Syria – what a dramatic turn of events which no one saw coming. Just a month ago, a Western diplomat was apparently arguing that sanctions should be lifted from Assad because clearly he had won the war and now we needed to ‘move on’. Although such a rebel operation (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, HTS) must have been planned for some time eyes have been off that ball because of the Gaza/Lebanon situation. It seemed that no sooner than they’d taken Aleppo, HTS had taken Hama and Homs and made inroads into more and more territory and suddenly it was all over for Assad after 50 years of his family’s tyrannical reign over this strategically important country. Let’s hope that the very understandable jubilation of Syrians, especially at the liberation of thousands of prisoners, isn’t followed by a descent into civil war because of different rebel groups wanting a piece of the action. It will be interesting to see what Saturday’s diplomats’ meeting in Jordan comes up with, especially as some countries are already active there, for example bombing stocks of allegedly chemical weapons to stop them falling into the ‘wrong hands’. Journalists will be relieved that, unlike Gaza, they can actually get into Syria to report from there. The BBC’s Lyse Doucet, for one, does not feel optimistic that other powers will put Syrian interests above their own. Syria must not become another Libya or Iraq.
It’s interesting to learn now about the different factions which came together to achieve this result, especially Operations Room to Liberate Damascus, which ‘gathered the leaders of 25 opposition factions across three southern provinces. It was formed a year ago with the assistance of HTS, and provided a sense of order to the disparate factions in south Syria. The faction leaders would communicate with one another in a WhatsApp group, then pass on instructions to their respective rank-and-file on a need-to-know basis’. It was clear the government was taken by surprise, first reacting with silence to these advances, then alluding to a ‘tactical retreat’ to protect civilian lives at the same time as essentially accusing the advances as fake news.
But what accelerated the taking of Damascus was HTS urging soldiers to lay down their arms and defect, giving them a phone number to call, which received thousands: ‘soon, the fighters were marching towards Damascus. No statement came from Assad, and though state media insisted he was working diligently in his office, he had not been seen in days. Soldiers were left leaderless’. It was left to a passer by to tell one general that Assad had fled’ No surprise that Assad just abandoned his army but now we know more about his very limited new life in Moscow it doesn’t sound great for him, perhaps not even safe given the Russian’s propensity to take people out when they become a problem. At only 54, relatively young for a politician, the chances are he will feel increasingly isolated, impotent and irrelevant. How the mighty have fallen.
‘People began to rejoice in their ability to speak freely. Furious debates over the country’s future ensued. In cafes, over cups of coffee and cigarettes, furious arguments were taking place about the direction the rebel-led government would take, voices raised as people tested the new limits of their freedoms’. At least the new regime has announced the formation of a civilian, transitional government – nothing about elections yet but there’s still time for that.
I thought an intriguing discovery was that of the widespread manufacture and distribution of the illegal amphetamine Captagon, the profits of which kept Assad in power for so long. ITV News tells us ‘that it is cheap to make and vast quantities can be produced in a relatively short period of time. It acts a bit like a stimulant, making the messages between your body and your brain move faster’. This made it good during warfare because (perhaps like giving the men a shot of rum before they went over the top during World War One) it blurred the line between courage and recklessness. Popular in the Middle East, it has apparently been shipped all over the world. A win win all round for the Assad regime, then. ‘Some experts, including those at the Observatory of Political and Economic Networks, suggest almost £10 billion year was generated for Syria through its sale. Two billion is thought to have gone directly to Assad and his family’. Although stashes of Catagon have been found and destroyed by HTS, we have to wonder whether they could change course on this because of the vital revenue it produces. At least one commentator has called Assad’s Syria a ‘narco state’ – HTS might have a difficult choice to make between the right moral choice and tempting profits.
It’s interesting that so far there’s been no mainstream media reporting on yesterday’s high level meeting of diplomats in Jordan on the future of Syria. Notably, no Syrian representatives were present. Reuters tells us that (no surprise) powers are jostling for influence there, with some going straight to direct action. An X user observed: ‘Appalling that Israel has made 400 air strikes on Syria since the fall of Assad. With Western collusion, of course, this goes way beyond caution that weapons stocks don’t fall into the wrong hands. Nothing short of mission creep’. There’s also concern about the preparedness of Turkey to sign up to a peaceful and inclusive transition as Turkey and the US, both NATO members, have conflicting interests regarding the other groups of rebels operating in Syria. A major aim is to avoid a partition of the country.
