Cymru a’r Albarn am byth

The well known traditional curse, “May you live in interesting times” is often attributed to an ancient Chinese text, although there is no evidence for this. Be that as it may, it cannot be denied that we are cursed with living through interesting times. You may remember that Keir Starmer was elected to head a Labour government with a landslide majority, albeit on a mere one third of the popular vote. That happened not two years ago but we are currently facing the alarming prospect that the change Starmer promised will be to usher in a far right English nationalist government in Westminster in 2029. In the shorter term, Labour looks as though it will be facing the hitherto unthinkable loss of Wales in May’s Senedd election.

Labour has reigned dominant in Wales since the 1920s. Far more than what happens in May’s elections in Scotland, the English local authorities where elections have not been postponed, or even the upcoming Gorton and Denton by election, the result in Wales will be pivotal. Not merely because it could deliver a devastating psychological blow to Starmer’s increasingly shaky grasp on the Labour leadership (some would say he's only retained his position so that he can be the fallguy for lousy election results), but far more importantly because it could represent the first domino to fall, setting in motion a chain of events leading to the end of the so-called United Kingdom as it is currently constituted.

In Wales, Plaid Cymru has successfully positioned itself as the left of centre party best placed to defeat Reform UK. Reform UK has been successful in attracting disillusioned voters who feel left out and let down by the political system. It’s a con trick, of course. Reform is a vehicle for the same wealthy and right wing interests which passed the blame for 2008’s financial crash onto working class people, the poor and the marginalised. However for every individual who is seduced by Reform’s toxic brand of migrant hating snake oil, two are repulsed by it.

Unlike in Scotland where the SNP are weighted down by the baggage of over a decade and a half in government, Plaid have never been a party of government, although they have propped up Labour administrations. This means that they can present themselves as fresh, new, and representing change in a way that is very difficult for the SNP. By positioning itself as the only party which could defeat Farage’s goons, Plaid was able to snatch victory from Reform in the recent Caerffili by election, much to the chagrin of the British media, which had been gearing itself up for a Reform UK breakthrough story, only to discover that the real story was the much more disappointing – at least for the right wing British media – story of the breakthrough of a Welsh independence party.

Although the polls do not suggest that Plaid is on track to form a majority government, according to one recent poll, Plaid and the Greens could possibly do well enough to form a majority coalition government. Like Plaid, the Greens in Wales support Welsh independence and the right of the people of Wales to a referendum on the issue.

It’s difficult to overstate just how seismic such a result would be. Labour has already priced in their loss in Scotland in May. No one, less so Anas Sarwar after his anti-Starmer comments recently, really expects that Scotland will have a Labour first minister after May. It’s also important to remember that Scotland’s reputation as a Labour bastion is historically a relatively recent phenomenon. In the 1950s it was the Tories who dominated in Scottish Westminster elections. In the 1959 Westminster general election in Scotland the Tories took 50.1% of the popular vote and won 36 seats, Labour won 38 seats on 46.7% of the vote. It was only in the 1960s and 70s that Labour took a decisive lead over the Conservatives. In contrast, Wales has been Labour territory since the 1920s. Labour has continued to win most Westminster seats in Wales since the 1922 General Election  and has formed the Welsh Government ever since the Senedd was established in 1999.

The loss of Wales would be a dagger in the heart of Labour in a way the humiliation of Anas Sarwar never could be, and, of course,  Keir Starmer will get the blame for it. Such a result would mean that both Scotland and Wales are administered by governments which have no confidence in the Westminster system, and these could well be joined by Northern Ireland next year after the Stormont elections due in May 2027. That triples the pressure on Westminster on the constitutional issue of national autonomy and makes it harder to ignore.

The pressure on Starmer will become intense. He will have to acknowledge that his strategy of appeasement of Reform UK is not working. It does nothing to placate Reform voters and merely alienates those for whom Reform UK is anathema. Labour’s complacency in the face of the threat from the far right is stupid. However, given the recent blocking of Andy Burnham from standing in the Gorton and Denton by election, it seems that the Labour right, which has the party in a death grip, is more terrified by the centrism which Burnham represents than it is by the rise of the far right. So it’s certainly not going to have an appetite for the decisive move to the left and the rapprochement with Europe which is needed to stem the loss of Labour’s traditional voters. In Wales, such voters might be ripe for being hoovered up by the Welsh Greens, a party with a positive view of Welsh independence. Cymru a'r Alban am byth.

My belated predictions for 2026......................

 Here's something I wrote just before last Xmas but never got around to posting. I think it's still got a bit of life in it, even though the politics are fluid. Here it is - unedited from the original.

Making predictions in politics is a mug’s game, particularly if those predictions concern a year ahead. It has famously been said that a week is a long time in politics, so a year must be the equivalent of a geological epoch. All sorts of unforeseen events could transpire between now and the end of next year. But in the full knowledge that I could easily be proven wrong, which is certainly not the worst thing in the universe, I’m going to stick my neck out and make two predictions about 2026, one of which I am reasonably confident about, the other is really just a gut feeling.

So with those caveats in mind, my first prediction is that by this time next year, Keir Starmer will no longer be the Prime Minister and the leader of the Labour party.

It was always evident to any observer of the British political scene that once he became Prime Minister, Keir Starmer would quickly become very unpopular. I said so myself in this blog ages ago (I think), so I've got at least one prediction correct. What was far less obvious was the extent to which Starmer would destroy public support for the Labour party. Even those of us, like me, who had a low opinion of Starmer to begin with, could not have foreseen just how spectacularly bad he’d be as Prime Minister. It's turned out that Starmer is to being Prime Minister as GB News is to balanced and impartial broadcasting.

Starmer has presided over a collapse in support for his party which has not been seen in British politics since the implosion of the Liberal party in the early decades of the last century. 

In Wales, which has been a Labour fiefdom for over a hundred years, Labour faces the likelihood of a historic and humiliating rout, losing control of the Senedd to Plaid Cymru (Cymru am byth says I) and seeing the possibility of Welsh independence move squarely into the centre of Welsh politics, in the same way that independence has been the defining issue in Scottish politics for over a decade and a half. Anglo-British nationalism cannot solve the problems its far right proponents claim it’s the answer to, because it is a creature of the same forces which created those problems in the first place. However it’s well funded by the super rich in whose interests it operates and enjoys the benefit of an extensive media ecosystem from which left wing voices are largely excluded.

