Ungovernable? Unspeakable more like

A review of Simon Hart’s Political diaries

Just to give you a flavour of Simon Hart’s powers of political analysis, here’s a memorable sentence from the book:

Their styles are so different, that I’ve decided that when it comes to politics (thank goodness for this clarification!) Boris “fucks” and Rishi “makes love”. Both are strangely effective.

Both presumably guarantee an earth-moving orgasm every time. No such joy from Simon Hart’s political memoir, which will not trouble the scorers in the pantheon of political history. The lack of an index is a bit of a giveaway. This is not serious history, just tittle-tattle, self-justification and whining about unfairness. By the end even Hart seems a little embarrassed about how the thin gruel is that his book contains, (yet rather pleased about the raunchy sentence above – Tories are sexy, Labour are dull. Yawn.)

Several factors conspired to bring me to this book: a series of glowing reviews (“remarkable insight”, “engrossing, entertaining, ..so funny”,) an unquenchable appetite for revelations about the disaster of government since 2010, and the serendipity of finding it available, pristine and untouched in my local library. Circumstances that were too good to turn down at the time, but, in the end, I almost wished I had passed on this and got something else instead.

It barely delivers on the shocking revelations front, apart from a couple of scarcely believable, tawdry anecdotes that were well-trailed prepublication.

The first was the tale of the Tory MP ringing in the middle of the night to be rescued, having found himself in a brothel with a Russian spy (well, we’ve all been there).

The second was this beauty: “ a departmental SPAD went to an orgy at the weekend and ended up taking a crap on another persons head…..in a separate incident a Commons employee went to a party dressed as Jimmy Saville and ended up having sex with a blow up doll” Obviously, apart from that, the Tories are straight up regular guys.

Don’t read the book if you’re expecting page after page of scandalous behaviour like this by the naughty party. The majority of the book is mind numbingly dull: endless reports of Cabinet awaydays, PMQs, events in Wales (Hart was Secretary of State for Wales at one point) and name dropping accounts of drinking sessions or meals out with sycophantic journalists. It does, however, perform an invaluable public service in reminding us just how ghastly, how inept, how morally bankrupt the Tories in office were. Barely a page goes by without details of one Tory after another getting found out for a misdemeanour: child abuse, rape, corruption, bullying, watching pornography in the commons. The cases accelerate when Hart becomes Chief Whip under Rishi Sunak, presumably because in that role he was privy to information about all badly behaved MPs. The main conclusion Hart draws from this is that the Tory party needs to improve its candidate selection process, to avoid the serial sex offenders, criminals, bullies and freeloaders. It seems to have escaped him that the Johnston intake, in 2019, was so full of those sorts of loathsome chancers that a better vetting process would have left them with a list of suitable candidates down to double figures.

To everyone else in the country, it was perfectly clear that these rogues were quintessentially Tories. Their sins, not aberrations or mistakes, but an essential part of who they were and what they believed in. Born to rule, rich, entitled and convinced that the rules laid down to regulate behaviour were meant for the little folks, not for them. It was The Bullingdon Club writ large.

It appears from these diaries that virtually no work of any meaningful kind goes on. Yes, there are late meetings and early meetings, but they are all fuelled by expensive lunches and dinners, where the drink flows freely. The meetings involve endless wrangling, navigating a route around different political factions, leading to absolutely nothing in terms of improving the lives of people. All of their energies appear to go into party management to ensure a compliant parliamentary party, using patronage and threats of exposure to keep everyone in line. This becomes clearer in the years when Hart was chief whip, when the diary is overwhelmingly about Tory MPs relentlessly hassling him for honours. Hart himself says that he was thinking about calling the book ”About my Knighthood” because that’s how most Tories started a conversation with him. It’s a portrait of a system that runs on naked corruption, and self serving venality. These people ooze entitlement, and the notion of serving their constituents seems never to cross their minds.

The biggest insight the book provides is into the full, horror shit show that is the mindset of the average Tory MP: entitled, snobby, completely deluded about their values, actions, and how they are viewed by Joe Public. Everything that goes wrong is someone else’s fault, usually the media in general and the BBC in particular which Hart ludicrously seems to think is a branch of the Communist Party. Here are a few snippets, giving us a pretty accurate snapshot of the cut of Hart’s jib.

