Conservative Party
Rishi Sunak’s ‘Austerity Bombshell’ That Westminster Won’t Talk About
Today’s news that the UK went into recession at the end of last year is even worse than the headline figures suggest.
Although the UK economy officially shrank by just 0.3% in the last quarter, that figure fails to take into account the big increase in the country’s population over that period, due to high levels of immigration.
Once you take that into account the UK’s performance is far worse. According to today’s figures, GDP per person - which shows the real impact of the economy on individuals - actually fell by 0.6% over the last three months of 2023.
It gets even worse when you look beyond the last quarter. According to today’s data, the British economy has not grown at all, per person, for almost two years. This is the longest period without per capita growth in the UK since 1955.
The longer term picture is even worse than this, with the UK’s economic growth a huge 24% lower than it would have been had we remained on the same growth trend we were on before the financial crisis.
There are good reasons for this extended period of stagnation. A decade of austerity, Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic have all contributed to what has been the biggest real-terms fall in living standards in the UK since records began.
So given this grim outlook, you might expect that the Chancellor would be talking about bold plans to finally kickstart the British economy after 14 years in Government.
This is not what’s happening. Instead the Financial Times today reports that Jeremy Hunt is considering plans to make even bigger cuts to public spending after the next general election than those he has already set out.
According to the paper, "economists have warned that current plans for a 1 percentage point increase in public spending until 2029 are a “fiction”, as they would imply serious real-term cuts to some stretched public services.
"But people close to Hunt said Treasury officials were considering going further and reducing projected spending rises to about 0.75 percentage points a year, releasing £5bn-£6bn for Budget tax cuts."
This plan, which is predicated on the political desire to offer voters a series of pre-election tax cuts, would leave many of Britain’s already crumbling public services under the threat of complete collapse.
Now you might expect that such plans would trigger big public debate about the future of the economy and public services.
Yet despite Hunt’s slash and burn agenda already being signalled months ago in his Autumn Statement, these plans for a big new wave of austerity have so far received next to no coverage in the British press, outside of the FT, with most papers instead focusing on an endless debate about taxes and borrowing.
This focus, which has culminated in the Labour Party last week rowing back on its own plans to kickstart growth in the UK, is wildly out of step with what the economy needs and what the public actually wants. According to recent polling for Byline, voters in all parties now prioritise investment in public services over tax cuts.
Yet instead of having a big debate about actually investing in the UK’s stagnant economy, while restoring Britain’s failing public services, both major parties in Westminster remain focused on the same sterile debate about ‘balancing the books’ and ‘fiscal rules’ which helped lodge the British economy into its current slump in the first place.
The truth is that unless this changes, Britain's lost decade of stagnant growth and low productivity will only continue well into the future.
Conservative Donor Who Won £164m PPE Contracts Admits Deleting Emails
A Government trade advisor and Conservative donor, who won Covid contracts worth £164 million after being referred to the ‘VIP Lane’ by his long-term political ally Michael Gove has admitted deleting emails from the account through which he conducted the deals, a court has been told.
David Meller, who donated tens of thousands of pounds to Mr Gove and the Conservative Party before his beauty firm Meller Designs was awarded six large Government contracts to supply personal protective equipment (PPE) at the height of the pandemic, was revealed in a commercial litigation case he has brought against a former business associate to have a “penchant to...delete emails”.
Solicitors for Meller – who has a vast network of political connections that include senior Conservative politicians Nadhim Zahawi and Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch, who last year appointed Meller to the UK Board of Trade where he advises the Government on trade strategy – said: “In the usual course of business, Mr Meller had a practice of deleting his emails after they had been actioned.”
The emails in question relate both to Meller’s personal email address as well as to his Meller Designs email account, and cover everything prior to March 2023.
It includes the period Meller successfully negotiated the mass supply of PPE with the Cabinet Office, which is responsible for Government procurement and in which Gove was at the time a minister.
In addition to the practice of deleting his emails, Meller also openly concedes he has agreed several high-value contracts, including one with the Defendant, T&P Real Estate, which is said to exceed £1.4 million, on the back of “oral agreements” and a WhatsApp message.
Defending, Jonathan Davey KC, for property developer T&P Real Estate, said in a case management hearing on Friday: “This is a remarkable position. For the defendant, being sued in relation to an oral contract, that sets alarm bells ringing.”
Niall McCullough, for Meller, said his client had been advised while seeking legal advice ahead of the case to “preserve relevant documents”.
Mr McCullough said: “We didn’t say [Meller] destroyed all documents; we said [he] destroyed some documents. This is not a case where [he has] destroyed everything.
“This [email deletion] was pre-litigation conduct [which began in March 2023].”
Mr McCullough conceded it was not known how likely it was that Meller’s emails could be retrieved.
“We are making enquiries with [Meller’s] IT provider as to the possibility and cost of retrieving emails deleted from his [business] account,” he said.
“Our preliminary enquiries…suggest it is unlikely that it will be possible to retrieve deleted items from [Meller’s personal account].”
A Government spokesperson said: "Ministers had no involvement in these procurement decisions.
"In the height of the pandemic, we had to act swiftly to procure PPE, competing in a global market where demand massively outstripped supply.
"Potential suppliers often passed on offers of PPE to MPs, civil servants and ministers – and these offers were then passed onto professional procurement specialists for assessment, with due diligence carried out on all companies in advance of procurement and every company subjected to the same checks."
