It's Going To Be a Miserable Autumn
Starmageddon is coming and it's not pretty; we're on the slippery slope to serfdom.
Sir Keir Starmer’s government is avoiding Margaret Thatcher’s self-confessed mistake of not being bold enough when first in office. Unfortunately for us, while Lady Thatcher ended the failed socialist state of the 1970s, Sir Keir wants to reintroduce it, with a woke twist and an alarming predisposition to totalitarianism.
That Rachel Reeves has inherited an economic mess is no surprise to anyone who can count. Her political problem is that the underlying cause of the mess is an over-large, over paid and underperforming state machine. That’s made worse by the accumulated debt of the past 25 years generating a £100 billion per year interest bill (some 10% of government spending). Unfortunately for her the only solution to the problem is spending restraint and rapid economic growth. Labour is the party of state spending, so restraint is unlikely. That means tax rises, which deter investment. Worse, courtesy of Mad Ed Miliband, Labour is also the party of net zero, which means more expensive energy and thus further constrained growth.
The economic imperative is to balance the budget, making spending equal tax receipts. In round terms the current overspend is running at some £100 Bn a year. The current tax take, as a percentage of GDP, is about 34% and rising (OBR data). Do the maths and you find balancing the budget with today’s spending requires an increase in GDP of about £300 billion. The UK’s GDP is £2,300 billion so balancing the budget needs growth of 13%. That’s far larger than the 8% growth achieved in the Lawson boom in the late 1980s.
Worse, UK government spending in the Lawson Boom was about 35% of GDP; today it’s 45%, meaning that the growth required from the private sector (the only bit of any economy that creates wealth) is about twice what the Lawson boom delivered. It’s not impossible, although it hasn’t happened before. It’s far from likely with any government, let alone one hell bent on increasing energy costs while borrowing to pay the interest on its accumulated debt. The Lawson boom was possible only because of the previous years’ economic hardship, denationalisation and spending restraint.
Thatcher’s government had majorities of 44 in 1979, 144 seats in 1983 and 102 seats in 1987 so she had the political power to push policies through (until she was stabbed in the back). Starmer’s majority is 151 (down form 158 as as he suspended seven MPs for voting against the two child benefit cap). He has the political power to force through cuts. Unfortunately his government is in hoc to the public service unions, awash with cronyism and donors who expect their generosity rewarded.
We can expect more sordid revelations about Labour’s looming donor gate . It reeks of the rotten boroughs of the 18th century and absolute corruption, whereas Partygate was hypocrisy and tasteless stupidity. The earlier expenses scandal was mere individual greed. While donorgate will run and run and probably tarnish many while further lowering the public’s esteem for parliament it’s unlikely to eradicate Labour’s majority or force an election.
The Telegraph reports that on Tuesday Sir Keir is going to set out his plan for dealing with the rot that is at the heart of Britain, and that things will get worse before they get better. Presumably his advisers thought it best not to mention this (or any other policy) in the election campaign. Apparently he’s going to upgrade the (alleged) surprise £22 billion “black hole” to a “societal” one. I look forward to discovering what a societal black hole is. I doubt Sir Keir sees it as one in which an out of control public sector gets pay rises without performance, or one in which two tier policing is the norm or in which obscene pay rises for train drivers (possibly the most pampered workers in the country - and the most easily replaced by a robot) come at the cost of pensioner’s income. Or one in which the Post Office Horizon disgrace occurred (on Starmer’s watch as Director of Public Prosecutions).
Apparently he will castigate “populism”, which he blames for fuelling this summer’s minor riots. Populism is leftie speak for libertarian capitalists and Brexiteers, on whom the wrath of Starmer’s unpleasant government is firmly focused. This is a fundamental part of their plan – it was one of the few themes mentioned by Torsten Bell in his Swansea victory speech. I fear that Starmer (and Sue Gray, the eminence grise behind him) will be turning the power of the state on any who oppose his beliefs. The recent use of terror laws against the rioting “far right”, whatever that is, feels uncomfortably close to the suppression of free speech.
Yvette Cooper is now contemplating making misogyny a terrorist act. Why? Is extreme misogyny a threat to the nation? Are the current laws failing? How is Ms Cooper proposing to define misogyny when neither she, the Prime Minister nor the Olympic commission are clear on what a woman actually is? Perhaps the allure is that anti-terror laws are draconian and the formidable powers of the agencies combatting terrorism, primarily MI5 and GCHQ, are necessarily beyond those of the police investigating and preventing normal crime. The reach of the terrorism act 2000 is already alarmingly wide - read it here. It’s a lot easier for Starmtroopers to accuse people of extreme misogyny than it is to win an argument about, say, the causes of climate change. I guess I’m about to find out whether Ms Cooper thinks I’m a misogynist for calling Greta Thunberg a deluded fool to whom the media and government pay far to much attention.
I agree with the Prime Minister that there is rot in our society. It starts at the top, with an electoral system that places people in power due to their connections (and cash), not their ability and experience. The Oxford humanities clique dominates the upper echelons of politics, government service and too much of the media. The House of Lords is packed with cronies and donors, not people of proven ability. The government routinely suppresses those who question policy, be it net zero, the efficacy and safety of covid vaccines, the utility of the Ukraine war or the wisdom of mass immigration. The BBC has become a craven government propaganda machine, not a trusted scourge of the executive. Finally, of course, there is the disconnect between the number of votes received and the number of parliamentary seats. This country is in a sorry state.
Starmer’s parliamentary majority is unassailable and he lacks the personal flaws and hubris that led to Johnson’s downfall. But Starmer also lacks popular support – Johnson’s Tories won almost 14 million votes, Starmer’s Labour got under 10 million. The majority of the public who didn’t vote Labour has little representation in the House of Commons. The Conservative party is in disarray and the assorted nationalists, Lib Dems & Greens are Labour lite. Until the Conservative party gets it’s act together the core opposition will have to come from just five Reform MPs.
Starmer’s public support started small and is getting smaller; his approval rating has dropped to minus 7% since 4th July (Rachel Reeves is worse, at minus 25%). If Starmer’s majority renders effective opposition in Parliament impossible. The only option that leaves the disenfranchised is to take to the streets and protest against the electoral tyranny of Starmergeddon.
The next five years are going to be very unpleasant for the United Kingdom.
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