Creating new business opportunities?

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Entrepreneurialism is something which just about everybody is in favour of, but which is actually quite hard to define. In terms of new enterprises, some of the key elements include identifying a product or service which people want and finding a new way of fulfilling that want such that the product or service can be readily sourced and sold at a profit. And often, looking at the history of some of the most ‘successful’ entrepreneurs, it involves sailing close to the wind in legal terms or even slightly crossing the line. The more successful the business, the more likely it is that a blind eye will be turned, especially if exposing any transgressions might embarrass the relevant authorities.

If that’s a reasonable working definition, how do we respond to the news that the Home Office has been issuing thousands of care work visas to companies who provide no care and have no facilities to provide care anyway? Criminal conspiracy or daring (might one even use that term so beloved of the current government, ‘buccaneering’) entrepreneurialism? The companies appear to be properly incorporated, and the visas they obtain, once issued by the Home Office, entirely valid. And they have an obvious financial value when sold on to others. One thing that is entirely predictable is that, when any rules or regulations change, there will be those who will seek out any business opportunities which might be presented as a result. In this case, the government’s changes to visa rules have opened up an entire new industry – trade in legitimate, Home Office issued, visas.

It is by government decision that there are virtually no checks performed by Companies House on the incorporation of new companies. It might be a decision taken to avoid having to employ civil servants to perform checks, or it might be deliberate – the UK Government seems to be rather proud of how easy it is to set up a company in the UK. And it’s another government decision (again, probably taken to avoid employing civil servants to do the work) that the Home Office performs few checks on the legitimacy of applications for visas. And given the government’s announcement that the total number of civil servants will be arbitrarily reduced to the number who were employed prior to the pandemic, we can be certain that there will be plenty of other circumstances in which basic checks will not be performed.

Every such failure creates a loophole which someone, somewhere, will find and exploit in order to turn a profit. Whether we call that someone a dastardly criminal or a buccaneering entrepreneur is, ultimately, an open question: the difference between the two isn’t always as obvious as one might think or wish. Arbitrary reductions to the civil service will even make it easier for those working in the new market to avoid or evade tax. The failure to operate proper checks on the issue of visas might initially look like mere government incompetence. But when similar failures are repeated across a range of functions, it ends up looking more like deliberate policy. As we ‘know’, civil servants are a ‘burden’ who add no real value to anything, they just apply ‘red tape’ and ‘bureaucracy’ which stand in the way of enterprising individuals. Blaming those individuals might be easy, but they shouldn't be the only target.

Sunak channeling Nelson?

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The Prime Minister seems to be more than a little exercised about the result of the Rochdale by-election, but equally short on solutions, unless you count a bit of performative and ritual condemnation and yet more action against protests. Whilst it’s true that the by-election was hardly the finest hour for any of the traditional parties, and that most people would probably agree that ‘extremist’ is a reasonable description of Galloway, the simple fact is that, under the rules of the game, Galloway won the election. It’s called democracy and, since democracy is about debate between different viewpoints, it doesn’t always produce the results that some of us might want. Of course, in one sense Sunak is displaying traditional ‘British’ values; in this case those of Nelson as he ignores the extremist takeover of his own party. He seems blissfully unaware of the parable about motes and beams.

Would Galloway still have won under a system of proportional representation? It’s hard to be certain, but with 40% of the vote going to Galloway, the second and subsequent choices of eliminated candidates would have had to break very decisively against him for the result to change. That isn’t the end of it, though – had there been a system to allocate the votes of eliminated candidates between those remaining at each stage of the count, that might have attracted a higher turnout. ‘What if?’ is an interesting but largely academic pursuit. What we do know is that Tory and Labour alike prefer to retain the system because it enables them to win an absolute majority on a percentage of the vote lower than that achieved by Galloway (meaning, incidentally, that his constituency victory has rather more democratic legitimacy than the parliamentary majority won by either Labour or the Tories in five of the general elections in the last half century).

