Why do we have to be the greatest or best?

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The distressed band of Reform Ltd members of the Senedd seem almost to have been competing with each other to sing the praises of the British Empire during the debate on whether the constitutional future of Wales should be a matter for the people of Wales or not. It goes without saying that their answer was ‘or not’.

There are a number of fallacies and false assumptions in the line of argument for those who claim that the Empire ‘gave’ people parliamentary democracy, common law and the industrial age. The first is that it assumes that these outcomes are axiomatically better than anything that the conquered peoples already had or might have developed for themselves, the second is that it overlooks what was taken away in the process (such as native cultures, languages, traditions), and the third is that it judges the impact only by outcomes, not methods, rather forgetting that what was achieved was the result of invasion, massacre, oppression, and large scale theft of wealth and resources. But then, taking a more holistic view of history isn’t what Anglo-British nationalists do. There’s no point arguing any of that with them; once someone has decided that his or her nation is “the greatest nation in the history of the world”, there’s not a lot of scope for debate.

What interests me more if the ‘why?’. What is it that compels some people to want to believe that their nation is the greatest ever, rather than accepting that history is messy, and that past rulers might done some bad things along with the good ones? What’s wrong with just being normal, average, or run-of-the-mill, good at some things, bad at others? And the even bigger question, in the context of the debate in the Senedd, is why past greatness (even if it were true) somehow means that what exists today can never be changed in the future. It’s a complete non-sequitur, yet absolutely central to the world-view of these nationalists, and utterly impervious to logic.

What we know from history is that ‘nation’ is something of a fluid concept – as must inevitably be the case for something which is essentially subjective in nature – and that geographical boundaries of nations have rarely been fixed for long. Just about the only constant is change; sometimes by military means, other times by democratic choice. The British Empire was built by conquest, and then torn down by new or historic nations gaining their independence, whether through conflict or negotiation. The boundaries of the new emerging countries were set largely on the basis of imperial administrative boundaries rather than what might be called ‘nations’ – as a result, the legacy of conquest has often been further conflict and wars – a legacy which has to be weighed up alongside any ‘good’ left by the period of empire.

It’s not unreasonable for some to argue that Wales should not seek independence, and even to believe that Wales’ best interests are served within the UK. I disagree with them, but it is at least possible to debate the question. Arguing that Wales cannot even be allowed to debate the issue, based on some notion that the UK is an eternally indissoluble whole and better than any other country that exists or ever has existed is simply dogma based on a lopsided and incomplete view of history. Yet that’s where around 40% of the members of the Senedd seem to be.

Guns or butter?

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The idea of setting an ‘ethical framework’ for investment in and support of ‘defence’ industries sounds very noble. The devil, of course, is in the detail, and we’ll have to wait and see what the Welsh Government actually comes up with. The language being used to date doesn’t fill me with optimism; even if the words come from the mouth of a minister, they sound more like the sort of civil-service-ese which ends up justifying just about anything. For example, the meaning of “It’s important that we recognise legitimate ethical concerns while supporting a focus on high-quality jobs that the sector sustains in communities across all parts of Wales” isn’t exactly definitive. I suppose it will eventually come down to what is or is not considered ‘ethical’; but it’s hardly a standard which can be defined in entirely objective terms.

Opposition politicians have been raising questions as to whether introducing ethical considerations might lead to a loss of jobs, with the implicit suggestion that maintaining and increasing employment is more important to them than any ethical considerations. Maybe this is simply circling back to the essential subjectivity of any definition of ‘ethical’, but I cannot think of any framework which I would consider to be ethical which would not have, as a central aim, a reduction in the total production of armaments; and fewer armaments necessarily means fewer jobs producing them. However, the scope for Wales to pick and choose which armaments it will or will not produce is probably limited in any event.

Governing is hard, and it involves choices. Moving the Welsh economy away from any dependence on armaments to an emphasis on building for peace and prosperity would be a huge achievement. From their statements, it is clear that the opposition parties (including Labour) are saying that jobs trump ethics, even if some are using slightly more nuanced language. The challenge for a Welsh government which comes from a tradition of opposition to war and militarism is to come up with a framework which actually changes anything, rather than being a fine-sounding jumble of meaningless words. Because if it doesn’t change what is done in the armaments industry in Wales (and that implies an acceptance of the resultant possibility of losing existing jobs – or simply failing to attract new ones), what exactly would be the point?

Coincidence, not quid pro quo

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It remains to be seen whether the large donations given to Reform Ltd by two economic migrants a week or so ago will still be legal when legislation going through parliament is actually enacted. Although the government was very clear in advance that the legislation would be backdated to the date it was announced, the level of detail needed to know whether a particular donation would or would not be legal was not provided. We do know that Farage and his team have said that the economic migrants concerned have asked for, and will get, nothing in return. Their donations might help to elect a government sympathetic to their modus operandi, but that will just be a fortunate (for them) coincidence.

One of the things that the money will be used for, according to the company, is the development of policy. Whilst the donations won’t determine the nature of the policies developed, it is not entirely unreasonable to suppose that the donors are unlikely to want to fund the development of policies which might impact them financially in a negative way. Again, that will just be coincidence, not cause-and-effect.

We’ve had a taster of the sort of policies which might emerge in this report today. We don’t know who has funded the work – ‘think-tanks’ are notoriously shy when it comes to financial transparency concerning their own activities. The organisation is described, though, as being “linked to Reform”, a formula (not unique to Reform Ltd; most parties seem to use similar mechanisms) which frequently allows policies to be floated with a degree of credible deniability should that be felt necessary.

