The State of Public Services

It's a fairly common refrain that one of the problems with public service provision is that people in the UK want European levels of service while paying US levels of taxation. Having spent some time in both the EU and the US this year, however, I'd submit that the UK is in a uniquely crap position, and further that the problem is not where received wisdom would have it.

The thing is, in the US public services are a lot more limited than they are here: the government simply does less for people. And that means that the cost of living is higher. (There are other flaws in the system, and the roulette wheel of being bankrupted by a medical emergency is particularly horrible. I don't advocate copying their system whole cloth.) However, tax rates are correspondingly lower in the US than they are here.

However, one big difference in the US is that while tax rates are lower, tax revenues are higher, because average wages in the US are much higher than they are here. 10% of $100,000 is rather more than 20% of £30,000!

The net effect of this is that while the government does less for people, the things that it actually does are individually much better funded.

Conversely, in the EU public services are much more extensive, and tax rates are correspondingly higher to pay for them. The trade-off here is that because public services are extensive and well funded, there's no need, or indeed scope for, things like private education or healthcare. The cost of living, therefore, with the notable exception of taxes, is much lower.

But, again, there's one big difference: average wages are higher, meaning that although the tax rate is higher, the amount of money left over is also correspondingly higher - 50% of €70,000 is rather more than 80% of £30,000!

(This also means that for a UK citizen, travelling abroad becomes horribly expensive - when going to the US there's a need for comprehensive, and therefore expensive, insurances; when travelling to the EU anything you buy, and of course accommodation, is much more expensive due to the taxes involved.)

There are, as far as I can see, two fundamental problems with the provision of public services in the UK:

• Wages are, fundamentally, too low across the board. And, indeed, we seem to have set up our system to discourage people to seek better - the income gap between someone on benefits versus someone on the minimum wage just isn't high enough to justify the time and effort required to get and keep that job, and then at each step up the latter the salary increase is too small compared with the additional time, effort, and stress required. Our economy has been too stagnant for too long, and the jobs ladder has become to compressed.
• Those providing public services are also trying to do too much with just too little money, with the effect that every service people actually interact with is desperately creaking.

And it's going to get worse before it gets better, because our councils (primarily) are almost all desperately struggling under impossible debt repayments and pension commitments, while simultaneously trying to deliver too many services with not enough money. Meaning that year on year they'll have to increase Council Tax as much as they think they can get away with while at the same time degrading every service they are delivering.

There isn't really a solution to much of this. Wage increases are a key driver of inflation, meaning that increasing them will just cause more pain for anyone who doesn't get them, and the notion of councils doing less has the recipients throwing their hands up in horror (and with good reason). So, basically we're just stuck.

And yet, I rather suspect that is exactly what is needed. Well... that and central government clearing the debts incurred by councils, so that they actually have some room to maneuver...

You First

For reasons that will forever be a mystery to me, The Algorithm has recently decided to deluge me with coverage of the "return of conscription" in the UK - supposedly something that's coming with the inevitable war with Russia.

Now, to a large extent, this is abject madness - the modern battlefield is one of drones and guided missiles, with very little place for masses of barely-trained and unwilling infantry. Plus, our country has a growing problem with angry young men who are feeling increasingly disenfranchised; the last thing our betters should be doing is training and arming them.

But our government is not exactly renowned either for its intelligence or its sanity, our military is sufficiently antiquated that "HMS Victory" is officially the flagship of the First Sea Lord (and, indeed, we have a First Sea Lord), and our print media, who are the source of this nonsense, are read primarily by people with extreme nostalgia for rationing, the Blitz Spirit, and a war that ended twenty years before they were born.

All of which suggests they might actually float it as a possibility.

In which case, I feel rather fortunate that I'm now too old to be conscripted, and both Funsize and Surprise! are too young. But we have nephews and nieces who are in the age range.

But...

The truth is that, despite our fellow feeling and inherent sense of justice, Ukraine aren't allies towards whom we have treaty obligations, and nor is Russia inherently a nation against whom we have any inherent animosity. The Cold War has been over for decades, and the ideology that supposedly threatened us is gone - Putin is very much not Stalin. So if our leaders choose to antagonise Russia and take us into war, that is a matter of their choice. (Most damningly of all, they would probably be doing so at the behest of the USA - a nation that has displayed through their recent actions that they very much do not have our interests at heart. They are, rightly, motivated by their own interests.)