Labour is also facing a series of local elections in England on the same day as the Scottish and Welsh elections. The question is not whether Labour will do badly, the question is just how badly it will do. In May next year Starmer will pay the electoral price for selling out the soul of what was once a left wing party and surrendering it to the corporate interests which it was originally founded to protect working class people from. That’s the real betrayal which so called Blue Labour represents. There is already considerable disquiet on Labour’s back benches with the gross ineptitude of Starmer’s leadership.

This ineptitude is not purely presentational as Starmer’s apologists would like to believe, it shows itself in Starmer’s policy choices. His assault on the disabled is unconscionable from a supposedly Labour government and has predictably failed to placate a right wing whose politics are based on blaming the poor for the sins of the rich. His attacks on immigration have not silenced the far right: they have emboldened and empowered it. His equivocation on closer ties with the EU has only encourage the right to go even further.

We are now facing the hitherto unthinkable prospect that the next British Government will take the UK out of the ECHR, opening the way to a bonfire of civil rights and liberties. Yet from former human rights lawyer Starmer there has not been a single word in defence of the ECHR.

All the simmering discontent with Starmer within the Labour party will come to a head following May’s elections when the party is likely to suffer a defeat of such magnitude that there can be no recovery from and Labour will be staring at the prospect of a historic annihilation at the next Westminster general election.

The events of May 2026 will force the self-preservation instincts of Labour back benchers to kick in and the current simmering of discontent with Starmer and his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney – a man who is nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is – will boil over and Starmer will be left to deal with open rebellion within the Parliamentary Labour Party. 

Unlike the Tories, Labour lacks a clear mechanism for removing a party leader, so following a summer of rebellions which will increase in strength and frequency, Starmer will see that the writing is on the wall and will stand down as party leader by next year’s Labour party conference. If he does not, he’ll preside at a party conference over which he’s clearly lost control. One way or another, I can’t see him surviving until the end of next year.

My second prediction concerns across the pond. Opinion polling strongly suggests that the US Republicans are facing a political hammering at the mid-term elections. Trump is growing increasingly erratic, indeed, deranged, and he won’t accept defeat gracefully, or at all. His mental and physical decline is accelerating, and while I’m less confident in this prediction than I am in predicting Starmer’s defenestration in 2026, I think it’s highly likely that Trump may not make it to the end of 2026.

There can be no doubt that Trump is suffering from dementia, on top of his pre-existing idiocy and malignant narcissist personality disorder. Despite the best efforts of his sycophants to cover up his failing health, the point is rapidly approaching when this will no longer be possible.  Doctors don’t give a patient repeated MRI scans and cognitive tests if they suspect a diagnosis of dementia, they do so when dementia has already been diagnosed and they are tracking its inexorable progress. Trump not only displays many of the symptoms of dementia -  confabulation, his peculiar leaning stance, falling asleep in public, nonsensical word salads, disinhibition, aggression and a family history of dementia. His father’s dementia is well documented. To be honest, I don’t have an issue with Trump falling asleep in public, the problem is that he wakes back up again.

The bruising on Trump’s hands is not due to him shaking hands so often, a nonsensical and intelligence insulting excuse from a White House that treats the public with contempt. For starters the bruising is on both hands, no one shakes hands with both hands. As medical excuses go it’s as plausible as that of the alleged sex pest formerly known as Prince that he is incapable of sweating. The most likely explanation for Trump’s bruising and his regular disappearances from public view is that he’s being treated intravenously with a drug which can slow down the progress of dementia. These drugs, a drug called Lecanemab is most commonly mentioned in connection with Trump, are given intravenously, which would account for the bruising on his hands and his frequent disappearances. None of these treatments cure dementia, they only slow down its progress moderately. Lecanemab provides on average 4 to 6 months slowing in the rate of progression of dementia, after which it ceases to benefit the patient.

Sometime next year, Trump will reach the point at which his dementia is no longer responsive to treatment, after which his decline will accelerate rapidly. There are already signs that point might have been reached already. He has other health issues: he is overweight, sedentary and has a notoriously poor diet. By this time next year, if not sooner, the White House and the Republican party will no longer be able to cover up his lack of fitness for office. Given the trouncing the Republicans are going to experience in the mid term elections, many of them will see no advantage in continuing to prop Trump up. JD Vance, Trump’s successor, is as vile as his boss, but he has all the charisma of a well shagged sofa and will struggle to maintain the loyalty of the Republicans and the MAGA base in an America which is growing increasingly disenchanted with the craziness of the far right.

By the end of 2026, we could see the back of both Trump and Starmer, a pro independence majority in Holyrood, a Plaid Cymru led government in Wales, and a UK whose end is in sight. It’s always darkest before the dawn, but the dawn will start to glimmer in 2026.

Time to control the Fourth Estate?

There is so much going on at the moment in the political sphere with our attention being drawn in many directions. Some important matters are being ignored in the process. One of these, in my opinion, has wide ranging implications and connections with many of the 'big' stories of the day. I'm talking about the increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of a small minority, and the associated power and influence.

In 2023, the world’s richest 1%, defined as those with more than $1 billion, owned 47.5 percent of all the world’s wealth – equivalent to roughly $214 trillion. This inequality has only continued to grow. The world’s richest individuals are experiencing a rapid and historically unprecedented surge in their wealth, with the top 1% accumulating nearly twice as much new wealth as the rest of the world combined since 2020. In the UK, billionaire wealth has grown over 1000% since 1990, with the top 50 families holding more wealth than the bottom 50% of the population.

This massive inequality is, I would contend, incompatible with a properly functioning democracy. It is not a coincidence that the super-rich hoovering up an ever increasing amount of the world’s wealth has been associated with a rise in the far right and a marked rightwards shift in the centre of politics in Western countries. A shift also seen in the Labour Party, which has moved so far to the right that the original founders of the Labour Party would be expelled from it and which now occupies roughly the same political ground as the Conservatives did before Brexit drove them insane.