Amongst the policy proposals are the abolition of capital gains tax and inheritance tax, along with a number of pension schemes enjoyed by public servants, including teachers. Oh, and the abolition of the state pension, which would be reduced to a means-tested benefit available only to the very poorest of pensioners. It doesn’t take a lot of thought to work out who might be the beneficiaries of such a policy. Those who see paying pensions as “unaffordable” seem to see reducing taxes on the wealthiest as entirely affordable. I can’t imagine a couple of billionaire economic migrants being exactly displeased if their donations were to lead to such policies. It would, of course, be another of those amazing coincidences rather than any form of quid pro quo.

Who loses when people don't vote?

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The hoary old chestnut of compulsory voting raised its head again this week, with Labour peer Lord Kinnock publicly backing the move. He’s not alone; a number of academics are also writing to the PM supporting the proposal, arguing that “Inequalities in turnout mean those who do vote do not reflect the wider population, but are richer, older, whiter, and more economically secure than the UK public at large”. They’re not wrong about that, but I’m not at all convinced by the implicit suggestion that forcing poorer, younger, more diverse and less economically secure people to cast a vote will produce the more left-wing skewed result that they seem to assume. At least some of those categories are fertile recruiting territory for the racist right.

In any event, is the assumed impact on the overall result the ‘right’ criterion for deciding whether to follow that route or not? It’s always seemed to me that the only safe assumption which can be made about the feelings of people who decide not to vote is that they are content for the government to be chosen by those who do vote. Sort of a mass proxy vote without naming the proxy or instructing him or her how to vote. The reasons for that attitude might vary – they might genuinely not care, or not believe that it will make any difference, or simply be too consumed by day-to-day pressures to take the time out to think about voting, let alone actually doing so. Looking at the record of UK governments, and the way in which the first-past-the-post voting system has traditionally created large numbers of ‘safe’ constituencies (although they may be breaking down now), it’s hard to argue with many of those who say that their vote won’t make any difference. I know – I’ve tried it often enough. It is surely for the politicians to demonstrate, by actions as well as words, that there is a genuine difference between them, and persuade people of the merits of that difference, rather than simply obligate them to go to a polling booth and complete a ballot paper. I certainly believe that people should engage with the process and that they should go out and vote, and it’s something that I encouraged throughout my time as an active political campaigner. And like most candidates, I would have been grateful to have been spared the effort of going round knocking doors of supporters on election day to remind them to go out and vote. But should they really be compelled to do so, and fined for not doing so?

My real objection to compulsory voting is based on the nature of the relationship between the people and the state. Does the state serve the people, or do the people serve the state? Forcing people to do something they don’t want to do looks more like the latter than the former. Now, of course, living together in a society means that we have to have rules, those rules are made by the people we elect to parliament as our representatives, and choosing those representatives is a serious matter. Freedom to choose which side of the road we drive is no freedom at all and freedom to kill infringes the right of others to live; restrictions on freedom are a key part of a civilised society, especially when those restrictions protect the freedoms of others. But whose rights and freedoms, exactly, are threatened by those who choose not to vote? It’s not only not obvious to me that the result would change, it’s also not obvious that anyone loses anything as a result of a non-vote. If the only losers are lazy and uninspiring politicians, which is what I suspect, there is no justification for compulsion.

Political choice isn't the same as economic necessity

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One of the most widely-understood concepts in economics is the law of supply and demand, where the price of an item ends up being set at a level where the demand exactly equals the supply. It’s not only the best understood, it’s also an incredibly useful concept, underpinning the way in which markets work. It also gives rise to the idea that price increases happen when demand exceeds supply, and if supply cannot be increased in line with demand, then inflation results. It follows that one way of controlling inflation is to reduce demand – which is usually interpreted in practical terms as reducing people’s ability to spend. One way of doing that – and this is virtually the only tool available to the Bank of England – is to increase interest rates. People who have to spend more on borrowing money have less available to spend on other things, and are forced to concentrate more on the essentials of life.

The theory, though, is much cleaner and simpler than the practice. Not all inflation is caused by such a simple theoretical mechanism. Much of the inflation we are seeing today is a direct result of a perceived reduction in the supply of oil, caused, primarily, by Trump’s reckless bombing campaign in Iran. There isn’t an actual shortage (as yet), and if a real shortage does emerge, it will be more to do with the difficulty in getting the oil to market than with any underlying shortage. The perception of a threat of a shortage has, though, allowed speculators to push the price up, and the oil companies to increase their profits at no additional cost to themselves. Inflation caused by rising demand is not the same thing as inflation caused by a reduction in supply – especially when it’s not even a real reduction. The increase in the price of oil is real enough, however, and works its way through not just to the price of fuel at the pump, but to the price of everything which needs to be transported from one place to another – which is most of the things we buy.

The Bank of England seems poised to respond to ‘inflation’ in the only way it knows how, by increasing interest rates. It’s an example of someone with only a single tool in the box, a hammer, seeing every problem as a nail; but it’s a circumstance in which an interest rate rise does nothing to address the underlying problem. Far from prices rising because people have too much money, this type of inflation is already leading people to cut back on their spending; deliberately reducing their spending power still further just adds to the cost of living crisis. The government and its wholly-owned and controlled central bank cannot seriously claim to be addressing the cost of living crisis whilst simultaneously adding to it.

Then we have the Tories’ latest wizard wheeze of cutting welfare benefits to control inflation. There is no doubt that cutting benefits would reduce the amount of spending power in the economy, which is the stated objective. However, it would do so by reducing the spending power of some of the least well-off, almost all of whose income is already going on essentials rather than discretionary purchases. Reducing the spending power of those already struggling to pay for the basics is applying abstract economic theory without looking at the real impact on real people.

Whether the increase in energy costs is a temporary phenomenon or a longer term change remains to be seen, but either way, it will work its way through the economy in a way that a general  excess of demand over supply would not. Whether it therefore needs action at all is a judgement call, but it seems that judgement is being replaced by a blind commitment to a wholly arbitrary inflation target of 2%. And, as is ever the case in an economy run for the benefit of the few, it is those least able to cope who will bear the biggest burden. It’s a political choice, not an economic law, which underpins that.