Most of the time, the UK’s electoral system works in a way which favours a two-party contest, with other parties being seen as ‘also-rans’. However, sometimes circumstances are such that the system can end up favouring an alternative, for example if the support for that alternative is heavily concentrated geographically. The rise of the SNP to dominance (a dominance which would have been far less sweeping under a properly proportional system) is one example. Galloway’s victory, in what are probably utterly unique circumstances in Rochdale, is another. In railing against the outcome, either Sunak is too dim to realise that he is really railing against the UK’s electoral system, or else he is trying to lay the groundwork for a further assault on that system to rig it even further in favour of his own party. His words were so empty of content that it’s really hard to tell.

One thing on which I can agree with Sunak is that we face a serious danger from extremism. It’s just that the extremism emanating from his own party worries me more than any other sort, because that extremism is actually in power and eating away, from the inside, at the traditional values which its proponents claim to espouse.

Raising taxes to pay for tax cuts

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There is, or should be, something rather surreal about the reports that Jeremy Hunt is considering raising taxes in order to, er, pay for tax cuts. Even more so when it becomes clear that the two tax increases he’s considering are part of Labour’s planned financial plan, and that he and his colleagues have roundly condemned them both, repeatedly. Some might see it as an example of redistribution in action – although taking money from one group of well-off people in order to give it to another group of relatively well-off people (who might as a result feel bribed into voting Tory) is not exactly what most of us mean by the term ‘redistribution’. For an added twist, it seems that one of the attractions of implementing these two Labour policies is that it would prevent Labour from implementing other Labour policies – which Labour were planning to use the money raised to implement. By raising the money himself in advance and then giving it away, Hunt’s cunning plan is to force Labour to say which other taxes they will raise to pay for policies which will thus be left unfunded, and thus expose Labour as a tax-raising party.

There is, of course, an implicit assumption in this that everyone will see tax cuts as being preferable to providing decent public services, an assumption which hasn’t exactly been validated by some recent polling. But then, Hunt probably doesn’t mix a great deal with those who are most dependent on those decent public services. Perhaps the most surreal part of all is that Hunt’s cunning plan has been aided and abetted – not to say directly facilitated – by the stupidity of the Labour Party in committing not to reverse any tax cuts announced by the Tories, even when all concerned know that those cuts are going to be predicated on using new money raised as well as assumptions about unspecified cuts to services at some future date which have been built into the government’s five year plan.

It is a monumental act of self-harm by Labour’s foot-shooting tendency which has managed to convince the leadership that the arbitrary fiscal rules which they themselves have invented have some magical status which makes them unbreakable. It’s an act of stupidity which won’t stop them winning the election (although we should be careful not to rule out the possibility that they will find some other way of making even more holes in their own feet in the coming months) but merely mean that they can’t do very much once they’ve been elected, other than try and implement Tory policies with a little more competence. It’s fair to say that competence in a governing party has been more than a little under-rated recently, and a dose of it might be welcome, but those hoping for real change as a result of a change of governing party are likely to be disappointed. Rapidly. The biggest danger is that they will simply open the door to the new English Nationalist Party (although they probably won’t call it that) which is likely to rise out of the ashes of a merger between the Tories and Reform after the election. We really do need to make a quick exit from the dysfunctional state which the UK is becoming.

Cracking down on crackdowns

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One of the key weapons in the armoury of a desperate politician is to announce a ‘crackdown’ on something or other. It’s not unique to the Tories – I seem to remember a certain T. Blair announcing ‘crackdowns’ on various perceived sins – although it’s more likely to come from a government which has the power to do something than from an opposition which does not. It was Sunak’s turn yesterday, with his pledge to ‘crack down’ on mob rule. Announcing a crackdown always sounds forceful and macho – although it doesn’t exactly play to Sunak’s visible strengths. Or even his invisible ones. The most useful crackdown would probably be a crackdown on the announcement of crackdowns.

