into the abyss and there is only one way, at least in the short-term, for the country to save itself from itself.
For all Biden’s faults, America must reject Trump in November.
There is so much to write about… The ANC has lost its majority in South Africa and Trump has been criminally convicted on all 34 accounts in the hush-money case. More on the latter topic next week when I am based in New York for a few days. I can’t wait!
Now to the General Election in the UK. It has been another good week for Labour which has extended its lead in several opinion polls. Despite indications that the public likes some of the Tories’ new policy ideas such as National Service, they are making no impact on the party’s fortunes. Why is this?
The electorate has simply made up its mind. It is time for a change, and it would have to be a truly momentous incident for this settled view to be revised. Sunak is campaigning like an underdog opposition leader bouncing around with new ideas to try and attract attention. Starmer, meanwhile, is saying very little and campaigning more like a prime minister. Very wise and the contrast in styles has not escaped the notice of voters to Starmer’s benefit.
Looking and sounding tough on the hard left whilst reinstating Diane Abbott…
Of course there will be bumps in the road for Labour but one of them is not the row over whether Diane Abbott should be a formal Labour candidate or not. Actually, it has just been announced she can stand as an official Labour candidate in her constituency. A not very insightful column from Stephen Bush of the FT suggests all this brutal factionalism is showing Labour’s not very nice, machine politics side. Nonsense.
Labour has always been criticised for being too nice, not ruthless enough. Hence the Tories’ never-ending election success. The deselection of Corbyn and the row over the suspension and reinstatement of Diane Abbott just shines a light on how tough Starmer has been in clearing out the hard left. It reinforces the narrative that Labour has changed under Starmer, and nothing will get in the way of it attaining power. In other wording, despite whinging from the sidelines by a few journalists and Labour activists, Starmer emerges stronger from all this.
So far, the election campaign has been thoroughly boring. Only the TV debates and the last few anxious days in the run-up to election day will liven things up. In the meantime, round 2 to Labour.
I was a parliamentary assessor in 2017 when Theresa May called a snap election. Many seats did not have Tory candidates and we worked round the clock to get them selected, preparing for the landslide that never materialised. The lack of preparedness was understandable when an election was not due until 2020 and Mrs May had categorically ruled out an election until that walking holiday in Wales changed her mind…
But there is no excuse this time. There was always going to be an election this year so how come the Tory Party apparently has no candidates in place in 150 seats? Crazy. Of course there are always safe seats which become vacant at the last minute which is very helpful to drop in well-connected, favoured Party stars but the Tory Party essentially starts this campaign with about a third of seats unfilled. Hopeless. It shows there is a fundamental disconnect between No. 10 and the Party organisation.
Then the National Service announcement, already being watered-down. This policy is not without merit but it sums up the Tories’ problems of being in office. If it is such a good idea, why wasn’t it thought of earlier? It has surprised the Tory troops trying to get a grip of the detail. And we know how well that goes down. Just ask Theresa May about the social care policy dropped on a surprised Cabinet at the start of her 2017 campaign.
A decent man all at sea…
Starmer sounds confident, the Labour campaign appears slick, the LibDems are buzzing around Surrey and the South West. Gove, Leadsom, Redwood, all Brexiteer anarchists leaving a mess behind them, have jumped ship. Sunak sits in pubs but does not drink, breakfasts in cafes but does not eat and pops up in the Titanic Quarter in Belfast. What is he doing there FFS? There are no votes to be had in Northern Ireland.
Of course it could all change… at least a little. A 6 week campaign is a long time in politics… But, today, it is round 1 firmly to Labour.
You have to give it to Rishi. He is a political risk taker. Bringing back Cameron whilst pleading change, cancelling HS2 to Manchester when in… Manchester, getting the government off people’s backs whilst banning smoking. It has worked so well so far… not.
So now the big election gamble. He announced the date in the rain, looking faintly ridiculous whilst also really irritating his colleagues with the surprise. Speaking to some Tory MPs, their mood is furious as their careers are cut short by four months for no perceivable election advantage.
Meanwhile, Starmer stood in a dry room draped in the British flag, looking like a slightly dull but competent PM in waiting.
An inauspicious start…
And yet, and yet… you never know. Elections can be unpredictable. Just ask Theresa May. But this election feels different. After 14 years in government when the Conservative Party has often conducted itself disgracefully, the desire for change is palpable.