What makes concerns 'legitimate'?

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The ‘independence’ referendum held in Piddington earlier this week has largely been treated as a bit of a joke and dismissed as symbolic rather than serious. Treating it as symbolic is not unreasonable – those behind it don’t really seem to be terribly serious about setting up border crossing points, let alone a police force and/or army to repel any asylum-seekers that might be sent to the area by the UK government. I’m a little puzzled about the mechanism under which the referendum was run – it surely can’t have been in any way publicly-funded, not least because a parish council running a publicly-funded referendum on an issue way outside its purview would be an interesting precedent. I doubt, though, that even a referendum run entirely by volunteers would be treated quite so indulgently if it were called by, to choose a body at random, one of the UK’s devolved parliaments.

It has had the effect that its instigators presumably wanted, which was to draw attention to local concerns about the plans to use a nearby MoD base as a temporary home for asylum-seekers. I’m not sure that it has shown the opponents of the plan in an entirely positive light, however.

There are certainly practical issues around moving 1200 people into a site: things like availability of public transport, shops, medical facilities etc. There will be issues of that nature wherever people are placed, and it’s entirely reasonable to check that they’ve been thought about and that provision is being made to match the need. And at least some of those objecting do seem to be talking about this type of issue. Others, sadly, less so.

Talk of women needing to attend self-defence classes, for instance, is based on some very dark – and unsubstantiated – assumptions about a whole group of people. Associated with that is the suggestion that these people are ‘unvetted’. It’s true, as far as it goes – but how many of the existing local residents have been ‘vetted’? We don’t really know our neighbours and the secrets they might be harbouring, even if we’ve lived in an area for decades, but we can be certain that, amongst them – even in a small village – there will be a sprinkling of actual or potential criminals. It’s true that we know even less about people moving in, but that’s true whether it’s an individual, a family, or a thousand people as proposed in the Piddington area. When it comes to people moving between villages and cities, no-one seriously suggests that all movement should be banned in order to prevent the movement of anyone who might turn out to be a criminal. In terms of sheer numbers, there are likely to be more potential criminals in a group of 1,000 than in a family of 4, but there is no hard evidence that the proportion will be any higher than amongst the existing population. All we have is an assumption, based on the assertions of racists and their enablers, that asylum-seekers always pose a greater threat than white British citizens.

We need a reasoned debate about how to treat people arriving in the UK by irregular means and where to house them pending any decisions on their longer-term future, but politicians leaping in to support people’s ‘legitimate’ concerns isn’t it. The only thing that makes those some of concerns legitimate is politicians describing them as such. Whilst facts and logic are never going to win an argument against prejudice and hatred of ‘the other’, reinforcing those attitudes by calling them ‘legitimate’ simply makes things worse.

Efficiency isn't the be-all and end-all

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It may be true, as this report at the weekend suggested, that the breakdown of air traffic control last week was due to a military aircraft entering ‘spurious’ data into the system. Further investigation might tell us that, and it’s reasonable to expect that the military will be looking into how and why one of their planes did whatever it did. That doesn’t exactly let air traffic control off the hook though: how did their systems, on which so many aircraft and people are so dependent, allow ‘spurious’ data to be entered in the first place, and how did such data then destroy the system? Computer systems only do what they’ve been programmed to do, and if unexpected data gets in, that’s a failure in programming and testing as much as of the user who inputs the data.

That aside, one of the other interesting questions which emerged was about the extent to which backup systems are in place. They offered two reasons, neither of which really stands up. Why NATS being in the midst of a “complete overhaul of its systems” is a reason for a lack of backup is something of a mystery: being in the middle of a change is precisely the time when having a backup in case something goes wrong is most immediately relevant. But perhaps the second reason – that it would cost “vast amounts” of money – is really the operative factor.

From my own background in IT, I’d say that they’re right about the cost. Building in redundancy and duplication can, indeed, prove costly, and there’s a danger that all that extra equipment and cost will never be used. There’s a judgement call involved though, and it’s one that the drive for ‘efficiency’ doesn’t always seem to recognise. It’s a feature of late capitalism in a globalised world that organisations have attempted to drive out cost by reducing the amount of capital employed. After all, the return on capital will always be improved if the same output can be achieved using half the capital. It’s an approach which has given us globalised supply chains and just-in-time deliveries, all built on the implicit assumptions that the world will become ever more integrated and that systems can be completely relied on. Most of the time, those assumptions have proved correct, and things have worked. Until they haven’t.

Whether due to war, pandemic, the capriciousness of nature, man-made climate change, or simple human error, the systems and structures on which we depend have been made increasingly vulnerable. And all in the name of ‘efficiency’ (or, rather, one particular aspect of efficiency, the use of capital), and the vulnerability is hidden from sight until something goes wrong. For sure, organisations routinely carry out risk assessments, but it’s often a tick-box exercise. Whether risks have been properly identified and their probability and impact correctly calculated is a much more open question, as is the issue of whether impact is measured in human terms, or merely financial ones.

It might look like a big extrapolation from a systems error caused by incorrect data entry, but the point is an important one. Humans need resilience; capital doesn’t. Yet much of our economic system has been hijacked to serve the interests of the latter rather than the former. It isn’t the only way of doing things.

How should the political system respond to defections?