‘Mob rule’ isn’t something which is easily defined either – at least, not by someone who wants to prevent people blocking the streets protesting about climate change or war whilst also joining in with those who use their tractors to block the streets in protest against revisions to farming subsidies. Whilst I would describe neither as ‘mob rule’, in Sunakland it seems that either there are good mobs and bad mobs or else the definition of a mob is such that protests against a Labour government in Wales are magically excluded. And that, of course, is part of the point – it’s really divergence from his own views on which he wishes to crack down.

I’ll admit that I’m not sufficiently familiar with the details of farming finances and subsidies to judge whether the Welsh Government’s proposals are as bad as some farmers are making out. What I do know is that any Brexit promise to maintain the level of farm finance was as false as all the other promises, and that a reduction in funding inevitably leads to replacing previous schemes. George Monbiot argued yesterday that the differences between the English schemes and the Welsh schemes are not as great as they have been presented by some, and that “The main difference is that in Wales, the offer for farmers is better – with more consistent payments and a smoother transition from the old system”. If that were true, it would mean that Sunak was busily supporting farmers who are arguing that a deal better than that which his government has offered isn’t good enough. An entirely normal level of honesty from the current UK government. I suspect that the truth is more nuanced. Farming subsidy schemes are complex and any change means, especially if accompanied by an overall reduction in funds, that some farmers will inevitably lose out, even if the Welsh scheme is indeed better overall than the English equivalent. And that will undoubtedly impact rural communities in Wales, for whom the farming industry is still a key factor.

The easiest ‘solution’ would be to ensure that the pre-Brexit levels and methods of funding were maintained, a matter which is wholly in the hands of one Rishi Sunak. Joining in with protests which are effectively against his own government’s actions is taking a leaf straight out of the playbook of Welsh Labour members in relation to hospital and school reorganisations, so there isn’t a lot of moral high ground for Drakeford et al in this. Although constrained by Westminster decisions on funding, the Welsh Government does have some room for manoeuvre on what is still, officially, a consultation process. I really hope that they will listen carefully and use that room for manoeuvre. It’s doubtful, however, that they will be able to please everybody and still achieve the aims that they’ve set out for themselves. Calling on Sunak to intervene and over-ride whatever is decided in Wales (as some of the protesters have done) is counter-productive for an industry which has more direct influence over what is decided in Cardiff than it does over what is decided in London, and is, instead, playing to the agenda of people whose aims go way beyond reforming farming subsidies.

Sunak’s apparent ‘support’ for Welsh farmers is a double-edged sword, and his real agenda is about party political advantage and undermining Welsh democracy. If English farmers start protesting with tractors in the centre of London, he’ll soon enough be ‘cracking down’ on the ‘mob’.

Neutering protest

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There is a valid debate to be had about how much notice should be given to police and other authorities about the intention to hold a large demonstration and, in principle, planning to increase the notice period from 6 days, as the Home Secretary is apparently considering, isn’t a wholly unreasonable suggestion. It does take time to plan the police presence and make any other necessary arrangements. How much notice is needed is another question again, however; and the idea is not without other problems. Firstly, some demonstrations happen as an immediate and almost spontaneous reaction to events where people wish to express their feelings immediately, and secondly – more practically – defining a ‘large’ demonstration in advance isn’t as easy as it might appear. In truth, even the organisers will rarely know how many people to expect.

Whilst being presented as a reasonable step to take in terms of practicality and planning, the real agenda here is to make it harder to organise mass protests and to constrain – yet again – the right of people to protest. The Home Secretary himself almost says as much with his comments about the protesters’ aims, telling the Times in response to protests about what’s happening in Gaza, “They have made a point and they made it very, very loudly and I’m not sure that these marches every couple of weeks add value to the argument. They’re not really saying anything new.” There is, within that, an implicit view that people should protest once, make their point, and then become silent, even whilst the actions about which the protests are being held continue unabated. It completely misses the point that those demonstrating are also seeking to influence events (whether demonstrations are the most effective way of doing that is an entirely different question, but they are one of the few ways that people actually have of expressing themselves). And, as we know from experience, once people stop protesting, the powers that be will simply assume that the issue has gone away, and that people no longer feel so strongly. Protest, almost always, needs to be sustained if it is to have any effect. But the idea that protest might actually influence events is precisely the reason why authoritarian governments want to stamp it out. Making it more difficult to hold a protest is just the first step.

