As general election campaigning accelerates by the day, we see an increasing number of faux pas (or missteps, as some journalists like to call them) and dirty tricks on the part of the key political parties. The facts haven’t emerged yet but we have to wonder if the hoax video call from ‘the previous Ukrainian president’ which Foreign Secretary David Cameron was inveigled into was one such, revealing the Tories as the fools they are. Having long maintained he wouldn’t stand, Nigel Farage threw the Tories into a tailspin last week by changing his mind and being all over the airwaves ever since, then Rishi Sunak precipitated a storm by fibbing during the leaders’ debate that Labour would raise our taxes by £2k. Rather than climbing down and apologising when the claim that the figures were signed off by Treasury civil servants was revealed as a lie, he continued to double down on this and so have his politically suicidal colleagues. Widely circulated in the media was the letter from James Bowler, Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, to Darren Jones, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, which made crystal clear that the £38bn figure and others quoted in the Conservatives’ Labour’s Tax Rises were not the work or civil servants and should not be presented as such. Oof. How long before he gets the sack, like his predecessor who displeased Liz Truss?
Presumably Sunak didn’t expect the Permanent Secretary to out this political con but even now the government is sticking to the story that most of the figures they’d used were produced by civil servants so it was ok to misuse Treasury authority to underpin the entire document. Yet again we have to wonder who’s advising them, as this strategy is such an own goal. There are now two investigations being conducted by the UK Statistics Authority (statistics watchdog), about both the tax misrepresentation and Sunak’s use of the term ‘going gangbusters’ for the economy. The PM has also been outed for basing his over-optimistic state of the economy pronouncements on the performance of just one quarter, which is simply misleading. Some sources also mention an investigation by theOffice for Statistics Regulation and yet again it made me think why do we need yet another organisation? One statistics watchdog should suffice. On Wednesday Energy Security and Net Zero minister Claire Coutinho admitted that the £2k figure was spread over four years, yet analysis by commentators and others showed that the offending figures comprising the overall package were based on so many Conservative Party assumptions that any attempt to convey accuracy through them could not be taken seriously.
An X user tweeted: ‘The blatant reliance on Special Advisors for costings simply and patently cannot be trusted as independent or unbiased no matter how many times Rishi Sunak, Jeremy Hunt, Claire Coutinho or any one of the garbage goblins pretending to be politicians tell us they are. These advisors are 100% politically motivated and solely serve the interests of their party, not the public’. Another said: ‘The real tax issue isn’t the fictional £2k rise under Labour made up by the Tories, or even the forecast £3k rise under the Tories calculated by the Spectator using the same methodology, it’s Tory cronies encouraging certain types to avoid their fair share’.
Labour have also had their difficulties, including the debacle over Diane Abbott. the deselection of Faiza Shaheen and the suggestion that (not totally unlike the Tories) they’re parachuting centrist candidates into seats to silence left wingers. So much for parties describing themselves as ‘a broad church’.
The leadership debate was frustrating to watch as format is faulty for this kind of discussion, Sunak came across as aggressive and the presenter struggled to keep control. There was also no correction to the untruth Sunak keeps quoting to keep his right wingers on side, ie that the ECHR is ‘a foreign court’. And Sunak is increasingly being laughed at during such events, increasingly getting his deserved reputation of (as someone put it) ‘pound shop Boris Johnson’. ‘We raced through questions on the NHS, education, tax, defence and climate change. Keir got far more of the applause while Rishi died a death as the audience groaned and openly laughed at him. First on health, then on national service. His only tactic was to keep saying that he was the one with the ideas. Even if they were all completely rubbish’. But this hasn’t stopped the government throwing out what BBC News calls ‘eye catching policies’ (aka ill thought out gimmicks) on a daily basis, for example today we hear about the plan to abolish stamp duty for first time buyers on homes up to £425,000. Good luck with that in places like London but no matter as it will never come to pass anyway.
It comes to something when the Prime Minister being outed for an outright lie pales into insignificance compared with other massive mistakes but this has been the case to some extent following the disgraceful episode of Sunak exiting the Normandy events early. Leaving Foreign Secretary Lord Dave to hold the fort, Sunak missed the key event with other world leaders in order to return to the UK for a tv interview (in which he would again try to defend his Labour tax lie). He later apologised, constantly cited by his extremely embarrassed colleagues, but the idea that a faux apology for a massive error makes everything ok hit the buffers long ago.