So if our leaders want to take us to war, and think they want to drag our children into it, my answer is very clear: You first. If you want a war, you pick up a gun and go. And if you are absolutely desperate to send someone's children off to be senselessly slaughtered, start with your own. Can't bear to do that? (Not surprisingly - it's a downright psychotic thing to want to do.) Then stop your warmongering and leave us alone.

Farage's Latest Antic

There is precious little to admire about Nigel Farage. However, his ability to grab the news agenda is undeniable - an announcement that he was going to make a statement at 2pm yesterday proceeded to dominate the agenda for the next several hours. Apparently, he's been suffering terrible unfairnesses and so has decided to resign and trigger a byelection.

A few things about this:

• Apparently, MPs can't actually resign directly - they get elected to serve a fixed term, with the expectation that they serve that term, unless they die. There are two sinecures in place that exist as an exception to this - they have no salary and no duties, but they have a rule that the person holding those posts cannot also be an MP. So the MP who wants to 'resign' applies for one of those posts, and is thus disqualified, and a byelection has to occur. However, I think this gives Rachel Reeves the opportunity for top quality trolling - those two sinecures are (officially at least) in the gift of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, so she could always decline to offer them to Farage.
• That said, all of that is horribly archaic nonsense. Frankly, those two roles should be abolished, with MPs instead being allowed to resign (with a proper notice period)... but barred from standing in the byelection that results. (Because what Farage is doing, like what David Davis did a few years ago, is a pointless and expensive gimmick that really shouldn't be tolerated.)
• The other funniest thing that can happen, of course, is that Farage fails to get re-elected. Apparently, the other parties have declined to stand, in order to take the interest out of this election, so the only other candidate (so far) is Count Binface. Farage took 46% of the vote last time, which is huge in a multi-party contest but not in a two-way race.

But...

• In all of this a few things seem to have been lost, which was probably Farage's intent. The thing is, for all his talk about having done nothing wrong, Farage was under investigation concerning a sizeable donation. Now, it may be that that donation was entirely legitimate. But it may also be the case that he should have declared it and failed to do so. Finally, it's also possible that the investigation itself is politically motivated - that he's being targeted because he's a threat to the establishment. The truth of this, whichever way it lies, matters significantly. If Farage broke the rules, he should face the appropriate sanction, and a byelection win shouldn't allow him to weasel out of that. Conversely, if he is being targeted unfairly, that too is a big problem and needs to be dealt with - while I have no sympathy with Farage, and no agreement with his party or policies, the rules have to be fair for everyone including those we most dislike.
• In his diatribe Farage also made a number of serious allegations about democratic issues - that the rules for the upcoming election for the new Manchester mayor were being changed specifically to disadvantage Reform, that votes were being extended to 16 year olds for specifically party-political reasons, and that the rules for political donations were likewise being changed specifically to harm Reform. Again, the truth of these things matters. And, again, the rules have to be fair for everyone.

Now, that said, I'm of the view that votes for 16 year olds is long overdue... and indeed that Labour are probably slightly too late to gain the benefit that the expect, as the Greens will capitalise instead. And the rules on donating to political parties in this country are not as they should be, especially as regards foreign donors. I do, however, have much more concern about the changes to the rules for the election of the mayor - I find it remarkable that the government of the day just happens to put in place the system that they think will give them the very best outcome, and indeed that they are permitted to do so. These things really should be administered by an independent body.

But all of that is an aside. More important than the specific set of rules is that a fair set of rules is put in place and then applied equally to all, without fear or favour.

Also: Vote Binface!

King of the North

So Starmer is out. I'm afraid I'm not at all sorry to see him go - I've long been of the view that he didn't so much win the last election as the Tories very much lost it (in every sense of the word), and he's been deeply unimpressive since.

And it very much looks like Burnham will be the next guy - having been gifted a very safe seat in the recent by-election he's now eligible to become Labour leader, and he has the great virtue of being untainted with the shambles that has gone before. It's a chance for Labour to make a clean break, reinvent itself, and hopefully change direction enough to fend off the threat of Reform.