First is his description of Mark Drayford, the Labour leader of the devolved Welsh Assembley. Hart as Welsh Secretary had a lot of dealings with him and seems incensed that Drayford was more popular than him and got a lot of plaudits for his handling of Covid. Here’s Simon Hart’s verdict: “Drakeford’s public persona was one of a dull academic, the sort of lefty philosophy lecturer you used to find at Luton Polytechnic in the 1970s. A Welsh Jeremy Corbyn…” “ Drakeford looks like a scruffy old university lecturer with dirty shoes” Multi-layered snobbery or what?

His contempt for public service is also never far from the surface. Here is one example he casually throws in when describing Starmer. “ He may have been the Director of Public Prosecutions but as some of our MP lawyers observe, any decent lawyer goes into private practice”

His political judgement is hopelessly awry. Every description of PMQs, whether it be Johnson, Truss or Sunak at the helm, gives the impression that the Tory incumbent aced it every week, with Starmer missing open goal after open goal. He is baffled by the reputation of Gavin Williamson, who he describes as “one of us” and who is treated “terribly unfairly”.

He opines, with a straight face presumably, that “we have done a good job on water.” Blimey. Just imagine how bad it would have been if they’d messed it up.

He describes a lunch with Laura Kuensberg and provides further evidence of his razor sharp political antennae: “ For all the years I have known her, I would have no more clue now how she votes than on the day we first met.” Really, Simon? You must be the only person in the country with a double figure IQ who doesn’t know that Kuensberg is virtually in the Tory cabinet.

Once again, Hart provides clear evidence that the average Tory really doesnt see what all the fuss is about. It’s perfectly normal that the news should have an instinctive Tory bias because well, so does the country. If anything, the BBC is in the grip of Commies. The depth of delusion is compounded by his casual barbs about the left in general. “Why are they always so angry? It must be so exhausting.”

Perhaps because they see that all that has gone wrong with the country was avoidable. The damage inflicted as policy by a series of governments from the Right and Far right. You got away with it for so long because at first the damage only affected the people at the bottom, and no-one gives a toss about them. Things began to get sticky for the Tories in power as more and more people could see with their own eyes the damage being inflicted on the institutions of civil society. Just walk down the High Street, try to rent a flat or swim in the sea. That’s Tory shit you are navigating around.

Just like your swim, this is a book that will require you to wash your hands after reading it.

Ps – nearly forgot. Surely Hart has some insight into the Government’s handling of Covid? And the parties?

Parties? Didn’t happen, mate. Vaccine rollout. Starmer Curry.

Liars!

Rish! and The Tories exposed as desperate and shameless after only two weeks.

I write this after two weeks of an already dismal and depressing election campaign – almost a third of the way through. Nothing much has shifted in terms of the polls – Labour are still a country mile in front and the Conservatives are still resolutely useless. So much so that my ingrained fear of the media establishment lying the Conservatives back to power, reinforced by enduring many unsuccessful campaigns in the past, has not really kicked in. I should be sitting back enjoying the campaign assured of victory, but I’m not. First, it’s extremely depressing watching a series of Tory ministers (or at least the few that are still standing ) lie their way through interviews, knowing that the supine interviewers will not call them out on their lies.

Second, unlike 1997, we are deprived of the delicious prospect of watching one grotesque Tory criminal after another being trounced by tactical voting. The biggest of beasts is vulnerable to ending their career in a rerun of the Portillo moment, shuffling from foot to foot in a drafty sports centre, as bepearled supporters sob uncontrollably. It’s petty and unworthy, I know, but it’s been the only thing keeping me going since 2010. Who would give the most pleasure? Jacob Rees Mogg? Michael Gove? Priti Patel? Cruella Braverman? Mark Francois? Andrea Jenkyns. Dear me, even reading the list sends a shiver down the spine, as the full depth and breadth of the Tory fuckwittery is laid bare. Deeply stupid. Deepy incompetent. Deeply callous. In some cases, vaguely criminal.

The trouble is that evolution has not produced a creature with a more acute nose for danger to their own self interest than the average sitting Tory MP. They’ve known for at least the past year that their days are numbered, and so they grandly announce their intention to stand down, citing privilege and honour, having made sure that they have secured a lucrative directorship or three of some businesses involved in their area of ministerial “expertise”. No reckoning for these charlatans after all. Michael Gove, taken by surprise by Rishi’s shock election call, didn’t even tell him he wasn’t going to stand. His announcement that he was standing down produced the most extraordinary paeans of praise for this supposed modern day titan of Westminster. The bar is set very low indeed if Gove is a titan. Coke head, drinker, lickspittle, his main achievement is proclaimed by the Torygraph and The Spectator as the rescuing of Education from the clutches of the Blob, all, supposedly in the name of “Standards”. Standards my arse, as Jim Royle might have commented. Now there’s someone who would have made a better Education Secretary than Gove. Along with Pingu, and Ant and Dec. What an interview shortlist that would have made.

