A couple of recent videos for you to enjoy (or not, as the case may be!). First, I was glad to be invited on to Spectator TV – the magazine’s broadcast channel – to discuss the question of whether the Red Wall can trust a future Labour government on Brexit and immigration. Regular readers will know that I have been very critical of Labour’s stance on these two issues for many years. In this 20-minute discussion, I warn Labour not to betray working-class voters on these matters, and I explain what I think the implications might be if it does.
I agree fully with your list of what Labour should focus on, but the Labour party that advanced the condition of ordinary people died in 1979. Apart from interludes with more radical left elements which repel ordinary voters, it is now the party of performative progressivism, an entirely upper middle class, wealthy project the despises and in truth hates ordinary people. It will do nothing of what you suggest, but will pursue progressivism, constrained only by the fact that what has been done already has totally bankrupted the country. Personally, my prediction is that in five years time there will be millions more disenfranchised and disillusioned voters to join those who thought in 2019 that the Tories finally got the need for fundamental change. I see us as not ahead of the convulsions sweeping Europe and America, nor as having swerved them, but five years behind. I think things are only going to get a lot worse.
Nigel didn’t go far enough on the NATO/ Russia/ Ukraine situation. The list of people who assured Russia that NATO wouldn’t expand east of Germany at the end of the Cold War reads like a ‘who’s who’ of the great Western statesmen of the late 1980s/ early 1990s. Unfortunately, the politicians who followed these heavyweights didn’t keep their word.
There is also compelling evidence that the CIA was involved in the overthrow of former Ukrainian (and pro-Russian) President Yanukovych in the 2014 Maidan Revolution, while a recent New York Times expose detailed the large number of CIA bases set up in Ukraine after that event.
After Maidan, ethnic Russians in the Donbas area of Ukraine suffered 8 years of persecution, including shelling, at the hands of the Kyiv government, which left thousands dead. Yes, Russia got involved there too, albeit covertly, but what do you expect?
As for Crimea, it was tit for tat after Maidan, and don’t forget that the overwhelming majority of Crimeans saw themselves as part of Russia, not Ukraine.
Quite simply, the West has used Ukraine to try and weaken Russia. We have used a brave people to fight a cowardly proxy war. Your citing of the Cuban Missile Crisis and Mexico/ Canada analogy explains what did/ would happen if this was the other way round.
Once Biden gave Ukraine the green light to apply to join NATO in late 2021, Russia was finally pushed over the edge and invaded Ukraine. That was regrettable, and has had appalling consequences, but what else could it do with its national security so badly compromised?
The real victims in all this are, of course, primarily the ordinary Ukrainian people, but the idea that at a political level it’s a case of NATO good/ Russia bad is laughably naive.
If anyone thinks my views are parroting Russian propaganda, try reading articles from the quality Western MSM prior to this conflict, which paint a completely different picture to everything we’ve been told by it since.
The Spectator interview was great. I agree with everything you say, but considering your domestic abuse analogy and admission that nobody within the Labour Party/ trades union movement is listening to you on the issue, why on earth would somebody who recognises the dangers of high, uncontrolled immigration vote Labour?
Surely, to do so would be like a turkey voting for Christmas? Or perhaps akin to Einstein’s definition of stupidity, by doing the same thing over and over again, while expecting different results?
Labour can’t be trusted on immigration for the simple reason that having a café latte or Amazon purchase served/ delivered to them by somebody with an exotic appearance or accent makes Labour members feel all warm and gooey inside.
By the way, liked the interviewer on Spectator TV. He’s calm, unbiased and asks pertinent questions – a definite upgrade on what we’re used to seeing on the BBC, Sky and ITN.