Hair-splitting is just a diversionary tactic

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Maybe there’s a scholar of English nuance somewhere who can explain the enormous difference between claiming that Sadiq Khan and, in consequence, London are under the control of Islamists (© Lee Anderson) and claiming that the whole of the UK is under the control of Islamists and Keir Starmer is in hock to them (© Suella Braverman). The first is apparently so serious as to justify removing the whip, whilst the second can be ignored. Number 10 have been struggling for days to explain what exactly it was about Anderson’s statement which led to his suspension (and today’s ‘clarification’ has added little to the sum total of human knowledge), suggesting that Sunak really doesn’t understand what was wrong with both wild claims, and has merely responded to bad press.

Some, such as the Trade and Industry Secretary, have decided to try and avoid the question by getting into a semantic argument about what is or is not Islamophobia. If it weren’t for the fact that this is a blatant attempt by the hair-splitting tendency to divert attention away from the substance, she might even have half a point. ‘Phobia’ isn’t the best suffix to use, given its suggestion of fear, and ‘anti-Islamic’ might indeed be more accurate use of language. It is possible to hate something without fearing it, and to fear something without hating it, but arguing about that nuance doesn’t actually deal with the essence of the comments, which seem to display a mixture of both hate and fear.

Essentially, what both Braverman and Anderson are complaining about is that people have been ‘allowed’ to demonstrate against Israeli actions in Gaza rather than having their protests banned and the ringleaders rounded up and jailed. And whilst the subject matter in this case might be the appalling violence being deployed in Gaza, both of them are using what they assume (maybe correctly, although I’m not entirely convinced that they are really in tune with even that group) to be an unpopular cause amongst their target voters as a hook to express their dislike of any dissent from their own view of the world. And it’s not at all unreasonable to wonder whether Sunak’s half-hearted disciplinary action against one of them (make an unapologetic apology with your fingers crossed behind your back and we’ll let you back in, seems to be the message) and his reluctance to even consider action against the second is a result of him basically agreeing with them and not really understanding what the fuss is about.

If any of them understood what the traditional ‘British values’ which they all claim to espouse mean, they would also understand that the right to protest is one of those values. What their words and actions demonstrate most clearly – and not just in relation to Gaza – is that they are actually clueless about those values. It increasingly appears as though the only ‘right’ that they think anyone other than themselves and the financial interests they represent should have is the right to do as we are told. And that isn’t really a ‘right’ at all.

Painting the economy red, white and blue isn't the same as making it work better

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Labour’s leader is visiting the West Midlands today, and his speech has been widely trailed in advance. Apparently, he wants to see Labour running what he calls a ‘patriotic’ economy. It’s an interesting, if essentially meaningless, turn of phrase, but like most essentially meaningless phrases, it can be interpreted to mean whatever the listener wants it to mean. Starmer will probably be happy with that – and wrapping himself in red, white and blue is a tactic to which he increasingly turns.

It would be nice to think that what he is trying to say is that the economy should work for the benefit of all citizens, rather than the wealthiest few. It’s a sentiment that many, including myself, could readily agree with, but it does imply a recognition that ‘the economy’ is not some mysterious force which controls us, like Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’, but a system invented by humans, run by humans and regulated by humans. There are more ways than one of doing all of that: the ‘economy’ doesn’t have to work well only for some. That isn’t quite what he is saying though. His speech talks about an economy where “…Britain’s hardworking families reap the rewards”. ‘Hardworking’ is a phrase which seems to trip off the tongue of politicians – very few of them seem to be able to make a speech without using the term. But here’s the thing: every time I hear that phrase, I hear someone who is also saying that only working people count. The sick, the disabled, the elderly – few of the people in these categories fit any rational definition of ‘hardworking families’. It’s as though they really neither count nor matter.

