The Death Throes of the Brexit Disaster: Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng Declare Class War on the British People
25.9.22
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Six years into the Brexit disaster, the malevolent anti-democratic forces who did so much to facilitate the success of the vote to leave the EU in June 2016 are finally where they always wanted to be: running the government, and able to implement their four prevailing obsessions: enriching the already rich at everyone else’s expense; shrinking the state (or preferably entirely obliterating the state provision of any services whatsoever); using the UK’s departure from the EU as an opportunity to scrap all the inconvenient ‘rights’ that have protected the British people and the environment from grotesque exploitation; and denying the existence of catastrophic climate change to further enrich the oil and gas companies that are driving the planet to extinction.
These anti-democratic forces, largely clustered in a handful of buildings in Tufton Street in Westminster, just a stone’s throw from Parliament, include the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), the Taxpayers’ Alliance, the Centre for Policy Studies and the Adam Smith Institute, all far-right ‘libertarian’ think-tanks representing “the extreme fringe of neoliberalism”, as George Monbiot explained in an article for the Guardian on Friday. Also related, though located 400 yards to the north, is Policy Exchange, another right-wing think-tank, and Tufton Street was also initially home to the Vote Leave campaign, which was registered there, as well as Leave Means Leave, which campaigned for a hard Brexit after the EU referendum. It is also currently home to the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF).
This latter group has been described by climate researchers and environmental groups as “the UK’s most prominent source of climate denialism”, as was explained in an OpenDemocracy article in May, when “two MPs, three Lords members and more than 70 scientists, writers, and campaign groups” sent a letter to the Charity Commission complaining that the GWPF was “not a charity but a fossil fuel lobby group”, after evidence emerged establishing that it “had received donations from a foundation with millions of dollars’ worth of shares in oil, gas and coal companies — despite claiming it would not take cash from anyone with a fossil fuel interest.”
The funding of all of these organisations — many, absurdly, run, like GWPF, as charities — is “highly opaque”, as the investigative organisation Transparify has explained, although, as with the example provided by GWPF, it’s clear that some funding comes from the fossil fuel industry, as well as from far-right US foundations committed to climate change denial.
In his article, George Monbiot pointed out how Truss has surrounded herself with representatives of these think-tanks (and further information can be found in ‘Liz Truss: The Tufton Street Candidate’, an article by Sam Bright in Byline Times in January this year). As Monbiot explained, Truss’s senior special adviser, Ruth Porter, was the communications director of the IEA, and then became the head of economic and social policy at Policy Exchange; her chief economic adviser is Matthew Sinclair, who was formerly the chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance; her interim press secretary, Alex Wild, was the research director for the Taxpayers’ Alliance; her health adviser, Caroline Elsom, was a senior researcher at the Centre for Policy Studies, and her political secretary, Sophie Jarvis, was the head of government affairs at the Adam Smith Institute.
According to Mark Littlewood, the current head of the IEA, prior to her victory in the Tory leadership contest, Liz Truss had spoken at more IEA events “than any other politician over the past 12 years”, and now that she has become Prime Minister, and has surrounded herself with staff from the Tufton Street think-tanks, their obsessions are official government policy, even though the government in question has no mandate for its extreme right-wing agenda. Truss was elected by just 81,326 members of the Conservative Party, and yet, rather than seeking approval for her plans via a General Election, she has, instead, chosen to unleash a blitz of new and almost unimaginably damaging and inappropriate policies, all bearing the hallmarks of her subservience to the Tufton Street ideology.
The energy price cap and the refusal to impose a windfall tax on energy companies
In the few hours of Parliamentary activity undertaken by the new government before the death of Queen Elizabeth II was announced, derailing Parliament for the next ten days, Truss didn’t immediately launch the kind of agenda that the think-tanks hoped for. Instead, she was obliged to announce that she was introducing an energy price cap, to prevent spiralling energy costs that otherwise looked certain to hurl two-thirds of the country into desperate and unprecedented poverty.
Had the situation been any less disastrous, she would no doubt have chosen not to do anything at all, but as the severity of the crisis managed to pierce even the dim recesses of her closed mind, she introduced a cap on energy costs for the next two years, meaning that the average household will pay about £2,500 a year rather than the endlessly spiralling costs — potentially reaching over £5,000 a year in 2023 — that would otherwise have been inflicted on consumers.
Truss also subsequently introduced a cap on the energy costs of businesses, although only, initially, on a six-month basis, which will provide little reassurance for many businesses that a viable future awaits them.
No one knows quite how much the cost of this intervention will be, but estimates from experts indicate that it will cost at least £100 billion, and maybe much more. However, while this appears generous, it is worth noting that Truss refused to fund any of it though a windfall tax on the energy companies who have seen huge and unearned profits as a result of upheavals in the energy market, no doubt to the evident satisfaction of Tufton Street’s backers. This is in marked contrast to the EU, which, on September 14, announced a windfall tax of £120 billion on the energy companies to protect its 447 million citizens from naked and unjustifiable profiteering. If Truss had done the same for the UK’s 67 million citizens, there would have been a windfall tax of £18 billion in the UK.
Instead, however, and perhaps most alarmingly — although it has barely been discussed in the media — it seems that the government intends to recoup the £100 billion it is borrowing to protect the energy suppliers through increased bills, as I explained in my article, ‘The Greatest Economic Crime in UK History? Liz Truss Caps Energy Prices By Taxing Us For Up to 20 Years Instead of Taxing Energy Companies’ Obscene Windfall Profits’, in which I suggested that, from what I was able to ascertain, we, the UK’s taxpayers, would end up paying back the loan though increased bills over the next ten to 20 years.
My conclusion was based partly on a suggestion in the Guardian, on September 6, that the debt “would be repaid by consumers, either through a surcharge on bills or from wider taxation over a 10- to 15-year period”, although just yesterday the BBC, in an article about the cap under the sub-heading, ‘How much will the energy guarantees cost and who will pay for it?, stated, “It will be paid for through increased borrowing. This is when the government raises money by selling financial products called bonds, which have to be paid back, usually after several years, with interest. This means taxpayers ultimately pay back more than the government raised.”