Paul, I very much agree with what you say about the need for a revival of industry in Britain. I have long considered the decline of the industrial sector as a very serious issue - not just as an economic issue but also as regards national security. My impression is that it began under the Thatcher government but has continued apace since then. I strongly suspect that the expansion of the universities has contributed to it, because of a corresponding contraction of skills training. A few years ago I was chatting with a builder and his son, also a builder, who had done some work for me. I asked them about what training there was these days for skills in the building trade. It was very evident that there was much more available when the older one had trained, than when his son did, at least locally. This is in Sheffield, one of the centres of the industrial revolution.
My first job out of university in 1973 was at the Plessey Telecommunications factory on Edge Lane in Liverpool. They employed 10k people on site with satellite sites such as at Huyton which was involved in more ‘high tech’ installations. I was a management trainee in Personnel as it was called in those days. I had a 12 month training programme set out for me and another trainee. There were others in other departments. I spent a few months in Employment, Technical Training, Management Training, Statistics and I think it was maybe called Enployee Relations. Unions were strong. Their leaders were often in Personnel sorting out issues for people.
Change started then in 1974 that I remember. 2k people were made redundant. Groups of protesting workers stamped along the corridors of the old office block where we were told to stay in the offices when it happened.
I left in the summer to go into social work for a few years.There were plenty of social workers needed in Liverpool and surrounding areas but not so many in recruitment and training which had attracted me to Personnel.
I do think it was a great shame that these factories closed. There were not just manual jobs but lots of jobs with a whole variety of skills and experience needed. There were huge rooms full of computers I used to walk through. It was a real thriving community.
I think the biggest factor has been Globalisation. The powers that be decided to run the world based on comparative advantage. With their access to endless cheap labour and no workers rights, China became where things are manufactured. The UK was to be a banking hub. Everything else was left to wither and all investment went to London. Covid and the war in Ukraine has destroyed their cosy little world, but they are yet to seriously change their approach. Add into that mix the way carbon emissions are assessed for Net Zero, where it is only what we produce, not what we consume, and there is a perverse incentive to destroy industry even further, as if it’s manufactured in China or India using coal fired electricity and then shipped across the globe to here for one of our elites to consume, it’s not counted towards our carbon emissions, even though we’re the reason the goods exist. Whole system is perverse and wrong.
I agree fully with your list of what Labour should focus on, but the Labour party that advanced the condition of ordinary people died in 1979. Apart from interludes with more radical left elements which repel ordinary voters, it is now the party of performative progressivism, an entirely upper middle class, wealthy project the despises and in truth hates ordinary people. It will do nothing of what you suggest, but will pursue progressivism, constrained only by the fact that what has been done already has totally bankrupted the country. Personally, my prediction is that in five years time there will be millions more disenfranchised and disillusioned voters to join those who thought in 2019 that the Tories finally got the need for fundamental change. I see us as not ahead of the convulsions sweeping Europe and America, nor as having swerved them, but five years behind. I think things are only going to get a lot worse.
I think some of your predictions could prove correct.
Nigel didn’t go far enough on the NATO/ Russia/ Ukraine situation. The list of people who assured Russia that NATO wouldn’t expand east of Germany at the end of the Cold War reads like a ‘who’s who’ of the great Western statesmen of the late 1980s/ early 1990s. Unfortunately, the politicians who followed these heavyweights didn’t keep their word.
There is also compelling evidence that the CIA was involved in the overthrow of former Ukrainian (and pro-Russian) President Yanukovych in the 2014 Maidan Revolution, while a recent New York Times expose detailed the large number of CIA bases set up in Ukraine after that event.
After Maidan, ethnic Russians in the Donbas area of Ukraine suffered 8 years of persecution, including shelling, at the hands of the Kyiv government, which left thousands dead. Yes, Russia got involved there too, albeit covertly, but what do you expect?
As for Crimea, it was tit for tat after Maidan, and don’t forget that the overwhelming majority of Crimeans saw themselves as part of Russia, not Ukraine.
Quite simply, the West has used Ukraine to try and weaken Russia. We have used a brave people to fight a cowardly proxy war. Your citing of the Cuban Missile Crisis and Mexico/ Canada analogy explains what did/ would happen if this was the other way round.