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As long ago as 1908, in Human Nature in Politics, Graham Wallas argued that political opinions and actions are largely the result of habit based on irrational assumptions. The idea that choosing for whom to vote is an essentially irrational act is not an entirely bad starting point for any discussion of politics – and perhaps we can extend it to the choice of which party to join. The defection of a Reform Ltd MS to Plaid Cymru was a superficially stunning one, although from an interview with her that I read a few weeks ago, I did wonder how on earth she had ended up as a member of Reform Ltd in the first place. Her views seemed to be so much at odds with the political platform of that company. That essential irrationality referred to above is one obvious potential explanation, even if it might be a little harsh to say so given the obvious genuineness of her concerns now. I find myself wondering exactly what selection process led the company to place her as their lead candidate – did she give the ‘expected’ answers to the questions, did they ignore her answers completely, or did they not even question her at all?

Whatever, the fact is that she has defected, and it looks as if she might be a great deal more comfortable in her new political home. Given the record of parties led by Farage, an implosion is as unsurprising as it is welcome. It’s still early in the Senedd term, and there is probably more to come, although whether it will involve a move as extreme as a leap from Reform to Plaid remains to be seen.

The defection highlights (another) problem with the new voting system for Senedd elections. People who voted solely on the basis of party affiliation now find their vote over-ruled a matter of a few months after the election. It seems to be a golden rule in politics that the party from whom a member defects demands a new election, whilst the party receiving the defector denies that one is necessary. It’s a rule which seemingly applies to all parties in all elected bodies.

Underlying the legal fact that no election is necessary when a politician switches party is the fiction in Westminster politics that the electoral mandate in a constituency is given to the individual not to the party. Indeed, naming the party affiliation on the ballot paper is a relatively new innovation – in 1948, it was explicitly banned. Yet, having moved from a situation where it was at least arguable that people were voting for both a party and an individual to one where we only vote for a party, the Senedd has retained that Westminster fiction as though it is some sort of divine law. Reluctant as I am to bolster Farage’s shysters in any way at all, I have to acknowledge that keeping the law as it is because it reduces Reform Ltd’s score by one is not a good enough reason to justify the current practice. It would surely be a fairer reflection on the voting which took place just a few months ago for the seat to be declared vacant and awarded to the next placed candidate for the party concerned. Too late for this instance, of course – but defections can affect any party, and this early in the Senedd, the chance of there being more cannot be ruled out. Personally, I’d prefer a full STV system, with any defection leading to a by-election, but if we’re to have a ‘party-only’ vote, let’s at least be consistent about what it means.

At least our First Minister can walk and chew gum at the same time

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Unionists aren’t exactly frothing at the mouth over yesterday’s meeting between the First Ministers of Wales, Scotland and the north of Ireland, but some seem to be getting close to doing so. The allegation, apparently, is that the leader of a party committed to independence for Wales has dared to talk to like-minded others about the difficulties placed in the way of leaving a ‘voluntary union’, despite having said that he would not call for a referendum during his government’s first term of office.

Whether winning at least two elections first was a wise caveat to place on independence aspirations is another matter. The real determinant of when we can seriously discuss holding a referendum will be when there is a majority in the Senedd in favour of doing so. Since that didn’t happen, not holding a referendum during the current Senedd term is the inevitable outcome of the election; in practical terms the caveat about two elections makes little difference. It does, though, frame the terms for debate in a way which may come back and bite us in the future.

Whatever the reason for the lack of a referendum during the current Senedd, nothing said during the election campaign precluded a party (and First Minister) committed to independence as a goal from continuing to campaign for that aim or talk about how it might come about, whilst also getting on with the day-to-day business of government. Yet that is what the government’s political opponents seem to expect. In the case of some of them, I can understand why they might have difficulty in believing that the First Minister can walk and chew gum at the same time (as Lyndon Johnson didn’t quite say); it’s not a feat which they could emulate. It’s disappointing, but by now not surprising, that a Labour Party founded on dreams of what might be is so tied in to the Overton Window that it has become incapable of even having any real long-term aspirations of its own.

The real issue being addressed yesterday was a very simple one. If the union is, as we repeatedly told, a ‘voluntary’ one (and that is arguably true in the case of Scotland – especially after the 2014 vote – albeit rather less so in the case of Wales or the north of Ireland), what is the mechanism by which the decision can be revisited? If one of the members of that union has an absolute veto on when the other members might even be ‘allowed’ to vote on the matter, in what sense is it ‘voluntary’? It’s a question to which they have no rational answer, which might explain the diversionary tactics of telling the ‘lesser’ members of the union to shut up and get back to the knitting.

The bit that really surprises me though is this: if I were a unionist and wanted to maintain the union of the UK, I’d want to hold referendums sooner rather than later, choosing the time and the question myself, as well as, perhaps, formally setting a (lengthy) timeline for any future reconsideration. It might already be too late in Scotland (although sooner rather than later might give unionists their best chance of winning), but in Wales and the north of Ireland, holding a vote whilst the majority opinion still seems to be against any change might enable the ball to be kicked further down the road than delaying a vote. Sometimes, unionists are their own worst enemies.

Distinguishing between bribes and gifts isn't as easy as we might think

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The essential difference between a bribe and a no-strings gift is not as straightforward as one might think; it appears to revolve around the presence (or absence) of a clearly stated quid pro quo. Give a politician a sum of money to change his views on an issue of importance to you, and it’s a bribe; give it instead to a politician whose policies just happen to include agreeing with you on the same issue, in order to help him win an election, and it’s just a simple gift. Haven’t all those of us who have ever donated to a political party wanted to see people who support our own personal priorities win? There might be something of a moral difference between wanting to see a party win because of a belief that it would be a good thing for people at large on the one hand, and a belief that we will gain personally on the other, but it’s hard to define – and sometimes the two things will, inevitably, overlap.