Except...

I find myself deeply troubled by the democratic legitimacy of this one. At the General Election we were presented with a Labour party led by Kier Starmer and presenting themselves under a specific manifesto. Switching to Burnham and making a clean break means ditching both of those things. Would people have voted as they did under those circumstances? Would they vote that way now?

And this switch is even more outrageous than even the 'normal' changes in Prime Minister that we've had in the last decade - at least then the replacement leader was someone who had been elected at the same time and under the same manifesto as the outgoing leader, so there was at least some sense of continuity. Burnham doesn't have that - indeed, that's the very key to his relative popularity.

Our constitution doesn't require a change of PM to be followed by a General Election. In practice, however, such changes generally have been followed by one in short order: May was crazy enough to call one after Cameron left, Boris called one after he took over from May, and Rishi only had 20 months left in the parliamentary term before he had to call one. (Truss wasn't in office long enough for it to matter.)

And there are usually fairly good reasons to call one: there's always a "new manager bounce" that comes from having someone new at the helm. Gordon Brown made a critical mistake in refusing to call a General Election when he became leader.

But a General Election now can only mean bad things for Labour - at the very least, they'll lose a lot of seats (because the current Commons arithmetic is a quirk of the system, unlikely to be repeated), and may very well usher in the Reform government of our nightmares.

So he's got an unenviable decision to make: call an Election and suffer for it, or refuse and be dogged by attacks that he's even more lacking in democratic mandate that is usual for replacement PMs. Not a good position.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to this: can the Labour government get the economy working again in the next 3 years? We're in a fairly horrible position where for an awful lot of people things have yet to really recover even from the crisis in 2008, with food inflation, in particular, causing real problems. Meanwhile, wage stagnation has meant that for most work just doesn't pay enough to be worthwhile - the gap between benefits and minimum wage, and between each step on the ladder to the next, just isn't enough for the additional effort needed to climb it.

If that can be addressed, Labour have a decent chance in the next election and should hold off. If not, it's likely they'll see a modest improvement in the polls now and then a continued slide, so their best bet of a win, any win, is basically now.

Either way, I don't actually see any chance of there being a General Election any time soon. But if it really is the King in the North, I'm afraid that in this instance I think there really should be.

Well, Thank Goodness That's Over

The Scottish elections are finally done. Thank goodness!

Unfortunately, it was a fairly unedifying choice. There were a huge array of no-hope micro-parties, but of those actually able to win at least one seat the choices were grim: evil, very evil, mostly useless, almost completely useless, completely useless, and legitimately insane.

Even before it all kicked off, there were really only two questions of interest:

• Would the SNP somehow get a majority? The odds were spectacularly against it, but stranger things have happened, and if it had happened then the consequences could have been interesting.
• Just how many seats would Reform win, and at whose expense?

In the event, the answer to the first was the expected "no". In fact, the SNP lost both seats and vote share. We've ended up with a mostly-balanced parliament otherwise, with a nominal pro-independence majority, but with the minority SNP government able to pass legislation if they can gain support from any other party.

The answer to the other question was a fairly depressing 17, though these came almost entirely at the expense of the Tories. So not great, but not seismic. (It's perhaps worth noting that I don't approve of the other parties now closing ranks to try to isolate Reform in the chamber. Firstly because I think it will be counter-productive - people voted Reform largely in protest at our MSPs refusing to listen to them; doubling down on this will only strengthen Reform. Secondly, though, is that those people who voted Reform are entitled to representation. I don't like how they've voted, but that is beside the point.)

Anyway, the upshot of this is that everything will basically carry on as they have been: the SNP will form a minority government, Swinney will ask for an independence referendum for form's sake, Starmer will say "no", and then we'll have five years of not much happening. And then we go again.

(Incidentally, Starmer has significant justification for that "no" - the SNP made clear that an SNP single-party majority would be the mandate for a referendum, and they didn't get that; in fact they lost both seats and vote share. But, of course, that entire argument is nonsense - in a representative democracy the mandate for something is that a majority of elected representatives vote for it. The real justification is rather more stark: the constitution is a reserved matter, and Starmer says "no". How you square that against the right of Scottish, and Welsh, people for self-determination is a topic for another day.)