Expanding fossil fuel extraction
Not content with this sleight-of-hand to burden bill-payers and tax-payers for a generation to come, to protect the colossal unearned profits of the fossil fuel companies, Truss’s new government also took advantage of the energy cost crisis to announce what Truss described, in a press release announcing the “Energy Price Guarantee for families and businesses while urgently taking action to reform broken energy market”, as a promise to ”tackl[e] the root cause of the issues by boosting domestic energy supply”, which she blamed on “[d]ecades of short-term thinking on energy”, as though, for the previous 12 years, the country hadn’t in fact been run by a succession of Conservative governments.
Truss’s solutions, of course, were designed to appeal to Tufton Street’s backers, with promises to”[l]aunch a new oil and gas licensing round”, which was “expected to lead to over 100 new licences”, and also to “[l]ift the moratorium on UK shale gas production”, otherwise known as fracking, which “will enable developers to seek planning permission where there is local support”, and which, according to the press release, “could get gas flowing in as soon as six months.”
On every front, the energy announcements were profoundly dispiriting, demonstrating contempt by the government not only for its obligations to reduce carbon emissions by 2030, but also for the British people, who have persistently expressed enthusiasm not for new fossil fuel extraction, but for wind, wave and solar power, and also demonstrating an inability to think clearly because of the inflexibility of their ideology. Fracking is disastrous in every way imaginable, but it is also ridiculous to suggest that its resumption, even if “local support” can be secured, which seems highly unlikely — would “get gas flowing in as soon as six months.” New fossil fuel extraction projects take years, if not decades to become operative, along with another pet enthusiasm of the right, new nuclear power plants.
Instead, the immediate solutions are to hand — the wind, wave and solar power generation that Truss’s government and Tufton Street despise, despite their popular support and their practicality. What is also urgently required is investment in insulating the UK’s insanely leaky homes, but on renewables and insulation Truss’s choice as Business and Energy Secretary, the execrable Jacob Rees-Mogg, is silent, preferring instead to try to hoodwink Parliament into accepting fracking as both safe and necessary, as he did on Thursday, to derision not only from his political opponents, but also from many of his own backbenchers.
The ‘mini-budget’ delivering tax cuts for the rich
On Friday, the government’s arrogant, contemptuous disregard for everyone except the rich manifested itself via an extraordinary ‘mini-budget’ delivered by the new Chancellor, Kwazi Kwarteng, the profound recklessness of which was underscored by Kwarteng’s refusal to allow the Office for Budget Responsibility (established by George Osborne to provide “independent and authoritative analysis of the UK’s public finances”, to review the impact of the ‘mini-budget’ before it was delivered.
The centrepiece of Kwarteng’s ‘mini-budget’ was the £45 billion of tax cuts that were the relentless focus of Liz Truss’s campaigning during the dismal Tory leadership campaign of the summer, even though they were derided by her challenger, Rishi Sunak, the now-deposed Chancellor under Boris Johnson, who “consistently made the case that permanent, unfunded tax cuts would cause significant damage to the public finances and push inflation up higher”, as the Guardian explained in August, as inflation reached an eye-watering 10%, and after the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies had published a report criticising Truss’s tax cutting proposals.
Truss and Kwarteng, however, ignored all the warnings, obsessed with the deluded notion of “trickle-down economics”, which first emerged in the 1980s, and which falsely alleged that, by making the rich richer, the benefits would ‘trickle down’ to the poor. Experience has demonstrated, convincingly and repeatedly, that the ‘trickle down’ effect is an illusion — and not even its most ardent admirers ever argued that cutting taxes during a recession made economic sense.
However, when the time came for Kwarteng to endorse Truss’s deranged proposals, he went even further than expected, permanently cutting the top rate of tax from 45% to 40%, which, along with the scrapping of Sunak’s proposed national insurance rise, and a meagre 1% tax cut for lower earners, meant that, as the barrister Jolyon Maugham explained, “those earning a million a year will have £54,400 extra in their pockets after tax and NICs”, while, “[f]or those earning £25,000, the equivalent figure is about £280.”
As if this wasn’t bad enough, Kwarteng also confirmed that the cap on bankers’ bonuses, which, as the Guardian explained, was “imposed after the 2008 financial crash”, and which “capped bonuses at twice an employee’s salary”, would be scrapped, as ”part of what he calls ‘Big Bang 2.0’, a post-Brexit deregulation drive to make the City more competitive”, and also announced that he was shelving plans, introduced by Rishi Sunak, to raise corporation tax to 25% from its current rate of 19%, as well as raising the threshold at which stamp duty is paid, from £125,000 to £250,000, presumably to enable more of the newly enriched to buy second or third homes, or more buy-to-let properties with which to fleece those trapped in the private rental market.
And just to make sure that no one was in any doubt about whose side the new government is on, Kwarteng also announced that “the unemployed will see their benefits slashed if they can’t prove they’re searching for more work”, as Jonathan Freedland explained in a powerful article for the Guardian, adding that, “even though the trade unions have a fraction of their former strength”, Kwarteng also “promised legislation to shrink workers’ ability to act together yet further.”
The creation of “investment zones”
While Kwarteng’s desperate appeal to attract investors to the City and Canary Wharf ignored the damage caused by Brexit, another announcement — establishing new ”investment zones” across the country — was clearly designed to capitalise on the bonfire of workers’ rights, planning regulations and environmental concerns that the most hardcore Brexiteers always intended to impose on the UK as they delighted in cutting us off from all EU protections.
As the Guardian explained, “Businesses will receive big tax cuts and relaxed planning restrictions” in the new “investment zones”, adding, “Stamp duty will be abolished, employment taxes will be slashed, planning rules will be swept aside and companies will be able to completely write off investments in plant and machinery in the zones as part of the plans”, which are also “thought to include removing restrictions on height limits” in new developments, and “potentially ditching requirements for affordable housing alongside developments, as well as other regulations such as environmental rules.” Unmentioned, but also implicit in the plans, is the notion that workers in these “investment zones” won’t have any quaint protections against any kind of exploitation.
