After last week, with the royal visit to the US, more absurd Trump pronouncements and local election campaigning at fever pitch it feels as if the news agenda has gone well and truly into overdrive. With the elections only days away, it’s almost amusing to see Scottish politicians falling over each other to claim credit for Trump having withdrawn his whisky tariff ‘in honour of the King and Queen’. It’s been shocking to see just how poisonous the election campaigning has been in some quarters, the right wing parties telling outright lies about their records and intentions, one of the worst aspects being the cynical conflation of these locals with a general election. The Tories and Reform keep saying ‘Vote X to kick Starmer out’, when the PM can’t be kicked out until 2029 or whenever the Labour Party decides otherwise. Some gullible voters are going to be mightily disappointed when they find out the limits of local democracy. Commenting about some candidates apparently having no actual presence (eg not turning up to hustings) I was informed that all parties use the ‘paper candidate’ system just in order to raise their party’s profile. In my view yet another aspect of electoral practice that needs to be changed: either stand and put yourself out there, facing whatever challenges that might bring or not at all. No cowardly halfway house.
The media are guilty of whipping up fear and alarm about these local elections but the campaigning seems much dirtier than usual. In my view the Electoral Commission should be empowered to take action on the lies peddled (eg the claims that Joanna Lumley supports Reform), the Tories harping on measures which they never addressed during their 14 years in office and Reform’s unelected Zia Yussuf posing as ‘Shadow Home Secretary’ and threatening to ‘carpet bomb’ constituencies whose MPs had voted against the motion to refer Starmer to the Privileges Committee. There’s also the little matter of Nigel Farage’s undeclared donations, which the media have stubbornly failed to challenge. ‘Nigel Farage was given £5m by the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne shortly before announcing he would stand in the 2024 British general election, the Guardian can reveal. Farage had stated he did not intend to stand as a prospective MP but U-turned in June 2024, within weeks of receiving the personal gift from the Thailand-based businessman’. And the latest Reform issue is promoting the JCB PotHole Pro just after they received a £200,000 donation from the company.
So far there’s been little media coverage of these scandals and we know why: the BBC News Director John McAndrew was previously employed in a senior role at GB News, a channel closely linked to Farage. Farage has also drawn flak today for chickening out a second time from appearing on Sunday with Laura Kuennsberg. He’s talked up by his party as ‘the next Prime Minister of the UK’ but there’s no way that it could be someone with such opaque finances and with a tendency to refuse attendance at short notice. Ok, so this was tv but that programme is watched by millions and the UK could not afford the risk of that happening at national and international level.
As we could have predicted, Keir Starmer survived the Tory effort to refer him to the Privileges Committee over ‘misleading the House’, despite Kemi Badenoch’s horribly personal attacks on him during the debate and at Prime Minister’s Questions the next day. Some supporters claimed that she did a good job but she increasingly comes across as an embittered harpy and her deeply unpleasant conduct isn’t consistent with parliamentary standards. The Guardian’s parliamentary sketch writer, John Crace, not for the first time, slated her performance: ‘Step forward Kemi. The Tory leader who is guaranteed to make Starmer look better than he actually is. It’s partly her patronising tone that grates even with her own supporters. A sure-fire way to lose any audience. Then there’s the questions themselves. Always likely to somehow just miss the point’. The expressions on the faces of her front bench would suggest at least some are in agreement with this – they look embarrassed. Badenoch is always calling for one resignation or another, the latest being that of Zack Polanski, but following the predicted poor party performance in the forthcoming elections the Conservatives could well be asking for her to go. Meanwhile, she continues to swamp social media with her lengthy screeds criticizing the government on areas like inadequate defence spending and police numbers when the Tories were the very ones who decimated those resources.
Keir Starmer is by no means out of the woods, though. Many are disappointed with him and we hear that for the second time Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham is gearing up to mount a leadership challenge. This makes those plans look quite advanced and apparently several MPs have expressed preparedness to stand aside for him. ‘Allies said he planned to outline a “radical rewiring” of the state in the coming weeks – including sweeping changes to the electoral system and a 10-year growth plan – after a potentially devastating set of elections on 7 May that could end Keir Starmer’s premiership. After a fortnight that left Starmer fighting for his political future over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador, the number of MPs backing Burnham is understood to have grown to far more than the 80 required to challenge the prime minister… MPs have discussed the possibility of Burnham offering Starmer the chance to stay on as foreign secretary and continue work on the Iran war and Ukraine. Ed Miliband and Angela Rayner, another leadership rival, are expected to be offered top jobs in a Burnham government.’ Significantly, Labour’s National Executive Committee has now withdrawn their opposition to Burnham standing so there could be some result here. We will see what happens, to quote a Trump cliché.