And, outside campaign surprises, what will be the main themes that will shape the election? They are straight forward. The debate will centre on that theme of change versus the devil you know but, sadly, for the Tories, not the benefits of their economic stewardship.
As Sky News explained clearly yesterday, despite falling inflation, prices are still rising, and the cost of living has risen 20% during Sunak’s premiership. It will take much longer than 4th July to feel any improvement. Just look at Biden’s languishing poll ratings in the US where, despite a booming economy, the longer-term impact of rising prices still dictates the political narrative. Unlike Sunak, however, who has just closed the door on this option, at least the President has until November to turn things around and see off his opponent.
The public is heartedly sick of the Tories, and it won’t be the credibility of Labour that is at stake but the credibility of the Tories. Against this background, Starmer will win. Only the scale of victory is in doubt.
P.S. We have just heard that no flights will take off to Rwanda before the election. The timing of the election just gets worse for the Tories…
In The Times yesterday, surveying the wreckage of the local election results, Rishi Sunak was quoted as saying Britain was heading for a hung parliament at the general election with a Labour government having to be propped up by smaller parties. Nice try, Rishi, but you have got to be joking…
It could barely have been worse for the Tories…
The results were a disaster for the Tories. The fact that Labour only got 34% of the vote is irrelevant, being obscured by all sorts of local factors that won’t be repeated at a general election. Labour won almost everywhere they had to, often very comfortably and the LibDems and Greens had good results too. What was remarkable is that Labour, in particular, for the first time in a generation, are distributing their votes efficiently rather than simply piling them up in inner cities where they were already doing well. That is a very, very bad omen for the Tories.
The clear message is that most voters are heartedly sick of the Tories and will go to any lengths to get rid of them. It really doesn’t matter how relatively unpopular Starmer is versus Blair in his hey day. It is time for a change and the huge anti-Tory coalition will swing into place ruthlessly in the Autumn voting tactically to wreak the most damage; LibDems in the South/South West and Labour everywhere else including Scotland which of course wasn’t voting last week. Reform UK will undercut the Tories from the Right, everyone else from the Left. Oh dear indeed…
This blog currently predicts not a hung parliament but a Tory wipe-out. They will be lucky to survive with a 150 seats.
And only some while after the next election will the Tories get interesting again. Every government needs a decent opposition and Labour with an inherited economic mess and no clear mandate in terms of policy commitments will quickly become unpopular. There may at least be some curiosity about what lessons the Tories have learnt from their defenestration.
The problem is that, today, there are very few indications from leading Tories they will learn anything. With rumours of a Johnson/Farage realignment of the Right of politics using the vehicle of a hugely weakened Tory Party a year or too hence, with good moderate Tories going/gone (the former West Midlands mayor, Andy Street, being one of these) and the existing left of the Tory Party seemingly (self) defeated, the Labour Party regardless of their competence may be in power for a very long time.
Time for a new centre-right party you might think. Well, however laudable, we have been here before and it seems as likely as one of Sunak’s unintended jokes about a hung parliament.
The blog has been quiet for a while. Western politics generally has been transparent if unedifying, particularly from afar, and there has been little new analysis to add. This will change as we run run up to the two big events, elections in the UK and US. Although, one shouldn’t ignore Modi’s likely win in India and his increasingly autocratic tendencies. Or the potential success of the Far Right in Europe. But another time.
The past month has been spent on a mini sabbatical across South America with a few days in Miami at the end. It is sadly over but the travels were constantly fascinating for where else can you find extreme mountain, desert, and jungle conditions lying cheek by cheek. Oh, and great wine, of course…
And then the people. As I crossed Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, and now Columbia, what did I find from chatting to all and sundry?
The consistent themes in lively conversations were pressures from corruption, climate change, and migration, but also optimism as these countries increasingly embrace and celebrate social diversity.
First corruption, the fuel of inequality. Why don’t leaders just take 50 million dollars out of the system rather than billions and genuinely transform their country, leaving a legacy money can’t buy?
