The Tories Are Finished - Just Beware Of False Prophets
The Truss and Kwarteng partnership is barely a month old - at least in the non-physical sense - and it’s already beginning to make the disgraced liar Johnson and Sunak circus look positively statesman-like.
Labour’s own Truss and Kwarteng - Starmer and Reeves - could be the queue-shy pairing of Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby and they would still find themselves a country mile ahead, such is the gob-smacking inadequacy of this lurid horror show of a government.
While supporters of the subversive Starmer will insist their thumping lead is down to the vision of the cacophonous quisling, the reality couldn’t be much clearer.
Nobody, not even the most ardent of Tory despiser such as you or I, could ever imagine just how devastatingly ruinous Liz Truss would be for both the people and the Conservative party.
Sure, we knew it was going to be an unmitigated disaster - you only needed a moment to reflect on Truss’s time in government to get an idea of what to expect.
But this bad and this soon?
Truss has somehow managed to effortlessly combine the awkward stiffness of Theresa May with the incompetence and arrogance of Boris Johnson.
The polls - essentially designed to influence public mood, rather than measure it - make devastating reading for the Tories and hilarious reading for anyone that hates them.
Just last week the Tories found themselves between 4 and 10 percentage points behind the Labour Party. Skip forward 7 days and the Tories are anywhere between 17 and 33 points behind Labour - the latter would leave around 60 Tory MPs in the Commons.
The pound has dropped to a record low against the dollar, the IMF has issued grave warnings, and the Bank of England had to intervene to save pension funds from collapsing, simply because of the bizarre mini-budget put forward by Kamikwasi Kwarteng, last Friday.
Truss has refused to sack her chancellor, or even consider changing the policy of implementing tax cuts that benefit the wealthy during a cost of living crisis while offering absolutely nothing to the poorest and the low paid workers.
Truss should also ask her Chancellor what he was doing meeting up with the hedge fund serpent, Crispin Odey, just 3 days before she made it through to the last 2 of the Tory leadership contest. She won’t, of course, because she knew exactly what he was doing.
The media refer to Odey as “Kwarteng’s former boss”, while it might be argued that he is also his current boss.
Even the most loyal of the Starmtroopers can't quite believe their luck. It doesn’t matter how dishonest and deeply unlikable their leader is, he isn’t Liz Truss, and that is more than enough for the easily-pleased centre ground.
Starmer made a few commitments during the Labour Party conference, and the idea of publicly owned rail and a state-run electricity firm will sit well with some people.
But there’s two obvious issues here.
Firstly, tinkering around the edges will not deliver the change that Britain needs.
The British economy is like a tyre with a slow puncture. You can keep inflating it and there’s every chance you can get from A to B if you keep on top of it. But the slow puncture doesn’t magically disappear, and over time it will get worse and worse until you have a blow-out.
Kwarteng delivered our blow-out last Friday with his bankers' budget.
The tyre needs completely replacing, but Starmer is simply looking to put more air in the tyre rather than binning it off altogether.
The solution has to be permanent. Starmer’s sticking plasters will be costly with very little long term benefit to the people that need it the very most.
And then you have the fact that Keir Starmer is only one step below Boris Johnson on the ladder of liars.
The 10 pledges - each and every one of them has been ripped up and binned as if they never really existed - and they will follow Starmer around for eternity, whether he is in opposition or in government.
Perhaps you have swallowed Starmer’s latest set of commitments? I am almost envious of the fact that you are willing to put your trust into the proven fraud.
But I cannot and will not put my trust in Starmer as if the last few years never actually happened.
I remember the commitments he made just 2 years ago, and I remember him trying to justify breaking those commitments soon after.
You may well keep coming at me with rail nationalisation - I will ask you why Mike Katz - a rail industry lobbyist - sat directly behind Keir Starmer for his keynote speech, and I will ask you why shadow transport ministers were having meetings with companies such as Trainline, the same day that Labour announced the new policy.
I’m sure you’ll have the answers for me.