That distinction between the presence and absence of a quid pro quo might look a little different from the perspective of a mega-donor, though. Reform Ltd have stated that “Our donors want nothing and will never be given a peerage, knighthood or a government contract”. Maybe not. They don’t need government contracts, and peerages and knighthoods are over-rated anyway. Getting a government which is ‘friendly’ towards crypto-currency speculators would certainly benefit them though. Charitably, it might be possible that such a thought has never crossed the minds of either of the two mega-donors, but if we look at action and outcome from their perspective, the lack of a direct, stated quid pro quo doesn’t alter the fact that they’ve paid a lot of money in the hope of achieving a particular result from which they might just happen to benefit. Purely coincidentally, of course.

The difference between the tens, or perhaps hundreds, of pounds which many of us will have donated in any given year in the past, and the millions being placed on the table here is primarily one of scale. Scale matters, though. A party receiving thousands of small donations towards a campaign can never end up being, or merely just feeling, beholden to any one of those donors: it isn’t the same for a party whose entire election costs are being more than covered by just two donors – who just happen to have similar financial interests in the outcome. A cap on the size of any individual donation is long overdue, and the government’s prevarication on the issue is more than a little puzzling. It would be possible, of course, simply to scrap political donations altogether and fund parties from the public purse. It’s not likely to be popular and would probably create a whole industry finding work-arounds, but it’s an option.

A cap is more likely and practicable but where that cap should be set is another question, because there isn’t a clear and obvious point at which any given donation ceases to be just one of many and becomes election-changing. Maybe it should be set by reference to a variable which is outside the immediate direct control of any government or party – something like the average wage for a full-time employee. Maybe we could get lucky, and the scale of the two latest donations will have the opposite effect to that intended, and encourage Reform Ltd’s potential voters to wonder whether a party funded like that can really represent them. I won’t hold my breath, though.

A trillion here, a trillion there - pretty soon, you're talking serious money

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Sometimes, politicians’ promises are never intended to be serious, it’s more of a nod and a wink between the promiser and the electorate. Trump’s promise to pay every adult in the US a sum of $5,000 if his party wins the mid-term elections surely fits into that category. There cannot be any serious observer who believes that Trump will be able to fund a pledge which would cost more than a trillion dollars, even if he wanted to. Well, maybe Trump believes it – I suspect that he might actually believe that everything he says is true at the time he says it, but that just reflects how far gone he is.

But supposing, as a thought experiment, that he were to try and implement it, how could it be funded? Trump and the UK government operate under the same arbitrary neoliberal economic constraints so, according to them, it can only be funded by one of three routes: increasing taxes, borrowing more, or cutting other spending. Increasing taxes in order to issue cheques to citizens would be strange, to say the least. And the cuts made to date have been unpopular enough. So, in practice, the money would show in the accounts as having been ‘borrowed’ – and that means selling bonds on the market. Those bonds would be bought by those who have the money to buy them – i.e. the wealthiest, whose taxes Trump has already cut significantly. Trump has said that the richest will be excluded from his ‘dividend’, although without defining who is included in the term ‘the richest’. They are unlikely to worry, whoever they are: they might not get the $5,000, but they’ve already had the tax cuts and they’ll also get interest on the money that they deposit with the US government – together worth far more. And the bonus (for them) is that selling that amount of additional bonds will lead to an increased interest rate. What’s not to like?

For ordinary Americans, already struggling with the cost of living (exacerbated by Trump’s tariffs, wars, and cuts to health care), the promise of $5,000 might look attractive. Increasing spending power on that scale in a short time will probably lead to inflation, and in some corner of their minds they might well be conscious of the improbability of it actually happening anyway (has Trump ever made a promise that he had any attention of keeping?), but when things look hopeless, even a small spark of hope can be worth clinging to. Whether it will keep enough waverers on his side remains to be seen – it may be a reckless and unfulfillable pledge but it isn’t entirely stupid, politically.

There is a lesson for others, though. Hopelessness is a powerful emotion. Debunking an unfulfillable pledge is easy enough to do in rational terms, but even rational acceptance of the nonsensical nature of a pledge isn’t always enough to overcome the faintest of hopes that the snake oil might just work. We should have learnt that from Brexit, but I don’t always see signs that we have. Defeating those who make pledges that can never be fulfilled requires more than rationality and logic – it requires a restoration of hope. And, as Burnham will find out, restoring hope requires a bit more than smoother rhetoric.

Israel's fury is disproportionate to the substance

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It’s not quite a golden rule, more a rule of thumb; but sometimes it appears that the degree of fury surrounding an issue bears an inverse relationship to the importance of the substance. Israel’s fury at the long-overdue statement by the UK government that sanctions will be imposed on imports from illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank is clear and visceral. The UK’s condemnation of the illegality is welcome nevertheless; the attempt to conflate disapproval of illegality with antisemitism is nonsensical but just about par for the course. But what is the substance involved?

The amount of trade between the UK and Israeli West Bank settlements is hard to calculate, but certainly tiny. It’s not as if the ‘country of origin’ of settlement-grown dates is going to be emblazoned on the packaging as ‘illegal settlements in the West Bank’. There are rules, of course, banning such goods from being labelled as ‘product of Israel’, (although it seems to be a fairly widespread practice) and perhaps, as this report from the BBC suggests, the ban will act as something of a deterrent to that, although the co-operation of the Israeli authorities is something that maybe we shouldn’t rely on too heavily. Labelling them as having been produced in ‘Palestine’ is another route currently being used, and is accurate in geographical terms at least. One assumes that the intention of the UK government is not to target Palestinian-produced produce, but, again, that’s easier to say than implement.

Al Jazeera (not always the most reliable source, but this piece seems balanced and reasonably well-researched) estimates that total UK trade with settlements amounts to around £40 million annually, but the bulk of that is exports to the settlements (which are not covered by the ban), leaving a maximum of around £6 million annually in imports, a total which may well include goods produced by Palestinians as well as those produced by Israelis. Obviously, other countries imposing a similar ban (whilst facing the same problems of correctly identifying the affected goods) will increase the extent of the economic impact, but it still looks like pretty marginal sums.

