Corruption
Labour lets the Rwanda Bill progress in the Lords
The Guardian has a report on last night’s debate on the Rwanda Bill 8n the House of Lords.
Amongst the many excellent contributions made they note this:
In a highly praised speech, the crossbench constitutional expert Lord Hennessy said the bill would diminish the UK’s standing in the world. “By rushing this emergency legislation through parliament with the intention of getting the deportation flights to Kigali under way by late spring, the government has already secured for itself a special place in British political history,” he said.
“The day may not be far off when the Rwanda bill, having cleared all of its parliamentary stages, will be forwarded from the Cabinet Office to Buckingham Palace to receive Royal Assent.
“In the few minutes it takes to pass down the Mall and across the tip of St James’s Park and its return journey to Whitehall, our country will change, for the government will have removed us from the list of rule-of-law nations.”
So, there was not much at stake then.
But as they then note:
A Liberal Democrat-sponsored motion designed to block the bill was rejected in the Lords on Monday night, by 206 votes to 84, a majority of 122.
So why wasn’t this travesty of a Bill that guts our constitution blocked? Because our human-rights lawyer led Labour Party is so small minded it could not vote for a Liberal Democrat motion.
I despair.
The Tories are changing the law on water companies so that even if they fail the shareholders do not take a hit
In December, I wrote here about the need for a change to the law on the insolvency of water companies.
I suggested a change that would wipe out shareholders, give loan creditors a haircut and leave essential suppliers with their payments due intact because they were essential to the ongoing supply of water in the UK.
Renationalisation was the inevitable outcome of such a scheme, but so what? Privatisation has failed.
Now, the government has slipped out new legislation to tackle this issue. I had no idea it was coming, but they obviously read the runes of forthcoming water industry failure as I did.
However, as the FT reports:
The new law provides more options for special administrators to restructure companies that are unable to repay their debts and may make it less likely that the government is forced into renationalising water utilities.
They add:
The legislation contains provisions that will allow a water monopoly to enter administration, restructure its borrowings and then exit as a “going concern”. Under the current rules, water company assets have to be sold off, and the corporate entity liquidated, if they go into administration. The new rules would allow existing shareholders to potentially retain a stake.
Unbelievably, after the failure of the water industry, the government's priority is to protect those who have created the mess that we are in.
Who will pay for that? As the FT notes again:
[A] lawyer also warned that creditors might suffer bigger losses than they might have under the current regime.
Read that as essential suppliers on whom we depend to deliver water will take the hit.
In other words, everyone who deals with water companies but those who mismanaged them will suffer. And that is all to ensure, as another lawyer told the FT, that the government does not have to take management of these companies but can leave them with the existing shareholders who have totally failed this country.
It takes staggering arrogance to present legislation so bad, but that is the only thing the Tories now have left.
I despair.
If the Office for Budget Responsibility does not disclose that its forecasts are total nonsense when it knows that they are what is the point of it?
I have already commented on the dubious accounting of the Office for National Statistics this morning. So, let me now turn instead to the equally dubious accounting of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
As the Guardian noted yesterday:
Forecasts on the outlook for the public finances last year were beyond “a work of fiction”, the head of the Treasury’s independent forecasting unit has suggested, after the government failed to provide details of its spending plans.
The report was based on comments made by Richard Hughes, the head of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), to the economic affairs committee of the House of Lords. Giving evidence he said:
the OBR’s forecasts were based on “questionable assumptions” that lead people to call his efforts a work of fiction.
Some people call [the projections] a work of fiction, but that is probably being generous when someone has bothered to write a work of fiction and the government hasn’t even bothered to write down what its departmental spending plans are underpinning the plans for public services.
As was widely commented (including by me) last November, the departmental spending figures included in the autumn's OBR forecasts looked utterly implausible, implying cuts of an order that nobody thought possible to deliver.
What we now know are a number of things.
The first is that the government supplied no real estimates to the OBR. At best, it delivered a back of a fag packet figure that had no workings attached to it, or any detail, from which the OBR was then supposed to make up its numbers.
Second, the OBR forecasts lacked all credibility as a result.
Third, the OBR did not say that at the time, which shoots its credibility to pieces for good, in my opinion, at least under this leadership.
And fourth, we know that Rachel Reeves' supposed dependence on the OBR to provide independent endorsement of any plans she produces in the future is as shot to pieces by this as have been all Tory forecasts commented on by the OBR.
In summary, this is utterly unethical conduct by the OBR because they failed to disclose that the forecasts that they issue lacked any credibility, and they knew that at the time.