A Network of Interests
Meller's case concerns a 2019 multi-million property redevelopment deal he is alleged to have provided funding towards in association with former Goldman Sachs vice- chairman Michael Sherwood - one of several Meller and Mr Sherwood did together - which has seen Meller’s business practices come under scrutiny.
Nicknamed ‘Woody’, Sherwood was once one of the City’s highest-paid bankers with a wealth of £185 million, but the 58-year-old quit the firm in 2016 after failing to disclose a request for a £40 million loan from controversial British retailer Sir Philip Green, with whom he had a close friendship and a shared partiality to expensive yachts.
Aside from his deletion of emails, Meller - who was awarded a CBE in 2018 and was on the Department for Education's board of directors when Gove was Secretary of State for Education, before he resigned in 2018 over a sexual harassment scandal surrounding The Presidents Club, of which he was joint chairman - was revealed in court not to have “worked from” a laptop or desktop computer during the late 2019 period the litigation relates to.
This was around six months before Meller’s company was awarded the first two of its Government PPE contracts, worth a combined £66.9 million, in May 2020. It is not known in what fashion Meller negotiated those deals in the two months after the pandemic began in March 2020.
The businessman - who, despite having admitted borrowing £600,000 from Sherwood to finance the deal because “he did not have the cash funds” is described in court filings as a “high net worth individual” - admitted he agreed his financial backing to the T&P Real Estate Ltd project following a handful of unminuted phone calls and “in person” meetings between himself, Sherwood, and T&P’s then director Joshua Garside.
A single WhatsApp message, sent by Mr Garside to Meller, is said to be the only written proof in existence pertaining to any part of the negotiations, the terms of which are disputed by both parties.
Meller claims £880,000 of his funding was to be in the form of money “roll[ed] over” from, several named companies he had an interest in, one of which at the time of the alleged loan had been dissolved (Secure Sleep Properties LLP), and another that was in administration and is now insolvent (Wellington Old Co. Ltd).
Another company named by Meller that he claims to have rolled money over from, Berkshire Assets (West London) Ltd, collapsed last year. The latest administrator’s report showed the company’s investors had lost more than £30 million, and HMRC was owed £186,000.
After the failure of the deal, the businessman decided to take legal action against T&P Real Estate Ltd in an attempt to recoup money he says he invested.
Meller is seeking all of his money back from T&P Real Estate Ltd, plus interest and an exit fee, claiming any money he placed into the £14.5 million redevelopment in Sutton, Surrey, was only ever a loan.
In response, T&P Real Estate Ltd have launched a counterclaim against Meller.
They say that the money advanced under the alleged loan arrangement between Sherwood and Meller did not beneficially belong to Meller, that none of the £880,000 “roll over” money promised was ever received, and that Meller failed to bring in a further £1.4 million investment from Marron Capital LLC as they say he had promised to.
They claim Meller’s son, Jonathan, who is a minor shareholder in one of his father’s investment companies, and who is said to have conducted business on his father’s behalf, had assured them he had had a pre-existing relationship with the US-based investment firm.
Meller, who has declined to detail the arrangements of the loan from Sherwood but claims he paid it back a year later in November 2020, argues that it should have been the responsibility of Garside - who was a director of a number of companies Meller had an interest in - to enact the “roll over” of funds from their other businesses.
Meller says it should effectively have been Garside’s responsibility report on the finances of the companies the pair were jointly involved in, and to look after arrangements for the “rolling over” of funding from those companies.
T&P argue there is no proof that such an arrangement between Meller and Garside existed and, even if it did, such an action lacked “legal legitimacy”. They add that “it would be commercially nonsensical for T&P to accept a ‘rolled-over’ ‘investment’” which ultimately would not amount to any new money being advanced to the company, and instead would be taking on an assumed debt.
Meller also says he never agreed it was his obligation to seek investment from Marron Capital LLC, and that he was in fact told by T&P that no funding from Marron Capital LLP was required.
Byline Times will continue to cover the case, which will go to trial in November.
Brianna Ghey: ‘When the World Finally Saw the Person Her Family Always Loved’
Before she was murdered, Brianna Ghey, like all trans people in the UK, had to listen to politicians mock, degrade and dehumanise her.
This didn’t happen just at Prime Minister's Questions and it wasn’t only Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives who did it.
Prominent journalists, columnists, think tank talking heads, self-appointed anti-trans campaigners and Labour MPs could be found doing it from first thing in the morning on the Today programme, via Woman’s Hour to Newsnight just before bed. It was terrifically popular at any hour on GB News, LBC and Talk Radio.
Brianna’s parents, and all the people who loved her, heard these words too. And we know now that they worried for her future.
Newspapers carried these dehumanising and disingenuous words and ideas. They flooded The Times, The Sunday Times, the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, the Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph, the Express, The Sun, the Mirror, The Scotsman and the Herald and even the Guardian and the Observer.
Wherever you looked, there it was. Brianna’s parents rightly feared for her safety in a country where this irrational, obsessional hatred had gained such a hold.