Reuters gave the main points as the US making contact with HTS and the US, EU and regional powers jointly calling for an inclusive political process, leading to a joint statement which emphasised ‘full support for Syria’s unity, territorial integrity and sovereignty’. This was thought to be a message to Israel but, as we’ve seen at length regarding Gaza, the chances of any notice being taken are low.
Back in the UK, the relentless right wing politician and media attacks on the government continue: the timing and contents of the Budget and the spending review may not have been perfect but policy areas which the Conservatives sidestepped for years like house building, prison places and the wider justice system are unfairly coming in for flak. Most if not all government policies have had to be put in place due to 14 years of Tory neglect and we surely need an end to the demonisation of tax. The country needs taxation in order to fund the services we all depend upon, but this simple fact seems to escape so many. The Conservatives have predictably leapt upon the latest disappointing GDP figures, but must recognise that it takes time to turn an economy around, not just a few months. And it’s not just about policy – a whole raft of infrastructural issues come into play, as we’ve seen regarding successive campaigns to increase productivity by getting the ‘economically inactive’ back to work.
But the government did miss a trick by failing to introduce a proper wealth tax for all that unearned income which has long fostered social inequality: their timidity over this isn’t helpful. There’s a useful explainer about the Spending Review here, a key question being how much can genuinely be saved via ‘efficiencies’. ‘The sheer number of governments that have leaned into efficiency savings as a way to fund public services or tax cuts does rather suggest that it is a convenient political line more than a serious pursuit.’ The article argues that crucial to the government’s success will be whether the PM and Chancellor can break the longstanding pattern of governments’ ‘efficiency’ tactics actually leading to higher expenditure.
A preoccupation both main parties share at present is what appears to be the steady rise of Reform UK, which despite only having 5 MPs still won more votes at the election than the Lib Dems. Party leader Farage is never off our screens and the media have been accused of talking up his chances by constantly platforming him, besides constantly maintaining a right wing narrative, of course. It seems that never a week passes without Reform broadcasting a council by-election win and they’re already planning a major campaign for the 2026 Welsh Senedd elections. But a key criticism levelled at Reform is their habit of lambasting Labour and the Conservatives, for example on the ‘small boats crisis’, while having no clear policies themselves to tackle that problem. It was interesting (if hard work because of the amount of annoying self-congratulatory chortling the presenters engage in) that the latest Radio 4 Today podcast (Nigel Farage, Reform and the future of British politics) discussed the possibility of Reform winning the next general election and Farage becoming PM. Together with guest Tim Montgomerie (longstanding Conservative and recent defector to Reform) they insisted that Reform and Farage must be taken seriously, which I think quite a few would struggle with. Despite his politics I found Montie (as he’s known) quite engaging and interesting to listen to. I wonder whether his defection will last.
Against this political and economic backdrop many have faced a distinctly unfestive advent due to damage inflicted by storms Bert and Darragh – it can feel bad enough in cities battling against high winds and torrential rain but it’s nothing compared with what some areas, particularly Wales, have had to put up with. Some would have hardly recovered from Bert before being clobbered by Darragh and the rise in household insurance premiums affect all of us across the board. I wonder whether some parts of the country struggle to get insured at all because of the likelihood of further flood damage.
On the subject of Christmas many of us will have been inundated by charitable appeals and an article featured in The Week via The Times (Losing our faith and hope in charity) has Libby Purves suggesting that we Brits are falling out of the habit of giving. Ten years ago we were apparently the 6th most generous country in the world for charity donations and we’re now down to 22nd. Of course this is partly due to the cost of living crisis and people wanting to avoid the incessant requests, ‘but a key factor is surely people’s diminished respect for charities’. The professionalization of this sector has led to private sector type remuneration packages for CEOs (eg up to £175,000) and there’s also the revolving doors syndrome, individuals moving from one charity to another. ‘What was born in selfless passion can mutate into comfy careerism…the more people come to regard charities as just another corporate business the less inclined to donate’.