The speech gets worse, because he then launches into the trope of what he sees as the “…core British value of working hard and getting on”. In itself, the phrase sounds almost innocuous, but it contains within it a deeply unpleasant suggestion that anyone who doesn’t ‘get on’ is simply failing to work hard enough, with the implication that poverty is thus the fault of the poor. As Yoda almost said, “The Protestant work ethic is strong in this one”. It’s based on the idea which has become central to Labour thinking – although it’s a long way from the beliefs of the party’s pioneers – that what is important is something called ‘equality of opportunity’ rather than economic equality.

It’s true, of course, that anyone can (theoretically, at least) establish a successful business and become a multi-billionaire, or walk into a highly-paid job if they have the necessary skills and attributes, and that education, alongside other policies, can help to develop those skills and attributes and theoretically make it possible for more people to ‘work hard’ and earn their fortune as a consequence. But it’s also true that, even if they have all the necessary skills and attributes, not everybody can do that. Simple mathematics tells us that extreme wealth is concentrated wealth, and concentrated wealth for the few necessarily requires a transfer of wealth from the many. More generally, ‘getting on’ for some requires that others do not ‘get on’, no matter how hard they work (and there are many people in poorly-paid roles who work a lot harder than some of those in well-paid roles). And despite decades in which ‘equality of opportunity’ has been the stated goal of governments of all parties, one thing we know for certain is that parental income is still the best predictor of outcomes for children.

Starmer had an opportunity to say that his government will ensure that the economy works for all, but he has chosen instead to talk about a few minor tweaks to an economy which is designed and run to do the exact opposite. That’s not to say that the tweaks are completely without merit, but transformative this is most definitely not.

Identifying the extremists

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After several years of trying his damnedest to get expelled, which led instead to his being promoted to posts within the governing party, Tory extremist Lee Anderson has finally managed to get the Tory whips to act against him for his astonishing, not to say ridiculous, claim that ‘Islamists’ have taken control of Sadiq Khan, and through him of the imperial capital itself. This has been adjudged to be one unhinged comment too far. Presumably, his efforts to date have been regarded as merely obnoxious, something which has become de rigueur in his party since it has been largely infiltrated and taken over by Farageists.

In response, the man himself said that he fully understood that “…they had no option but to suspend the whip…”, but refused to retract or apologise for his remarks. It’s probably just the excuse he’s been looking for to lead what he probably hopes will be a mass exit from the Official Farageists of the Tory Party towards the Provisionals of Reform. In what would, in any rational universe, be seen as a not-very-funny attempt at self-parody, but which appears to be instead a deadly serious lack of self-awareness, he said that he would “continue to support the Government’s efforts to call out extremism in all its forms”.  ‘All’ its forms? It would be nice to be able to believe that he is the only one who sees any political view which diverges from his own as being ‘extremist’, but it seems to be becoming the norm for his erstwhile colleagues, given the number of times he’s made extremist statements with the apparent consent and support of his now ex-party’s leader. And despite her own unhinged comments this week about the huge leftist conspiracy being driven apparently by the World Economic Forum, The Financial Times, and the Economist amongst others, Truss has apparently managed not to cross the line between being merely mad and being expellable. Still, given that the man making the decisions on who to suspend and for what, the Chief Whip, has previously suggested that the RSPB is a terrorist organisation, it’s difficult for anyone to know where the line actually is. If there even is one any more.

Choosing on what to be defeated

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Much of the commentary surrounding the shambles into which the English House of Commons descended earlier this week has been either about the extent to which it was all about party political manoeuvring over what appear to be tiny differences in wording or about whether the Speaker was being partisan in his decision-making. Whilst the difference between an immediate ceasefire, a humanitarian ceasefire and a sustainable ceasefire is indeed important in terms of nuance, the population of Gaza, who have largely been herded over recent weeks into a giant refugee camp right up against the border with Egypt, simply want the shooting and the bombing to stop. Some of the other differences in wording – such as the extent to which Israel deserves criticism – are probably more significant in terms of meaning, but even less so in terms of simply stopping the fighting. On the substance of the issue being debated, there isn’t really much more to say than that the fighting needs to stop.