The other source of pleasure denied, of course, is the prospect of an incoming Labour government that would begin the herculean task of repairing the damage created by 14 years of incompetence, greed and corruption. But unlike 1997, when there was real excitement at the end of Thatcherism, and what a Blair government could achieve, there is no similar joy or hope. Starmer has continued to disappoint and, lately, enrage. Before any of you Labour centrists explode, ranting about middle class Corbynistas threatening to jeopardize the Starmer project and thus betray “hard working families”, let me explain. (And don’t worry by the way about non-working, non families. No-one gives a toss about them. It’s their own fault.)

I absolutely get the strategy of saying virtually nothing and making no commitments that might give the Tories an easy target. We’ve been shafted too many times before by The Sun and the Mail. But what Starmer has done has gone way beyond that, way beyond what might reasonably be deemed sensible and cautious. Their policies have gone to the right of the Tory party. Watering down of the Green deal. Processing immigrants overseas. Keeping the 2 child benefit cap. Not nationalising Water, Energy, Rail etc. Not talking about Europe and the single market. Not talking about PR. The list is endless – a Mandelson-advised Labour party outflanking the Tories on the right. Who’d have thought it?

There does seem to be a genuine prospect that the Conservative Party might split after the election. Whereas before that would have been a reason for celebration, now it would just be a bit of schadenfreude. Why? Because there’s no need for the Tory Party, given the transformation of Starmer’s Labour. The Tories, who had via Brexit turned into the English National party, can split asunder. The knuckle draggers will migrate to Reform UK, who are basically the Nazis with fewer policies. The Tories who represent seats in leafy Middle England will join Labour. Socialists and even mildly left of centre libs will join the Greens. And this inexorable drift to the populist Right will continue unchecked unless Labour is deprived of a majority and PR somehow gets itself back on the table. And at the moment, that doesn’t seem likely.

This is the mother of all own goals. After what has happened since 2010, the appetite for socialist policies in poll after poll is enormous. They are clearly popular and different to the tired old policy sacred cows that derive from redundant concepts of sound money. The trouble is you have to make the case for them over time, and in doing so, debunk the hysterical name calling that promises of increased public sector spending always provokes. But the leadership don’t really seem to believe in it any more. Despite Starmer bizarrely self identifying as a – gulp – socialist. I’m still trying to work out the Machiavellian calculations that lie behind that announcement. Perhaps he just forgot.

The latest talking point is of Rishi Sunak taking politics and his own reputation into the gutter by his deliberate, desperate and blatant lies on tax. As ever with Rishi, despite the endearing flutter of excitement amongst the Media attack dogs on the night of the first debate, it’s all gone pear shaped twelve hours later. Everything he touches turns to dust, and I predict that before the end of the campaign, there will be major defections and open warfare amongst the Tories. It really couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people.

It was to be expected, of course. The Forty five year Thatcherite experiment has produced a shed load of evidence of its own spectacular failure. In every area of governance, Britain is significantly worse than it was in 2010. You only have to walk through your local town centre to see it with your own eyes. And you’d have to walk because it’s too hard to get a bus or a train. Even they can’t defend the rising tide of shit their ideology has generated, so the only thing left is to lie about it. And they’re not even very good at that, apart from their lack of shame. They are certainly world leaders at that.

I am still undecided, but currently The Greens are making it hard for me to vote Labour, but I suspect I’ll wait until the July 4th and assess the state of play then. The way things are going , I’ll be able to vote Green with a clear conscience, knowing that Labour’s majority is unthreatened. Labour’s continuation of right wing policies, their timidity on economics, their disgraceful position on Gaza and Israel’s genocidal madness make it increasingly hard to support them. Ultimately though, I take the Mick Lynch line on this: the very worst iteration of a Labour government is a hundred times better than the very best iteration of a Tory one. But it’s getting very close.

Hold the Front Page! Latest Tory haplessness – just before going to press the D Day scandal was breaking. Sunak’s crack team of advisors have outdone themselves this time. I’m starting to believe a tweet I read that suggested that the only rational explanation for their campaign’s increasing level of incompetence is the idea that Rish! has got a hedge bet on that depends on him losing the election by achieving less than 100 MPs. It’s delicious – the ultimate vaccuous flag shaggers hoisted by their own petard by the Dad’s Army propaganda sheets, The Torygraph, The Mail, The Sun and The Express.