One last thought: In the Scottish election Labour once again lost both seats and vote share. It is deeply unpopular here. In Wales, Labour have lost control of the Senedd for the first time ever. Labour have never had any presence in Northern Ireland (where, again, a party in favour of leaving the UK is in government). And in England Labour have just taken a major kicking due to their huge unpopularity.  There's no part of the UK where Labour are actually popular. And yet, Labour have a huge majority in the Commons, a consequence of a voting system that doesn't really work. That's not a good situation to be in in a representative democracy - in what sense does parliament represent the wishes of the people?

#14: "Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments", by T.L. Huchu

Dear Political Parties...

Yesterday I received an election communication from Reform. Amusingly, it came in an envelope - I can only assume they were worried that if they sent these things out without they would somehow get 'lost' along the way.

Anyway...

At the outset, I need to note that there is no world in which I was ever going to vote for Reform, so I barely glanced at the card before dropping it in the "to shred" pile. But that glance was enough to catch my eye.

Because the headline on the thing was something along the lines of "only Reform can stop the SNP". In other words, exactly the same claim every other party is making - you need to vote for us, not because of any virtue we might claim or any policy we have to propose, but because you want to stop them (whoever "them" are).

It's hard to think of a more dispiriting approach to politics. Every party, it seems, has given up on actually arguing why we should vote for them. Instead, they're all more concerned about stopping the other guy.

I suppose that makes sense. In terms of policy, none of the big four have any meaningful differences. Labour and the SNP, in particular, are functionally identical - the only difference is on the topic of independence, where Labour are opposed (of course), and the SNP are in favour (in the same way as I'm in favour of becoming a billionaire - it's never going to happen, I have no power to make it happen, and I'm not going to take any meaningful action to make it happen). Basically, Labour just want to do exactly the same things in exactly the same way, but somehow better and with different names on all the people. The Lib Dems are slightly different, but not so you'd actually notice, while the Tories are slightly different in the other direction - mostly wanting all the same stuff but with lower taxes that they won't deliver.

Since there's so little between them, and essentially no difference in terms of the quality of their candidates (or, really, the lack thereof), I can well understand why they're just focusing on stopping one another - it's all they have.

But Reform are actually proposing something that's actually different. It's awful, hateful nonsense, of course, but it does in theory mean they have something to advocate. And yet they choose exactly the same pointless attack - only we (a party who have never won a seat in a Holyrood election) can stop the SNP (who will almost inevitably form the next government).

In fact, the only party that I give any credit in this utter mess of an election are the Greens, who at least are proposing some actual policies and suggesting any reason why we should actually vote for them. It's just a shame that they're utterly insane... but even that's a step up from hateful. So, small mercies, I guess.

(The summary for those who can't be bothered to read the preceding: stop telling us we should vote against the other lot. Tell us why we should vote for you. And if you've got nothing, go away and have a long think about why that is, and then change it.)

Mene, mene, tekel, parsin?

A little over a century ago, the Liberal party ceased to be the party of government for the last time (the Lib Dems have been a part of a coalition since, but never by themselves). The position once held by the Liberals had been usurped by the Labour party - a feature of the first-past-the-post system is that you inevitably have two "big" parties and one "neither of the above" party (plus any number of minor parties that basically just make up the numbers).

After the last General Election, there was a lot of chatter about that transition being a once-in-a-century event, with the Tories about to lose their spot as one of the big two to Reform. And that certainly seems to be the case. (And I should note that I take no joy in this. While I don't share the Tories' politics, and while they had been becoming increasingly insane, at least under Rishi Sunak they were at least somewhat bearable - Reform are just horrible. Of course, I'm far from convinced that today's Tories aren't just as horrible, in an awful bid to stay relevant.)

However what I didn't expect, and what the calamitous polling of Kier Starmer's Labour and the result of the election in Gorton and Denton suggests, is that we might actually be getting to a point where both of the big two are about to lose their spots - that the Tories may be supplanted by Reform and the Labour party supplanted by the Greens.