The super-rich, and the super-powerful, have worked assiduously to capture the political parties through a system of donations to both parties and individual politicians. They have also established a network of supposedly independent think tanks which formulate and promote policies which are beneficial to the wealthy, who are marketed as “wealth creators and the source of trickle down economics” and not as what they really are, “wealth hoarders and obscene spenders”. But above all, the rich perpetuate the conditions which permit them to keep enriching themselves through their control of the media, both the traditional media and the digital media. These outlets favour and promote a narrative that societal problems are created by immigrants, benefits claimants, asylum seekers, people of colour – particularly Muslims – women, transgender people, disabled people, or protesters - the “other”. Anyone and everyone must be blamed for society’s problems, except those who are really responsible.

In the UK, a recent YouGov poll has revealed that 75% support a wealth tax of 2% on fortunes above £10m, while only 13% oppose it. Yet despite this, very few politicians have voiced their support for a measure which an overwhelming majority support. Our politicians have become tame creatures of the robber barons from whom they are supposed to protect us and are too afraid of the media which promotes its owners’ viewpoints.

As wealth becomes ever more concentrated in the hands of a few, the right wing press and parties become increasingly shrill and hysterical in their demonisation of minority groups. This dehumanises entire sections of the population, stripping them of any right to empathy, compassion, or understanding. Asylum seekers are described as fighting age men with the implication that they are an invading force. They’re never described as working age although that’s perfectly accurate. They are never described as possibly offering skills and expertise that the country needs.

All this serves to divert attention from the real root cause of the failure of public services and the inability of an entire generation to find secure well paid jobs and affordable housing - the insatiable greed of the billionaires. Hyperbole? I don’t think so.

That our political class has turned into clients of the wealthy is incompatible with democracy. Root and branch reform of the system of political donations is long overdue. This system has given us the ascendency of the far right. Nigel Farage would not currently be tipped as a future prime minister if the system of political buying which prevails in the UK did not allow millionaires to funnel massive donations into his political vanity vehicle. They do so because they know Farage and his minions will enact policies which enable the rich to profit even more at the expense of the rest of us.

The purchasing of political influence by the rich goes hand in glove with ownership of the media by the wealthy. As campaigner George Monbiot pointed out in an article recently, you cannot have both a free market in media ownership and a free market in information and ideas. The oligarchs who dominate the sector stifle inconvenient thoughts and promote the policies that protect their fortunes. And it suits them that the spotlight is kept away from their activities. Where are the politicians brave enough to take them on? Where can such politicians air their views?

The Epstein files do not just reveal perversion and criminality, they also shine a light on the shadow power structure I'm talking about, operating far beyond the reach of ordinary democratic control. They reveal how rich and powerful men – and they are almost all men – help each other to become even richer and more powerful. They reveal how the wheels of power are greased; how information is traded; how favours are handed out. Suddenly, in fact, in reading the files, it is hard to escape the overwhelming sensation that most of us are naively clinging to outdated ideological convictions and assumptions about how the world operates, even as they are disproved. Maybe, maybe, the Epstein files might bring about some radical changes in some unexpected places.

Starmer's Woes

 

Keir Starmer’s leadership of the Labour party and his position as Prime Minister have been on a knife edge for some time. After being elected in July 2024 with a landslide victory in the Commons, albeit on a mere one third of the popular vote, Labour MPs were looking forward to settling down to a decade or more in government. Yet within a few weeks, the signs of Labour’s future downward trajectory were becoming clear.

First there was Freebie Gate: Starmer’s addiction to getting free stuff from Labour’s well heeled donors. Then the missteps came thick and fast, too many to list again. It was as though Starmer was setting out deliberately to alienate Labour’s traditional voting base while pandering to the far right on immigration, a quixotic chase after voters who would never support Labour which only succeeded in legitimising and mainstreaming far right policies and talking points. We are now at the point where more people have bought tickets to see the Melania Trump documentary than have full confidence in Keir Starmer’s leadership.

Things were already looking bad for Starmer when he took the decision to block the attempt of the Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to return to the House of Commons. His MPs are in despair as the party’s polling ratings tank and Labour faces humiliating defeats in the Scottish, Welsh, and English local elections due in May. The expected loss of Wales, where Labour has reigned supreme since the 1920s would be a particularly bitter pill for Labour to swallow, the blame will be laid squarely at Starmer’s door.

But it all exploded over the past few days when a fresh release of Epstein files, with those referring to Donald Trump carefully weeded out – an estimated 2 million documents have still not been released – uncovered highly damaging information about Labour grandee Peter Mandelson, a close ally of Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney. McSweeney is very much Mandelson’s protege and was instrumental in persuading Starmer to appoint Mandelson as the UK Ambassador to the USA and as his Trump whisperer.

Mandelson was appointed to this high profile and sensitive position despite serial scandals about his conduct during previous Labour administrations. Mandelson is attracted to the super rich like a fly to a cow pat and has shown himself more than willing to leverage his government contacts in order to do favours for the wealthy friends who give him access to a luxury lifestyle way above his paygrade. In 1996 Mandelson bought an expensive home in the exclusive Notting Hill area of London with an interest free loan from Labour MP and aerospace CEO Geoffrey Robinson, whose business dealings were subject to an inquiry by Mandelson’s department when Mandelson was appointed Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on 27 July 1998. Mandelson then refused to recuse himself from an inquiry into the misuse of pension funds by Robert Maxwell, who was a business associate of Robinson. The resultant scandal was the first time that Mandelson would be forced to resign in disgrace. It would not be the last.

In 2001, when Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mandelson was forced to resign from the government a second time after being accused of abusing his position to secure British citizenship for billionaire Indian businessman Srichand Hinduja.

Mandelson was then appointed as the UK’s European Commissioner, where he held the trade portfolio. While holding this position he was accused in 2005 of inappropriate links to Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, whose company was at the time the centre of a major EU investigation into its trading practices. Despite this, Mandelson spent time on Allen’s yacht and holidayed with the billionaire.