What a total mess.
We do not enjoy the public good that democracy is meant to be
What gets me about the fiasco of the Rwanda asylum Bill that passed the Commons last night, but which is very unlikely to pass the Lords and so reach the statute book before an election, is the sheer waste of time it involved.
Let’s assume that democracy is a public good, created to advance the well being of us all through the delivery of the best government possible. Note, I do not say the best government. I add the word ‘possible’ for very good reason. But that still leaves my suggestion as one of hopeful, positive aspiration.
And then we get to the Rwanda Bill. What it shows are at least three things.
The first is Tory MPs total contempt for the gainful use of their time. There is no chance that this Bill will work. Worse, it cannot in any way change any issue the UK has with migration. And yet, Tory MPs were willing to dedicate countless hours, and create enormous stress, on an issue far removed from the needs of the country.
Second, the Bill laid bare the modern right wing politician’s contempt for the rule of law, which this Bill marches all over. Ego, dogma, naked nationalism and disdain for ‘foreigners’ matters more to them.
Third, the Bill reveals the danger in first-past-the-post electoral systems. A supposed coalition of right wing interests was elected to office when no such coalition actually existed. The result is disorganisation and chaos. A negotiated government between parties honestly open to disagreement with each other would be so much better than this.
The consequence is that far from delivering the best government possible, our failed democracy yesterday made clear how desolate is the UK’s political terrain.
And whilst I would not suggest Labour is as bad as this, that is only because it has ruthlessly purged any element of coalition from its ranks, leaving those on the left of UK politics largely without hope of representation. That is no more what democracy is about than what the Tories are doing.
So, do we enjoy the public good that democracy is meant to be? Clearly not.
When Disasters Come Home: Making and Manipulating Emergencies In The West – review
In When Disasters Come Home: Making and Manipulating Emergencies In The West, David Keen considers how powers in the Global North exploit, or even manufacture, disasters in the Global South for political or economic gain. Though taking issue with Keen’s engagement with psychoanalysis, Daniele-Hadi Irandoost finds the book an insightful exploration of the global power dynamics involved in disasters and their far-reaching repercussions.
When Disasters Come Home: Making and Manipulating Emergencies In The West. David Keen. Polity. 2023.
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In When Disasters Come Home: Making and Manipulating Emergencies In The West anthropological writer David Keen attempts to show how disasters are exploited for political and economic gain. A disaster, as defined by Keen, is “a serious problem occurring over a short or long period of time that causes widespread human, material, economic or environmental loss”. Keen’s analysis deals with two types of disaster in the Global North. The so-called “sudden” or “dramatic” disasters are caused by stark terrorism (eg, the 9/11 attacks), natural causes (Hurricane Katrina), financial and economic recessions (crash of 2007–8), migration crises (Calais), Covid-19, and the war in Ukraine.
Keen attempts to show how disasters are exploited for political and economic gain.
On the other hand, “extended” or “underlying” disasters derive from long-smouldering conditions of economic disparity (eg, globalisation and inequality), considerable changes in climate (deficiencies in the domestic infrastructure), as well as political fragmentation (erosion of democratic norms, etc).
Colonial historiography assumed that disasters were usually confined to the Global South. Incidentally, in his investigative research in the Global South, especially in Sudan, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Keen discovered that the politics of that world were disposed to deliberately make, manipulate and legitimise “famines, wars and other disasters”. This state of affairs enabled certain beneficiary actors to extract political, military and economic benefits.
In his investigative research in the Global South, especially in Sudan, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Keen discovered that the politics of that world were disposed to deliberately make, manipulate and legitimise famines, wars and other disasters
Here, Keen sounds a note of warning. Democracies provide only a fragile protection against disasters, and for six reasons (according to examples across the globe): disasters might be deemed “acceptable”, vulnerable groups do not always have the “political muscle” to guard against disasters, opportunists may seek to maximise profit through the suffering of certain groups, “elected politicians” may “distort” information about a disaster, democracies “may give false reassurance in terms of the apparent immunity to disaster” (emphasis in original), and, finally, a democracy may itself erode over time.
In theorising disasters, Keen endeavours to advance beyond the traditional distinction between the Global North and the Global South.
In theorising disasters, Keen endeavours to advance beyond the traditional distinction between the Global North and the Global South. His purpose is to show that, in the Western world, disasters have “come home to roost”, that the violence of “far away” countries (“whether in the contemporary era or as part of historical colonialism”) has found its way back into the Global North in the form of “various kinds of blowback”.