Argentina’s leaders, whether past military or civilian, with so much resource, have squandered billions over decades, buying off parts of the poorer electorate in the process to hold power. The banking system is screwed, and nobody keeps their money in the country if they can avoid it (even my guide had a Costa Rican bank account for tips!). One perfect example of corruption is the railway system. Sold off in the 1990s by the faintly ridiculous President Menem to corrupt property speculators, most of it was promptly shut down. With similar ‘initiatives’ elsewhere, you can really only travel long distances in South America by plane.
Many voters in Argentina have now turned to the extreme libertarian president Milei to unravel a bloated, bankrupt state, but he has no majority in Congress and frankly seems a bit of a joke. His victory according to those I spoke to comes out of despair…
Corruption in Chile is also rife, but with a better functioning economy based on a middle class, that has survived past army rule (although Pinochet’s son still runs land and companies given to him during his father’s reign!). The current left-wing president, Boric, who, like Milei, can also get nothing past Congress, now has rumoured corruption problems of his own.
Columbia’s recent past is in many respects, surprisingly similar to Chile and Argentina. Often extreme left and right participants but with the added unique twist of a history rooted in drug related guerilla and paramilitary warfare, now hugely moderated, corruptly fight over the spoils of an otherwise upwardly mobile country. A corruption scandal involving the son and brother of the current, first leftist president Petro, an ex M-19 guerilla member, linked to guess what, drug related finance, is currently unfolding.
Almost without exception, everybody I have conversed with seems cynical and weary of politics and politicians, knowing that if anything gets done properly, it is unlikely to be by the government.
In passing, I mentioned to the guides on my tour that there was a huge corruption scandal in the UK. The deputy leader of the Labour Party allegedly defrauded the taxpayer of £1500 ten years ago. The incredulity on their faces…
Then climate change and migration. The continent in many places I visited is drying out and not simply due to the El Nino effect, as temperatures rise. Unseasonal water shortages are now common. Migration is also a huge problem, particularly from basket case Venezuela. Oh, for the firm smack of a Rwandan policy… It is causing pressures everywhere, as are economic disparities between countries generally. Fertile ground for the drugs trade, although its impact has fragmented and crossed borders, notably now causing chaos in Ecuador rather than Columbia.
Finally, diversity and inclusion, an upbeat note on which to end. All countries I visited have benefitted from protests by younger generations over the past two decades or so, sick of corruption, violence, and repression. Notably, in Chile and Columbia, in different measures, the fight back has led to a focus on women’s rights, gay rights, articulated through a vibrant arts scene, all driven by enlightened political discourse.
For all the lost opportunities and challenges this continent faces, the mood is largely upbeat, and mostly thanks to the efforts of the younger generation, the future looks bright.
South American politics comes to the USA…
A postscript on Miami… Whilst there the Trump ‘hush money’ court case began in New York plus Trump’s challenge to guarantee full presidential immunity unfolded in the Supreme Court. Incredible that this man is still ahead in the polls with the latest one giving him a 6% lead. Only the hush money trial will now be heard before the election, so you really have to hope it resonates and that in the end Americans vote with their heads not their hearts. Otherwise, we are all up the proverbial creek without a paddle…
There has been no blog for the past few weeks. The trajectory of politics has been pretty predictable and there has been nothing to add; the gradual demise of today’s Tories, the rise of Trump and the truly vile anti-West right-wing Republicans, the permanence of Putin and populism on the march in Europe.
But having spent some time with senior Tories recently, the sheer disaster awaiting them at the next Election is clearly coming into view and they know they can do nothing about it. This will be no 1992 all over again. The Tories will be routed and 1997 may evoke fond memories for them in comparison.
Ah, I hear people say, there is no appetite for Starmer. It doesn’t matter. The public is so heartedly sick of the Tories, Labour will storm it whether it is partly due to Tories staying at home (similar to 1997) or the rise of Reform UK or the rise of the LibDems in the South or the collapse of the SNP in the North.
Interestingly, Sky News do a tracking poll of 33 voters who voted Tory in 2019. Nine are switching to Labour and five to Reform. On this small sample alone, the Tory vote will be down by over 40%. Interesting, really, that we seem to be the only major democracy currently moving mostly to the left even if it is without enthusiasm.