Holidaying on the yachts of billionaires whose business practices are under investigation by governments of which he is a part is very much a habit of Mandelson’s. He is known to have associated with a number of controversial European and Russian billionaires.

In 2008 Mandelson was given a peerage by Gordon Brown and appointed Business Secretary. While in this post, Mandelson pressed for tough measures against digital piracy – ie downloading TV shows and movies without paying for them – after holidaying with DreamWorks co-founder David Geffen at the Rothschild family villa on the Greek island of Corfu.

Mandelson has slithered from one scandal to another throughout his political career, the one constant being his schmoozing with the super rich for whom he’s eager to do favours.

So it’s scarcely surprising that he’d gravitate to Jeffrey Epstein, with whom Mandelson had maintained a friendship since at least 2002, a friendship which continued long after Epstein’s first conviction for sexual offences involving a minor in 2008. Mandelson remained in contact with Epstein until at least 2016. In 2009 Mandelson advised Epstein on how the investment bank J P Morgan might lobby the government on plans for a tax on bankers’ bonuses. Mandelson was part of the government at the time. The documents released recently also show that Epstein made two large payments to Mandelson and his husband.

It has long been known that Mandelson stayed in Epstein’s New York home while Epstein was in prison for sex offences. Mandelson also lobbied the US government in March 2010, in an attempt to water down proposed restrictions on US bank trading activities, on behalf of Epstein and Morgan J P Morgan CEO of Capital Management, Jes Staley. Staley, a former CEO of Barclay’s Bank, has been accused of providing the banking facilities which Epstein used to fund his networks of abuse and human trafficking.

Starmer knew about Mandelson’s links to Epstein when he appointed him as British Ambassador to the USA in December 2024. These links had been common knowledge in Labour circles for many years. Despite this, Starmer still saw fit to appoint Mandelson to a high profile and sensitive post which is normally given to an experienced diplomat, not to the likes of Mandelson, a man who is willing to overlook any sin as long as it’s committed by someone who is obscenely wealthy. That’s very on brand for Starmer’s Labour party. As Freebie Gate demonstrated, Starmer himself is happy to schmooze with the rich in return for expensive gifts.

Mandelson’s appointment casts serious questions on the judgement of Keir Starmer, who was forced to admit at PMQs this week that he knew about Mandelson’s links to Epstein when he appointed him ambassador. At that moment, Starmer lost control of the Labour party. His appointment of Mandelson in full knowledge of Mandelson’s sleazy past and his ties to Epstein tells you all you need to know about the moral vacuum at the heart of the Labour party. Labour MPs are reportedly in despair, and rebelled against the Government’s attempts to block the release of government documents in which the appointment was discussed. The mood on Labour benches is reportedly sulphurous. One former Labour minister told The Guardian: “We were meant to be the ones who didn’t do this stuff. It’s time for a fresh start, the sooner the better.”

Pressure is mounting for Starmer to face a confidence vote. This story is not going away, piling on fresh damage to Labour as it gears up for May’s elections.

On Thursday, attempting to save his political skin, Starmer was forced to deliver a humiliating apology to Epstein’s victims. Starmer has claimed Mandelson lied repeatedly about the extent of his ties to Epstein. Too little, too late?

Starmer’s one big promise when he was elected in July 2024 was change, change from the chaos and sleaze of the Tories. How’s that working out for him now?

Free Speech for me - but not for thee.

In the wake of the killing of the far right influencer Charlie Kirk, the right wing has revealed the truth about its attitude to free speech. The hypocrisy of the right on freedom of speech was there all the time, but their response to the killing of Charlie Kirk has exposed it plainly for all to see. The right is only opposed to cancel culture and restrictions on freedom of speech when they are restrictions on their ability to be abusive, insulting, and threatening towards minorities and anyone else who stands in their way. 

Over in America, things are getting increasingly febrile, and as, what happens across the Pond generally comes over here sooner or later, we can not afford to be complacent. This week, JD Vance has given his support to a far right campaign to harass, cancel, intimidate and sack anyone the right deems not to have sufficiently mourned the killing of Kirk or who has dared to quote Kirk’s own words as evidence that the newly canonised saint of the American MAGA movement was, in fact, a racist, a misogynist, a transphobe and an extremist whose views were until recently far beyond the bounds of political respectability. No one can be permitted to criticise the Patron Saint of Republican Intolerance or to cast doubt on the halo bestowed upon him since his murder. 

The US State Department has announced that it will use AI to trawl the social media accounts of foreigners applying for visas to go to the USA and will deny them to anyone that the Republican-run State Department considers to have ‘mocked’ Kirk’s murder. You can be quite certain that the definition of ‘mocked’ will be extended to include any criticism of Kirk or any failure to worship at his shrine.

The motivations of Kirk’s killer remain murky, but Trump’s allies have rushed to link the killing – even although they have no real real evidence – to what they claim is a coordinated left wing “terror” movement that supports political violence. They claim that this supposedly coordinated and organised “terror” movement is funded by progressive and liberal charities. This conspiracy theory has the backing of the American Government and has led to fears of a draconian crackdown on free speech.

America is, and always has been, a violent country, and both those on the left and the right have committed acts of violence. But it remains a fact that most victims of politically motivated violence in the USA are attacked by those on the right.  The data show that most political violence in the USA is committed by those on the right. Excluding 9/11, figures from Time magazine show that of the 620 politically motivated murders committed in the USA since 1975, 63.0% were perpetrated by those on the political right, and just 10.5% by those on the political left. 23% were carried out by Islamists, 1.3% by foreign nationalists and most of the rest by those whose motives were unclear.

Colin Clarke, senior researcher at the Soufan Center focusing on domestic and transnational terrorism, told Time that the data show a clear disparity in lethality between left and right when it comes to political violence. He said:”There’s no question that, if you look at the numbers in terms of lethality, it is the far right that’s been far more lethal—Tree of Life, the El Paso Walmart attack, the Buffalo supermarket shooting.” Each of these attacks was committed with extremist, white-supremacist motivations. Prior to 9/11, the worst terrorist attack on American soil was the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, carried out by far right white supremacist and conspiracy theorist Timothy McVeigh.