A key conundrum for Keir Starmer continues to be pressure to cancel the pro-Palestinian marches, which quite a few are cynically conflating with anti-Semitism (the ‘hate marches’ schtick). Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley says he doesn’t have the powers to stop them but he could make them static. There’s no evidence to link the Golders Green attacks with the marches and it’s well known that a good number of Jewish people also attend the marches, protesting against the actions of the Israeli state. One of the most alarming aspects of the Middle East conflagration must be that Trump clearly no longer has control (if he ever had) over Netanyahu, who continues to attack Lebanon, causing massive damage to this fragile country. ‘Organisers of pro-Palestine marches have said Keir Starmer’s threat to ban some demonstrations opposing Israel’s actions in the Middle East will “strike at the root of free assembly and free speech” in the UK…Starmer said he also wanted the language expressed on some protest marches to be subjected to “tougher action”, including the chant “globalise the intifada”. Intifada is an Arabic word that translates to uprising or “shaking off”. Some pro-Palestine voices use the phrase as an expression of solidarity with Palestinians resisting Israeli occupation while some Jewish groups and leaders have described it as a call to violence’. Very unfortunately the media frequently collude with the second narrative. The next big march is scheduled for May 16th– again we will see what happens.
Of course monarchists have seized on the royal visit in order to boost the long redundant institution and the alleged strength of ‘soft power’ and although it certainly was a good speech, it was written largely by civil servants, not Charles himself. Despite Camilla’s gaucheness the couple did conduct themselves well amid the numerous breaches of protocol committed by their arrogant host, such as touching the royal knee and shoulder, cutting in front of Camilla in the line-up and suggesting that Charles would have backed up the US over Iran. But along with many others I suspect that within days Trump will be back to dissing the UK and, given his volatile strategy ontariffs, could rescind the Scotch concession at any time of his choosing. A major failing of the visit, though, was the refusal to meet Epstein survivors, using the flimsy excuse of ongoing police investigations, a figleaf for cowardly avoidance.
It’s no coincidence that the parasitic royal industry and papers like the Telegraph (today musing on Charles having ‘emerged from his mother’s shadow’) have latched onto last week as proof that the arcane institution of monarchy is a good thing and other news sources quote royal aides who suggest that ‘Prince William pays up to £7m in income tax’. Just one problem with this – there’s absolutely no evidence of it. For Charles and William paying income tax on the profits of the Duchys of Lancaster and Cornwall (nearly £50m) is optional and they also aren’t required to disclose their tax returns or pay other taxes. Today a royal aide told the media ‘the King is ‘always guided by the truth and his conscience’. Yet his ‘conscience’ hasn’t reapplied the 161 laws he’s exempt from, next to zero tax or relinquished the royals’ massive benefit from 19 homes and two sets of Duchy profits around £50m besides the grant. Next Saturday, 9 May, sees Republic Day, when there will be a march in central London drawing attention to these issues. It will be interesting to see if certain media play their usual trick of not reporting it. As an X user posted: ‘£7m tax bill apparently. Source: vibes, palace spin and a calculator doing overtime. No figures, no receipts, no independent proof. Just “trust us”. This isn’t journalism, it’s royal PR with a byline. If it’s real, publish the numbers. If not, stop flogging fairy tales as fact’.
For Trump and his team the royal visit provided a welcome distraction from the fact that his Iran war is not going at all well – the worse things get the more arrogant and bombastic sidekick Pete Hegseth becomes. It’s shocking to learn that Since Trump returned to office, the anti-‘woke’ defense secretary Hegseth who has fired or forcibly retired 24 generals and senior commanders, with no performance-related reason given. They apparently had ‘impeccable’ reputations but not surprising that around 60% have been black or female – further proof of this administration’s anti-DEI strategy. But what an own goal – the offloading of these very able sounding men and women surely will hollow out the Pentagon’s intellectual capital at a time it’s needed most.
They’re still struggling to grasp that American might is not the answer to complex issues and wily foes. So the Straits of Hormuz are still closed, with some exceptions, like the Russian oligarch’s yacht, the passage of which must have had Trump spitting. Meanwhile, there can’t be a corner of the globe not affected by Trump’s reckless actions and their effect on economies in terms of shortages and rising costs. On Friday Iran communicated another proposal to Pakistani mediators in order to end the war but how typical of Trump to immediately say he was not ‘satisfied’ by it and also to dishonestly imply that there are ‘talks’ when it’s still all going through mediators. “Right now, we have talks going on, they’re not getting there,” he told reporters, adding that his options remained “either blast them away or make a deal”. Again so lacking in subtlety and any grasp of international diplomacy – this simplistic ‘deals’ schtick is becoming very wearing. Yet again Trump has gone unconstitutionally off-piste, insisting he did not need to consult Congress and the legislative branch in order to continue the war – disputed by legal experts.