These “boomerang effects”, to use Keen’s words, “take a heavy toll on Western politics and society” when they are “incorporated into a renewed politics of intolerance” (“internal colonialism”). In particular, Keen says that, in the Global North, we find there is an increasing drive for security by “allocating additional resources for the military, building walls, and bolstering abusive governments that offer to cooperate in a ‘war on terror’ or in ‘migration control’ – … [which] tend not only to bypass the underlying problems but to exacerbate them” (emphasis in original). Additionally, Keen alleges that the expenses of “security systems” suck “the lifeblood from systems of public health and social security, which in turn feeds back into vulnerability to disaster”.
there is an increasing drive for security […which] tends not only to bypass the underlying problems but to exacerbate them
As Keen sees it, disasters either “hold the potential to awaken us to important underlying problems”, or “keep us in a state of distraction and morbid entertainment”, finding it important to consider their causes rather than their consequences.
Keen draws upon a wide selection of literature, covering authors including Naomi Klein, Mark Duffield, Giorgio Agamben, Ruben Andersson, Amartya Sen and Jean Drèze, as well as Michel Foucault, Susanne Jaspers, Arlie Russell Hochschild, Richard Hofstadter, and Nafeez Ahmed, among others. He pays particular attention to the work of Hannah Arendt. Her 1951 work, The Origins of Totalitarianism is a powerful and permanently valuable account of the way in which politics is framed “as a choice between a ‘lesser evil’ and some allegedly more disastrous alternative”.
[Arendt’s] 1951 work, The Origins of Totalitarianism, is a powerful and permanently valuable account of the way in which politics is framed ‘as a choice between a ‘lesser evil’ and some allegedly more disastrous alternative’.
Keen competently summarises her exposition of “action as propaganda,” upon which reality is prepared to conform to “delusions”. From his point of view, “action as propaganda” is represented by five distinct methods namely, “reproducing the enemy” (war on terror), “creating inhuman conditions” (police attacks in Calais), “blaming the victim” (austerity programmes in Greece), “undermining the idea of human rights” (the growing emphasis on removing citizenship in the UK), and “using success to ‘demonstrate’ righteousness” (Trump’s self-proclaimed powers of prediction).
Keen’s discussion of these strategies to exert control resonates with contemporary politics in the UK. One is reminded of the retrogressive character of Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s article for the Times on 8 November 2023, in the context of the Israel-Hamas war and the Armistice Day, suggesting that pro-Palestine protesters are “hate marchers”, and that the police operate with a “double standard” in the way they handle pro-Palestinian marches. This is, of course, one example of the insidious process of “painting dissent as extremism”.
Nevertheless, Keen’s use of “magical thinking”, or “the belief that particular events are causally connected, despite the absence of any plausible link between them”, is one aspect of his argument that struggles to convince. Keen is persuaded that “magical thinking” links up with a well-developed science of psychoanalysis in accordance with Sigmund Freud’s conception of the magical and how people affected by neurosis may turn away from the world of reality. But the impression given by Keen’s economic or anthropological perspective is that he may have overlooked the complexity of psychoanalysis.
Keen is persuaded that “magical thinking” links up with a well-developed science of psychoanalysis in accordance with Sigmund Freud’s conception of the magical and how people affected by neurosis may turn away from the world of reality
Here, we come to two of the chief problems of what “magical thinking” really means. First, according to Karl S. Rosengren and Jason A. French, magical thinking is “a pejorative label for thinking that differs either from that of educated adults in technologically advanced societies or the majority of society in general”. Second, they found, “it ignores the fact that thinking that appears irrational or illogical to an educated adult may be the result of lack of knowledge or experience in a particular domain or different types of knowledge or experience”. It is necessary, therefore, to understand the writings of Freud as the product of their locus nascendi. That is to say, it is dangerous to politicise the processes of psychology, or, to be more exact, to apply them outside the formalities of therapy.
To conclude, When Disasters Come Home is a book to which all those interested in current affairs, geopolitics and development studies must come sooner or later, abounding in illuminating extrapolations on the ruling and official class’s exploitation (or even manufacture) of disasters.
This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The LSE RB blog may receive a small commission if you choose to make a purchase through the above Amazon affiliate link. This is entirely independent of the coverage of the book on LSE Review of Books.
Image Credit: Kenneth Summers on Shutterstock.