You may well come at me with the horrific state of the NHS and how Labour will save it from going down the pan - I will ask you how much of Tory Blair’s PFI schemes are we still paying for, and why has the Labour Party committed to further NHS privatisation in government?
Perfectly reasonable questions, no?
What about Starmer suggesting he would keep the 1p cut in income tax for lower earners? Are you going to tell me this is a sign of a radical and progressive government-in-waiting, or shall we just forget about the refusal to increase corporation tax and the failure to put forward a credible wealth tax policy?
I know what you’re thinking… What about “Great British Energy”? Whoopee-fucking-do. What about our mail? What else can we give back to the British people following a lifetime of failed neoliberal ideology?
Why wasn’t there any mention of returning water to public ownership?
I’ve always thought the idea behind privatisation was to open up the market to competition. Am I wrong, or has the definition changed?
I ask you, if you’re fed up with being overcharged for the water you use sparingly, who else can you call up to get a quote for the supply of this essential service?
Exactly.
Britain’s biggest water supplier, Thames Water, owned by investment firms from China and Abu Dhabi, is £12.9 billion in debt, and pays their CEO an eye-watering £2 million a year.
The water companies leak some 2.4 billion litres, every single day, and your bill goes up year upon year to pay for these leaks, and rewarding the big shareholders, obviously.
The argument for nationalising water isn’t some madcap communist throwback plot to seize the means of production but simply a common sense proposal that is supported by a majority of the country.
I haven’t mentioned the failure to pledge to abolish tuition fees, have I? Nor have I mentioned Labour still not promising more than a £10 an hour minimum wage - Rachel Reeves’s hyperbole isn’t policy.
You will remember it wasn’t that long ago that Keir Starmer was standing on a picket line demanding £15 an hour for McDonalds workers.
£15 an hour should be the bare minimum. The Labour Party should be leading the fight to increase the living standards of the lowest paid workers. Now is not the time for timidity.
You can accuse me of ideological purity as if it’s a bad thing, I really don’t mind. If having principles is no longer in fashion, so be it, but I will never abandon my own beliefs because power without principles is a power not worth having.
There always does come a point where enough of the public become sick of the sight of the Tories. This isn’t a new phenomenon. The public had enough of Tory rule in 1997 and they had enough of Tory rule in 2010.
That’s not a typo.
I can only really finish up in one place this week.
Starmer actually said something I profoundly agree with during his conference speech.
“Don’t forgive, don’t forget.”
The Labour Files, a four-part documentary put together by Al Jazeera’s investigations unit systematically exposed the undermining of those who supported Jeremy Corbyn during his time as the leader of the Labour Party by factional unelected officials.
The anger and outrage is well justified. Most of you that are reading this can say out loud, unequivocally, “we fucking told you so.”
The only thing that hasn’t been particularly shocking is the failure by the corporate media to report on one of the biggest leaks in the history of British politics.
Islamophobia and anti-Black racism flows freely through the veins of the Labour Party, but you wouldn’t know this if you only watched the state propaganda that’s pumped out 24/7.
Think back to the vastly exaggerated claims of antisemitism and the media coverage that came with it. Newsnight specials, Panorama, Margaret Hodge touring the studios, the press constantly camped out on Jeremy Corbyn’s doorstep, and for what? Mostly invented accusations of antisemitism?
So where is the corporate media now? Are they working to the same hierarchy of racism that’s quite clearly entrenched within the Labour Party?
Perhaps they have decided the huge poll lead currently enjoyed by the Labour Party is insurmountable for the Tories so it’s time for them to subtly shift their support to Starmer’s centrist project?
This Labour Party of today is finally a welcoming haven for the Thatcherites that Starmer has been chasing for some time, and while that may well be all that is needed to bring Starmer to power, I remain satisfied that the Labour Party no longer relies on my vote because they have enough Tories to see them home.
I never thought I would see a time when the Tories were 33 percentage points behind in the polls and I would feel a sense of disappointment - not because of the perilous state the Tories find themselves in, for this is to be celebrated - simply because I am convinced the alternative isn’t really much better than the corrupt cabal in government today.
But here we are.
Until next time,
Rachael
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