Since the announcement, however, the most fervent criticism of the proposals has come from environmental groups, with the RSPB leading the charge against the carving of over half of England’s land mass into “investment zones”, described as “[p]laces where anything could be built anywhere.” The RSPB also identified another future battleground, the Retained EU Laws Bill, introduced on September 22, in which “all remaining retained EU Law will either be repealed, or assimilated into UK domestic law” by the end of 2023, which “could see the end of basic protections known as the Habitat Regulations — laws that protect our birds and animals, everywhere from forests to our coasts,” As the RSPB added, “Where you live, the wildlife and places you love, from the shires to the cities — all under threat from bulldozers, from concrete.”
The full horrors of the Retained EU Laws Bill — including its assault on “important workers’ rights like holiday pay” — will hopefully be exposed and fought over in the coming months, but for now the “investment zones” plan needs tackling by those parts of the country threatened with the establishment of a kind of unfettered free market feudalism. In seeking to justify its plans, the government claimed that it “is talking to 38 local authorities in England about the plans, with 24 sites already earmarked as prospects”, including “sites at Coventry and Somerset that are hoping to attract investments in ‘gigafactories’ to make car batteries, industrial areas around existing car plants in Ellesmere Port and Sunderland, airports at Teesside and Newquay, and urban centres ranging from Blackpool and Plymouth to Workington.”
Ignored in all of this feeding frenzy is, yet again, the spectre of Brexit, which has made the UK into a profoundly unattractive place for inward investment because it is so difficult to successfully trade with the EU, with whose 27 countries the UK used to undertake half its business, but while a battle against the proposed “investment zones” is clearly required, the most immediate fallout from this hideous ‘mini-budget’ is its immediate effect on widening inequality in one of the most unequal of all the world’s supposed ‘developed’ economies, and its reception by the ultimate judges of governments’ success or failure — voters on the one hand, and the markets on the other.
Damning criticism of the ‘mini-budget’, and the reaction of the markets
Criticism of the ‘mini-budget’ was more comprehensive and damning than anything I have ever seen in response to a government’s implementation of economic policies. In his Guardian article, which he helpfully entitled, ‘Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng have made a declaration of class war’, the normally sober Jonathan Freedland pulled no punches. “Liz Truss has embarked on an ideological project so extreme that the de facto budget announced by her chancellor … amounts to a declaration of class war”, he declared, adding, “It was a reverse Robin Hood: taking from those who have least, lavishing gifts on those who have most. It is morally indefensible, economically reckless and so politically risky as to suggest a death wish.”
From the US, the former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers told Bloomberg, “It makes me very sorry to say, but I think the UK is behaving a bit like an emerging market turning itself into a submerging market. Between Brexit, how far the Bank of England got behind the curve and now these fiscal policies, I think Britain will be remembered for having pursuing the worst macroeconomic policies of any major country in a long time.”
As for voters, Byline Times’ Adam Bienkov noted that a snap YouGov poll found that 63% of voters believed that the ‘mini-budget’ “will mainly benefit the wealthy, compared to just 3% who say it will benefit poorer people more”, and that “[o]nly 19% agree it will help to grow the economy.”
More importantly, however, the markets responded with horror, with the pound falling three and a half cents to $1.09, its lowest rate against the dollar since 1985, leading Larry Summers to declare, “It would not surprise me if the pound eventually gets below a dollar, if the current path is maintained”, and adding, in a final condemnation of the government’s idiocy, “This is simply not a moment for the kind of naïve, wishful thinking, supply-side economics that is being pursued in Britain.”
The damage caused by Truss and Kwarteng also has longer-term impacts, as the Treasury now has to pay for these deranged policies by somehow persuading international investors to buy £234.1 billion of government bonds, an increase of £72.4 billion on the already eye-watering £161.7 billion planned by the Debt Management Office in April. In a sign that investors are understandably wary, as the Guardian explained, “Borrowing costs on 10-year bonds rose by more than 0.2 percentage points to trade close to 3.8%, continuing a dramatic climb under way since Liz Truss took over as prime minister.” Since the start of September, the newspaper added, “yields on benchmark UK sovereign debt have risen by almost one percentage point, significantly more than for comparable advanced economies.”
End this government now!
It’s difficult to see how Liz Truss’s government can survive this self-imposed disaster on every front, and it’s impossible, frankly, not to conclude that they deserve to be removed from office at the first available opportunity. Their failure is the sternest of rebukes to the coterie of self-satisfied, arrogant ideologues in Tufton Street, whose adherence to the most extreme form of neoliberalism is evaporating on contact with reality, and showing them all up for what they are: immature poseurs, and the prostitutes of big business.
Furthermore, as Truss and Kwarteng represent the third scraping of the bottom of the barrel since the Brexit vote (the first two scrapings producing the hapless Theresa May and the disturbingly narcissistic Boris Johnson), it’s also important to remember how all of the misery we have been enduring over the last six years is because of Brexit, and the refusal to acknowledge that it was the single most stupid act of unprovoked economic suicide by any nation in history.
Not only has it crippled British businesses, cutting them off from their largest trading partners, and led to a haemmoraging of the EU workers necessary to make Britain work, it also delivered us Boris Johnson, the only knave arrant enough to lie that he would ‘Get Brexit Done’, who then proceeded to destroy whatever integrity remained in a Tory government by lying about everything as a matter of course, and leaving the UK largely as a rudderless theme park of decline fronted by a clown.
Moreover, when Johnson was finally undone by the breadth of his casual corruption, his political demise has only served to deliver us the hard Brexiteers’ most fervent dream: pliable idiots fixated with enriching the already rich, enslaving the poor, wrecking the environment, ignoring or denying climate change, and somehow thinking that they will get away with it. Hubris — and, presumably, significant doses of sociopathy — have brought us to this point; now it is time for it all to be brought crashing down, whether through the ballot box or out on the streets.