Sunak’s statement: ‘The 80th anniversary of D-Day has been a profound moment to honour the brave men and women who put their lives on the line to protect our values, our freedom and our democracy. This anniversary should be about those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. The last thing I want is for the commemorations to be overshadowed by politics. I care deeply about veterans and have been honoured to represent the UK at a number of events in Portsmouth and France over the past two days and to meet those who fought so bravely. After the conclusion of the British event in Normandy, I returned back to the UK. On reflection, it was a mistake not to stay in France longer – and I apologise’.
This precipitated a flurry of tweets and media comments, eg ‘If you could work out today that it was a mistake to leave D-Day commemorations early, why couldn’t you work it out yesterday?’ ‘A crawling apology and a double down on lies. Just another day for Sunak’. ‘This indicates such a lack of self-awareness. He’s on a self destruct path’.’What does it say about Rishi Sunak’s judgement as Prime Minister if he left an event of profound national and international significance so that he could do a campaign interview with ITV?’ But in my view an important issue has been missed in all these displays of support and gratitude for those brave servicemen involved in the Normandy landings: that despite the virtue signalling and ‘patriotism’ displayed by so many politicians many of those leaving the armed forces have experienced severe mental health and housing problems which haven’t been addressed in any consistent way. Minister of State for Veterans’ Affairs Johnny Mercer then made the situation even worse by commenting on voters’ ‘faux outrage’ about Sunak missing the key event. It would have been vulnerable before but now some reckon this arrogant comment will lose Mercer his seat: ‘As PM you receive a lot of advice, obviously it’s disappointing, but I do find the faux outrage pretty nauseating’.
Jonathan Freedland dissects Sunak’s actions, taking a historical perspective: ‘it’s clear the prime minister does not grasp the hallowed place 6 June 1944 occupies in the island story of this nation’ but points out the lack of urgency and honesty in how he presented his actions: ‘It turns out that Sunak returned home to do an interview with ITV – which will not be broadcast until next Wednesday. So the opposite of urgent. What’s more, Downing Street volunteered that time slot to ITV. Sunak was not compelled to desert his post in Normandy: he chose to do it. No wonder even his fellow Conservatives are accusing him of political malpractice. They’re right, but it’s more than that. It’s an offence against history.’ It’s not only historical ignorance the PM stands accused of, it’s political illiteracy: ‘For this was not just any memorial event. The D-day anniversary is the big one, summoning the Allies to stand together once more. King Charles knew that…What’s more, everyone knows this was almost certainly the last time the D-day veterans could be honoured in person. Yesterday was to be the final act of thanks to the generation that saved Europe, a last farewell. It was beyond obvious that a British prime minister had to be there.
But forget the duty. Think of the politics. Sunak faces a challenge from Reform UK and its freshly installed leader, Nigel Farage, especially among older voters and those swayed by appeals to patriotism. Why hand him such a free hit?’ No wonder Sunak’s colleagues are furious with him because he’s deeply embarrassed them and made their electoral chances even slighter. Perhaps they will even come to regret behaving like such sheep, for so long obediently trotting out his lies and misrepresentations.
Another point about these celebrations is the surely questionable tradition of royals like Charles and William sporting a chest full of medals they’ve done nothing whatsoever to earn. It’s yet another aspect of monarchy which needs challenging. But gird your loins as it’s not long before the Trooping of the Colour ceremony, which will have royal valets working around the clock to ensure that all the right medals, buckles and braids are ready in time.
There’s been much comment about Friday night’s 7 way BBC debate presented by the often (but not this time, I thought) excellent Mishal Husain, who said that BBC fact checkers were present but we never heard what their findings were. Angela Rayner and an aggressive pointy fingered Penny Mordaunt repeatedly clashed on taxes, the NHS and defence, Mordaunt throwing statistics around like nobody’s business but there was no verification on air of these numbers. ‘Debate moderator Mishal Husain interrupted Ms Mordaunt to remind her that the (tax) figure had been questioned and Green Party leader Carla Denyer sarcastically described her opponents as “terribly dignified”. Leading political figures also clashed on the issue of migration as Nigel Farage – who is well known for his views on the subject – accused both Conservative and Labour governments of not controlling migration as he pledged to stop migrants from bringing their family members to the UK’. The smaller parties like the Greens and Lib Dems are making a good case so far, I think, and there have been complaints about BBC programmes like Question Time constantly platforming people like Tice and Farage to the exclusion of others more deserving of a place on the panels.