Before Brianna Ghey was stabbed to death, the people who wrote and said these things in such abundance wanted us all to be clear that, even if experts and the science disagreed, then they themselves were at least very firm in their common sense views: anyone like Brianna had to be a fantasist, a groomer, a victim of grooming, a paedophile, a victim of paedophiles, a crank, an ideologist, a victim of ideology, a weak-minded sap, a sociopathic monster, a danger to themselves, a danger to others, and above all a threat to other women. And to lesbianism. And hospital wards. Oh and a threat to men who wouldn’t fancy them if they knew and would probably be forced to beat them up if they found out.
Before Brianne Ghey’s organs shut down, she was, according to the media, a threat to other children who might see her and put on a dress and demand hormones and surgery for themselves, and a threat to parents who didn’t like to talk about that sort of thing. She was a threat to education in the classroom, to changing rooms, to toilets, to teachers in a tizz about God and pronouns, and to academics who couldn’t say anything anymore without some bloody students telling them they were a fascist.
Before there were 28 stab wounds in her precious, beautiful, funny, loving and kind body, Brianna Ghey, like all trans people in the UK, struggled to find the real words and ideas and experiences of people like her represented anywhere. But nonetheless her parents and the people who loved her listened to her, loved her and made it possible for her to be herself.
All of this happened before Brianna Ghey was murdered.
After her murder, after the trial, after the verdict and the sentencing during which the judge made clear that transphobia was a motivation in the attack, after the words of her parents – only then could Brianna become something different to the hatred and misrepresentation in the words of the politicians and media.
She became to the public the person that her family always saw. A child, a teen, a gentle person who deserved a happy and safe life.
That is why Rishi Sunak’s transphobic gag crashed so badly across the House of Commons floor this week and the country beyond. What is a woman? Brianna’s mum and her lost daughter.
Before she was murdered, Brianna Ghey, like all trans people in the UK, had to listen to politicians mock, degrade and dehumanise her.
This didn’t happen just at Prime Minister's Questions and it wasn’t only Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives who did it.
Prominent journalists, columnists, think tank talking heads, self-appointed anti-trans campaigners and Labour MPs could be found doing it from first thing in the morning on the Today programme, via Woman’s Hour to Newsnight just before bed. It was terrifically popular at any hour on GB News, LBC and Talk Radio.
Brianna’s parents, and all the people who loved her, heard these words too. And we know now that they worried for her future.
Newspapers carried these dehumanising and disingenuous words and ideas. They flooded The Times, The Sunday Times, the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, the Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph, the Express, The Sun, the Mirror, The Scotsman and the Herald and even the Guardian and the Observer.
Wherever you looked, there it was. Brianna’s parents rightly feared for her safety in a country where this irrational, obsessional hatred had gained such a hold.
Before Brianna Ghey was stabbed to death, the people who wrote and said these things in such abundance wanted us all to be clear that, even if experts and the science disagreed, then they themselves were at least very firm in their common sense views: anyone like Brianna had to be a fantasist, a groomer, a victim of grooming, a paedophile, a victim of paedophiles, a crank, an ideologist, a victim of ideology, a weak-minded sap, a sociopathic monster, a danger to themselves, a danger to others, and above all a threat to other women. And to lesbianism. And hospital wards. Oh and a threat to men who wouldn’t fancy them if they knew and would probably be forced to beat them up if they found out.
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Before Brianne Ghey’s organs shut down, she was, according to the media, a threat to other children who might see her and put on a dress and demand hormones and surgery for themselves, and a threat to parents who didn’t like to talk about that sort of thing. She was a threat to education in the classroom, to changing rooms, to toilets, to teachers in a tizz about God and pronouns, and to academics who couldn’t say anything anymore without some bloody students telling them they were a fascist.
Before there were 28 stab wounds in her precious, beautiful, funny, loving and kind body, Brianna Ghey, like all trans people in the UK, struggled to find the real words and ideas and experiences of people like her represented anywhere. But nonetheless her parents and the people who loved her listened to her, loved her and made it possible for her to be herself.
All of this happened before Brianna Ghey was murdered.
After her murder, after the trial, after the verdict and the sentencing during which the judge made clear that transphobia was a motivation in the attack, after the words of her parents – only then could Brianna become something different to the hatred and misrepresentation in the words of the politicians and media.
She became to the public the person that her family always saw. A child, a teen, a gentle person who deserved a happy and safe life.
That is why Rishi Sunak’s transphobic gag crashed so badly across the House of Commons floor this week and the country beyond. What is a woman? Brianna’s mum and her lost daughter.
Katherine O'Donnell is a LGBTI rights campaigner, a board member of the Equality Network, and former Night Editor of The Times, Scotland
Anti-Fascist Group Takes on London Conservative Mayoral Hopeful Susan Hall, Branding Contender a ‘Racist’
A leading anti-fascist organisation has launched a campaign to “take on” Conservative mayoral candidate Susan Hall AM at the London mayoral election this May.
HOPE not hate kicked off their on-the-ground activism against the Sadiq Khan-opponent on Wednesday by leafleting at stations around London, accusing the Conservative mayoral hopeful of racism, in no small part due to her controversial statements on social media.
A spokesperson for HOPE not hate said the group has “exposed her racist social media history”. That includes the Harrow-based politician having liked a tweet saying ‘It's never too late to get London Back!'. The picture was an image of the late Conservative MP Enoch Powell with the quote "It's never too late to save your country". This was not a quote from 'rivers of blood' speech-giver Powell but a slogan that was once on the British National Party website.