* * * * *
Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer (of an ongoing photo-journalism project, ‘The State of London’), film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and see the latest photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here, or you can watch it online here, via the production company Spectacle, for £2.50).
In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of the documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June 2017 that killed over 70 people, and he also set up ‘No Social Cleansing in Lewisham’ as a focal point for resistance to estate destruction and the loss of community space in his home borough in south east London. For two months, from August to October 2018, he was part of the occupation of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, to prevent its destruction — and that of 16 structurally sound council flats next door — by Lewisham Council and Peabody. Although the garden was violently evicted by bailiffs on October 29, 2018, and the trees were cut down on February 27, 2019, the struggle for housing justice — and against environmental destruction — continues.
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46 Responses
Andy Worthington says...
When I posted this on Facebook, I wrote:
Here’s my latest article, a detailed analysis of the extraordinary coup staged by Liz Truss and her Cabinet, who, without a mandate from the British people, have delivered an energy price cap that will be paid for by taxpayers, and an energy policy that prioritises new fossil fuel extraction over renewables, and, via the new Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, a ‘mini-budget’ that further widens the chasm between the rich and the poor, cutting the top tax rate from 45% to 40% so that millionaires will suddenly be over £50,000 a year better off, while lower paid workers’ gains from a cut in the basic rate from 20% to 19% will be negligible, and that also cuts the cap on bankers’ bonuses that was imposed after the 2008 economic crash.
Along with these policies to enrich the already rich, Kwarteng also promised to punish the unemployed, and has also given green light to proposals to set up rights-free “investment zones” across the country — all policies drawn from the adherence of Truss and her colleagues to the far-right ‘libertarian’ think-tanks in Tufton Street in Westminster that also helped to secure the Brexit vote.
I stress how important it is to recognise that it is Brexit that has fuelled the rise of Truss and her colleagues, because it is only outside the EU that the think-tanks’ dreams of an utterly unregulated Britain, with no workers’ rights or environmental protections, are possible, and I hope that this astonishingly shocking ‘mini-budget’ spells the beginning the end for Truss and her government — not just because of their alienation of the majority of the country, but also because they have already convinced the markets that they are fundamentally untrustworthy, sending the pound plunging to its lowest level against the dollar since 1985.
...on September 25th, 2022 at 8:52 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Damien Morrison wrote:
they are vile miscreants
...on September 26th, 2022 at 10:55 am
Andy Worthington says...
Yes, and I didn’t even get into what might be the most shocking aspect of this whole sordid story, Damien – how hedge funds close to the government made an absolute fortune through the collapse of the pound. It strikes me that’s actually treason.
Crispin Odey, who Kwarteng used to work for, has increased his profits by 145% on bets against UK government bonds, while the Times reported that hedge fund managers – all Truss supporters – who attended a dinner a week ago were all involved in shorting the pound on Friday, and “several made short fortunes” betting against the pound.
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/odeys-hedge-fund-soars-145-bets-against-uk-bonds-sources-2022-09-22/ https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1573740530906849285
...on September 26th, 2022 at 10:56 am
Andy Worthington says...
Damien Morrison wrote:
ffs utter utter stinking vermin .they are plundering the country … and they are getting away with it
they are profiting from the ruination of a country
...on September 26th, 2022 at 10:57 am
Andy Worthington says...
I had one of the worst days of my life politically on Friday, Damien. I felt so down when I realised the contempt Kwarteng and Truss have for everyone except the richest people in society, and how much they see the entire country as a post-Brexit opportunity for maximum exploitation – and punishment for the least fortunate. One particular eye-opening moment came when Richard Fuller MP, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, told Tom Swarbrick of LBC that anyone who isn’t an entrepreneur is a “plodder”: https://twitter.com/davidharbourne/status/1573591559320240130
...on September 26th, 2022 at 10:57 am
Andy Worthington says...
Jane Ecer wrote:
I wish there was a ‘disgust’ button …
...on September 26th, 2022 at 10:58 am
Andy Worthington says...
I think you may have pressed it by leaving the country when the Wicked Witch of Grantham started it all off, Jane, although her political children’s callousness and fiscal incompetence would have shocked her. Thatcher’s still the root cause of the UK’s misery, but her successors behave like the very worst spoilt children of the rich – colossally arrogant, colossally entitled, and almost mind-bendingly stupid.
...on September 26th, 2022 at 10:59 am
Andy Worthington says...
James Castle wrote:
Andy, I listened to Richard Fuller and it’s contemptible that someone as educated has lost all reference to the basic building blocks of civilisation.
...on September 26th, 2022 at 10:59 am
Andy Worthington says...
They’re all coming out of the closet, James, with their curdled vision of the whole of the UK as ‘The Apprentice’, as though only venture capitalists have worth, and everyone involved in the social glue that holds civil society together – doctors, nurses, teachers, cleaners, the list goes on and on and on – are actually worthless because of their lack of selfish ambition.
...on September 26th, 2022 at 11:00 am
Andy Worthington says...
Damien Morrison wrote:
pitiful kwazimodo just like the pitiful Sunak Patel Cleverly Javid Braverman … sat on the floor under the table … at the feet of their former colonial/slave masters … each one more desperate to prove how tough they are how righteous they are … and the truth is no matter how brutal they act … they will never never never ever be allowed … to sit at the table … these old rich … white men … hate them as much as they hate the poor as much as they hate anyone who isn’t one of them … Kwarteng is just a useful stooge [for now] the moment he says the wrong thing or is of no use he’s … out … they’re not your friends Kwarteng … you’re not one of them you’re other to them … and that includes the miserable white working class stooges like Jonathan Gullis he also will never be allowed to sit at … their … table he like Kwarteng will sit under the table at their feet. Gullis can puff his chest out and … act … as hard as he can … he’s just muscle and the moment he says the wrong thing and is of no further use then just like Kwarteng … he’s out … these wealthy old rich white tories are nobody’s allies and have loyalty to no one
...on September 26th, 2022 at 11:04 am
Andy Worthington says...