In reality, it's far too soon to declare that the writing's on the wall. But now that the Greens have shown that they can win, it's suddenly not inconceivable that people might start voting for them. And Labour have pretty thoroughly alienated their own left wing, largely on the logic that they have nowhere else to do... only now they do.

It certainly makes for an interesting thought...

That Rarest of Things

Somehow, the Guardian managed to publish that rarest of things: an actually astute article on Scottish and Welsh independence in a unionist-leaning paper. It takes as its central thesis that it's likely that the upcoming Scottish and Welsh elections are predicted to lead to pro-independence majorities, while the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly is already in favour of leaving the UK. It then argues that this should serve as a major wake-up call to Westminster that things need to be done differently.

It won't, of course, but never mind.

Probably the key statement, though, and one that seems to have sailed blissfully behind the commentators (who are rehearsing the usual pro- and anti-independence talking points), is this: "This doesn’t work for Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, but it also doesn’t work for many parts of England." (emphasis mine)

That is, the UK fundamentally isn't working for any part of the UK.

I've spoken about this before, more than a decade ago, and it's even more true now: for a very long time, voters in the UK have had the choice of a Labour (or Labour-led) government, or a Tory (or Tory-led) government. Worse, the Labour and Tory parties actually agree on the vast majority of their policies, disagreeing in a fairly narrow range of areas and on some implementation details.

This has manifested itself in a massively-unpopular Tory government getting voted out and replaced with a Labour landslide that has collapsed to even worse levels of unpopularity in an unprecedentedly short period of time.

Look to the future and the next election has one of three possible outcomes: either Labour somehow manage to turn this around and get a second term and we get more of the same (as far as I can see this is the least-worst option, but I really can't see it happening), or the Tories somehow manage to recover in the polls and come back into power and we get more of the same, or (horror of horrors) we end up with a Reform government, probably elected on a fairly narrow subset of the electorate.

That's a horrifying prospect, and it's probably just as horrifying for a great many people in England, just as it is in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

The only real difference? Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have (at least in theory) the option of leaving the UK. England don't have that option - in theory, they could eject the rest of us, but that still leaves them with the same broken Westminster system of government.

So what is the solution?

The answer to that is actually the same, whether the question is now to stop the rise of Reform or countering the pro-independence parties in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland: make the UK actually work for the people of the UK.

That includes, but is not limited to, a better voting system, a better caliber of MPs (of all parties), an end to the cozy consensus that leads to all our parties agreeing on almost everything. And it mean finding a way to improve the economy... but not just "the economy" (which typically measures things that are only important to the very rich) but the economy as it is felt by regular people - jobs, wages, inflation (especially food inflation)... we need to find a way to end the dependence of so many on food banks (it's good that they're there, but they should also be a mark of shame for a supposedly-rich country).

And all of which needs done before the next election. Which means two things: firstly, the timescale is absurdly unrealistic such that it's almost certainly too late.

Secondly, it means that only Labour can stop Reform. Not as an election slogan (which is almost certainly will be), but because they're currently the only ones with the power to actually do anything.

Thoughts on the Budget

I must admit, I had expected today's budget to be absolutely horrendous - the various bits of speculation I'd seen online had suggested it would be a near-perfect attack on every aspect of my finances, and that has proven not to be the case.

In the event, the effects we'll face are likely twofold: the freezing of the tax bands will mean paying slightly more tax than might have been expected... but in the way that frankly is unlikely to be noticeable, and the change to NI payments on salary sacrifice pensions means paying a little more in NI (though by my calculations is a pretty small increase). That's not horrible (though I can well understand that people living in very expensive properties, or those in London, people saving large amounts in cash ISAs, or people who use electric cars might feel differently).

And, frankly, the removal of the two-child limit for child support (and the corresponding "rape clause") can only be a good thing.

So, a cause for hints of optimism, I think.

However...

I was extremely bemused to see that the OBR published their report (by "mistake") ahead of the budget, meaning that the key analysis was all in place before Rachel Reeves even stood up to talk.