Netanyahu ‘changes tune’ about ethnic cleansing on eve of ICJ genocide hearing
Israeli PM broadcasts ‘clarification’ – but only in English
Far-right Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has suddenly – for the first time – said that he doesn’t want to drive Palestinians out of Gaza. Previously, Netanyahu has described Gazans as ‘Amalek’, a reference to a biblical nation that the Israelites destroyed down to the last person, while his ministers have talked in various ways about the destruction, flattening, ‘voluntary’ transfer and even nuclear bombing of Gaza’s population – and his ambassador to the UK has spoken of the complete destruction of Gaza as the only ‘solution’.
The change comes on the evening before Israel faces South Africa’s genocide accusations in the International Court of Justice:
Netanyahu repeated the ridiculous claim that Israel – which has murdered more than 30,000 civilians, more than two thirds of them women and children, and maimed almost sixty thousand others – is doing all it can to minimise civilian casualties an that its orders driving Palestinians out of northern Gaza to be bombed in the south is somehow humanitarian.
They lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and . . .#NetanyahuIsAwarCriminalhttps://t.co/OPwAC5KyXu
— RonniSalt (@RonniSalt) January 10, 2024
Israel appears to be seriously worried about the outcome of the ICJ case. Netanyahu, who faced corruption charges before again becoming PM, looks personally worried too. But no statement or change of tune can mask Israel’s genocidal intent in its mass murder of women and children and its bombing of schools, hospitals and homes, or hide the direct violence and the deprivation of food, water, fuel and medicines that threaten to kill far more innocent Palestinian civilians than the bombs and bullets.
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Danny Kruger is wrong: we got a much more conservative country under the Tories. The inequality in excess deaths proves it.
As the Guardian notes this morning:
Danny Kruger, a leading backbencher and founder of the increasingly influential New Conservatives group, said the Conservatives risked being ejected from power this year having left the country “sadder, less united and less conservative” than they found it.
Kruger is, of course, as wrong on this as he is on everything else I have ever heard him talk about. Another Guardian report on work on the impact of inequality in the distribution of excess deaths in the UK over much of their period in office is clear evidence of that. As his work found, excess deaths were distributed by income decile as follows:
Tory policies worked, without a doubt. We did have a Conservative country. Disadvantaged people died as a result, which is a trend that the Party seems determined to continue going forward.
We did not get a less conservative country under the Tories. We got a more conservative one. It's just that, as ever, Kruger looked in the wrong place to find his evidence. Looking at his privileged mates was an insufficient sample base from which to draw conclusions, but that's all Tories do now, as Sir Howard Davies also proved last week.
Sunak: mean, cruel, punitive and profoundly unjust
The Sunday Telegraph has this lead article this morning (and I apologise for testing your eyesight):
The message from Sunak is unambiguous. After fourteen years in which the Tories have made the social security system mean, cruel, punitive and profoundly unjust, as well as under-claimed, they want to make things worse for those in need.
Some might have noticed that I have some concerns about Labour at present, but they are not, I admit, as cruel, discriminatory and profoundly unjust as the Tories. It is a low bar, but I will note it. I am not a fan of Rachel Reeves’ approach to social security, but it is not as bad as this.
Perhaps, more importantly, the question this leads to is important. What did happen to Beveridge’s vision of a welfare state? Why is it that we have turned against those in need? Is this simply that the egocentricity and utter selfishness of neoliberal ideology has won? Or have our politicians lost any sense of empathy that might drive their moral compass?
What is certain is that the Tories no longer believe in One Nation.
Just One Per Cent of Voters Say Rishi Sunak’s Government is ‘Very Honest’
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Just one per cent of voters believe Rishi Sunak’s administration is “very honest” according to an exclusive new poll for Byline Times, revealing huge mistrust in the current government.
The Prime Minister last year claimed that he was “delivering” on his promise to restore “integrity, professionalism and accountability” to Downing Street.
However, a poll conducted by pollsters We Think for Byline Times at the end of December, suggests he has a very long way to go to convince voters of this.
Asked to what extent, if at all, they would describe the current Government as being either honest, or corrupt, 57% of voters said they would describe them as being corrupt.
Among all voters 27% described them as being quite corrupt, compared to 30% who described them as very corrupt.
Voters are much less likely to see Sunak’s administration as being honest.
Among all voters just one per cent were willing to describe the Government as being ‘very honest’ with only a further 11% describing them as ‘quite honest’.
Even among Conservative voters, just four per cent said they would be willing to describe them as being very honest.
This widespread distrust in Downing Street is echoed by voters' response to the Prime Minister's claim to the Covid Inquiry last month to have been unable to recover any of his WhatsApp messages from the time of the pandemic.
According to our poll just 23% of voters believe his excuse for failing to provide the messages, compared to 77% who disbelieve him.