She has also previously liked a tweet from a user suggesting Enoch Powell should have been Prime Minister, saying they'd like Enoch Powell to be an addition to a pack of Prime Minister playing cards.
Other examples pointed to by the group include quote-tweeting an article from “notorious right-wing misinformation site” The Gateway Pundit, alleging a conspiracy to steal the 2020 US presidential election from Trump.
And she replied to a tweet from far-right commentator Katie Hopkins calling Sadiq Khan "our nipple height mayor of Londonistan" with an endorsement, saying: "Thank you Katie!". "Londonistan" is the term used to convey the idea that Muslims are taking over London.
Hall also liked a reply to a tweet about Sadiq Khan's anti-violence against women and girls strategy that said "Well said Susan, that Labour Traitor RAT Likes that sort of thing" – being female genital mutilation and violence against women and girls. This is racially charged implying that Muslims support FGM and violence.
Challenged about her social media activity on LBC last September – in particular the Enoch Powell meme and Katie Hopkins tweets – Hall told the LBC Radio phone-in she “can’t remember” doing so, adding: “I tweet, or I used to, all the time.”
“When I retweeted, oh no I think I liked it. I don’t know, this was a long time ago. That wasn’t in my mind, and I’m glad you given me the opportunity to say…”
Interviewer Nick Ferrari interjected: “I think you did, you retweeted it.” Hall replied: “I retweeted? I have no idea.”
She denied she was a supporter of the former Conservative provocoteur Enoch Powell, adding: “If you’re a serial tweeter, you tend to go through liking all sorts of things, and you sometimes read things and don’t see. If anybody is offended, then obviously, I would apologise.”
In October 2023, Hall was urged to apologise after that claiming Jewish communities in London were "frightened" by Sadiq Khan. The London Assembly member made the comments at a Conservative Friends of Israel at the Conservative party conference in Manchester.
Prior to selection the Conservative Assembly member liked a tweet saying that Sadiq Khan is "begging for Londoners to do a Tower Hamlets postal vote for May next year and we all know how that works. #fraud" – effectively accusing Sadiq Khan of electoral corruption and promoting the idea that Muslims in electoral politics subvert democratic principles.
And she has liked tweets targeting journalists, including on branding Sky's Matthew Thompson, then at LBC, a "virus".
Georgie Laming, Director of Campaigns at HOPE not hate said: “Susan Hall is clearly not fit to represent a diverse and multicultural city like London.
“Her social media activity is some of the most egregious we’ve seen from a Conservative candidate, and that’s why we’ll be taking her on this election.”
At the end of last year the campaign group polled over 1,000 Londoners and found that 64% believed Susan Hall’s social media conduct was “racist”. The group says it will be using “some of the most advanced voter analysis available” to identify areas in each constituency that might be most receptive to hard-right politics, and to target them with anti-Hall material.
Susan Hall’s team was contacted for comment.
Do you have a story that needs highlighting? Get in touch by emailing josiah@bylinetimes.com
Grenfell: Michael Gove Deflecting the Blame Away from Conservative Politicians
Michael Gove is on the warpath. In the Housing Secretary’s crosshairs are the private contractors and suppliers to the Grenfell Tower.
In Gove’s view, they were to blame for the rapid spread of the fire which killed 72 people in West London in 2017.
According to Gove, they now have a duty to put right other high-rise towers and apartment blocks that carry the same insulation and cladding materials as Grenfell. In typical Gove fashion, he has not held back in his criticism, accusing cladding company Arconic, of engaging in “shameful practices” and displaying “an abhorrent culture of disregard for the safety of residents in their homes.”
He claimed that Kingspan, the Irish insulation maker, “is a company that gives capitalism a bad name”.
Again, his characteristic, guns-blazing tactic includes using all fronts, including social media, to put his message across.
Anyone reading his department’s postings, and there is much more, could be forgiven for supposing Arconic, Kingspan and the other firms involved in the 2016 installation of cladding and insulation at Grenfell were entirely responsible for the terrible inferno and loss of life.
You see, it’s all the fault of the greedy, grasping commercial sector, putting profits before people’s lives. The Secretary of State ends one diatribe with: “My Government Department will continue to be driven by its commitment to protect people in their homes. People who bought their rented homes in good faith and whose safety continues to be threatened by your products deserve better from the companies who have exploited their basic need for a home. Those companies who do not share our commitment to righting the wrongs of the past must expect to face commercial consequences.”
It’s an election year, and for Gove, putting himself in the shoes of the little man is a key part of the Tory strategy. By targeting private business he is exploding the age-old myth that the Tories are on the side of big business.
Again, though, anyone would think that the public sector had no role to play, that the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, where Grenfell stands, central government and London Fire Brigade bore no responsibility - that the tragedy was all down to the commercially rapacious profit chasers.
Which is why it comes as a surprise, then, to read that Arconic and Kingspan are not the worst offenders - that the worst is the local royal borough council, and that Gove’s own government and the fire service shoulder more of the burden than Kingspan ‘that gives capitalism a bad name.’
The Bindman Settlement
While the Grenfell Tower inquiry continues on its pain-staking journey, nine of those organisations, commercial and public, involved in the disaster undertook an ADR, an alternative dispute resolution, as a way of ensuring compensation reached the victims’ families and those forced from their homes in shorter order than if they’d waited for any potential litigation to conclude.