But more to the point, there was all the speculation beforehand, which as I said had given me the impression that this was going to be a horror show. The thing is, all that speculation involved a great deal of talking down the economy, of suggesting all manner of badness, which will have prompted a load of people to take actions that now are ill-judged (such as, for instance, the suggestion that the rules for pension lump sums were going to change, encouraging people to take them early, or the likely damage to investor confidence). There's a decent change that that very speculation caused damage to the economy.

Needless to say, this is something of a problem. (And, incidentally, I don't recall this level of feverish speculation about any other Budget. I don't like pointing to misogyny as the sole root cause of things, because it tends to be reductive, but in this case I can't help but think that it was a big part of it. Either that, or our right-wing press really hate Labour, which they do, and thought this could be a useful target.)

That said, I don't really know what could be done about that - I'm really loathe to advocate restrictions to the press without absolute need.

Any Chance?

It would be really good if we could somehow avoid the upcoming Scottish elections being another completely pointless go around of "vote for us for Independence!" on one side and "vote for us to stop Independence!" on the other.

The reality is that the SNP have neither the ability nor the inclination to meaningfully advance the cause of independence. It's a project that is long-since failed and, unless something massively changes, is effectively dead for my lifetime. So, no, the SNP won't be delivering independence, or a second referendum, or any such thing. Even an outright majority of SNP MSPs wouldn't do that, and they won't get that anyway. And, equally, Labour, the Tories, and the Lib Dems won't be preventing independence, for the same reason that they won't be preventing us being invaded by Martians.

But I suppose I get it.

Because if the SNP don't stand on the topic of independence, they need to stand on their domestic record, and on that front they've been hopeless. There isn't a single thing... actually, there literally is a single thing that they've done since Salmond resigned that they can be proud of (the baby box). Everything is very obviously worse than it was then, and not just because the UK government has been useless, obstructive, and short of funds.

But equally, if the other parties don't stand on opposing independence, they need to stand on what they have to offer. And the sad reality there is that, as monumentally awful as the SNP government has been, all the alternatives are very obviously worse.

So I guess the argument will be about independence again.

Well, it's that or "we're the best to stop Reform!"

But the problem with them arguing about that is that a very large part of the reason for the rise of Reform has been the public's utter disgust with all of our mainstream parties. So arguing that "it's us or Reform" has a real danger of backfiring.

Oh Dear

Much to my disgust, I find myself concluding that I preferred Rishi Sunak's disastrous government to the current lot. Yes, they were absolutely awful, but at least they offered the possibility of hope - that the government would one day change and could potentially be better.

Unfortunately, the current government is pretty much the best that could be put together by the shambles that is our current political class. They're to the right of Thatcher, hampered only by there not being any mines to close down (though Grangemouth might compensate somewhat for that), and seem intent on moving further in that direction.

And there's no hope of improvement - the Tories are as bad as ever and are in utter disarray, and they're looking increasingly likely to be overtaken and replaced by Reform who are (or should be) a joke of a party.

Basically, this is the worst government of my lifetime. And I suspect it may be the best government of the rest of my life.

Something to Thank Trump For

The return of the Trump was always going to be horrible, and in the event it has been even more horrible than was expected. Although in hindsight it's an obvious strategy - change so many things so quickly and create so many outrages that the other side just can't keep up on what their supposed to be responding to now.

But there is one good thing that comes of this.

Trump has launched a number of trade wars, and threatened a number more. He's attacked Canada, the EU, made noises about annexing Greenland, and there's no sign that he's anything other than serious. That is, he's attacking his allies and trade partners.

And what that means is that those allies and trade partners should now be in absolutely no doubt: the US cannot be relied on to act in anything other than its perceived self-interest. That has always been true, but until now we've kidded ourselves on, pretended there's a "special relationship".

And that "special relationship", and the equivalants elsewhere, have been extremely dangerous. The EU is far, far too dependent on the US for its defence against Russia. Greenland hosts US military bases rather than looking to its own defence, Canada's economy and fuel security are intricately tied to the US. And, of course, our Trident system is tied in with US technology and systems.

That really needs to stop. If we cannot rely on the US, we need to look to our own interests and our own defence.

And that's a good thing, because the assumption that the big guy with the stick will only ever use it as we direct is always a faulty one.

Elon's Salute

I can't believe I'm going to have to defend Elon bloody Musk...

