Inequality in the UK

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More than 6 million Britons owe 8000 pounds ($10,550) on a day to day basis, and that is in addition to mortgages. Almost a quarter of them say they are struggling to survive financially, while 62% say they are often worried about their levels of personal debt. 10% of the respondents to a recent survey say they are are maxed out on their credit cards, and a similar number are in overdraft at the bank. A third said they couldn’t see any hope of getting into the black and helping their children with college, accommodation etc. It seems that half the country is financially vulnerable, with 25 to 34 year olds the most over-indebted. UK consumer debt has reached 200 bn pounds, and that is probably unsustainable. And this is without Brexit!

My wife and I had dinner with a person who was a senior executive at the IMF until he retired. We were talking about the economics after Brexit, and he said he expected Brexit to result in 7-8 years of very bad economic circumstances, with maybe as much a 5-8% reduction in GDP, which is big. After, say, 10-20 years the country would struggle back onto its growth path. Of course, no one knows for certain, and if they did there isn’t much they can do about it now it seems that Brexit is a certainty. If his back-of-an-envelope suggestion becomes reality, Britain can look forward to a very rocky few years politically and economically. The Tories will be blamed, or should be. The loss of the Brexiteers is no loss. Problem: who else has the ability and the policies to sort out the mess? Isn’t it odd that in most parts of the world there is a leadership vacuum, and the only people who have a vision are autocrats – and who wants anyone with that vision?

Why I dislike Hillary Clinton less now.

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Over the course of the 2016 presidential campaign, and certainly in its immediate aftermath, I had a distinct dislike for Hillary Clinton. I regarded her as yet another centrist, ‘neoliberal’ shill whose cautious approach to governing was ill-suited to a country clearly in need of radical reform. Particularly in contrast to her primary opponent and socialist ideologue Bernie Sanders, she seemed to lack principles and conviction, instead choosing to cynically use identity politics and smears to win the primary. Her attacks on Sanders were often factually false, like her claim Sanders wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act- he didn’t, he simply wanted to build upon it to move to single payer. Her campaign implied Sanders didn’t care about women and minorities, which wasn’t remotely true. Most importantly, she was far too hawkish on foreign policy. Her proposed no-fly zone over Syria could have led to direct confrontation with Russia. She hasn’t considered the shortcomings of the War on Terror or the Arab Spring. And unlike many Democrats, she never attacked defence spending for being largely wasteful and not actually making America safer. Overall, she really seemed like more of the same.

Then the shocking election result came in. When Trump won, my antipathy towards Clinton grew to new levels. Had Sanders won the primary, I thought he would have beaten Trump handily, particularly in the Midwestern states disillusioned with recent trade policy. Clinton did far worse than Obama amongst the rural white working class because she didn’t grasp how angry people felt at Washington. Rather than spending so much time praising Obama for his past record, Clinton should have spent more time explaining how she would have improved people’s lives now.

However, I’ve had a slight change of mind. While I still hold Clinton responsible for losing the most easily winnable presidential elections since Reagan defeated Mondale, I accept that Sanders’ policies never received much scrutiny, and so he may not have won as easily as the Trump vs Sanders polls were suggesting. I now have more reservations about Sanders’ policies; his healthcare programme was far too ambitious and costly. Clinton’s call for pragmatism and realism makes sense given how difficult federally-run single payer would be to get through Congress. I also no longer believe Clinton’s use of identity politics was entirely cynical. Rather, the Trump presidency has highlighted how prevalent sexism and racism still is in America today- Clinton was right to highlight those issues. As well as his bigotry, Trump’s protectionism has vindicated Clinton. Withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership will only make America poorer and more isolated. Clinton’s support for free trade was right, her mistake on trade was not defending it well enough.

The most significant factor behind my more lukewarm attitude to Hillary Clinton was not actually anything that happened in America, but Brexit. I voted to Remain, but I decided to be magnanimous in defeat, and work with Leavers for the best possible Brexit. In return, many Brexiteers have needlessly attacked Remainers, accusing them of being unpatriotic, disloyal and undemocratic. Despite being the victors, many prominent Eurosceptics feel insecure, choosing to demonise almost half the population. While it wouldn’t be right to overturn the referendum result, no one ought to be under any obligation to support Brexit. Calling Remainers ‘enemies of the people’, as an infamous Daily Mail headline did, is bullying. The once-respectable Daily Telegraph has also descended into the gutter, declaring 15 MPs who voted against fixing the exact time we leave the EU to be ‘mutineers.’

Trump and most Republicans’ attitude towards Clinton reminds me of the behaviour of the most fanatical Brexiteers. Like the Leave campaign, Trump and the Republicans are the victors. They control the presidency, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court and most state legislatures and governorships. Yet they constantly feel the need to spew vitriolic abuse at anyone who dares question them. Clinton, a relatively centrist politician by any reasonable measure, is portrayed by Fox News and conservative talk radio as an unpatriotic hard-leftist who is irredeemably corrupt and seeks to destroy America. Somehow wanting to raise taxes on the wealthy back to 1990s levels constitutes extreme socialism. Much of the criticism is based on misogyny and conspiracy theories about Clinton; Ben Carson even said that she was in league with Lucifer at the Republican Convention, and the audience applauded!  The constant reversion to emphasising how evil even moderate Democrats are betrays Trump’s distinct lack of accomplishments since coming to power.

None of this is to suggest the Right has a monopoly on abusive behaviour. Too often the Left is hyperbolic when it decries anyone opposed to socialism, including Hillary Clinton, as being part of an evil ‘neoliberal’ elite. But in the US and the UK, what makes the Right’s virulence so appalling is the pretence of anti-elitism. The reality is that any democracy is competition between different sorts of elites. Clinton and the Democrats are no more elitist than Trump and the Republicans. What makes the Right’s anti-elitism is misguided is that it is the Right who enjoys power, at least in the US and the UK. Thus, the denunciation of Clinton as an elitist smacks of rank hypocrisy. The Right should respect that Clinton lost, and leave her alone.