However Trump’s speech in the aftermath of Kirk’s murder made no mention of right wing political violence, even though just forty days before Kirk was killed, Melissa Hortman, a Democrat lawmaker in Minnesota was shot and killed with her husband and another Democrat state senator was shot and wounded along with his wife. The perpetrator was a MAGA devotee of Donald Trump. Asked about Hortman’s murder, Trump claimed he was “not familiar” with the case.

Republicans grieve the loss of Kirk and demand that everyone else grieves for him too, but for the most part they have ignored the violence against Democrats, including Hortman’s assassination, the arson attack on the home of Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania governor, the violent assault on Paul Pelosi, the husband of former speaker Nancy Pelosi, and a thwarted plot to kidnap the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer. The attack on the 81 year old Paul Pelosi, who was struck on the head with a hammer by a far right intruder who was looking for Nancy Pelosi, was met with widespread mockery and derision from the right. Speaking to a TV audience days after the attack on Pelosi, a grinning Charlie Kirk called for the attacker to be released from jail and said: “If some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out.”

The US Republicans, like Reform UK and the Tory right here, are only interested in freedom of speech for themselves. What they really want is to be able to make racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic or other bigoted comments without fear of any consequences. They are very keen to censor or silence anyone who criticises the sacred cows of the right, whether that’s Charlie Kirk or their sanitised, indeed, whitewashed, view of history. Don’t let it happen. Stand up for real freedom of speech, even if you have to hold your nose when you apply it to those you vehemently disagree with.

Othering, demonising and empathy

I've just read an interesting article on "How Othering contributes to Discrimination and Prejudice"  You can find it here and it's well worth a few minutes of your time reading it and thinking about it in terms of current events, both local and in the USA. 

Othering and demonising opponents has always a key part of Trump's modus operandii, long before he became interested in politics. It's simply what he does. And the right, particularly the far right which Charlie Kirk represented, is defined by it. It's simply what they do. And in the process, any empathy for the 'other' is lost and the 'other' are dehumanised.

Charlie Kirk had a long history of espousing morally questionable views in the supposed name of Christianity – a form of Christianity which seems to be alien to the precepts of the Gospels as is commonly understood over here. I don’t think that when Jesus said: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” there was an additional verse saying – “Unless they are a migrant or gay or trans or left wing.....” Kirk’s openly racist views are well documented. He said civil rights hero Dr Martin Luther King was “awful… not a good person.” He also called the Civil Rights Movement “a huge mistake.” His views on abortion went beyond the bounds of reason or human decency. He once said that if his ten year old daughter became pregnant as a result of rape then she should be forced to carry the baby to term. He also insisted: “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made up New Age term that does a lot of damage.”

Actually his etymology is wrong: the English word empathy was coined in 1909 in order to provide a translation of the German word Einfühlung, which goes as far back, at least, to the 18th century in the writings of the Prussian philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder. Of course, something exists long before there’s a name for it. The dwarf planet Pluto has existed for billions of years, even if there has only been a name for it since it was discovered in 1930. Indeed, Jesus’s injunction to 'love thy neighbour as thyself' is a commandment to practice empathy, 2000 years ago. But that fact doesn't fit in with Kirk's narrative.

Long before the New Age movement was a thing, Hannah Arendt wrote: “The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism. The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any.” That is where we are now in 2025. The barbarians are not at the gates, they are on social media and in our mobile phones.

The hard right is seeking to destroy empathy. The far right’s tactics of demonisation and dehumanisation can only work when we cannot be allowed to feel empathy for the victims of their hatred. We cannot be permitted to feel empathy for trans people or migrants. Kirk sought to deny the validity of empathy, a sentiment also shared by Elon Musk. To deny empathy is to deny humanity. 

Charlie Kirk was a deeply unpleasant individual with some deeply unpleasant views but that, of course, does not justify or condone his murder. There is no excuse for murdering an individual because of his views and, of course, his murder should be condemned. Since his murder, the media has set out to sanctify Kirk, presenting him as a mainstream Christian and a mainstream Conservative, a modern martyr. Kirk’s views were not mainstream and, if we allow them to become normalised, we are in deep trouble as a society. 

Empathy is in very short supply across British politics, but we can still try to keep its flame alive. Let's not forget that our politics, although it might not seem like it at the moment, are based on the cultural tradition of communitarianism and the deeply empathetic belief that we all help our neighbours. Perhaps this will give us a strong foundation from which to resist the selfish and alienating cynicism upon which the far right feeds?

The deliberate attempt to create a narrative centering around “us” and “them” and to mobilize violence against that 'other' was on display last weekend. Elon Musk kindly helped encourage the most unstable people imaginable to join the protest. He bravely incited violence from the safety of his desk in the US, telling the mob, "Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die." Don't worry, it's fine when rich white people use this sort of language so Elon is not in any trouble. The protesters were so inspired by Elon's words that they patriotically threw rocks at police vans. This was to show how mad they are that foreigners come here and don't respect our laws. One protester even held up a banner demanding that we make Sharia Law illegal. Think about it. Yes, we should make a law that is not the law illegal to stop it being the law, even though it is not the law and wasn't going to be the law. Only people with the biglyest and bestest brains can process what I just said there.

And here's a description of the event from a friend who was there: "Any pretence that "raising the flag" is anything but intimidation of minorities is dispelled. It's against refugees, against migrants, against Palestinian flags, against LGBTQ+ flags, against trade union flags".  

And we were all fooled.

I know I'm getting on a bit so forgive me if I’ve got this wrong, but I seem to recall the country voting the Tories out last year. But now I begin to doubt my recollections. Keir Starmer’s Labour party was elected on a promise of ‘change’, in retrospect, a vacuuous slogan which allowed voters to interpret it however they liked. Of course, they didn't say it was a change for the better but most hoped for a change from the pettiness, self-serving cronyism, callous cruelty and corruption which characterised the previous Tory government. A year on, it’s clear that all that has really changed are the names and faces of those presiding over the pettiness, self-serving cronyism, callous cruelty and corruption. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. This supposedly Labour government has proven itself to be every bit as authoritarian and nasty as the Tories it replaced, prohibiting a direct action protest group as a “terrorist” organisation, leading to the mass arrest of hundreds of demonstrators, mostly 'of a certain age', for the terrorist crime of holding up a placard protesting against genocide, a genocide which the UK Government continues to support militarily and diplomatically. Labour vies with the far right in its enthusiasm for flag hugging and the demonisation of migrants as it chases the tail of Nigel Farage, normalising the politics and talking points of actual fascists in the process.