Represented by teams of lawyers, they agreed to meet before a senior judge who would determine the sum to be awarded and apportion their contributions.
In May last year, it was announced that the ADR was to pay £150m to those affected. But how that figure was broken down was not revealed, apparently for reasons of commercial confidentiality.
I’ve seen the percentage breakdown and it shows, top on 35.84 per cent is the borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Next is Arconic on 22.84 per cent. Then, Rydon (builders), 10.84 per cent, Celetex (manufacturer of most of the insulation) at 9.84 per cent. The fire service’s share is 5.84 per cent, the same as the Government’s, Exova (fire testing) is 3.24 per cent while Whirlpool, which made the fridge where the fire originated and Gove’s target Kingspan are in for the smallest portions, 2.84 per cent each. The accuracy of the figures has been confirmed.
The ‘Bindman Settlement’ - so-called after the leading London law firm where the nearly two years worth of detailed, behind-closed-doors discussions were held - was mediated by Lord Neuberger, the former president of the Supreme Court. In all, 900 people, including those who lost their relatives and those required to relocate, agreed to the out-of-court settlement. The ADR route was chosen after a claim was lodged at the High Court in 2021.
Five of those involved in the Grenfell refurbishment, which is when the cladding was added, chose not to participate in the Bindman process: CEP architects, Studio E architects, CS Stokes fire safety assessor, Harley Facades and Artelia project consultants.
“Some firms stepped up and others didn’t,” said one of the Bindman signatories. “We took the view that you can’t be a proxy where responsibility is concerned.”
The settlement does not have any bearing on the Grenfell Tower inquiry. Nor does it impact any potential criminal action. “Who paid what doesn’t necessarily reflect blame,” said the signatory.
Nevertheless, in the absence of the official inquiry’s findings, it is the nearest we have to apportioning fault.
Possibly, because the percentages are supposed to remain secret, Gove is confident he can lambast the companies, confident of not being challenged - and he can choose to ignore the larger role played by the public sector.
That the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the Government also happened to be led by Tories at the time of the tower’s refurbishment in 2016, is something else Gove may be keen not to dwell upon.
Rishi Sunak’s New Business Council ‘Riddled’ with Rule Breakers Totalling More Than £900m in Fines in a Decade
Firms forming the Prime Minister’s new Business Council of corporate executives have collectively been fined nearly a billion pounds by regulators over the past decade for a string of rule breaches – from bribery to money laundering and workers’ rights violations.
The Business Council, launched by No 10 on Wednesday, will meet officials “throughout the year” to discuss economic growth, giving them the ear of the Prime Minister directly.
No 10 says the council will have a regular meeting with the Prime Minister in Downing Street to “share intelligence directly from the shop floor to help boost the UK economy and create jobs”. The first meeting will take place next month.
Rogue's Gallery?
Eight of the 15 firms on the Government’s new Business Council have been fined for breaking industry rules or the law over the past decade, Byline Times analysis shows.
The Council includes Chief Executives from:
Rolls-Royce and Lloyds are in the top 10 most fined companies in the United Kingdom for regulation breaches.
Firms which have escaped regulators’ ire include OMass Therapeutics, Raspberry PI, Principality Building Society, Informed Solutions and Castore.
As No 10 noted, the firms on the Council employ over 200,000 employees from across the United Kingdom. But collectively they have faced at least 80 sanctions or fines from regulators since 2014, with 19 coming from the Environment Agency, 15 from the Competition and Markets Authority and 11 from the pensions regulator.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “Coming from a small business family, I know how integral business is to communities and the wider economy. Without the jobs, growth, and innovation created by UK firms, the country simply wouldn’t function. That’s why I’m getting businesses in for a regular update on how well we are doing in delivering for business – straight from the shop floor.”
But Andy Agathangelou, Founder of the campaign group Transparency Task Force said the Government’s new Business Council was “riddled” with organisations that collectively have faced huge fines in recent years.
“We are all therefore left wondering whether there have been grave errors of judgement on which organisations to include – if organisations were selected despite their appalling violations record; or if it’s even worse than that: that no due diligence checks were carried out at all. Either way, both the substance and optics around this are alarming.”
Fran Boait, co-executive director of Positive Money, said the Government was rewarding failure: “That you can be fined millions and still have the ear of the government speaks to the huge influence vested interests have over our public policymaking.
“Rewarding firms with such patently poor records with a say over how the economy runs is as good as giving them a free pass to continue acting out of line.
“Seats at the table should be filled by those who can represent the public interest, or else we risk doubling down on deregulation, which will end up costing us all dearly.”
The Prime Minister’s spokesman told Byline Times: “This about having the right mix of businesses, both small and large. They are significant employers and contributors to our economy. It's important that the government listens to the voice of business.
“I think you're referring to some specific instances which have been picked up by regulators and addressed by those companies. But that is not a reason to shut out companies that employ in some cases tens of thousands of people and contribute significantly to the economy.”
Byline Times analysed Violation Tracker UK data to assess the types of fines received by the Business Council firms over the past decade. Labour standards and pension plan violations made up the plurality. But in terms of fines levied, banking and insurance rule breaches were the most severe.
Juliet Michaelson, co-director of climate charity Possible, added that having companies who have been fined for environmental breaches advising the government on business was like "asking a fox to work on chicken safety policies."
