The true history of Brexit Britain: the real coalition

 I've been busy with the glue and paste and I've manged to piece together another section of the New Oxford History of Brexit Britain written some time after 2050. Read it ONLY HERE:

When people talked about ‘the coalition’ in the 2020s, they invariably meant the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government that ruled from 2010 to 2015, but the real coalition in British politics was the one between two ostensibly bitter rivals, the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. And although, the Labour Party was an enthusiastic participant, this coalition was fiercely conservative, resolutely blocking the changes that Britain needed, to solve its deep-seated, long-standing problems.

The Labour-Conservative coalition obstinately defended Brexit even when most British people had long ago realised it was a terrible mistake, and that it had been imposed on them by a political process that could most kindly be described as ‘unsatisfactory’, and which had effectively been ruled illegal.

The Conservative-Labour coalition also fought like tigers against any reform of the undemocratic ‘First Past the Post’ voting system, which constantly awarded virtually absolute power to politicians most voters had rejected.

So more than 63 per cent had voted against the notorious Conservative government of 2015 that implemented the disastrous Brexit referendum, while more than 56 per cent had opposed Boris Johnson’s vacuous ‘get Brexit done’ regime in 2019, and in the three supposed Thatcher 'landslides' of 1979-1987 she never won more than 43.9 per cent of the vote. But Labour also benefited from this undemocracy, with Tony Blair gaining his first ‘landslide’ in 1997 with only 43 per cent of the vote, and his last election victory in 2005 with just 35 per cent. In other words, nearly two-thirds of voters opposed him.

As the 21^st century progressed, there was more and more agonising and hand-wringing from Labour and Conservative politicians about how voters were ‘alienated’ from the political process and about how dangerous this was. Yet it seemed to occur to few of them that constantly imposing on the British people governments they did not want would surely cause ‘alienation.’

As we now know, this fierce conservatism over Brexit and the electoral system would have severe consequences for both parties, and, sadly, for the people of Britain.

Thought for the day: the triumph of delusion

I have seen a lot of political contests in my time, but surely none so deluded, dishonest and divorced from reality as the alarming battle for the votes of Conservative members between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss in order to be your next prime minister. Unless you are one of those Tory members, who are now, judging from the promises being made to them, very, very far to the right indeed, of course you get no say in who's going to run your life. Apparently that's democracy.

It's bad enough to have Sunak promising to set up Chinese Communist-style 're-education' camps for anyone who dares to criticise the Tories, but surely even worse are super-lightweight Truss's innumerate plans to 'take risks' with the British economy. Translation: risks with your job, mortgage, savings, pension, business, life.

Following the trusted Brexit formula of 'promise them anything', and never take a tough decision, the failed Thatcher tribute act is going to raise spending AND reduce taxes - primarily for the rich obviously. Never mind the debt burden this will impose on your children and grandchildren, never mind the runaway inflation the ship of fools is stoking. Never mind that virtually every economist thinks it's mad, apart from Patrick Minford of 'Brexit is great but it will destroy industry in the UK' fame.

As a born again Brexit-er, Truss thinks that if she just BELIEVES hard enough, the British economy will grow so fast that magic money trees will spring up everywhere, no doubt creating forests in which those elusive Brexit unicorns will finally appear and gambol. 

Truss will win and be your next prime minster. They may call her 'Thick Lizzie' but she has sussed that there is no market for truth and realism in the modern 'Conservative' Party. 

Brexitwatch: Margaret Thatcher - Boris Johnson's part in her downfall

When Brexiters and Johnsonites talk about Margaret Thatcher, they tend to speak in tones of hushed reverence, but thanks to some good work by the Guardian on newly released papers, we now know that our current prime minister and the person most to blame for Brexit played a crucial role in bringing her down.

It is not mentioned much these days, but for most of her career, Thatcher was unambiguously pro-European – campaigning enthusiastically for Remain in the 1975 referendum and then perhaps doing more than anyone else to create the Single Market.

But by 1990, she and her party were losing popularity and divisions over Europe among her colleagues were beginning to surface, so Thatcher decided to throw the anti-EU contingent a bit of red meat (sound familiar?)  

The supplier was the Daily Telegraph’s correspondent on what was then called the EC (European Community), one Boris Johnson, who was known for writing highly entertaining anti-Brussels stories, which often had the drawback of being made up.

Johnson had attacked the European Commission president, Jacques Delors (a favourite bête noire of the right-wing press - 'Up Yours, Delors!' etc) claiming that he was endangering our sovereignty. The Foreign Office drew the article to Thatcher’s attention with a warning that it wasn’t true.

But Thatcher used it as the basis of her famous: ‘No! No! No!’ speech, which alarmed her more sensible MPs and ministers. (Note for younger readers: in those days some leading figures in the Conservative Party actually cared about what was in the interests of the UK.) And within a month, Britain’s first woman prime minister was gone.

Memory lane - The days I interviewed Margaret Thatcher

During my time as a television reporter at ATV Today in the Midlands (1973-77) I interviewed Margaret Thatcher a few times. Of course, in those days, she was leader of the opposition before she became prime minister.

She was also quite a nervous and often reluctant interviewee. This is perhaps the most interesting of our encounters. As I doorstepped her during campaigning for the Walsall North by-election in 1976, Mrs Thatcher attacked the Labour government for allowing unemployment to reach 1.4 million. Fun fact: during her Conservative government, unemployment went over 3 million.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzqaguv27o8

The previous year I caught up with her as she toured the Royal Crown Derby factory in Derby, to get her reaction to the Labour government's plan to rescue troubled car manufacturer British Leyland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6qGYJ5MOAw

It's only money (2) + unhappy country

So now it’s official. Labour have been telling us that we are uniquely well placed to face the economic recession, but in fact we are uniquely badly placed. The International Monetary Fund has let the cat out of the bag, saying that we will be worse hit than the United States, Western Europe or Japan, and that we're heading for our worst slump since the 1930's with the economy shrinking by 2.8 per cent this year.

There is something we could do to mitigate this financial disaster, of course, but Labour are far too doctrinaire to try it. The economy needs people to spend. Poorer people are much more likely than better off people to spend their money rather than saving it, and more likely to spend it on local goods and services, rather than foreign holidays for example. Rich people, unfortunately, were given huge tax cuts by Mrs Thatcher (then the richest further rewarded themselves with huge pay rises). Many believed these tax cuts were unsustainable, and, indeed, they are now destroying our economy. We need tax increases for those at the top, with the proceeds distributed to poorer people as tax cuts or benefit increases. How nice to be able to do something that is not only right but profitable, but Labour won’t.

At the Congo war crimes trial of Thomas Lubanga yesterday, the first prosecution witness changed his story and said he had not been one of the 30,000 child soldiers recruited to fight in the civil war in the Ituri region. The court was then adjourned amid worries about intimidation of witnesses.

Today war is still raging in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and altogether more than 5 million people have died since 1998, making this the world’s deadliest conflict since World War Two. Back in the 19th Century, the region was taken over by King Leopold II of Belgium as his personal domain. During a 23 year reign of terror, according to official estimates, half the population of the Congo was wiped out, by murder, forced labour, starvation and disease. See A Disastrous History of the World.