With increasing anger from his own side over his constant faux pas, Sunak allies like the hopeless Conservative Party chair Ric Holden being parachuted into safe seats (this must really upset the local activists who actually do the work) and unease over acceptance of the additional Frank Hester donation (£5bn accepted in January but not publicised), the PM looks extremely vulnerable. Further racist comments by Hester had come to light but as his total £15bn donation amounts to more than 40% of the total national spending limit for each party for a general election, we’re not likely to see the money returned any time soon.
Meanwhile, damning but not surprising news about the extent of financial realities to be faced by the next government means that it will be some time before any improvement is felt. ‘Political parties must be honest with Britain about the immediate crisis of collapsing public services facing the next government, according to a hard-hitting report that lays bare the crisis affecting the NHS, criminal justice system, prisons and local government. In a direct challenge to Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer to come clean with voters, the Institute for Government think tank said most state services are performing worse than at the time of the 2019 general election, and “substantially worse” than when the Conservatives first took office in 2010.The IfG said it was not plausible for the victorious party on 4 July to stick to current spending plans at a time when the performance of hospitals was arguably the worst in the history of the NHS, prisons were at crisis point, and councils were shutting libraries and cutting back on waste collection and social care’. There should be some sanction for those leaving the country in this shocking state – it amounts to severe malpractice in public office.
Don’t hold your breath but this dire situation is exactly what media presenters should be challenging their guests on. It was never credible for the Tories to claim that the economy was ‘turning a corner’, that they’d invested XYZ in the NHS etc, but now it’s even less so. ‘Friday’s report from the IfG, titled The Precarious State of the State, said the reality was that growth had stagnated in recent years, living standards had fallen over the course of the 2019-24 parliament, tax and spending levels were already at a historically high level and plans for post-election public spending were implausible.’ Trevor Phillips, Laura Kuenssberg, Robert Peston, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Beth Rigby and co – we’re on your case!
Now that Nigel Farage is even higher profile than he was previously, various commentators have been warning against his kind of insidious populism. He’s a skilled orator and political operator but analysts have shown how his frequent sound bite statements don’t stand up to scrutiny, like the one on Radio 4’s Today programme about streets in Oldham where ‘no one speaks English’.
Journalist Adittya Chakrabortty describes him as ‘a virus infecting UK politics’ and there’s been much general criticism of the media for platforming him when he doesn’t even have a seat at the same time as downplaying smaller parties which don’t get enough air time. Yet even as they splash the man across every front page, they trivialise his importance. To read the broadsheets this week, they are lavishing so much attention on an inveterate attention-seeker because he spells certain defeat for Rishi Sunak, who in any case is a total loser. Got it? Except that’s not the way Britain works. Over the course of his career, Farage has shown time and again that you need not win Westminster elections to change Westminster politics. As a politician, Farage is no Boris Johnson; yet, as a mode of politics, the power of Faragism is vast’. This is exemplified by politicians reacting so quickly to Farage baits eg ‘this will be an immigration election’ then the very next day the Tories announce a cap on immigration policy.