“The government business council hopes to bring a real-world perspective on how the economy is impacting businesses, but to ignore climate and environmental issues in that perspective is woefully wrong when they go hand-in-hand.
“We are in a climate crisis and that isn’t going away. What we need going forward is strong leadership from politicians and business leaders to be able to work on policies that will benefit the public, the economy, and the climate. How can we trust them to do that if they have already failed the climate before?” Michaelson asked.
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Keir Starmer and the Labour Party – Press and Pundits Running Out of Dirty Tricks
The right-leaning part of our free and fearless press has, since the Conservative Party's poll lead vanished and Labour went in front by a margin now over 20%, tried every tactic in order to instruct their readership to vote in line with the superior insights of their editors, hacks and pundits. Every trick in the book of dirty tricks has been deployed. And the result thus far is total abject failure.
Soft left? Extremist doctors? How shall I put this ...Some of the scare stories are off the scale batshit, exemplified by Janet Daly of the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, someone who can be located in the no man’s land between “has-been” and “never was”, today bringing readers “Capitulation to the soft Left has ruined Britain”. Another who, in the days of Bill Deedes, would not have got in the Telegraph’s door.
Tory attempts to stop the Telegraph being sold off are pointless, though: free markets are wonderful until they mean your main propaganda conduit getting sold, all right-wing hands on deck, wittering about FREEZE PEACH, all this will be to no avail, sale or no. Hello press and pundits - you are facing an electorate that cares only about securing one outcome - sending the Tories packing.
Sure, there has been some unhappiness at Labour’s stance on the behaviour of Israel and its security agencies recently, and some high-profile resignations, but this, as the saying goes, has been “priced in”. Many of those voters will return to the Labour fold come the General Election, and those that don’t are not going anywhere near the Tories. And it gets worse.
The more traditional attack lines, like trying to pick apart your opponent’s tax and spending plans, won’t work either. So the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog wetting themselves over Labour’s environmental commitments “only being an objective”, and not a spending commitment, is also pointless. The public mind is made up.
Worse, the filter being applied by many voters is merely entrenching their view: tax and spend attacks are filtered out, but the horror show of post-Brexit realisation that many who voted Leave were conned is not. Attempts to deflect the Post Office scandal onto either Labour, the Lib Dems, or both, have failed. As for the broadcast cheerleaders, no, that ain’t working, either.
Fiona Bruce realised that when she told a BBC Question Time audience that many of them would be voting Conservative, only to realise that they would not. Laura Kuenssberg has tried a variation on that today by telling Yvette Cooper that many viewers would disagree with her. She doesn’t have the immediacy of a studio audience. But she’ll find out that was wrong.
If the Tories and their hangers-on want to know what is going on, they need to stop and think: contrary to all the talking up of Tory Prime Ministers from David Cameron to Theresa May to Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson to Liz Truss to Rishi Sunak, voters know all of them do not measure up to who went before, whether it is Tony Blair or Gordon they use as a comparator.
Voters also know that Ms Truss and her pals from Tufton Street came mightily close to totally screwing the UK’s finances. They know Sunak is irredeemably out of touch and dishonest with it. They know, especially, that the media class, yes, including Ms Kuenssberg, talked up Johnson when the bloke was monumentally inept, dishonest, selfish, lazy, and totally uncaring.
Yes, a few on the fringes will listen to pundits from GB News believe the barrage of lies being broadcast. To a lesser extent, this is also true of Murdoch media noise floor occupant TalkTV. But these people will not swing constituencies from one party to another. Nor will the increasingly cruel Government policies.
The Rwanda plan, apparently thought up on the fly by Boris Johnson as another of those wizard wheezes to get through another news cycle, is unlikely to see anyone deported. Cutting already inadequate benefits may get a few bigots on board, but so many voters will move the other way as to negate them.
The next two by-elections, Kingswood and Wellingborough, are highly likely to be lost by the Tories. Heavily. Whatever the press tries to dream up.
Save your breath, Tory backers. The voters want your team out. That is all.
Tim Fenton's regular observations can be found on his blog at Zelo Street.
Four Years On: Kemi Badenoch’s Sketchy Brexit Benefits
The Department for Business and Trade published a glossy Brexit Fourth Anniversary Update to mark the fourth anniversary of the UK’s EU departure. Purporting to provide “an overview of Britain's Brexit successes over the last four years”, the document has Kemi Badenoch's fingerprints all over it. Or her photos, at least, taking up two precious pages out of 24.
“The statistics and successes contained within the pages of this booklet tell a powerful story,” her lengthy Foreword intones. As powerful as many another work of fiction. The Foreword continues: “When we left the European Union, there were many forecasts of inevitable decline. These have been proved false.”
If anything is begging to be proven false, it is this blatant propaganda exercise. Accompany me on a stroll through some of its more egregious exaggerations and distortions.
“This newfound agility was crucial in helping us get through the pandemic with the fastest vaccine roll out in Europe – which in turn allowed us to re-open our economy even sooner.”
The false claim of a connection between the COVID-19 vaccine and Brexit seems harder to kill than the villain in a horror franchise. It has been disproven by the UK medicines regulator, by Full Fact, by the BBC and Channel 4 fact checking teams, by the Institute for Government, and by numerous other credible sources. And yet it continues to linger like a turd too buoyant to flush.