It could be argued, not unreasonably, that it’s more of a symbolic gesture than an immediately effective one. No less welcome for that, but hardly an explanation for the ferocity of the response it has provoked. I suspect that the response is aimed less at undoing the sanctions being imposed now and more at mobilising opinion against any ratcheting up of sanctions in the future, when the current sanctions will, inevitably, have proved themselves to be of minimal effectiveness. How willing the UK Government is to go further in the face of that fury is the real test.

Challenging the NATO narrative isn't supporting Putin

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Last week, Labour MP Diane Abbott was described by a Tory MP as “playing the role of Putin’s useful idiot” after saying that “the imminent threat from Russia is a NATO fiction to justify their complete capitulation to Trump's demands for more military spending”, and having previously referred to the war in Ukraine as “a Nato campaign against Russia”. Well, she certainly didn’t choose the most diplomatic of phrases, and there’s a certain lack of nuance in her utterances, but neither of those are exactly something new. But given the danger of an escalation of the conflict into something far worse, there is, surely, some scope for challenging the conventional narrative rather than dividing the world into people wearing white hats and others wearing black hats – good guys and bad guys. Calling anyone who wants to explore alternatives an apologist for Putin isn’t helpful.

That the war in Ukraine was started by Russia, in complete disregard of international law, attacking a neighbouring sovereign state is beyond dispute; it is Putin and Russia who must carry the blame for the ensuing bloodshed and destruction. Whether it was entirely unprovoked is a lot more complex. Certainly, Ukraine was attempting to ‘Ukrainify’ parts of the country which were previously largely Russophone, but the population of those areas voted overwhelmingly for independence in 1991, and there was no objective evidence suggesting that they had changed their minds about that. No excuse there for Putin. Whether there was ‘a NATO campaign against Russia’ playing out over the future status of Ukraine vis-à-vis NATO and the EU is a much harder question to answer. NATO had already expanded further eastwards than Russia had expected (and contrary to assurances which may or may not have been given after the fall of the Soviet Union); feeling threatened is not a wholly unreasonable Russian response, although, again, not enough to justify an invasion.

But where I really part company with the views which are being pushed – and tend to agree with Abbott – is over the idea that Russia poses an imminent military threat to the whole of Europe. If there’s one thing which has been clearly demonstrated by the conflict in Ukraine it is that Russian military might has been over-hyped. The idea that a country which has shown itself incapable of dominating a single smaller neighbour is somehow poised to dominate the whole of Europe is risible. Spending more on armaments as a response to the claimed threat benefits only the arms manufacturers – especially in the US, which underpins Trump’s demands for more spending. Putin does not harbour any illusions about subjugating the entire world, and missiles aren’t about to fall on London.

That’s not to say that there is zero threat of anything. There can be little doubt that Putin would prefer a divided and weakened Europe which presents no potential threat to Russia, nor that he would like to disrupt the flow or weaponry and support to Kyiv. I’m willing to believe, even without detailed hard evidence, that Russia is behind at least some acts of sabotage and cyber attacks. A country at war can easily see some things as legitimate targets (which is to explain, not justify, such actions). But buying more tanks, fighter jets, ships and missiles neither prevents nor deters such actions – that merely increases the perceived threat to Russia. The likeliest causes of a wider war in Europe remain as they have been for a long time – a miscalculation or a belief (rational or otherwise) that ‘the other side’ is about to attack, provoking a ‘use it or lose it’ response. What is needed is dialogue and de-escalation, not more weaponry. On that, Abbott is closer to the mark than those rushing to condemn her words.

Things don't just 'happen' in a vacuum

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It would be an understatement to say that it isn’t often that I agree with anything said by US Vice-President JD Vance. There is, though, an exception to every rule, and his comment that “sometimes things happen” during a war is surely true. For all the talk of precision munitions, the reality is that, once a shooting war starts, there will be casualties outside the armed forces of the states involved. Whether it’s human error, equipment malfunction, or outdated targeting information matters little – non-combatants will inevitably be killed or injured. “Things happen”.

It’s standard practice for both sides in every conflict to point to things done by the other side and shout ‘war crime’. And there is no doubt that war crimes, as defined under international law, are almost invariably committed by all sides in any armed conflict. I wonder, though, how useful the distinction is. In what sense, for instance, is a reluctant teenage conscript who has had a gun thrust into his or her hand before being sent to the front line any less ‘innocent’ than the family and friends they left behind? Wars aren’t started by soldiers, whether voluntary or conscripted: the soldiers are simply the ones sent to kill or be killed by the rulers of the state in which they happen to live, or have been born. Maybe we should draw a distinction between the volunteers and the conscripts in terms of their degree of innocence, maybe not: those signing on are as likely to have done so out of hopelessness about the economic situation in their communities as out of any desire to go out and kill.

The real war crimes are committed by those who start the wars in the first place, and those who commit or commission violent attacks which stop short of actual war but which provoke an even more violent reaction. Vance might be right to say that ‘things happen’, but that doesn’t excuse those who created the situation in which they happen. Preventing ‘things’ from happening depends on moving away from violence as a means of resolving disputes – and Vance has no excuse for the actions and decisions of the government of which he has been a part.

There's not a lot of democracy about in Reform Ltd.

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In the light of the growing scandal around the sources of finance for Reform Ltd – an issue which seems unlikely to go away anytime soon – it looks as though at least some of his acolytes are getting restless enough to seek to depose him as leader. A report a few days ago suggested that Zia Yusuf is pitching to replace him, from an even more extreme political standpoint. Farage himself has made some noises about having considered giving up and going back to make (even more) money outside politics. If he doesn’t decide to stand aside, it’s hard to see how his company/party can replace him against his will.