Should Epicureans approve of cannabis?

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Brendan O’Neill is perhaps one of my least favourite British columnists. I disagree with him on almost everything, from Brexit to student politics and the populist right. But his article this week is really interesting. O’Neill laments the effect of legalised cannabis on the culture of Los Angeles. He decries how it has become all pervasive- you can smell it everywhere, despite being supposedly illegal to smoke it in public places. It makes people too chilled out and stupid. And far from being a social lubricant like alcohol or cigarettes, cannabis makes people less sociable. You can read the full piece here https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/11/la-used-to-fun-dope-has-just-made-it-dull/.

I don’t entirely agree with the article. Part of it relies on stereotypes about cannabis users: overly-educated, annoying middle class hipsters who are very fond of peddling a particularly pedantic form of political correctness and moral superiority. I certainly don’t believe cannabis is all that much worse than alcohol or cigarettes. The former is more likely to make people violent and abusive, the latter smells just as bad and carries a far greater cancer risk. Having said that, I wouldn’t want cannabis to become a part of the youth culture the way it has in LA and so many other places in America. Because of the smell, it’s quite an anti-social drug in my view, one which could prove seriously divisive were it to be used widely. The last thing Britain needs is yet more social divisions. Also, I’m sure cannabis makes people more stupid and boring, particularly if they use it regularly, even if the cliche O’Neill presents isn’t quite accurate.

Epicurus stood for moderation and enjoying your life. He certainly would have disapproved of the war on drugs, which costs huge amounts of taxpayers’ money, and results in a higher incarceration rate- needlessly splitting up families for non-violent offences. Taxing and regulating cannabis is far more humane than leaving it in the hands of criminals. But moderation also means taking into account the effects of smoking cannabis on other people. It’s certainly wrong to smoke it when children are present. Cannabis may not be life-threatening, but that doesn’t make it healthy. Strict regulations and a social stigma against heavy use will be necessary if it’s legalised anywhere else.

 

A looming disaster

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A “disorderly Brexit” is now seen as “almost inevitable” by the world’s biggest banks. That, at any rate, was the gist of the observations sent to the Chancellor by the City of London Corporation’s Catherine McGuinness, after days of meetings with Wall Street bosses and Washington policy wonks. With continued access to the single market still in doubt, “uncertainty is translating into action”. UK-based American companies are already beginning to implement “contingency plans”. The British right-wing Press is agitated about the possibility that the government will allow the EU to “dictate” Brexit trade terms. The Tories airily expect to have their cake and eat it on trade, with advantageous deals with both the Europeans and the Americans. But EU trade regulations are very different from those of the US, which are much less consumer orientated. Britain risks having to pick sides between two trade superpowers with starkly different demands. The Americans have intimated that Britain would have to scrap EU food standards on chicken and GM crops (among other things), if it wants a successful post-Brexit deal. Faced with a choice of trade partners we are now seeing the advantages of the EU’s strict regulations on food, to mention only one issue.

We have now reached “the halfway mark” between Britain’s vote to leave the EU and our planned exit date in March 2019, said Iain Dey in The Sunday Times. And what progress has our “bumbling, chaotic” government made? “Even if a good deal with the EU had been possible at one stage, the chances lessen by the day.” Big businesses, particularly foreign-owned ones, “cannot afford to wait to find out”. They are already taking decisions. “Soon those decisions will be irreversible.” (drawn from articles by Iain Day & Aimee Donnellan, the Sunday Times, and Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Daily Telegraph).

The only good thing is that it will surely finally dawn on the public that the right-wing Brexiteers are a totally incompetent bunch of blowhards, paid to protect British interests, but incapable of cooking a boiled egg. Hopefully, they will in due course resign and the electorate can vote in people prepared to do their homework.

“My country ‘tis of thee, not what it used to be, for thee I mourn”.

The truly sinister strategy of Putin

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With all the debate about the direct interference of Russia in the American, French, German and other elections, including Brexit, what has eluded the Press and the commentariat is another sinister, subtle and long-term Russian attack on the West.

The civil war in Syria started in March 2011. Russia has had a particular interest in the continuation of the war, but now deems it time to pose as peacemaker. Why?

The brutality and destruction in Syria has driven 4.5 million Syrians out of their country. Most have found their way via Turkey or Greece to EU countries. The expulsion of these (mostly harmless) Syrian citizens has been deliberate Russian policy (Assad presumably wants some people left to rule over). The mass migration is doing precisely what the Kremlin wants and planned for: Western public dissatisfaction and political turmoil.

At first there was genuine support for the refugees in the West, but as time went on angry French, Dutch, East European and other voices started to be heard. So far the leaders of the EU have held their ground, but a nasty racism is threatening a serious divide that is driving nativism and racism and opening up sores that were previously buried. Hungary now has a semi-fascist government. Germany, so long regarded as the stable core of the EU, is suddenly weak and unable to form a government. Countries that have had modest immigration of moslems in the past suddenly have to accept immigrants who have no idea about life in the West and have to start from scratch. Growing resentment at not even being consulted about the numbers destabilises the EU. Which is precisely the Putin objective.

And among the tens of thousands of refugees there are a number of terrorists. Whether Assad and Russians eased their path to the West we can’t say, but we have to truly abandon the idea that you can treat Putin as a reasonable leader we can work with.

In the series called “Madam Secretary”, the US knocks out the Russian power grid as a lesson to Moscow. Think about it.