Holding a sword… a key attribute apparently to becoming the next Tory leader…
But it can hardly be surprising. The behaviour of senior Tories is appalling, now contemplating another change at the top from the decent if increasingly politically hapless Sunak. Penny Mordaunt is the next sacrificial lamb mooted as leader, her key merit being she held a sword aloft very well at the Coronation. You really can’t write the script…
To some extent it is Sunak’s fault. He is no Tory left-winger but in trying to ingratiate himself with the Right he has simply earned their contempt. He should have stood up to them from the start. If they felt Johnson and Truss were ok why did he think they would ever accept him? Let them clear off to Reform if they have to. It will ultimately be a political dead-end.
The only silver lining, first highlighted by the excellent Stephen Bush in the FT, is that post-election there is a small chance the Tories move to the centre-ground as right-wingers amongst the grassroots head elsewhere. Certainly, analysis shows the parliamentary party will not move much to the Right in composition if it is defenestrated. Umm…, I am not so sure. It partly takes ruthlessness from moderates to seize control of the Tory Party and there is currently no evidence they are up for the fight.
Hey ho. It feels like an exciting year ahead politically but one where no one really gets what they want!
No one political event this week requires a dedicated blog. Three occurrences have all raised issues of importance, none of which fill you with optimism…
The tin ear of Sunak
This blog rated Sunak as a competent technocrat who would restore a degree of sanity to the Conservative Party. At the same time, it also predicted he wouldn’t particularly resonate with the electorate. Too true. His lack of political nous is somewhat of an understatement. He has tried to re-boot his premiership many times in many different directions and yet to no beneficial effect whatsoever. He was to be the competent steady ship with a firm grasp of economics, but then became an agent of change, cancelling HS2 of all places in Manchester and announcing a longer-term ban on smoking having just said he wanted to cut government interference in people’s lives. Then in a huge U-turn, in comes Cameron (no change there then…) and a bunch of moderate Tories to the Cabinet having partly given up pandering to the Right of his party. The only policy Sunak has been consistent on is Rwanda, which he doesn’t even believe in, and it has been a disaster. This week, in an interview with the vile Piers Morgan, he even got drawn into a £1000 bet that he would get illegal migrants on a plane to this wonderful place before the next election. What was he thinking of?
Adding insult to injury, on Wednesday, at PMQs, still pursuing culture wars as a dividing line with Labour, Sunak makes a crass joke about transsexuality whilst the mother of the murdered teenager, Brianna, is in the parliamentary building. Oh dear. He should stick to his core economic competencies, ignore the Tory Right (they have nowhere to go this side of an election) and protect his dignity. He is no political tactician and now we all know it.
Hobson’s choice…
Labour’s £28bn U-turn
Subsidising green initiatives has been a huge boost to the US economy. But Labour has now run scared of a similar policy in the UK, which was one of its few differentiating election pledges, cancelling the commitment on Thursday. The party seems to stand for nothing now except not being the Tories. Starmer comes across as believing in very little, has created confusion about what he wants to achieve in government and, frankly, looks shifty. The Tories are in such a dire mess, it probably won’t make any difference come election time. Labour is set for a huge victory, but it bodes ill for its competence in government.
Biden’s cognitive decline
This blog thought he could get away with it. Biden would beat Trump regardless, having actually run (even if by delegation) a competent administration. Trump has his own issues with cognitive decline, and, in a highly polarising election, voters would ultimately rally around Biden in the face of the awful consequences of a second Trump presidency.
Hobson’s choice again…
This may still be the case but just recently Biden has mixed up Mitterrand with Macron, Kohl and Merkel and Ukraine with Iraq. Now, devastatingly, the Special Counsel appointed to examine Biden’s handling of top secret files found he had mishandled them but declined to pursue a legal case on the basis his memory has “significant limitations” and accordingly Biden would present himself “as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”. In a press conference to dismiss these findings, the outraged Biden subsequently confused the presidents of Mexico and Egypt when asked to comment on the Middle East. Oh dear indeed. Three quarters of voters, whilst being no fans of Trump, have voiced serious concerns about Biden running again. It seems the Democrats are taking a huge gamble with Biden, and it is at the whole world’s expense.
Under Blair, we had Alastair Campbell, under Brown we had Damian McBride, under Johnson we had Dominic Cummings, and then Dougie Smith has emerged under everyone from Cameron onwards. Campbell eventually tried to bring down Brown, McBride tried to bring down Blair, Cummings tried to bring down Johnson in cahoots with Smith and now Smith is trying to bring down Sunak.