There was a bit of a fanfare last year when he restructured the company to be a ‘not-for-profit’ without shareholders, which was presented as giving ownership to the members. It was a form of ownership that didn’t involve control, though. The leader can only be removed if either 50% of all members indicate that they want a confidence vote to be held, or 50% of all MPs do the same (however, that latter provision only applies if there are 100 or more MPs – not an imminent probability). As for the membership provision, it really does seem that the leader has absolute power to remove membership from anyone to whom he takes a dislike: even if it were possible to overcome the practical issues in getting 50% to sign up for a proposition, whether they’d all still be members when it was formally presented is another question.

A leadership vacancy would also expose another quirk of the ‘democratisation’ of the party. The new leader would not be chosen by the membership in a vote, but by the ruling board of the company – most of the members of which are appointed by the leader. If and when he’s ready to go, effectively he gets to choose the people who would appoint his successor. The reason he gave for this approach was that, in one of his previous parties, having an elected body in control meant that the party "became completely and utterly and totally ungovernable". That seems to be code for not doing what he told them to do. He expects, instead, "There has to be some degree of trust amongst the members in the leader…”. Democracy is fine, it seems, as long as it invests total power in one individual. That probably tells us all we need to know about the likely nature of a government led by Farage – an eventuality which, whilst it can’t yet be ruled out, certainly seems to be receding at present.

All spending is income to someone

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One of the simplest rules in economics is that all spending by one person or organisation becomes income for another person or organisation. I frequently wonder how well understood it is, but it is an unavoidable fact. And what applies to spending by individuals or companies also applies to governments – all public spending becomes income to someone, somewhere. The corollary is that any reduction in public spending cuts the income of someone, somewhere – the only question is who and where.

Yesterday, Kemi Badenoch told us that a government led by her would cut spending on benefits in order to increase spending on defence. Assuming that the cut and increase match pound for pound, then the overall total of money injected into the economy by the government – becoming income for others – would remain the same. What would change, though, is the who and where receiving that income. Income which previously went to recipients of benefits would instead become income for the likes of arms companies and military personnel from where it would flow into the wider economy as it is spent again. Benefit recipients lose income, armaments companies gain income. None of that is, or can be, arguable – it’s simply a statement of fact.

Unless, of course, you happen to be the leader of the Tory Party, who said that this wasn’t targeting the poorest members of society because the welfare system “doesn’t make any sense”. Now, she might actually have a point, of sorts, about whether the welfare system works as well as it should, or is targeted as well as it could be. But unless we choose to believe that most of the benefits – and therefore the savings she is proposing (although she hasn’t actually spelt them out) – are not in fact going to the poorest in society, then it is inevitably the case that cuts will reduce the income of the poorest. Badenoch’s statement is complete nonsense. But the problem isn’t just Badenoch – all those Labour ministers and politicians calling for welfare cuts are effectively proposing the same thing. The only way of avoiding that is if the reductions in benefits are matched by increases in income for the same groups from other sources.

It is a cart-and-horses issue. If those receiving benefits start receiving at least an equivalent amount of income from other sources (such as employment), then it doesn’t need government action to cut benefits spending: it will fall automatically. But if the jobs aren’t available, or the people can’t do them (for whatever reason), then a cut in benefits takes income way from the poorest. Put another way, the issue isn’t really about benefits at all (leaving aside some tinkering with the rules to better achieve the intended outcomes) – it’s an employment/wages problem. It’s a much harder problem to tackle – not least because our politicians are wedded to the idea that governments can’t actually do much because of arbitrary fiscal rules – but looking at benefits solely as a question of ‘unsustainable government expenditure’ is, however they choose to spin it, an argument for making some of the most disadvantaged in society even poorer. It could not be otherwise. We need to start in the right place, which isn’t about the benefits system at all.

Simply locking people up and throwing the key away doesn't work.

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There are at least four different reasons why a society might decide to imprison those who break its agreed rules, and the debate about an early release scheme – driven not by any concerns about justice or fairness, but by a lack of places in which to lock up even more offenders – doesn’t really seem to have paid a lot of attention to the balance between them.

The first is as a form of punishment, and this is the one which seems to have attracted all of the attention. Indeed, most demands for ‘justice’ seem to revolve around the length of a prison sentence handed down to an offender, with the degree of ‘justice’ delivered apparently depending mostly on the length of that sentence. And most of the outcry against the early release scheme has related to the idea that the level of punishment is being reduced.

The second reason is about public protection / prevention of re-offending. When it comes to the question of whether or not ‘prison works’, this is the one area in which one can say unequivocally that it does indeed work, because an individual locked in a cell cannot re-offend during the period of incarceration. Whether (s)he would have done so unincarcerated is much harder to answer.

The third reason is about deterrence. The underlying rationale is that if someone commits a crime and gets a lengthy sentence as a result, then it will deter others from committing the same crime. It is far from clear that this actually works, given that it assumes that the criminal is carefully weighing up the odds of being caught and found guilty before taking a rational decision as to whether to offend or not. A lot of crime (admittedly not all) is either opportunistic or committed in the heat of the moment – ‘deterrence’ is unlikely to make much of a difference.

The fourth reason is about rehabilitation / re-education – trying to ensure that offenders are unlikely to re-offend when released and can more easily re-assume their place in society. It’s an area where the UK justice system is notoriously bad – offenders are more likely to learn new ways of offending than new skills for their future.

The biggest problem with the UK government’s early release scheme is that it is primarily based on considering the category of crime committed rather than looking at all the circumstances of the offenders. So when an offender is considered by the public at large to be unsuitable for release, the government resorts to excluding all those who have committed the same or a similar crime. Even leaving aside the question about whether public rage (often whipped up by the tabloid press) is the right basis to determine whether an individual should or should not be released early, treating all those who have committed similar crimes in the way that the public demands one of them should be treated is a bit like abdicating responsibility to a mob.