At Trump's inauguration there were, of course, all manner of speeches of various tenors, including one by Elon Musk. Following this, he has been accused of giving a "Nazi salute".

He of course did no such thing.

The thing is, the gesture he made is one that has been duplicated by many, many people over centuries, including the last eighty years. Indeed, ever since this madness blew up social media has been awash with images of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, and various other left-leaning politicians (or what passes for the left, anyway) making identical gestures. Which is really not a surprise - there's a reason the Nazis co-opted it. Context really, really matters.

The thing is, there really are genuine, honest horrors coming. Indeed, we saw some hints of them yesterday. Closer to home, there is suddenly a genuine risk that we could be seeing Prime Minister Farage, with all that that entails. (And, for the avoidance of doubt, no, I'm not joking about that.)

The fight back against those horrors is really not going to be helped by the left-leaning voices in the media torching their credibility by pushing this sort of nonsense - clear hyperbole of this sort (assuming it is hyperbole, and not simply outright lies) really doesn't cut through in the way that they seem to do it.

Please, stop.

Dear Labour... An idea for you.

The Labour government, in their most recent budget, have increased National Insurance on employers. That is, in effect, a tax on companies for each person they employ, which amongst other things will encourage them to avoid hiring, and to reduce their workforces.

One of the ways companies are already cutting workforces is via automation - checkout assistants are replaced by self checkout, fuel is provided via "pay at the pump", switchboard operators are replaced by chatbots and now AI, and so on. Automation represents a huge and upcoming shock to the labour market; it's going to hurt us all, really badly.

So, here's a suggestion:

Why not tax companies for each time a UK-based customer has to interact with a machine instead of a person? If I go to self-checkout, the supermarket gets taxed. If I phone my insurer and have to battle with an automated switchboard, they get taxed. And so on, and so forth. I'm not talking a huge tax, but a small charge multiplied by millions of interactions each day will quickly add up.

I would also note that the tax needs to be based on the location of the customer, not the chatbot/AI/whatever - if not, companies will respond by putting in thin UIs to all their terminals and put the intelligence offshore, and hosting their AIs out of the country. But tie it to the customer, and they can't so easily dodge it.

Anyway, there it is.

The US Election: What are Labour Playing At?

Eight years ago, Kezia Dugdale famously traveled to the US to campaign for Hillary Clinton in the US election, and so profound was her impact that she ended up taking a selfie with a cardboard cutout of her chosen candidate. Americans just don't care about UK politicians one way or another, and frankly that is the way it should be.

Apparently, this year there are some hundred or so Labour members who have travelled over to the US to campaign for Kamala Harris. No doubt, their impact will be every bit as potent as Dugdale's was.

However, there is a very important difference between the two scenarios: back in 2016 Labour were in oppositio in the UK, and indeed were essentially an irrelevance in domestic politics, never mind the US. In 2024, however, Labour are now the party of government in the UK, meaning that the actions of representatives of that party are, at least in some ways, reflective of the attitudes of their party, and by extension our government as a whole. Kier Starmer is going to have to work with (well, play lapdog to) whoever wins the US election, and if that is Trump he's going to be starting from a position of having provided at least tacit support to the other side.

Bottom line: I don't particularly think members of UK political parties should be getting involved in the US election at all, on any side, but I certainly think our party of government must stay out of it.

But maybe that's just me.

(I have no particular dog in this fight, mostly because it's for the US to pick their own leaders, and partly because they seem to have found the two absolute worst possible candidates. I have a very marginal preference for Harris, but as with Biden before her, her only selling point is that she's not Donald Trump. Whoever wins, I think the next four years are going to be pretty horrible.)

Here We Go Again

A year ago I posted about the treatment being meted out to Kate Forbes in the SNP leadership contest because she is a Christian who actually dares to believe things. A year on and Humza Yousaf has proven to be a disaster and has lost his job as a consequence. The SNP need to find another new leader.

At time of writing, there are no declared candidates. There has been a lot of noise, but for the moment nobody has actually put their name forward.

And already the monstering of Kate Forbes has begun.

As with last time, the tone of that monstering is extremely important, and of extreme concern - because Kate Forbes is being decried as some horrific far-right bigot based on her having expressed what are, ultimately, some fairly mainstream Christian views.