‘He has not reached that position by democratic means, if by democracy we mean open and rigorous testing of ideas and arguments. Instead, he has relied upon sugar-daddy businessmen such as Arron Banks, who funded Leave.EU. He also depends upon the chuckling indulgence of the media, from the BBC comedy shows and panel discussions (no fewer than 36 appearances on Question Time, analysts calculate) to the Torygraph and all its various franchises’. The media and politicians are seen as being asleep at the wheel as the insidious influence spreads. ‘At its root, Faragism is a project to take this country further and further to the right. And from Brexit through to Suella Braverman, it has worked. Its most devoted support in this project has been the media, which sees leaving the EU or denying care system migrant workers as essential and easy tasks, while taxing the rich or investing in public services are swivel-eyed Marxism. Such an argument cannot be appeased or compromised with. It needs to be countered, disproved with facts and its progenitors shown as the cosseted chancers they are. Yet it is a feature of Westminster politics that there is no institution willing or able to make that case’. Possibly this won’t happen if Farage loses the Clacton seat but we have been warned…
Although, despite Tory claims to the contrary, numbers crossing the channel are higher than ever (316 on Friday, the most for June so far), voters are much more concerned about the cost of living and the state of the NHS, with 8m on waiting lists. The unpleasant irony is that many of those ‘economically inactive’ people they’ve been trying to bully back into the workplace are too unwell to be thus dragooned because they’re part of this massive queue. It’s no use the Conservatives saying they’ve invested XYZ amount, which they imply is a lot, when this figure also cynically includes things that have no honest place in the figure, as they did during the pandemic when they included the useless crony contracted PPE. The figure is also not per capita so spending on each patient has gone way down. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the figure also includes the high cost of agency workers to replace strikers and vacancies due to Tory failure to invest in the workforce over years. No wonder their workforce plan is ‘long term’ – besides being seriously faulty in itself it means ministers don’t yet have to show that they’re achieving anything.
Of course it doesn’t help that another doctors strike is underway at present. Last weekend Laura Kuenssberg interviewed the hapless Health Secretary, Victoria Atkins, who came out with all kind of spin about the Tories’ record on the NHS, and who later boasted that she’d been ‘in the room with doctors’, as if this was some kind of achievement without disclosing what the upshot of that interaction was. The ongoing strikes have unfortunately been useful to the government, for allowing them to blame medics for the waiting list growing and to convey to their right wingers that they’re bravely standing up to the unions. They will struggle to get the better of the BMA, though.
Not everyone realises that there’s no such thing as ‘the NHS’ as such because, following the disastrous Andrew Lansley (yes, of course, he’s in the Lords now) 2013 ‘reforms’, the NHS was split into a myriad of bodies and an organogram is quite shocking, revealing the sheer extent of the fragmentation. This is one of the reasons malpractice can occur because of the sheer difficulty of achieving accountability in such a sprawling, arms length from government organisation. But what I’d like to know is what the various political parties will do about the neglected issue of Long Covid. It affects thousands, only some of whom can access NHS treatment (still effectively in its infancy) and who in many cases feel their lives have been wrecked by this condition. There’s a heartbreaking example in this article. ‘Long Covid has taken a huge toll on your mental health. You feel resentful, angry, lost, unseen and unheard, left behind and forgotten about. Your confidence is shot to pieces. You are existing, not living; you want to live again. You are in mourning, grieving for the person you used to be’. So many are just assuming Covid is behind us but it’s not and in any case experts predicted that contrary to what the Tories assumed was a ‘once in a century’ phenomenon, another pandemic of some kind will hit us as some point.
Despite all the ‘Sturm und Drang’ going on in the outside world, you can take comfort from knowing that home fashion experts have your interests at heart when it comes to choosing sheets and quilt covers. ‘From soft brushed cotton to aspirationally rough linen; ticking stripes to bold, Instagram feed-friendly colours; scalloped-edges to the renaissance of the dust-collecting valance, beds are big business beyond the foundational mattress and frame. The domestic equivalent of picking what to wear, what you dress your bed in would ideally suit a mood, a season; it is an important part of the domestic jigsaw just as much – if not, arguably, more – than your sofa, kitchen tiles or rugs’. The key thing, you understand, is for your ‘bed dressing’ to be Instagram feed-friendly. Meanwhile, back in the real world, now that Wilko has mostly disappeared from high streets, we will just make do with B&M or John Lewis if we’re lucky.
Finally, I don’t know whether barbers and hairdressers think they’re doing us a favour with their chat, asking about our holidays, etc, but a Finnish hairdresser has apparently started an innovatory ‘silent service’ for those who don’t want to participate. The owner, a self-declared introvert, said: ‘I understand how uncomfortable it can be for a client to have to make small talk’. Communication is kept to the minimum required to get the hair attended to and it seems demand for the service has been brisk! Perhaps it could catch on here…
Politics and mental health - the missing link? 