More ramblings from the election battleground next week.

Back to the Future, Part Two: We’re on the brink….

Johnson: Are you sure this will work?

Cummings: It’s the Will of The People…

At the time of writing, it all looks pretty bleak for Labour Party supporters. The last poll put the Tories 19 points ahead.(update at the bottom of this article) Yes, it was similar midway through the 2017 election. Yes, this is an election with, more than ever before, constituency-specific conditions that buck the trend of national polls. Yes, the campaign allows Corbyn more direct access to people to be able to counter the most egregious media bias. Taking all of that into account, it still feels like a mountain to climb, and the ambition of being the largest party in a hung parliament, realistic a few weeks ago, seems unattainable now. The first sign of a closing of the gap in the polls has brought out the big guns of the anti-semitism tactic, a hugely successful plan to discredit the most overtly anti-racist political party in the history of the known universe. You can’t argue against it, if you’re not Jewish, without running the risk of being accused of, at best being in denial about the problem and at worst, being a racist. Even Jewish labour party supporters who have the temerity to contest the MSM version of events are demonised as traitors or not being real Jews. Please, give the tens of thousands of Jewish voices who are pro-Corbyn some air time. Please, when you write these articles, give us some evidence. Please Jeremy, argue your case. Look at some of these links for more: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/mar/07/debunking-myth-that-anti-zionism-is-antisemitic Michael Rosen’s blog: https://t.co/H6kKX1R2b0?amp=1 Jewish Voice for Labour: https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/smoke-without-fire-the-myth-of-a-labour-antisemitism-crisis/

It could still be the case that real people voting on December 12^th will show the polls to have been wrong, but I have to be honest, I’m not expecting that and I’m beginning to feel more than a little depressed. Because what is at stake in this election makes it, by a country mile, the most important in my lifetime. Despite the best efforts of the mainstream media to normalise the Conservative Party led by Boris Johnson, to place them in a One Nation Tory tradition, they are really the Brexit party in all but name.

The Selfish, the Sentimental and the Stupid

Consider what has happened in the last year.

Moderate and mainstream Tories have left in their droves. Either they have something resembling principles, and they cannot in conscience be part of a party that is going to inflict such damage on the country. Or they cannot justify, with weasel words, (See James Cleverly, Matt Hancock, Nicky Morgan, Michael Gove) the blatant, repeated and outright bare faced lying and law breaking that is the modus operandi of the current leadership. Whether they have left, or have been ousted by the withdrawal of the whip, or the actions of rabidly right wing constituency parties, they are no longer there, a moderating influence on future policy direction. Look at the names of those who have gone: Rory Stewart, Ken Clarke, Amber Rudd, Dominic Grieve, David Gauke, Nick Boles, Justine Greening, Anna Soubry, Heidi Allen. His own brother, Jo Johnson, has stepped down as a candidate. We have no way of knowing, at the time of writing, how many of his children are standing against him for other political parties. The party is now an unembarrassed coalition of the selfish, the sentimental and the stupid, a mirror image of the voters they now attract.

You just have to look at the current cabinet for a flavour of what a Johnson Government would do.

Priti Patel as Home Secretary: Believes in the Death Penalty. Thinks poverty is the fault of local authorities. Broke Civil Service regulations last year as Secretary of State for Overseas Development by holding secret meetings without the required Civil service officials, with members of the Israel government over illegal settlements on the West Bank. Thinks British workers are “the worst idlers in the world” Has advocated reducing dramatically the welfare state in the UK and imposing working conditions of countries like Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea

Sajid Javid as Chancellor. His main role appears to be as a token person of colour in the cabinet. Has suffered outright and open racism from other Tory members in the way he has been treated and in the torrent of social media abuse he has experienced from many constituencies, members and officials. Played a leading role, before becoming an MP, in Deutsche bank, enriching himself on the back of his trading of collaterised debt obligations (no, me neither), the financial instrument that played a central part in the collapse of the global banking system.

Liz Truss as President of the Board of Trade. Someone with the largest recorded gap between their ability and their own estimation of their ability, coming just ahead of Andrea Loathsome, the person who wants to get rid of all workers’ rights legislation from Europe.

Dominic Raab, co-author with Priti of the book “Britain unchained”, a rag bag collection of lunatic fringe right wing stuff, both on economics and social policy. This is the stuff that passes for the intellectual wing of the party. The compensation prize in this election, if the Tories win, is the prospect of Raab, IDS, and even Johnson himself losing their seats. Most of them, Johnson in particular, wouldn’t be able to find the high street of their constituency without a minder holding their hand, because they don’t give a flying fig leaf for boring old constituency work. That sort of stuff is for social workers.