“My department has negotiated free trade agreements with 73 countries from Mexico to Malaysia. And we have secured the most comprehensive deal that the EU has ever agreed to in its history.”
Almost all are rollover copies of the ones we enjoyed as an EU member. Important aspects of our temporary Canada deal have recently fallen away, with negotiations to replace them at an acrimonious standstill. The UK’s Australia and NZ trade deals put British beef, sheep and dairy farmers at risk by removing all import quotas over time. By contrast, the EU’s own deal with NZ preserves quotas indefinitely. As for that most comprehensive deal with the EU itself, it is like a rusted-up piston compared to fully frictionless EU membership.
“The UK will also shortly be joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. It will make over 99% of UK goods eligible for zero tariffs in some of the world’s most dynamic economies.”
We already have trade deals with all but one CPTPP member, so this is likely to produce pitiful incremental improvement. Indeed, official government projections peg it at just 0.04% of GDP in the long run. And that’s if Canada agrees to ratify our accession to the group, as unanimity is required.
“Within the EU, the UK would not have been able to cut VAT on the installations of solar panels, heat pumps and insulation to zero.”
This statement harks back to a lost past. The EU isn’t frozen like an ant in amber; it evolves. Its VAT regulations changed in April 2022, and Germans currently pay no VAT on solar panels and batteries.
Watch Byline TV's documentary with Mike Galsworthy
“We listened to industry and announced proposals that will increase flexibility for businesses who manufacture and sell products on the GB market. This includes continued recognition of CE rules alongside the introduction of UKCA rules, which will reduce burdens and increase flexibility for businesses.”
Misleading. This applauds the non-imposition of a ridiculous new regime, the UKCA. But businesses are not benefitting from extra flexibility. Nor is their burden being reduced. It is merely not increasing. The retention of the status quo should not be passed off as a benefit.
Related aside: The Tories deployed an identical tactic in their PR for incoming border checks. Their press release on the subject included this helpful note to editors:
“Government analysis estimates that traders will save around £520m per annum under the new model”.
But that figure is benchmarked against an older, never-executed plan. When benchmarked against the reality of the pre-checks status quo, traders won’t save anything. Indeed, their costs will soar by hundreds of millions of pounds a year.
“Since leaving the EU, the UK has secured market access for UK steel and aluminium into the US market. We ended the US ban on British beef and lamb, markets estimated by industry to be worth £66 million and £37 million to UK exporters respectively over the next 5 years”
Another boastful claim that fails to account for the EU’s dynamic nature. In reality, the UK has played catch-up at every stage. The USA lifted its tariffs on EU steel in January 2022, while it took until June 2022 for UK steel to enjoy normal access again. EU beef was allowed back into the US in stages from 2015, but market access to UK beef was only granted in March 2020. Had we stayed in the EU, things would have improved quicker.
“The UK has signed Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with seven US states with a combined GDP of £3.4 trillion, similar to the GDP of Germany”
This is like describing a plan to buy a chocolate bar from Tesco as potentially being worth £20 billion, the total market cap of the company. MoU are not trade deals. They are also not legally binding, a fact emphasised by FCDO guidance: “A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) records international commitments, but in a form and with wording which expresses an intention that it is not to be binding as a matter of international law”.
“In February 2023, the UK and Italy agreed a trade partnership to boost exports, help create jobs, increase wages, and grow the economy. The partnership has strengthened our post-Brexit export and investment links with Italy and boosted a trade relationship worth £51 billion”
Italy is in the EU. Logic dictates that we could have concluded the same arrangement while still a member.
“Keeping our own tariff revenue to spend on public services rather than sending it to the EU.”
Although tariffs are imposed on importers, they usually end up being passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. So this statement is celebrating UK consumers effectively being forced to funnel additional tariff revenue to HMRC.
The points above cover the document’s worst offences, but plenty of smaller devils lurk in the detail. Given its copious flaws, it should be impossible to take anything this booklet says seriously. And yet our right-wing press are already according it the same unquestioning reverence as if it were carved on tablets of stone.
Labour’s ‘Intensely Relaxed’ Approach to Bankers’ Bonuses Tells Us a Lot About a Starmer Government
“Today - in the midst of their cost of living crisis - the Conservatives are scrapping the cap on bankers' bonuses", Labour’s Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves complained last October, adding that Sunak's decision to go ahead with removing the limit on pay “tells you everything you need to know about this Government".
Yet fast forward just three months and Reeves now appears to agree with the Prime Minister.
Speaking to the BBC, Reeves insisted that she has "no intention" of reinstating the cap, which she suggested would prevent her from being the “champion of a thriving financial services industry”.
In some ways Labour's latest U-turn is not terribly surprising, coming as it does in the same week that it positions itself as the "new party of business"
Yet if Sunak's decision to scrap the cap three months ago told us "everything you need to know" about his Government, what does Reeves' belated support for maintaining that decision say about a potential Labour Government?
'Morally Bankrupt'
Attempting to justify the decision on Wednesday, Labour spinners insisted to Byline Times that the Shadow Chancellor had only ever suggested that scrapping the cap should not be "a priority" for the Government.
In other words, Reeves' opposition to scrapping the cap was not one of principle, but merely of timing.
This is rather misleading. In reality Reeves had instead long portrayed the decision to scrap the cap as a basic issue of fairness.