Instead of debating whether we should really be locking up so many people (more than many other European countries), politicians have chosen to invent more crimes and equate ‘justice’ with longer terms in prison, competing to see who can mandate the longest and harshest sentences (in the belief that it will be popular), during which those imprisoned not only contribute nothing to society but also cost an ever-increasing sum to keep them economically inactive. Without building the extra spaces that such an approach inevitably requires. The result is a panic last minute response to a crisis of their own making which finds them with neither the time nor the resources to make a proper assessment of which prisoners should be released early and which should not. It’s a response which serves the interests of neither the prisoners themselves nor society at large. And there’s still no sign that the problem is really being recognised.

They're sharks, not vigilantes

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Talk of ‘bond vigilantes’ has risen again this week in the light of a significant sell-off of government bonds, not just in the UK but in other major economies as well. The term is one we should reject absolutely: the word vigilante makes them sound like some sort of irregular financial police, doing their bit to keep the politicians in line and on track. It’s a complete misnomer – they’re profit-hungry sharks seeing an opportunity to make more profit for themselves by extracting interest from governments.

The first thing that we need to understand is that for every bond which is sold, someone has to buy it. No buyer = no sale. Those selling bonds are deliberately selling at a loss; someone who sells £1,000 worth of bonds (which the government has committed to redeeming for £1,000 at maturity) for £800 is crystalising a loss of £200. If the rate of interest on the bond is 3%, they would expect to receive £30 a year in interest. Since that amount of interest is fixed, the person buying the bond will now receive £30 a year on a holding they bought for £800 – a rate of interest of 3.75% - and still expect to get £1,000 back at maturity. Not a bad deal for them. It’s worth noting, though, that for all the talk of increasing rates of interest on bonds, the amount being paid by the government each year hasn’t changed by a single penny. A fall in the price of traded bonds does not cause an increase in the cost of existing borrowing.

So why would someone sell a safe asset for less than its nominal value? Well, if they believe that the government will have to respond by paying that higher rate of 3.75% on any new bonds issued, they will end up with a better-paying asset. And in that case, for new bonds issued, the cost of government borrowing has indeed increased. Both seller and buyer have managed to increase their income from interest paid on their bonds as a result. They will have seen an opportunity to make money and taken it. In none of these transactions is there any moral or economic judgement about government fiscal policy, let alone any attempt to enforce a particular policy. Indeed, it’s almost the reverse – the impact of fiscal policy is merely to create a belief that interest rates will have to rise, and the consequent belief that ‘other people’ will seek to take advantage of that increase, causing the whole herd to move. The belief, based entirely on the notion that government funding is dependent on bond issues, becomes self-fulfilling. Far from enforcing stability and discipline, the profit-seekers positively benefit from instability and chaos.

The conventional neoliberal economists and pundits tell us that, in order to avoid those rises in interest rates, governments must never ‘upset the markets’. What they mean by that is that governments must never take any actions which might create an opportunity for the traders to push interest rates higher. That in turn is based entirely on the assumption that governments must always borrow, on the markets, any money that they do not raise in taxes – in short, the assumption that the household analogy for government finances is true. But what if it isn’t true? What if the government does not need to balance its budget and can simply run an overdraft with the central bank? That goes to the heart of the debate about what money is and how it works. What gives the bond markets their alleged power is the adherence of governments to the household analogy for government finance, not some universal law of nature. An approach to economics which recognises that the constraint isn’t the availability of money but the availability of resources which can usefully be deployed would strip that power away. Neoliberal ideology is artificially constraining governments – we should be asking who benefits.

Threats work in Trump's mind, even if they really don't

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Reports suggest that Trump is considering using the UK’s possession of the Falklands/Malvinas as a lever to compel the UK government to spend more on armaments. This post isn’t going to get into questions around the legality or morality of the UK’s continued possession of such a remote outpost; that’s a whole other subject. In any event, questions about legality or morality never enter Trump’s mind; everything is about naked power and the ability to apply it. What impact a change of US policy would have is unclear: successive UK governments haven’t exactly demonstrated a willingness to be swayed by international opinion on the question of ownership.

Trump’s end game on the issue seems to be primarily about raising UK spend on armaments, and has little to do with the status of faraway islands about which he knows nothing. Defence spending is already a hot topic in UK politics, although parties are arguing primarily about the timetable for implementing any increase. The concentration on spending as a proportion of GDP is one which I’ve never really understood. Surely, if, or to the extent that, the UK needs to up its defence capacity (another whole other subject), it’s about the nature and scale of that capacity, not about how much it costs in relation to GDP? As the UK has ably(?) demonstrated over many years, increasing defence expenditure is easy – incompetent procurement and project management can add massively to costs for no perceptible increase in capacity.

I do wonder, though, whether Trump really cares whether the relationship between arms spending and GDP makes any sense or not – or even whether he really cares about defence anyway, especially for countries other than the US. I suspect that his real concern is what it’s always been: money and power (mostly his own). He believes (with considerable justification, in the short term at least) that increasing spend on armaments primarily benefits US companies, and that means his billionaire ‘friends’ (whose ‘friendship’, in turn, is more about what they can get out of it than any liking for Trump) and donors. He doesn’t even believe that the Russians (the bogeyman being used in Europe to support preparations for war) are any sort of threat, given what he sees as his own excellent relationship with Putin.

I suspect that the warmongers currently running the UK are going to increase armaments spending anyway, regardless of what Trump says, even if their own blind adherence to wholly arbitrary fiscal rules causes a degree of dithering along the way. And when they do so, even if the Trump threat over the Falklands/Malvinas has had zero impact on the decision, Trump’s simplistic mind will see a cause and effect where there is none, which will reinforce his tendency to resort to threats and blackmail. Trump’s madness and impulsiveness form a vicious circle from which there seems to be no escape.