Recently there’s been no shortage of news about the Royal Family, including the Channel 4 documentary Dispatches focusing on the exploitation and profiteering practiced by the Duchys of Cornwall and Lancaster, presided over by Prince William and King Charles, the real cost of the Coronation and the expectation that the £45m Queen Elizabeth statue would be paid for by taxpayers. Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Prince Andrew has once more caused damage to his family and this country by exposing us to a security risk via his connection to an alleged Chinese spy. Not yet named (although former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith has said he will raise an urgent question in the Commons tomorrow, raising the possibility he could be named under parliamentary privilege) the individual known as H6, taking advantage of Andrew’s desperate financial straits, managed to inveigle his way into the Prince’s circle.
Having been banned from the UK, after a judgement by the UK’s semi-secret national security court, H6 appealed against the ban in March 2023 but the court upheld the original judgement – ‘Judges were told the businessman was attempting to leverage Prince Andrew’s influence’…The court was told that H6 was invited to Prince Andrew’s birthday party in 2020 and was told he could act on his behalf when dealing with potential investors in China. It’s not clear how H6 became close to the Prince, but in November 2021 police officers stopped and questioned him at the UK border under powers to investigate suspicions of ‘hostile activity’ by a foreign state. Security chiefs feared Beijing was attempting to run an “elite capture” operation to influence the Duke of York because of the pressure he was under, a tactic which aims to appoint high profile individuals to Chinese businesses, think tanks or universities’. I wonder how many will believe the Duke’s assertion that he had ceased all contact with H6 when concerns were first raised. His ‘office’ said he had met the individual through ‘official channels’, with ‘nothing of a sensitive nature ever discussed’. Hmmm.
A key question must be why are we only just learning about this now? Just because the court ruling has been published? Another is whether the Prince is really so arrogant and entitled that his need for finance and for recognition following his forced withdrawal from royal duties were clearly prioritised over the nation’s security. Yet another was how royal ‘advisers’ are selected since one of Andrew’s, a Dominic Hampshire, is on record as telling H6 ‘Outside of [the prince’s] closest internal confidants, you sit at the very top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on..Under your guidance, we found a way to get the relevant people unnoticed in and out of the house in Windsor’. Besides this conduct approaching treason, it hints at a strategy enabling Andrew to flex his depleted royal muscles under the radar, for example the ‘getting relevant people unnoticed in and out’ perhaps being when his family were otherwise occupied. A wider question, which the media don’t seem to have touched on yet, is why there’s never been any proper investigation or bringing to account of Russian infiltration, for example Boris Johnson’s notorious mingling with oligarchs and Russian donation to MPs.
Besides the obvious security issues, this news shines a light on the longstanding opacity surrounding royal finances, which is surely no longer being acceptable if it ever was. ‘His finances have recently come under scrutiny. King Charles is no longer funding him, and there has been speculation about the running costs of Royal Lodge – the security bill alone is believed to be several million pounds per year. The big picture of Prince Andrew’s finances is full of unknowns, such as how much he might have inherited from his mother or how much private money he might have accumulated in his envoy days’. It looks like this story isn’t going away any time soon, several Sunday papers leading on how H6 was photographed with two former PMs, May and Cameron, neither of whom recalled him. It could be argued that this just demonstrates the level of infiltration H6 achieved. The story resulted in two pretty outrageous cop outs: one from the Palace saying they do not act for the prince, who is not a working royal and the other from Beijing, saying China supports ‘normal people-to-people and cultural exchanges with other countries’ and that the UK should stop creating trouble.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd75vwdg3yvo
There have been some bright spots amid the often gloomy and/or disturbing news (not good for our mental wellbeing), including the re-opening of the iconic Notre Dame in Paris, news that contaminated blood scandal victims were finally receiving their compensation and that Spellow library in Liverpool, torched by rioters last summer, reopened following a campaign raised £250k to rectify the damage. It’s yet another reminder that often overlooked by politicians and the media, libraries are important local hubs, enabling community engagement besides their core function of providing books, information and computer access.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crk0nk4z25zo
Best festive wishes to all and thanks for reading!
Politics and mental health - the missing link? 