Under Starmer, the UK isn’t just drifting towards fascism, it seems to be hell bent on driving there at top speed while waving flags out of the window. We are witnessing the implosion of the British political system. The destination is either authoritarianism or, perhaps, for Scotland, and possibly Wales too, independence. This so-called Union cannot survive the capture of the institutions of the British state by far right English 'ethno-nationalists'. But instead of challenging the far right Anglo-British nationalists who drive Reform UK, this Labour party privileges them, legitimising them at every turn. There’s a stark contrast between Starmer’s eagerness to pander to the hard right and Brexit supporters and his marginalisation of the larger number of those on the liberal left who support stronger ties with the EU. The fact that polling consistently shows that a clear majority of people in the UK believe Brexit was a mistake is ignored by Labour, the Tories, and of course by Farage’s fan club.

Presiding over all this is the charisma free zone that is Keir Starmer, robotically intoning platitudes, driven solely by whatever the latest focus group has told him he needs to say. To say that Starmer is inauthentic is an insult to waxwork dummies which barely resemble the celebrity they are supposed to represent. Starmer is so lacking in emotional intelligence that he is incapable of realising that everyone perceives his lack of authenticity and that his words are hollow and performative. So he ploughs on, continuing to dig himself, and everyone else, even deeper into the grave that Morgan McSweeney has dug for him.

Following the defenestration last week of deputy Prime Minister Angela Raynor, Starmer embarked upon a wide ranging reshuffle of his government, because apparently one year on after being appointed because the incumbents were ideal for their jobs, they are no longer ideal for their jobs. Given that we are talking about dozens of individuals here, and the one common denominator is Keir Starmer, who clearly must have made some serious errors in judgement just a few months ago, the obvious conclusion must be that the person who is unfit for their job is Keir Starmer. The 'Mandelstam Affair' probably reinforces that view.

This real crisis is not the crisis that Reform UK, a name as emblematic of political lies as Better Together, hasn't the slightest intention of addressing. Should Reform ever take power, the public anger and disappointment at their lies and deceit will be orders of magnitude greater than that which ensued following Starmer’s election victory. However, Reform will wreak huge damage on public services, institutions, and human and civil rights, taking advantage of the UK’s non-existent constitutional checks and balances to entrench themselves in power. Look across the Atlantic and think about the Trump Playbook. It's Farage's bible.

Notwithstanding all the ordure that's flying around, I hope you all are doing okay. Well, as okay as is possible. Pet a dog, pet a cat, hug a loved one. We will get through this. Stay informed, help others.

And let's play out with The Who and with what could be my theme song. Enjoy!

Power to the wrinklies - and Rev Sue Parfitt

It's only been a matter of a few weeks since the leader of Hamas UK, 83-year-old Rev Sue Parfitt, clashed with counter-terrorism police outside Westminster. When the retired reverend was taken into custody, we thought that was the end of her reign of terror, but we were wrong. Oh so wrong. It appears that, at some point, the riotous reverend escaped custody and police didn't tell anyone because they didn't want to spread fear. That is, after all, the goal of terrorists.

In a nightmarish scene on the weekend, Rev Sue Parfitt reappeared at a Palestine Action protest outside Westminster. And she again committed the atrocity of hurting the feelings of war criminals by practising free speech in clear defiance of the law. She ruthlessly held up a sign bearing words that are illegal to repeat. This left heroic police officers with no choice but to engage in round two. Not wanting to take any chances, multiple officers escorted away the elderly woman who is so dangerous, she can barely walk. It took everything the officers had to bring her walking stick under control, but they somehow managed it. Thank goodness for their riot training. 

Okay, maybe I’m being ageist here. Maybe Sue Parfitt has got more about her than I realised. Would I be committing a crime if I high-fived her? Because I really want to. I think it’s really impressive that someone of Sue’s age has such get up and go. 

There has been a huge increase in the number of counter-terrorism arrests this year with police capturing 1,339 terror suspects so far. To put that in perspective, police only make around 200-300 counter-terrorism arrests in an average year. No one knows why the number of arrests increased so dramatically after Yvette Cooper made it illegal to be frail and elderly and have a conscience. Personally, I blame social media for radicalising our wrinklies. If it wasn't for social media, wrinklies would only be getting their information from GB News and the like and would therefore have no idea about the reality. While we fretted about social media exposing our children to the truth, we slept on the threat of wrinklies being radicalised. And now, here we are, in a situation where retired reverends are making signs, and disabled people are racing along in wheelchairs powered by enriched uranium. 

The organisers of the demonstration, Defend Our Juries, have insisted it was "the picture of peaceful protest", but police are claiming that 17 of the arrests were for assaulting a police officer. Given the average age of those arrested was about 92, I’m finding that hard to believe.

You probably didn’t notice, but the UK has a new Home Secretary and this presented the perfect opportunity to say maybe we’ve got the balance of this law wrong. Maybe a proscription that causes us to make record numbers of arrests of the most harmless members of society is a bit nuts. Maybe we should quietly amend the legislation and hope everyone forgets how ridiculous we were. But no, Shabana Mahmoud is doubling down. The silver-haired brigade are, in fact, terrorists, don’t you know. “Supporting Palestine and supporting a proscribed terrorist group are not the same thing", she has tweeted. But supporting Israel and supporting a genocidal regime are very much the same thing, and no arrests are being made for that…

Some police are gloating that the frail pensioners they arrested could be looking at six months imprisonment, although in many cases they should probably be returned to their care homes. I mean, do we really need to be protected from people who can’t stand unaided? In fairness to the police, some officers have privately admitted that they feel ashamed by the arrests and even their managers don’t support the legislation, but they’re obligated to uphold the law. Now that’s all well and good, but they do realise this is fascism, right? And when fascism arrives, "just following orders" is not an acceptable defence.