The shambles also revealed yet another aspect of the arcane nature of Westminster’s rules, something which has received rather less comment. The SNP still hold the majority of Scottish seats (whatever the current opinion polls tell us about their prospects for the next election) and under the normal rules of democracy that might suggest that they have a reasonable right to claim that they represent Scottish opinion. They are accustomed to losing votes in parliament; having Scottish opinion over-ruled by the English majority of MPs (and in this context, Tory and Labour usually seem to act as one) is something which happens on a more or less daily basis. One of the things that emerged from this week’s debacle is that, on three sitting days each year, the SNP get to choose the subject on which the English majority proceeds to over-rule Scotland’s voice. 'They' probably see it as an over-generous concession.

Choosing the subject on which you’re going to get hopelessly outvoted can’t be an easy matter, and since the result is pre-ordained, one could argue that it doesn’t matter a great deal anyway. The wish to be seen to have views on matters other than domestic Scottish issues is an obvious one for a party which wants to avoid being labelled parochial, and which wants Scotland to take its place on the world stage. I can’t help wondering, though, about the wisdom of choosing to lose on an issue which genuinely is a UK-wide issue for as long as the UK exists. It doesn’t add much to the narrative of Scottish voices being ignored. On this occasion, the SNP’s natural desire to twist the knife in a divided Labour Party seems to have got the better of them, and they’ve ended up joining in the procedural fun and games which are so typical of Westminster. It’s not the first time that I’ve wondered what there is about the place which sucks people into its preposterous norms and practices. It's not unique to the SNP. But then sucking people in is what has made the English establishment so extraordinarily long-lived.  

Quantum voting

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Most of us are familiar with Erwin Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment about a cat in a box. Not so many realise that the point is not simply that we don’t know whether the cat is dead or alive until we open the box, but that the cat is, under the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, both dead and alive until the box is opened and the cat is observed, at which point the uncertainty resolves itself into either a dead state or a live state. Until that point, not even the cat knows whether it is dead or alive, because it is both. It’s a hard concept to get one’s head around, but Schrödinger’s point was to demonstrate how foolish it is to seek to apply quantum uncertainty to real world physics, even if it is indeed odd that such fundamental uncertainty at particle level does not reflect itself in classical physics.

The UK is on the brink of running a rather different large scale experiment on the applicability of quantum uncertainty in the real world. According to Sunak, any vote for a party other than the Tories is a vote to put Starmer into Downing Street, whilst according to Labour, any vote for a party other than Labour is a vote for the continuation of a Sunak government. If both are true, it must mean that around 30% of the votes cast in the coming election will enter a state of quantum uncertainty when they are placed in the ballot boxes. At that point, those who thought that they had voted against both the two largest parties will actually, under the Labour-Tory interpretation, have voted both for and against both Labour and the Tories. This uncertainty will only resolve itself when the ballot boxes are opened and the papers counted, at which point the application of the Labour-Tory interpretation to voting will be shown to have been as foolish as the application of the Copenhagen interpretation to that imaginary cat.

For those of us who prefer to live in the real world rather than that postulated by strange thought experiments, what the observation and measurement will tell us is, firstly, that around 30% of the electorate will have rejected the idea of both a Tory government and a Labour government and, secondly, that most of their votes are essentially worthless because those behind the Labour-Tory interpretation have rigged the rules of the experiment to allow only two possible outcomes in most constituencies. If either of them really believed what they say, they would be arguing for a system of voting which allowed that 30% to express for themselves which of the two biggest parties they like most (or, perhaps, hate least) by indicating their second and subsequent choices. The main reason that they don’t do so is because they fear that, if they did, they might find that an awful lot of the ‘firm’ choices they receive from the 70% or so voting for one or the other are already concealed second or third choices being made by voters with pegs on their noses, and that the whole idea of ‘the two biggest parties’ is itself a largely imaginary construct. Just like Schrödinger’s poor cat.