Confused? Who are these people who wield enormous influence, often patronising and bullying elected politicians including their theoretical masters?
Special Advisers: now a deeply unhealthy part of the UK’s political system
They are political geeks known as Advisers or Special Advisers (SPADs) who normally live in the shadows, wielding power by obsessively plotting on behalf of or against the very people they are employed by. Their role is justified by being political advisers rather than having to follow the civil service code of impartiality. Most have spent their life in politics from a very young age, can do a great job in policy terms whilst remaining unknown to the public. Some are known to the public, have a very high opinion of themselves and actively seek to subvert the democratic process. They have grown in number as senior politicians require and have been allowed to acquire more partial support in grappling with the increasing complexities of government.
The best known, of course, is Alastair Campbell who became Downing Street Press Secretary under Blair, followed by Dominic Cummings, who became Chief Adviser to Boris Johnson. One can argue that despite their deep unpleasantness and undue influence, they had a useful background in journalism or getting Brexit done. But that was never enough when, with ruthless arrogance, they played on and reflected the insecurities of their respective Prime Ministers. Their ends did not justify their means.
Then there is the publicity-shy Dougie Smith who to his horror has just been exposed by the media in his alleged lead role as knifer of Sunak. He started his political career, like several of today’s senior Tories, in the notorious Federation of Conservative Students (FCS) in the 80s, eventually shut down by Norman Tebbit of all people, for extremism. Smith was a radical libertarian who hated and still hates moderate Tories. He was arrested for making death threats against a fellow FCS member and ran swingers parties before becoming a speech writer to Cameron. Either because of, or despite of, being intimidating, even threatening, he has inexplicably been attached to Downing Street for years.
Such individuals should have no role in a healthy, accountable political system. These so called senior special advisers are out of control, wielding huge power free from scrutiny until it is too late. Elected politicians, even Prime Ministers, can live in fear of the most influential ones, monsters they have often created themselves. And, specifically in the case of Dougie Smith? He simply reflects the rot at the heart of today’s Conservative Party.
Things seem to go from bad to worse for the Tories. They are now a stonking 27 per cent behind Labour in the latest YouGov/Times opinion poll with Reform UK on 12 per cent. They are assailed from the Right and Left, and one has to feel for Sunak. The tightrope he walks seems pretty precarious.
Who would have Sunak’s job?
But Sunak, his advisors and his backbenchers just make things worse. The focus on the Rwanda deportation scheme for illegal migrants, for example, is a disaster. Squeezing the Bill through the House of Commons last week finally by a majority of 44 just confirms Sunak’s weakness. It was excruciating to witness the aggressive interventions from some 60 Tory MPs saying the Bill wasn’t strong enough before finally pushing it through. Nobody, least of all the public, think the scheme is going to work despite spending £240 million to date. When the President of Rwanda, seeing his country constantly getting trashed in the media, has had enough you know the game is up. The Bill will go to the House of Lords, get amended, come back to the House of Commons, get passed, and then will be challenged in the courts. It is highly unlikely a single person will be deported to Rwanda this side of the election.
And the bizarre thing is that the government has had some success with illegal migrant channel boat crossings. They are down by a third in the past year but all the noise over Rwanda has hidden this.
Keir Starmer just has to sit back and watch the Tories implode, now helped by another intervention from ex-cabinet minister Sir Simon Clarke. Writing in The Telegraph he describes Sunak as “leading the Conservatives into an election where we will be massacred” and urges him to step down. Oh dear indeed.
The only hope for the Tories is that Reform UK’s polling at 12 per cent, which would cost them dozens of seats, is exaggerated. There is some evidence for this but even that won’t save them.
Footnote on Trump
For some time, Trump has been the clear favourite to win the Republican nomination. Whilst the size of his victories in Ohio and New Hampshire is depressing, there is a long way to go before November. Whether Nikki Haley stays in the race or not through to Super Tuesday in March (she will probably get a thrashing in her home state of South Carolina) will provide some insight into Trump’s perceived viability throughout the year. The two issues will be whether Trump is still the candidate by November and whether Biden can still beat him. We are no closer to knowing the answer to these two questions despite the primary events of the last couple of weeks.
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