Once Biden gave Ukraine the green light to apply to join NATO in late 2021, Russia was finally pushed over the edge and invaded Ukraine. That was regrettable, and has had appalling consequences, but what else could it do with its national security so badly compromised?
The real victims in all this are, of course, primarily the ordinary Ukrainian people, but the idea that at a political level it’s a case of NATO good/ Russia bad is laughably naive.
If anyone thinks my views are parroting Russian propaganda, try reading articles from the quality Western MSM prior to this conflict, which paint a completely different picture to everything we’ve been told by it since.
The Spectator interview was great. I agree with everything you say, but considering your domestic abuse analogy and admission that nobody within the Labour Party/ trades union movement is listening to you on the issue, why on earth would somebody who recognises the dangers of high, uncontrolled immigration vote Labour?
Surely, to do so would be like a turkey voting for Christmas? Or perhaps akin to Einstein’s definition of stupidity, by doing the same thing over and over again, while expecting different results?
Labour can’t be trusted on immigration for the simple reason that having a café latte or Amazon purchase served/ delivered to them by somebody with an exotic appearance or accent makes Labour members feel all warm and gooey inside.
By the way, liked the interviewer on Spectator TV. He’s calm, unbiased and asks pertinent questions – a definite upgrade on what we’re used to seeing on the BBC, Sky and ITN.
Thank you. Yes, I agree the interviewer (James Heale) was good.
Paul, I very much agree with what you say about the need for a revival of industry in Britain. I have long considered the decline of the industrial sector as a very serious issue - not just as an economic issue but also as regards national security. My impression is that it began under the Thatcher government but has continued apace since then. I strongly suspect that the expansion of the universities has contributed to it, because of a corresponding contraction of skills training. A few years ago I was chatting with a builder and his son, also a builder, who had done some work for me. I asked them about what training there was these days for skills in the building trade. It was very evident that there was much more available when the older one had trained, than when his son did, at least locally. This is in Sheffield, one of the centres of the industrial revolution.
My first job out of university in 1973 was at the Plessey Telecommunications factory on Edge Lane in Liverpool. They employed 10k people on site with satellite sites such as at Huyton which was involved in more ‘high tech’ installations. I was a management trainee in Personnel as it was called in those days. I had a 12 month training programme set out for me and another trainee. There were others in other departments. I spent a few months in Employment, Technical Training, Management Training, Statistics and I think it was maybe called Enployee Relations. Unions were strong. Their leaders were often in Personnel sorting out issues for people.
Change started then in 1974 that I remember. 2k people were made redundant. Groups of protesting workers stamped along the corridors of the old office block where we were told to stay in the offices when it happened.
I left in the summer to go into social work for a few years.There were plenty of social workers needed in Liverpool and surrounding areas but not so many in recruitment and training which had attracted me to Personnel.
I do think it was a great shame that these factories closed. There were not just manual jobs but lots of jobs with a whole variety of skills and experience needed. There were huge rooms full of computers I used to walk through. It was a real thriving community.
An interesting point about the father and son builder, Ian. I think is shows exactly the extent of our problems in this area. Thanks.
I think the biggest factor has been Globalisation. The powers that be decided to run the world based on comparative advantage. With their access to endless cheap labour and no workers rights, China became where things are manufactured. The UK was to be a banking hub. Everything else was left to wither and all investment went to London. Covid and the war in Ukraine has destroyed their cosy little world, but they are yet to seriously change their approach. Add into that mix the way carbon emissions are assessed for Net Zero, where it is only what we produce, not what we consume, and there is a perverse incentive to destroy industry even further, as if it’s manufactured in China or India using coal fired electricity and then shipped across the globe to here for one of our elites to consume, it’s not counted towards our carbon emissions, even though we’re the reason the goods exist. Whole system is perverse and wrong.