Yes, well said, Damien. You touch on a troubling phenomenon I’ve noticed with a lot of the Tories we’ve had to endure since Brexit – they’re aspiring outsiders who, when allowed to enter the world of the traditional elite (the Etonians) at Oxford and Cambridge, behave like evangelical converts, falling over themselves in their eagerness to parrot the traditional elite’s callous sense of superiority, which, to them, is actually as normal as breathing, and deeply embedded over generations.
As a result, they’re even more dangerous, although, as you also point out, they’re all still ultimately disposable, whatever their colour or background. Based on my own experience at Oxford in the ’80s I can absolutely confirm that the elite always know who they are, and always know who isn’t one of them.
...on September 26th, 2022 at 11:04 am
Andy Worthington says...
And to start the week off, here’s the news that Truss and Kwarteng deserve: the pound has fallen to a new low against the dollar as the Asian markets opened – $1.077. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/25/city-braces-for-more-volatility-mini-budget-rocks-pound-parity-dollar-bond-tax
...on September 26th, 2022 at 11:06 am
Andy Worthington says...
Jane Ecer wrote:
Great article Andy – thank you once again.
...on September 26th, 2022 at 11:07 am
Andy Worthington says...
I’m glad you appreciate it, Jane. It took two days of darkness to get it all down. I felt compelled to record it, like some sort of scribe of my country’s self-inflicted apocalypse. What monsters Brexit has unleashed, and still the Labour Party, now holding their conference in Liverpool, won’t talk about it.
...on September 26th, 2022 at 11:07 am
Andy Worthington says...
Ed Calipel wrote:
Not a day passes without an event that in more civilised times would have led to a resignation, a scandalised nation; now it’s just business as usual.
...on September 26th, 2022 at 11:07 am
Andy Worthington says...
And the mainstream media plays such a big role in that, Ed – the Mail, the Sun and the Telegraph conspiring to support whatever nonsense the latest Brexit-addled government comes up with, the BBC perpetually cowed, and the ‘liberal’ media failing to recognise that, when faced with far-right subversion from deep within the governing elite, being polite, and still offering platforms to the mouthpieces of this subversion in the name of ‘balance’ and ‘objectivity’, is actually facilitating it.
...on September 26th, 2022 at 11:08 am
Andy Worthington says...
The pound fell briefly below $1.04 overnight, but has now recovered slightly, standing at $1.075. One knock-on effect of the startling lack on confidence in Truss and Kwarteng’s deranged government in the financial markets is the expectation that the Bank of England will end up having to raise interest rates to 6%, which, of course, will be hugely destructive for the growth Kwarteng claims to want, but will, of course, be entirely his own fault for ignoring the impact of extraordinary and unjustifiable borrowing during a period of savage inflation.
Paul Donovan, the chief economist of UBS Global Wealth Management, commented that “modern politics produces parties that are more extreme than either the voter or the investor consensus”, and that “investors seem inclined to regard the UK Conservative Party as a doomsday cult.” Wow! What a great analysis, from a major player in the banking world, both about the corrosive effect of right-wing “populism”, and the very specific idiocy of Kwarteng and Truss.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2022/sep/26/sterling-record-low-tax-cuts-investors-kwarteng-truss-ftse-stock-markets-business-live
...on September 26th, 2022 at 11:09 am
Andy Worthington says...
Over the weekend, astonishingly, Kwarteng hinted that he had plans for even more tax cuts for the rich, which Larry Elliott, the Guardian’s economics editor, has just described as “a schoolboy error.” As he explained, “If the markets are worried about the state of the government’s finances and the increase in borrowing needed to fund your plans, it is not the wisest course of action to add to those concerns. Kwarteng’s inexperience has been exposed.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/26/pound-plummet-underlines-schoolboy-error-by-kwasi-kwarteng
Kwarteng’s proposals can be found here: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/25/kwasi-kwartang-mulls-more-beneficial-tax-cuts-for-high-earners
...on September 26th, 2022 at 11:09 am
Andy Worthington says...
Hamja Ahsan wrote:
I support Brexit now. I left the Remain camp as its so deceiving. I hope we are still friends. The EU is a Neoliberal war machine too. The RMT and Mick Lynch supported Brexit too. Its a nonsense to blame it on Brexit.
...on September 26th, 2022 at 11:34 am
Andy Worthington says...
Hamja, the UK is a neoliberal war machine too, regardless of whether or not it’s in the EU. The problem is NATO, and, of course, the role played in that organisation by the US.
I don’t know, however, how you can call it a “nonsense” to blame what’s happening in the UK on Brexit. If it hadn’t been for Brexit, and the delusional promise of its sunlit uplands, we’d still be conducting politics with some connection to the real world. Instead, we had to endure Boris Johnson, who was the only clown so full of himself, and so committed to lying routinely, that he promised to ‘Get Brexit Done’, even though doing so could only heap economic misery on the UK, through trade barriers that didn’t exist in the single market. And now, because of the ongoing efforts pretend that Britain is thriving its splendid myopic isolation, we had a Tory leadership election that could only involve those who wereBrexit supporters, and, with Truss in charge, we now have the full-blown Brexiteers in charge – the puppets of the far-right ‘libertarian’ think-tanks who have always seen Brexit as the conduit to their dream of a totally deregulated UK, with no workers’ rights and no environmental protections.
It might be different if we had a written constitution, but we don’t. By scrapping all the EU laws that we were part of creating, and bound by, the UK is literally a tabula rasa for these deeply unpleasant far-right ideologues, with our only protection, if they get to complete their bonfire of EU rights, being the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights, which still have jurisdiction in the UK because of our membership of the Council of Europe. The far-right hope to get rid of that too, but that’s a long struggle in which, hopefully, they won’t succeed, or the UK will become full-on medieval again.