Police have even been arresting people for wearing Plasticine Action t-shirts because even taking the piss out of draconian legislation is terrorism. Thankfully, Plasticine Action’s leader, who is known only to authorities as “Morph” is still on the run. I’m no detective, but I’d bet my life he’s hiding in Sue Parfitt’s garden shed.

Perhaps the weirdest aspect of all this is how actual proscribed terror groups are allowed to hold marches. The Ulster Volunteer Force, for example, held a march in Belfast on 12th July this year without a single arrest being made. It seems police know the difference between protest and terrorism and they apply the law selectively. It's starting to look like they are being so heavy-handed to protect Israel. What other explanation could there possibly be?

Not AR but AI

Let's take a break from the Angela Rayner affair and all its consequences and turn to something else that the Labour Party seems to be mismanaging - the impact of Artificial Intelligence.

The government’s position on AI is, in my opinion, delusional. A Starmer aide has been quoted recently as saying that on AI "the UK needs to move forward and seize the opportunity of not being in Europe"; that AI will deliver "a level of productivity growth that means everybody in the world, in ten years’ time, is going to be more productive than the most productive person in the world today"; and that these preposterously unlikely advancements will help Rachel Reeves "balance the books".

It’s clear that AI can be extremely useful in automating painstaking data collection and aggregation processes, as well as many other things, but it’s incredulous to imagine that it’s going to transform the economy so dramatically that, within ten years, every single worker is going to become more productive than the most productive worker in the world today. Just think about it.

Of course it will help with time-consuming bureaucratic tasks, but how on earth is it going to create such staggering productivity gains for millions upon millions of ordinary workers with ordinary jobs? How will it lay bricks, unblock drains, or pick fruit so much more quickly? How is it going to vastly increase the productivity of chefs, hairdressers, retail workers, electricians, gym instructors, agricultural workers, HGV drivers, and all other kinds of workers, to such an extent that they become more productive in a decade than the most productive worker in the world today? Sure, it might help to make marginal gains by handling invoices, supply chains, accounts, and timetables somewhat more efficiently, if they all learn to use the technology, but this isn’t what Starmer’s aide is claiming is it?

They’re claiming that workers in every sector are all going to make such extraordinary leaps forward in productivity over the next decade that everyone will be more productive than the most productive worker is today. It’s such an extraordinary overstatement of the gains that they’re way into magic beans territory. It’s just plain stupid to imagine that the big benefit of such unbelievably unrealistic productivity gains would be that Rachel Reeves will be able to balance the books a bit better.

The UK economy is facing all kinds of real problems that hinder productivity. Crumbling infrastructure; the demographic ageing crisis; failing public services; privatisation profiteering; massive regional inequality; inadequate public transport outside of London; rampant property-hoarding ….... All of these real problems require real solutions, not some pie in the sky fantasy about AI curing the unbalanced books. It’s an imaginary solution to the wrong problem to be focusing on in the first place.

Starmer’s aide is stating that the UK government wants to turn its back on the EU, and try to follow the US approach to AI. The two things that have characterised Donald Trump’s second term so far have been fanatical deregulation and economic protectionism, so it’s absurd for the UK government to imagine that they’re going to be allowed to hitch a ride on Trump’s AI coat tails. Even before Trump came to power, the Biden administration was attempting to stamp out overseas AI advancements with measures like sticking embargoes on the export of AI chips to China. With Trump already hammering traditional US allies with tariffs and trade sanctions too, it’s vanishingly unlikely that they’ll be minded to allow another country like the UK to share in their AI spoils.

In seeking to distance themselves from the EU’s attempts to regulate AI use, and aligning with the US approach, Starmer’s government is signalling its intention to go down the unregulated route. Allowing AI engines to loot creative industry content is a dangerous road to go down, especially when the creative industries are one of the few remining fields in which the UK is still punching miles above its weight on the world stage. The UK creative industry sector was worth £124.6 billion in Gross Added value to the UK economy in 2022. That’s 6% of the economy, and an enormous number of jobs. It seems like a no-brainer to consider protecting our precious creative industries from the threat of unregulated AI content looting, but the mood in the Starmer camp seems to be a giddy delusion that AI is going to save Rachel Reeves bacon, so attempts to consider the potential damage and mitigate it are out of the question.

It should be obvious to all that, under capitalism, technological advances often work to the disadvantage of workers and communities. Consider how self-service tills in supermarkets mean fewer workers, which results in less cash in people’s pockets in the local community, which means less demand for other local businesses, while supermarket executives and shareholders divide up the gains for themselves.

Instead of fantasising about how AI is going to turn us all into super-workers, isn’t it worth considering how AI is more likely to replace a lot of workers, rather than augment them? And if AI performs the tasks that people used to receive salaries for doing, who gets the gains? If the gains are divided between the private owners of the AI engines and the private owners of the businesses, where does that leave ordinary people?

UK workers have already suffered the longest period of wage stagnation on record, and the mood of public discontent is palpable. How are people going to react if they see AI start erasing even more jobs, to deliver even bigger private profits, while our politicians tell us that it’s actually a magic cure-all that we should be thankful for?

Starmer’s inner circle seem to be constructing a house of cards of AI delusions. Yes, there are some big potential upsides in terms of easing bureaucratic tasks, but what’s the benefit if all of the gains are siphoned off in private profits, especially when the government seems so intolerant to the basic concept that wealth needs to be redistributed to prevent soaring inequality? It’s absolutely delusional to claim that within a decade AI is going to make every worker more productive than the most productive worker today. The child-like faith in AI saving Rachel Reeves’ skin demonstrates an unwillingness to even address, let alone deal with any of the country’s real economic problems.

Aligning with the US approach to AI looks particularly dangerous given the Trump administration’s protectionist agenda and fanatical zeal for extreme deregulation. And it seems extraordinarily short-sighted to focus on the profoundly unrealistic fantasy that AI is going to turn all of us into super-workers, while ignoring the threat that AI poses to jobs and Britain’s precious creative industries.