Matt Hancock, minister for Health, who will say and do absolutely anything he has to, to cling on to power and his ministerial limo.

And that’s before we get onto Jacob Rees-Mogg, Minister for the eighteenth century and Michael Gove whose policy crimes and misdemeanours, and his absolute equanimity about lies and law breaking almost rival Johnson himself. (What a dream team that would have made back in 2016 – The Mendacious Brothers).

So what policies could we reasonably expect to be enacted if the Tories have a working majority, given that the new crop of MPs are likely not to have a single scruple or moral instinct between them? Well, for starters:

Savage anti-immigrant legislation
Selling off much of the NHS to USA and a quantum leap towards Health insurance
Abolition of all meaningful workers’ rights laws – expect restrictions of sick pay entitlement and the right to paid holidays.
Abortion outlawed
Increase in State pension age to 75
Slashing of public spending on services and infrastructure
Increase in unemployment that not even the expansion of the unregulated gig economy can mask.

Most worryingly, once Johnson gets a majority, I don’t think that it’s far fetched to suggest that they will do everything in their power to stack the elections odds against Labour ever getting re-elected. The Boundary commission redrawing of constituencies will go ahead this time, with all that implies for Labour. They will bring in the blatantly partisan requirement for photo ID before citizens are allowed to vote. This will effectively disenfranchise tens of thousands of Labour voters. Johnson has shown his utter contempt for previously accepted norms of public discourse and for the rule of law and the conventions of parliamentary democracy, and will have no hesitation in dismantling anything that is a hindrance to his pursuit of power and his retention of power once he has his hands on it. The most recent heavy-handed threats against Channel four for not just rolling over are a sign of how none of the freedoms we have taken for granted for so long can now be guaranteed.

Lies, damned lies, and the media

Johnson: Won’t anyone notice?

Pa Johnson: Don’t worry -The great unwashed can’t even spell Pinochio

Cummings: Brilliant!

And it is this that is at the heart of this election, the reason it is of such importance. It is conceivable that reasonable, civilized people can vote Conservative because they believe in a smaller state and trickle-down economics. I don’t agree with them and I think that they are wilfully ignoring all the available evidence, but democracy dictates that we must suck it up when The People make the wrong choices.

But absolutely nobody can vote for this particular brand of the Tory party, who has any regard for the truth, for the law and for freedom.

It is possible that some of the apologists can convince themselves that the ends justify the means, that they know they are right so that it is acceptable, ultimately, to bend the truth and the law, to get a Tory Government. That is chilling enough. Even more sinister is the idea that they know they are wrong, but they want power above all else and are prepared to do anything to get it and then hang on to it.

I don’t want to be hysterical about this. I may be being overly susceptible because I watched the BBC4 series, “The Rise of the Nazi Party” a few weeks ago, and I’ve just finished reading the Booker prize winner, “The Testaments”, Margaret Atwood’s follow up to the dystopian nightmare view of the future, “The Handmaids Tale”. But the checks and balances of a mature liberal democracy that we have all taken for granted as guaranteed for ever are under attack, and suddenly it is possible to see how, step by step, populist authoritarianism slides in through the backdoor and slips into a seat on the back row. Before you know it, it’s taken the stage and the audience are all clapping furiously.

We’re half way there. Already Johnson has:

Suppressed the report into Russian interference and donations to the Tories
Unlawfully prorogued Parliament
Misled the Queen
Doctored video of Starmer talking about Brexit
Produced a fake “Fact checker” version of the Conservative Party website to mislead the public
Threatened a national broadcaster
Leant on the BBC, with the license fee an unspoken arm twisted behind their backs.
Avoided all serious scrutiny by the media
Avoided investigation into fraudulently funnelling money to Jennifer Arcuri when London Mayor.
Lied about the reason for having the general election

Ten to twenty years ago, just one of these things would have sunk any political career. Now, apparently, the public say that Johnson’s a naughty boy and we don’t trust him, but we like him and we’re going to vote for him because he will get Brexit done, with his “Oven-Ready” deal.

It’s not the deal that’s Oven Ready. It’s us – the long -suffering Turkeys.

Fight back! Vote tactically, even if that means holding your nose and voting for the Lib Dems. Find out who are the nearest challengers to the Tories in your constituency and vote for them.

Ps: Stop press! Latest polling suggests a narrowing of the gap -It’s not over yet and this makes the tactical voting message above even more important.