Have you not realised how many small- and medium-sized businesses are going to the wall because it’s simply become too complicated and too expensive to export to the EU, with which the UK used to conduct half its business? And are you not concerned about the loss of free movement, which enabled millions of Brits to work abroad, as well as allowing EU workers to live and work in the UK, taking jobs that British people still don’t want to do?
...on September 26th, 2022 at 11:35 am
Andy Worthington says...
Extraordinary watching Kwarteng and Truss refuse to engage with the fallout from their disastrous ‘mini-budget’, with Kwarteng refusing to talk to the BBC, and a spokesperson for 10 Downing Street fobbing off the media with the following: “I think that the chancellor has made clear that he doesn’t comment on the movements around the market, and that goes the same [sic] for the prime minister.” https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/26/kwasi-kwarteng-refuses-to-comment-as-pound-hits-all-time-low-against-dollar
...on September 26th, 2022 at 6:13 pm
Andy Worthington says...
All that Kwarteng has come up with today is to promise a Medium-Term Fiscal Plan on November 23 – eight weeks away! – which will, allegedly, “set out further details on the government’s fiscal rules, including ensuring that debt falls as a share of GDP in the medium term.” No explanation of how Kwarteng plans to “ensure” debt reduction, or, indeed, of how he intends to survive the next eight weeks of carnage for the UK in the markets. https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2022/sep/26/sterling-record-low-tax-cuts-investors-kwarteng-truss-ftse-stock-markets-business-live?page=with:block-6331c1648f0877eea3405a06#block-6331c1648f0877eea3405a06
...on September 26th, 2022 at 6:13 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Meanwhile, City sources have confirmed that they were surprised by Kwarteng’s announcement that the cap on bankers’ bonuses would be lifted, as “a move they had not lobbied for.” One US trader said, “They didn’t consult the banks, they just went ahead and did it.” https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/26/city-sceptical-about-benefits-of-scrapping-cap-on-banker-bonuses
...on September 26th, 2022 at 6:14 pm
Anna says...
Re 19. Hamja, I agree that the EU is on an increasingly steep slippery slope towards losing its moral high ground. But we still seem to have many more social, environmental and even economic advantages than you have post-Brexit – as Andy has pointed out so abundantly.
If you are now pro-Brexit, what new advantages do you feel it has brought the UK and more specifically yourself, your daily life ? Assuming that you are not a rich hedge-fund manager, but an ordinary citizen struggling to achieve your own goals in life – such as being able to afford comfortable housing or making sure present or future children will get a proper education, health care and an enjoyable environment – or simply struggling to make ends meet ?
I’ve been in the EU all my long life, ever since its embryonic precursor the Benelux, and while I indeed also lament its recent moral decline, I still would hate to lose that membership, were it only for the remaining critical comments or even sanctions when my own government crosses some red line. Britain unfortunately has given up that vital minimum of peer review & accountability.
Membership in any ‘club’ implies advantages and drawbacks, but I think that in the case of the EU, so far the former still outweigh the latter.
Isolation – whether ‘splendid’ or not – in the end weakens one’s position. And having one’s country become the subject of sarcastic jokes or pity, is not something I would be proud of.
...on September 26th, 2022 at 7:42 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks for that view from inside the EU, Anna. I’m not sure that many of my fellow citizens truly recognise the baleful significance of no longer being part of any meaningful relationship with our many neighbours across the Channel.
...on September 26th, 2022 at 11:46 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Kevin Hester wrote:
The pathology of these monsters contemporaneous with their mediocrity is indicative of the pathology I would expect to see of rulers at the end of a civilisation.
Truss won her role shortly after this foreign policy debacle: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10225088266926510&set=p.10225088266926510&type=3
Thank you for your courage in facing the rerise of fascism with me Andy, you’re much appreciated.
...on September 27th, 2022 at 12:09 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Great to hear from you, Kevin, and thanks for the supportive words. You make a very valid point about the mediocrity of the leaders we have now ended up with – the pliable idiot Truss, and the equally pliable idiot Kwarteng, who clearly has no grasp of economics whatsoever, who are being used in an endgame of profiteering that, we can only hope, is so extreme that they won’t get away with it.
Unfortunately, though, we’re still a long way from locating any kind of new leaders who are actually prepared to properly engage with the end times, and the need for a truly radical rethink of how we need to operate in the face of catastrophic climate change, although the Labour Party is at least making some promises to start moving in the right direction if they can get into power.
...on September 27th, 2022 at 12:10 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Peter Searles wrote:
Brilliant Andy!! Says it all. You’re a marvel! xx
...on September 27th, 2022 at 12:10 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks for the supportive words, Peter – very much appreciated!
...on September 27th, 2022 at 12:11 pm
Andy Worthington says...
In today’s news, Virgin Atlantic’s chief executive, Shai Weiss, said at a press conference, “Sometimes all of us in this room should be humble enough to say: ‘If I did something that is not working, maybe I should reverse course.’ That is not a bad thing to do. The message to Government is pretty clear in my mind. Prime Minister Liz Truss has taken difficult decisions upon entering into the role. Maybe you need to take a more difficult decision to reverse the declining pound and ensure that this country is not left with unsustainable perceived weakness in international markets, which of course then impact interest rates, impact consumers, impact mortgage rates, impact the entire economy.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2022/sep/27/sterling-crisis-markets-kwarteng-bank-of-england-mortgages-business-live?page=with:block-6332cfef8f08b1aa1d8d3447#block-6332cfef8f08b1aa1d8d3447
...on September 27th, 2022 at 12:12 pm
Andy Worthington says...
As the Guardian also reported, former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers “has warned that the UK government’s ‘utterly irresponsible’ plans could drag the pound below parity against the euro, as well as the dollar.” Summers “heavily criticised chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng for undermining credibility by saying ‘incredible things’ about planning more tax cuts”, which “pushed the pound to a record low of $1.0327 on Monday.”