Separate polling conducted for Byline by We Think this week confirms this broad anti-politics feeling among the public.
According to the poll, 70% of voters say they are inclined to believe that politicians in Westminster are “in it for themselves” compared to just 12% who believe they are “devoted to serving the British people”.
Keir Starmer Faces an Immediate Test of His Pledge to ‘Crackdown on Cronyism’
The Labour leader’s decision to make restoring trust in public life the centre piece of his election campaign, raises questions about his own record
Adam Bienkov
The Prime Minister on Thursday suggested that he would call a general election in the second half of this year.
However, our polling suggests that the apparent collapse in trust in the Government’s honesty is reflected in voters’ expectations of their future performance, should they win another term.
Asked whether they believed another Conservative government would make their life better, just 16% said they thought it would, compared to 48% who said it would make it worse and 36% who said it would make no difference at all.
Despite being somewhat more optimistic about the prospects of a Labour government, voters appear split on whether it will make a meaningful difference to their lives, however.
Asked how a Labour government would impact them 39% said they believed it would make their lives better compared to 31% who said it would make their lives worse and 30% who said it would make no difference at all.
However, according to separate polling conducted this week by We Think, there is still significant optimism among voters about the upcoming general election.
Asked how they felt about the outcome of that general election, 47% said they felt ‘hopeful’, compared to 30% who said they felt ‘fearful' and just 22% who said they felt ‘apathetic.’
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Adam Bienkov also writes the Bienkov Briefing column, exclusive to the print edition of Byline Times.
So for more from him...
Keir Starmer Faces an Immediate Test of His Pledge to ‘Crackdown on Cronyism’
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Occasionally a politician makes a commitment that you instantly know will be repeated back at them endlessly in the years to come.
One such moment took place on Thursday, when the Labour leader Keir Starmer set out his pledge to “restore standards in public life” if he becomes Prime Minister with “a total crackdown on cronyism”.
“No-one will be above the law in a Britain I lead”, Starmer insisted.
The Labour leader’s cast iron commitment to eliminate the sort of bad behaviour demonstrated by the current Government over the last 14 years was crystal clear.
However, this commitment was put to an immediate test when he was asked by one journalist in the room about reports of the relationship between his close political ally Peter Mandelson and the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Asked if Mandelson, who continues to advise the Labour leader, has “questions to answer” about his previous relationship with Epstein, Starmer entirely dodged the question, replying that “I don't know any more than you do and therefore, there's not really much I can add to what you already know I'm afraid and that's simply the state of the affairs".
For a politician who had just made restoring standards in public life the centre piece of his campaign to become Prime Minister, this was hardly a satisfying answer.
Reports about Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein first emerged in June last year, at which point Starmer’s spokesman insisted that the Labour leader had “no reason to believe” that Mandelson wasn’t a fit and proper person.
Yet the Labour leader is now insisting that at no point in the intervening seven months has he ever thought to seek any more information from his adviser about that relationship.
EXCLUSIVE
Major Political Reform Could Secure Key Labour Target Voters, Study Suggests
“I think the whole thing is thoroughly broken at this point” a focus group participant said
Josiah Mortimer
Setting the Bar High
Other doubts continue to surround the Labour leader’s commitment to standards in public life.
He has already abandoned most of the ten pledges he made while running for the leadership, with the full list now deleted from his website. Subsequent pledges to spend £28 billion a year on green investments have also been watered down, with the Labour leader again suggesting today that the target would only remain if it met “our fiscal rules”.
Of course political commitments are always subject to circumstances and there is arguably a difference between commitments made in a leadership campaign and those made before a general election.
However, if you choose to run a campaign based on highlighting your own political integrity, then you have to be make sure that it is able to fully stand up to public scrutiny.
Luckily for Starmer, the bar set by the current Government should not be particularly hard for him to clear. Since promising to restore “integrity, professionalism and accountability” to Government, Rishi Sunak has presided over a series of ministerial scandals, while breaking multiple pledges made just months ago.
This breach has furthered a gradual collapse in trust in both him and his Government over recent years. To give just one recent example, new polling conducted by pollsters We Think for Byline Times, shows that Sunak’s claim to the Covid Inquiry to have lost access to every single WhatsApp message he sent during the pandemic is believed by just 23% of voters, compared to 77% who disbelieve him.
However, in choosing to emphasise his own commitment to restore public trust in politics, Starmer is asking the public to judge him by the highest possible standards, if and when he does become Prime Minister.
Time will tell whether that decision proves to have been a wise one.