In another blow to the US, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who the Americans insisted was severely injured and in a coma following the US attack which killed his father, has issued a ‘defiant statement’: ‘Today, two months after the largest military deployment and aggression by the world’s bullies in the region, and the United States’ disgraceful defeat in its plans, a new chapter is unfolding for the Persian Gulf and the strait of Hormuz’.He left no doubt as to the strength of his regime’s resolve: ‘Foreigners who maliciously covet it [the strait] from thousands of kilometres away have no place there except at the bottom of its waters’. Meanwhile the closure of the Straits has put pressure on Trump, with oil and petrol rocketing before crucial midterm elections, also felt by his Gulf allies, who use the waterway to export their oil and gas and who won’t be thanking the President for this collateral damage. ‘The world considers the strait an international waterway, open to all without paying tolls, and Gulf Arab nations, chief among them the United Arab Emirates, have decried Iran’s control of the strait as akin to piracy’. But despite the US Ambassador and no doubt many others saying that the Iranians ‘don’t get to control’ the Straits, this is exactly what they are doing. A good example of a de jure situation actually being controlled by the de facto. We could well ask who will ‘blink’ first.
Just as some monarchists use ‘tradition’ as a false argument for preserving that institution, those protesting the removal of hereditary peers from the House of Lords are resorting to the same justification. They can’t seem to see that there’s no rationale for the hereditary principle, with its inherent unearned privilege, in a modern democracy and this should have been addressed years ago. Next up will be for the bishops to go. Where we can agree with the protesters, though, is the desperate need to reform the second chamber. Whereas some peers are obviously hardworking and sincere, serving on committees and participating in debates, many political appointees are just taking advantage of the semi-automatic assumption that when they lose their seats they will get a perch in the Lords. A perch which nets them a generous daily attendance fee however short a time they spend there.
On a related issue, it was a massive disappointment for many that the Assisted Dying Bill ran out of time, largely due to the cynical filibustering of a handful of Tory appointees including Lord Gove and Dame Coffey – just two examples of people who never should have been put there. A group of around five Tory crony peers, including Gove and Coffey, were actually overheard plotting to bring this Bill down in order to embarrass the government. So much for their faux concern about ‘safeguards’ and when a huge amount of work has gone into the entire exercise and it being passed by the Commons.
The debate about the use of the controversial Palantir company’s services in the NHS and other public sector organizations has been rumbling on for some time (Keep our NHS Public have regularly campaigned on it and a petition to ditch the system attracted thousands of signatures). I was taken aback to learn that the decision as to whether to use this company, with its dubious bosses linked to Trump and the US and Israeli militaries, was left to individual NHS trusts to decide. In my view this is an example of Trust autonomy which has gone too far – there should be one policy for the entire NHS. The company insists that patient data available via the NHS (what the US has long been after) is not personalized, therefore its use posed no risk, but critics dispute this. Wouldn’t you just know that the contract was awarded by a previous Conservative government and at the time the debate suggested that the then Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, had connections with this company via his father-in-law’s behemoth Infosys.
Recently the Financial Times reported that “UK ministers have sought advice on triggering a break clause in Palantir’s contract as they come under mounting pressure to eject the controversial American company from NHS England data systems.” Apparently officials had begun quietly exploring the technical process of removing Palantir from NHS systems – well ahead of the break clause date in February 2027…The FT also reported that some hospital trusts have been slow to adopt Palantir’s software because they simply don’t find it useful – while the health department has been pushing them to use it anyway, partly to get value out of what’s already been paid. One senior NHS figure described a demonstration for hospital chief executives where only half were impressed and the other half said they’d been doing the same thing for ten years. Meanwhile, it’s sinister that the company’s UK CEO, Louis Mosley (grandson of Oswald) is regularly platformed by the BBC as if he’s some acknowledged source of wisdom rather than a likely Trojan horse. It’s sad but also dangerous that many patients won’t even know this is happening and many will never have heard of Palantir and how their personal data could be at risk.
Finally, we hear a lot about influencers (what a flaky way to make a living), including those who irritated Notting Hill locals recently by posing and photographing themselves amongst the striking cherry blossom the area boasts. But now we have a healthier trend, against acquiring more Stuff – ‘enoughfluencers’. ‘The concept is similar to deinfluencing – where content creators discourage followers from buying into trends – but is also about celebrating already having enough, and, crucially, feeling happier for it… n her new book, Not Needing New: A Practical Guide to Finding the Joy of Enough, Kilpatrick lists the benefits of living with less: “An increased sense of calm, less anxiety through clutter, free time away from maintaining the home, a healthier bank balance and reduced debt, children who are learning how to manage delayed gratification’. The article cites seven tips for getting into this: be bolder about borrowing; rewrite the rules of gifting; resist the comparison trap; make it yourself; practice slow shopping; care and repair; less having, more doing. It all sounds good to me – and maybe the Trump Effect on the cost of living will force more of us down this path anyway!
Politics and mental health - the missing link? 