In a Twitter thread, Summers stated, “I was very pessimistic about the consequences of utterly irresponsible UK policy on Friday. But, I did not expect markets to get so bad so fast.” However, he added, “A strong tendency for long rates to go up as the currency goes down is a hallmark of situations where credibility has been lost.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2022/sep/27/sterling-crisis-markets-kwarteng-bank-of-england-mortgages-business-live?page=with:block-63329dc98f0877eea340609f#block-63329dc98f0877eea340609f
...on September 27th, 2022 at 12:12 pm
Andy Worthington says...
David Knopfler wrote:
Andy, credibility was lost when the Government aided by the opposition decided not to look askance at meddling in the 2016 advisory referendum and trigger Article 50. A weak pound was inevitable right there and right then – the latest dodgy budget was just the sound of a rotting beam giving out – but the rot has been a long time in the making.
...on September 27th, 2022 at 12:22 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Oh, absolutely, David, which is why I tried to frame my article around the six years and three months since the Brexit vote, and how, after May and Johnson, it has finally delivered us what some of its most fervent supporters always wanted – a completely unregulated UK, with no rights or protections for citizens (except the very rich), and no irritating planning or environmental restrictions whatsoever.
Fortunately, as we’re seeing, on contact with reality, these malevolent dreams have evaporated in the most spectacular manner, leading the markets – who, Truss and Kwarteng thought, would embrace them – to conclude that the UK is now a lost cause. The question now is how quickly we can be rid of them before they cause even more damage.
...on September 27th, 2022 at 12:23 pm
Andy Worthington says...
David Knopfler wrote:
Andy, it was always going to end badly when they incorporated UKIP and became the English Nationalist party of f**k business. They aren’t even serving the interests of natural traditional conservative voters. It’s a clown car of amateurs who think they are “radical” because they’ve read Ayn Rand. Enough is enough.
...on September 28th, 2022 at 10:22 am
Andy Worthington says...
Yes, well said, David. The Ayn Rand reference is helpful, as her baleful philosophy of complete selfishness and greed has been poisoning US politics for decades, prior to crossing the Atlantic and landing here.
I found an amusing takedown of the cult of Ayn Rand on CBS News, which made me wonder how many of Truss and her crew had a ‘conversion’ to Objectivism in their formative years: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/top-10-reasons-ayn-rand-was-dead-wrong/
...on September 28th, 2022 at 10:22 am
Andy Worthington says...
So today’s major news is focused on a statement issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which “has launched a stinging attack on the UK’s tax-cutting plans and called on Liz Truss’s government to reconsider them to prevent stoking inequality”, as the Guardian explains, adding that, “In rare public criticism of a leading global economy, the Washington-based fund said Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget risked undermining the efforts of the Bank of England to tackle rampant inflation amid the cost of living emergency.”
The IMF said that Kwarteng’s only concession so far to criticism of his disastrous ‘mini-budget’ – a planned statement on November 23 setting out the government’s “medium-term debt-cutting plans” – presented an “opportunity for the UK government to consider ways to provide support that is more targeted and reevaluate the tax measures, especially those that benefit high income earners”, but stopped short of pointing out that eight weeks is too long for Kwarteng and Truss to continue to cling to their futile hopes that the crisis will blow over.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/27/kwasi-kwartengs-tax-cuts-likely-to-increase-inequality-imf-says
...on September 28th, 2022 at 10:23 am
Andy Worthington says...
You couldn’t make this up. After days of silence, Liz Truss undertook a number of interviews on regional BBC radio shows this morning, telling Radio Norfolk, when asked about criticism of the ‘mini-budget’, “I have to do what I believe is right for the country and what is going to help move our country forward”, Still insisting that being PM simply involves self-belief and personal conviction, and nothing else. What an arrogant waste of space she is.
Here’s the Guardian’s sharp analysis of what her radio appearances have revealed:
“Liz Truss is in denial. That is the primary takeaway from this morning’s BBC local radio interview round. She was asked repeatedly about the economic turmoil unleashed by the mini-budget last Friday, which has pushed up government borrowing costs, and which is set to push up mortgage rates more sharply than was expected because it included unfunded tax cuts and traders do not believe the government’s claim that they will eventually pay for themselves through higher growth. But instead she would not address this point at all, and … insisted on regurgitating a series of red herring talking points.
“She claimed that the ‘vast majority’ of what was announced on Friday related to the energy bills package. This is true in the sense that, for the first time on Friday, Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, put a price tag on the energy bills measures already announced and that, at £60bn for six months, this cost more than the tax cuts. But these measures had already been announced, and the price was no surprise. It was not that that spooked the markets. It was the unfunded tax cuts, the spurious claims about the impact they might have on growth (not backed by an OBR analysis), and the hint on Sunday from Kwarteng that the government would go further.
“Truss claimed that this was a global crisis, caused by Vladimir Putin. In terms of energy prices, she is absolutely right. But the energy bills package did not cause the current turmoil. And it was not Putin’s decision to abolish the 45% highest rate of tax in the UK, to ban the OBR from producing a new economic forecast, or accelerate a programme of unfunded tax cuts.
“And, when asked about interest rates, Truss tried to imply that was nothing to do with her, because they are set by the independent Bank of England. They are. But the Bank responds to decisions taken by the government. Her answers on this were not quite dishonest, but they were certainly disingenuous.
“Truss is not daft and she must know that the ‘lines to take’ she is relying upon do not address the questions she needs to answer. The BBC radio presenters who were interviewing her could tell she was flannelling, and Tory MPs who were listening will have thought the same. It is hard to see her getting through Conservative party conference without better answers than these.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/sep/29/liz-truss-kwasi-kwarteng-mini-budget-sterling-crisis-economy-conservatives-uk-politics-live-updates?page=with:block-633552338f08ef7e8107c777#block-633552338f08ef7e8107c777
...on September 29th, 2022 at 9:16 am
Andy Worthington says...
Anna Giddings wrote:
Andy, not even voted in and she has well and truly screwed this country! How can this happen?
...on September 29th, 2022 at 9:17 am
Andy Worthington says...
In a word, Brexit, Anna. Theresa May at least tried to get it to work, and was eventually booted out because it was impossible, but since Johnson the government is no longer in touch with reality, and in the Brexit fantasy world the illusion of what we can become is stronger than any inconvenient facts demonstrating that it’s an unsalvageable failure.