Farage: the master of one-issue politics

Nigel Farage’s immigrant bashing speech on Tuesday presented a fantasy of figures pulled out of thin air and cited some highly dubious scaremongering statistics to support his weaponisation of the immigrant/refugee issue. 

Let's look at some facts. The reality is that no refugee has ever taken away vital funding for the NHS in order to give tax cuts to the better off. No refugee has ever defunded education in order to boost spending on armaments. No refugee ever lied and deceived about the UK’s relationship with Europe and made false promises that never had any chance of being delivered. No refugee was ever responsible for devastating the British economy’s trading links with its closest partners and then refused to acknowledge the harm and job losses that they caused. It’s not refugees who are responsible for rising prices for food and energy or the widening gap between rich and poor. It's not refugees who have underfunded practically every institution and item of infrastructure in the country for years.

Having lied about the problems of the UK being created by bureaucrats in Brussels and falsely promising a golden age for Britain once it had cut its ties to the European Union, Farage is attempting to repeat the same con trick, only now the enemies are refugees and human rights laws. 

Farage’s speech was predictably broadcast by a fawningly uncritical UK media which is increasingly treating him as a prime minister in waiting. The speech featured entirely made up figures about how much his mass deportation plan was going to cost and/or save. He insisted that his plan would cost £10 billion over five years, although a very similar plan put forward by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe was costed at £47.5 billion over five years. Farage predictably waved away questions asking him to explain the difference. He has previously said Reform would use RAF sites in remote locations to house and deport people, but has repeatedly refused to say where they would be, meaning that likely costs are impossible to assess. We are supposed to take Farage’s word for it that his plan will only cost £10 billion but will “save tens and possibly hundreds of billions of pounds.” Quite how it’s going to save all this money he didn’t say. Nige doesn’t deal in reality, he deals in racist jibes and English victimhood.

Farage proposes to introduce these mass deportations by withdrawing the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). As well as leaving the ECHR, Farage seeks to repeal the Human Rights Act and disapply the 1951 Refugee Convention and the UN Convention Against Torture as well as the Council of Europe’s anti-trafficking convention.

Make no mistake, when a government repeals Human Rights legislation and withdraws from international treaties on human rights that have been in place for many decades, it’s not going to use its new powers solely against refugees and asylum seekers. It’s the human rights of all of us which are on the line. It’s the employment and civil rights of all of us which will be threatened. 

Leaving the ECHR runs a coach and horses through the Good Friday Agreement which underpins peace in Northern Ireland. Not that Farage will have considered that, or cared about it if he had.

He ignored questions about whether he was concerned that he could deport people to countries where they might face torture or death. He doesn’t care. His supporters lap up the cruelty and cheer it on. For them the cruelty is the point. But, as Trump’s MAGA voters in America have been finding out the hard way, the populist hard right only looks after the interests of the rich and powerful.

It’s not just the British media which has normalised Farage’s vile language and his talk of “invasion”, the Labour party under Starmer is complicit in it too. Starmer has refused to condemn the scaremongering and rabble rousing language used by Farage and there is no sign that he is going to make a positive case for immigration.

British politics have become extremely ugly. Blatant lies and the demonisation of minorities are the order of the day. Compassion has been replaced by contempt. The UK is headed to a cess pit of hatred and bigotry in which marginalised minorities are demonised and scapegoated for the sins of others. Extravagant language? I don't think so and I'd love to be proven wrong.

How much should you trust Nigel Farage with YOUR Human Rights?

Nigel Farage says he wants the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in order to ‘solve the small boats crisis’. However, it's not just the rights of refugees that the convention protects - it protects the rights of every single British citizen from state oppression, too. Leaving the ECHR would ultimately give any UK government near-dictatorial power to impose all manner of horrific laws on British citizens too. And don't for one moment think it couldn't happen here. Just look at what is happening across the Atlantic with Trump and his acolytes. Farage is using the Trump Playbook under the name of the Reform Party.

Of all European countries, only Russia and Belarus are not signatories to the convention - with both countries implementing policies that blatantly contravene numerous sections of the ECHR, including widespread political repression, criminalising protest, the use of torture, unfair trials, and all manner of deeply disturbing human rights breaches.

Should he win the next election - as the polls are currently predicting - Nigel Farage says the very first thing he wants to do is leave the European Convention of Human Rights.

Below are just a few examples of what any UK government, free from the shackles of the ECHR, could potentially get away with:

Freedom of speech

Without the ECHR, any UK government could simply:
- Criminalise dissent
- Ban critical media
- Censor the internet
And if you speak out against it, you could be silenced.

Protest rights

Marching in the streets? Banned.
Organising against the government? Criminalised.
Critics of the government could simply be locked up without trial under new “public order” or “national security” laws.

Detention without trial

Indefinite imprisonment without charge could return.
Police powers could be legally made so broad that anyone labelled a “national security threat” could simply disappear into custody.

Privacy destroyed

Mass surveillance could become law.
Every call, every message, every online search - monitored by the government for dissent.
Encryption? Outlawed.
VPNs? Banned.
Your right to a private life - compromised.
All to protect the power of those at the top.

Discrimination legalised

LGBT people, disabled people, religious groups and other minorities - all could be targeted openly.
With the ECHR gone, there’d be no legal backstop to stop laws built on prejudice.

Fair trials gutted

Without the ECHR, any future UK government could totally abolish the right to a fair trial and implement:
- Secret courts
- A ban on juries
- Evidence from torture or illegal spying allowed
Your legal rights could be totally stripped away - at the drop of a hat.

These examples are only the start

Leaving the ECHR would give the government free rein to do almost anything - such as:
- Stripping citizenship from British citizens
- Deporting dissenters
- Banning political opponents

The ECHR doesn’t just protect asylum seekers. It protects each and every one of us from authoritarian rule and political violence. Once it’s gone, it’s gone forever. It’d mean a government with total power to do literally anything they want. Not just to other people. But to YOU, as well.
So - how much should we REALLY trust Nigel Farage? About as much as we should trust Donald Trump.