Responding to Sunak's decision to push ahead with scrapping it, Reeves told MPs in 2022 that “at a time when he is urging wage constraints for everybody else, how can he remotely claim that that is fair?”
She added that while, "he is asking working people to take the hit... if you are a banker, a non-dom or a private equity manager, do not worry: Scrooge has not cancelled your Christmas."
Other parts of the party went ever further, with Labour's leader in Scotland, Anas Sarwar saying that scrapping the cap was not just “economically illiterate” but “morally bankrupt”.
Sarwar stood by his previous description today, telling reporters in Westminster that “I am not going to shift my view on that.”
"I'm not here to defend bankers' bonuses" he added.
'Intensely Relaxed'
Not everyone in the party will have been as unimpressed with the about-turn, however.
Watching on from the House of Commons gallery today, as Sunak mocked Starmer's U-turn, was the former Labour Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, who once famously suggested that their party should be "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich" (as long as they pay their taxes).
For Mandelson, who still advises the Labour leader despite questions over his own associations, Reeves's comments will likely have been received as a welcome sign of a changed party.
Asked what the U-turn said about a potential Labour government, a spokesperson for Starmer added it showed that the party was now "focused on stability and certainty” for business.
Yet the problem with the party's newly-relaxed position on filthy rich bankers, is that by always prioritising business "stability" over economic fairness, the party risks boxing itself in should it form the next government.
As both the International Monetary Fund and Institute for Fiscal Studies confirmed this week, the Conservatives' current spending plans imply big and unsustainable cuts to public spending over the coming years.
In order to avoid the collapse of basic public services that would inevitably follow, an incoming Labour Government would therefore have to either increase borrowing, raise taxes, or both. And with the general public already suffering, the pressure to balance those tax rises on those who can most afford it will be hard for the party to avoid.
Yet by largely ruling out such moves, while insisting that their priority is instead about ensuring that bankers can continue to fill their boots, Labour is risking making the position they will inherit from this Government even trickier than it currently looks.
Opponents of the bankers' bonus cap point out that it was a mostly symbolic measure. There is little evidence to suggest that the cap actually reduced the total amount of compensation received by senior bankers, nor that it significantly altered their risk-taking behaviour.
But at a time when the rest of the economy is being told to "show restraint" in demanding pay rises, the obscene levels of pay still being banked by the financial services industry, should be hard for any Government, let alone a Labour one, to justify.
Yet by putting winning the support of big business leaders ahead of issues of economic fairness, Reeves and her party are making it clear exactly whose interests they are now prioritising.
Eight Out of Ten Brits Say Rishi Sunak Doesn’t Get Britain
Rishi Sunak’s allies came to his defence this week after Keir Starmer claimed that the Prime Minister “simply doesn’t get Britain”.
Responding to the Labour leader's comments, the Leader of the House Penny Mordaunt told the Commons on Thursday that Sunak, “doesn't just get Britain, he represents the best of Great Britain".
However, a new poll commissioned by Byline Times suggests that an overwhelming majority of voters appear to agree with the Labour leader.
Asked by pollsters We Think whether the Prime Minister understands the pressures facing the average British person, 80% of voters said they believe he doesn't, compared to just 20% who disagree.
The poll found that even many Conservative voters have their doubts about Sunak, whose personal family fortune makes him the richest British Prime Minister of all time.
According to the poll, 41% of Sunak’s own voters say he doesn’t understand the pressures facing ordinary Brits, compared to 59% who disagree.
Starmer's claim about Sunak was endorsed by one Conservative MP this week, as he came out publicly to call on the Prime Minister to stand down.
Sir Simon Clarke wrote in the Telegraph that it was time for Sunak to step aside as, “he does not get what Britain needs [and] he is not listening to what the British people want.”
Clarke's call followed the publication of a spate of opinion polls suggesting that the Conservative party is heading for a landslide defeat at the next general election.
Taking the Knee
Sunak this week sought to fight back against allegations of not understanding Britain by flipping the claim back on his opponent.
At Prime Minister’s Questions the Prime Minister suggested that Keir Starmer’s decision in 2020 to take the knee in solidarity with protesters against anti-black racism was a sign that he doesn't share British values.
“He [Starmer] talks about what… Britain values. This from a man who takes the knee”, Sunak told the chamber.
However, our poll found that a clear majority of British voters believe the Labour leader was right to take the knee, by 59% to 41%.
Current Labour voters are even more supportive with 73% saying Starmer was right to do so, compared to just 27% who disagree.
Even Conservative voters appear to be split on the issue, with 43% agreeing that Starmer was right to take the knee, compared to 57% who disagree.
Despite supporting the Labour leader on this issue, most voters do still have doubts about Starmer’s own ability to understand their concerns, according to our poll.
A majority (57%) of voters say Starmer doesn’t understand the pressures facing ordinary Brits, with just 43% disagreeing.
Labour voters are more convinced in their man, with 61% saying Starmer understands the pressures they face. However, almost four-in-ten (39%) disagree.
The findings come as the two leaders begin what is set to be one of the longest UK election campaigns in living memory, with both men taking part in campaign visits around the country.
The Prime Minister ran into trouble during one such visit last week after being confronted by a former NHS worker about the state of the health service.
A clip of the encounter showed the Prime Minister laughing out loud following the intervention before moving on. A spokesperson for Sunak later insisted that he had not been laughing at the woman or her comments.