Of course, what none of us could foresee was that when Johnson eventually fell, the Tufton Street think-tanks would finally get to seize power through their puppet, Liz Truss, and embark on their savage dream of a completely unregulated UK, free of the EU, in which only the rich count, and facilitating unfettered corporate profiteering is the sole purpose of government.
The particular weakness exposed here is, of course, is the ‘right’ of a failing government to replace the Prime Minister solely via an internal vote of Party members, and then for that new PM to be allowed do whatever they want, including breaking manifesto promises, with having to call a General Election to seek a mandate. It clearly shouldn’t be allowed to happen.
...on September 29th, 2022 at 9:18 am
Andy Worthington says...
A good article yesterday by Nick Boles, the former Tory MP for Grantham (oh, the irony) from 2010-19, entitled, ‘I was a Tory MP, but Truss and Kwarteng have convinced me to vote Labour.’
His article began, “Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng possess a level of intellectual self-confidence usually found among undergraduates. They always have. Since 2010, when all three of us were first elected as Conservative MPs, they have known what they believe – and have viewed those who didn’t agree with them, or didn’t share their unshakeable certainty, with amiable contempt. The UK is beginning to discover what it is like to be led by people who despise compromise and lack all humility.”
As he also stated, by the time of the next General Election, “I expect that there will be millions of former Conservative voters who will have tired of being lab rats in Truss’s and Kwarteng’s ideological experiments. They will look for leaders who are prudent, responsible and steady. Who don’t think they know everything. Who listen, and are in touch with people’s everyday concerns. I predict that they will conclude, as I have done, that it is the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, and his shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, who best fit the bill.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/29/tory-mp-truss-kwarteng-labour
...on September 30th, 2022 at 8:10 am
Andy Worthington says...
David Knopfler wrote:
Andy, even the Telegraph and the Spectator are utterly scathing. Labour are ahead 33 points. The cynic in me is wondering if now they can’t see any hope of avoiding a huge slump that they would prefer to see Labour in office to take the blame for it.
...on September 30th, 2022 at 9:36 am
Andy Worthington says...
I don’t think so, David. Truss and Kwarteng really do seem to be fanatical true believers in the Tufton Street drivel, and seem unconcerned about the impact of the market’s response to their madness either on those with mortgages, or the poor. I think they’re likely to come unstuck on the former point (and I think it’s important to note that their lack of concern indicates quite how wealthy they all are, and how far removed most MPs are from the actual demands of monthly mortgage payments for millions of people), but on the latter point I genuinely believe that they want to see the entire state provision of services collapse.
As far as they’re concerned, if a by-product of their unaffordable generosity towards the rich is another wave of George Osborne-style austerity, they’ll be over the moon. Why should unemployed people receive something for nothing, why should we have an NHS? I think their hubris is such that, on all fronts, they’re killing their chances at political survival – and killing the Tory Party – but I can’t see them backing down.
...on September 30th, 2022 at 9:37 am
Andy Worthington says...
Also worth noting, as mentioned by David, above, is the HUGE increase in support for the Labour Party in the latest YouGovpolling yesterday, showing Labour on 54% and the Tories on just 21%, a 33-point lead for Labour, which is their biggest lead since the 1990s. As the veteran Tory MP Sir Charles Walker told Channel 4 News last night, if Labour’s 33-point poll lead were to be repeated at a General Election the Conservatives would “cease to exist as a political party.”
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/09/29/voting-intention-con-21-lab-54-28-29-sep-2022
...on September 30th, 2022 at 9:37 am
Andy Worthington says...
On Truss’s contempt for the environment, George Monbiot has a blistering new article in the Guardian, ‘Environmental destruction is part of Liz Truss’s plan.’ These are the opening paragraphs:
“The ecological destruction Liz Truss plans to unleash on this country is not collateral damage. It is not a byproduct of her economic programme. It’s a mark of true faith, a sign that she is following her ideology to the letter. For fundamental to this doctrine – neoliberalism – is the belief that everything on Earth can and should be turned into something else.
“The founding father of neoliberalism is Friedrich Hayek. His frankly deranged tract ‘The Constitution of Liberty’ enjoys almost biblical status among his disciples. Margaret Thatcher was perhaps the book’s most famous advocate, and Truss now carries the flame. It inveighs against the protection of the living world. Rather than seeking to protect the soil – the delicate ecosystem from which 99% of our calories are produced – Hayek says it makes sense to extract as much value as it can produce, exhaust it ‘once and for all’, then abandon the land. The role of soil is to create a ‘temporary contribution to our income’, which we can then invest in other moneymaking schemes. For ‘there is nothing in the preservation of natural resources as such which makes it a more desirable object of investment than man-made equipment.'”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/30/environmental-destruction-is-part-of-liz-trusss-plan
...on September 30th, 2022 at 3:54 pm
Andy Worthington says...
More bad news for Liz Truss, as the Tory conference begins: “Three-quarters of UK voters, including a staggering 71% of those who backed the Conservatives at the last general election, believe the prime minister, Liz Truss, and the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, have ‘lost control’ of the economy, according to a devastating poll for the Observer on the eve of the Tory conference.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/01/voters-abandon-tories-as-faith-in-economic-competence-dives
...on October 1st, 2022 at 11:59 pm
Andy Worthington says...
The collapse of the Tories continues. Facing significant criticism from within the Party, Truss and Kwarteng scrapped the proposed elimination of the 45% tax rate on Monday morning (October 3), but new polling showed the biggest lead for Labour that any political party has ever had. Comres had Labour on 50%, the Tories on 25%, while Redfield & Wilton Strategies had Labour on 52% and the Tories on 24%.
https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1576963829753430016
https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1576965307930857475
The Guardian here on why their days are surely numbered: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/03/the-guardian-view-on-a-tory-u-turn-the-problem-goes-beyond-tax
...on October 4th, 2022 at 12:03 pm