I said before that if Kate Forbes was somehow barred from standing, or was ultimately pressurized into dropping out of the race, then I was done with both the SNP and indeed with independence - I have no interest in voting for a country where every minority is welcomed and respected except for mine.

Unfortunately, things have rather moved on since then; unless and until Yousaf's horrific Hate Crimes legislation is repealed I'm done with Scottish politics as a whole. (That's yet another example of well-meaning but atrociously-drafted legislation from Holyrood. It needs scrapped.)

But, again, if the monstering of Kate Forbes is such that she is somehow barred from standing, or she throws her hat into the ring and is then 'persuaded' to drop out, then there's no way back for the SNP. If she chooses not to run, fine; if she runs and is defeated, fine. But I'm watching them closely, and they are on their absolute last chance - get this wrong, and there's no way back for them.

The Choice

The resignation of Humza Yousaf leaves the SNP with a choice to make. The problem is that for any new leader to become First Minister they will need to survive a vote of no confidence from the other parties, and the arithmetic in parliament means that that requires with support from the Greens or support from Alba and there being no SNP rebels. Given that support from Alba almost certainly means there will be at least some SNP rebels, this is a problem.

The SNP therefore faces a choice, and that choice is of profound importance:

On the one hand, they can "elect" a new leader who is palatable to the Greens, and spend the next two years beholden to those Greens in absolutely every way. In which case they continue with the madness of the last couple of years, and receive a massive kicking at the 2016 Scottish Elections.

Or they can elect someone who is not palatable to the Greens, and take their chances with an election - an election which may or may not rearrange parliament into a more workable arrangement (and is reasonably likely to result in a Labour-led government). In any event, it is only for two years, as the election in 2016 would take place anyway.

My suggestion to the SNP is to think about this one very carefully. Because I don't think the people of Scotland are in the mood for any more of the nonsense we've seen recently.

Close It Down

What a time to be alive.

Back in 2008, the Labour/Lib Dem coalition in Holyrood had clearly run out of steam and was in desperate need of being replaced. And so the people of Scotland voted them out and installed an SNP government.

In 2024 the SNP government have now reached the same point - they desperately need to be replaced.

Unfortunately, in the interim the Labour party in Scotland have learned precisely nothing. They are every bit as arrogant, stupid, and dogmatic as they were in 2008 - their grand strategy for renewal has consisted of waiting for their rivals to become equally rancid.

Meanwhile the Lib Dems have become an irrelevance, and the Greens have revealed themselves as a horror show.

And, needless to say, the Tories aren't even worth considering.

The bottom line is that we desperately need a new government and there is not a single party in Holyrood that are even worth considering for a vote. The whole thing has failed.

At this point, I would therefore suggest that Holyrood has failed and should be shut down, except that it wasn't so long ago when I said the same about Westminster - and that hasn't changed. Down there, the Tories have become the Monster Raving Loony Party, Labour have become Thatcherites, and the Lib Dems an irrelevance.

So, basically, we're at a point where I think we should simply shut it all down, and just try not having a government for five years, and see how that goes. It's hard to see how that can be any worse.

Relieved

I am by no means a fan of Donald Trump - despite my deep misgivings about Biden's mental health I would still vote for him over the other candidate. However, I must admit I am extremely relieved at the Supreme Court overruling those states that had decided to exclude him from the ballot paper.

There are fundamentally two reasons for this:

1. In a two-party system, you really can't have a situation where one party is not allowed to stand their preferred candidate. That becomes a one-party system, and that's very much not democracy.
2. But more importantly, there was a distinct possibility that in a tight race Biden might 'win' solely on the basis of Electoral College votes garnered from those states where Trump was excluded. Which would have been an absolute disaster - the scenes from 6th Jan 2021 would have had nothing on what followed.

So I'm hugely relieved that Trump is allowed to stand. Now I only hope Americans collectively have the sense to reject him.

Disgrace

I knew the House of Commons was a cesspit, but I thought there were at least some limits - I would never have expected them to engage in base politics over as serious an issue as the situation in Gaza.

The whole edifice is a blight on our country. We need to shut it down, and start again.