Politics & Stuff

[Vesper 30,106]

Britain at a Crossroads: financial turmoil meets political threats

Paul Mason 10th January 2025

As the UK battles rising bond yields, a weakening currency, and Musk’s online assault on democracy, Starmer’s government finds itself on the frontline of a global power struggle.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/britain-at-a-crossroads-financial-turmoil-meets-political-threats

I am writing this from an island under siege. One of the sieges is financial: the yield on a UK 10-year government bond is hovering around 4.8 percent, while sterling’s value against the dollar is falling. This has prompted foreign exchange traders to begin referring to the pound as the Great British Peso, and some commentators to push for immediate fiscal austerity.

The other siege is an existential attack on Britain’s democracy. Since the turn of the year, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and the owner of X.com, has bombarded the Labour government with a string of insults and disinformation designed—according to a report by the Financial Times—to eject Keir Starmer from power.

Musk’s chosen casus belli is the so-called “grooming gang” scandal, which emerged under successive governments in the first two decades of this century. From around 2011, a pattern emerged in police investigations which found that gangs of men—often taxi drivers or others involved in manual work—had been preying on girls beneath the age of consent: tricking them into imagined relationships and then gang-raping them. Some, but not all, of the perpetrators were of Pakistani origin.

Numerous local and national investigations found the police had failed to investigate these rape gangs properly. Councils, which were supposed to care for some of the victims, downplayed both the crimes and the ethnicity of the perpetrators.

It was a major breakdown in the justice system because, despite scores of men being convicted, the number of victims runs into thousands, many of whom neither testified in court nor received compensation. It has become a cause célèbre for the extreme right.

What the far right wants is for the British state to associate this pattern of sexual violence with Pakistani ethnic identity. But it cannot. First, because the state’s records of the perpetrators’ ethnicity are patchy; second, because professional criminologists simply will not draw such binary conclusions.

When Labour refused to call yet another national inquiry into the scandal, Musk piled in. He accused the Labour minister Jess Phillips of assisting genocide, accused Starmer of a deliberate cover-up, and has allegedly begun discussions with aides about bringing Labour down. He offered support to the right-wing populist Reform Party, urged it to ally with the convicted criminal and far-right leader Tommy Robinson, and then slammed the party’s leader—Nigel Farage—when he refused. He has called for the King to dissolve Parliament and reposted numerous offensive messages from fascist-aligned X.com accounts. And it is not over.

Keir Starmer came out fighting against Musk, while the British finance minister Rachel Reeves has played what English cricketers call a “straight bat” against the financial threat: calm words, orthodox policies, and non-engagement with the panic narrative. My fear, however, is that the perils of destabilisation will haunt both the UK government and its major European allies for as long as Trump is president and his ally, Musk, is engaged in his task of democratic destabilisation. Looming over the entire relationship between European states and these figureheads of American racism and misogyny is Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on European states, to seize Canada and Greenland, and to walk away from NATO. 

Linking cause to effect in the bond market can be difficult. A plausible account of Britain’s high cost of borrowing goes like this: Brexit has impaired the country’s economy; the crazed policymaking of the 49-day Liz Truss administration has impaired its reputation for fiscal stability, so the UK is paying a higher price than any other G7 country for its borrowing, despite its debt being well below 100 percent of GDP.

In addition, however, it is paying a premium for Trump’s mercurial policymaking. If he does impose tariffs on European goods, the argument goes, Britain will fare worse than its G7 counterparts in the EU because its trade balance and currency are more exposed than those of the Eurozone.

These dangers alone would be enough to put the Labour government on the defensive: its entire political project is premised on being able to stimulate growth through borrowing, state direction, and industrial strategy. Yet the economy is stagnating because global demand is weak and the sources of potential growth and productivity have atrophied during decades of offshoring and the rise of rentier capitalism.

But Musk’s intervention feels like a deliberate “force multiplier” in an asymmetric attack. The bond markets target the fiscal authorities, Musk targets the stability and reputation of the government, while Trump puts the squeeze on Britain to spend more on defence, to accept a one-sided trade deal (locking us out of the Single Market forever), and preparing the way for his ally, Farage, to supplant the Conservative Party as the potential next government. This may sound paranoid, but it would not require Trump or Musk to possess the brain cells and political interest in the UK to enact this strategy, because there are numerous British figures surrounding them for whom this is a desired course of action.

Starmer’s government is obliged to fend off the bond market vigilantes with the traditional tools: fiscal rigour, central bank signalling and, if necessary, intervention. The delayed and timid implementation of a new internet law, which would have obliged Musk to act more responsibly regarding hate speech and disinformation, has left Britain currently defenceless against his online manipulation. Moreover, UK laws on foreign electoral interference may not be strong enough to prevent Musk from attempting to buy the next election.

Thus, the ultimate fate of the Labour government may depend on the forces it can mobilise within UK civil society and the goodwill it can garner from more traditional conservatives in Washington. Above all, Starmer needs to deliver not just the long-term promise of growth and national renewal on which he won his substantial majority in July 2024, but also real, short-term improvements in living costs, housing supply and basic economic demand.

The one sure-fire way of achieving this, even in a deindustrialised economy like Britain’s, would be to rearm to meet the external threat posed by Russia. Rachel Reeves, the finance minister, has pledged never to borrow for day-to-day spending, only to invest. If the Strategic Defence Review—an independent and external review of UK military capability—mandates the government to lift defence spending substantially, then the path may be open to higher borrowing, particularly if Trump makes the same demand.

The worst of all worlds would be if the UK caves to the pressure of the bond market, imposing renewed cuts to public spending, while failing to mobilise progressive forces within civil society to resist the far right. Britain, unlike Germany, has no debt brake, nor is it constrained by the rules of the Maastricht Treaty. It is on its own when it comes to dealing with the chaos engine that is the incoming Trump administration, which is, not surprisingly, exactly where the Brexiteers wanted it to be when they designed their catastrophic project.

European governments may be bemused, for now, at Starmer’s predicament. But they should watch it closely. Because this asymmetric mixture of trade war, bond market pressure and outright political interference is coming everyone’s way soon.

This is a joint publication by Social Europe and IPS-Journal

Paul Mason

Paul Mason is a journalist, writer and filmmaker. His latest book is How To Stop Fascism: History, Ideology, Resistance (Allen Lane). His most recent films include R is For Rosa, with the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung. He writes weekly for New Statesman and contributes to Der Freitag and Le Monde Diplomatique.

[Fulham Broadway 17,306]

Billionaires main mission is to divide people by creating distrust and polarisation. 

[Vesper 30,106]

[Vesper 30,106]

Easy for some:

Charlotte Owen got peerage for ‘advising Boris Johnson on reshuffles’

The former prime minister called Charlotte Owen, who became the youngest life peer in parliamentary history, an ‘extremely effective’ adviser

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/charlotte-owen-got-peerage-for-advising-boris-johnson-on-reshuffles-5qfbvdfvt

Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge was 30 when nominated for her peerage, and had spent six years in relatively junior Westminster roles

Boris Johnson justified handing a junior aide a spot in the House of Lords by saying she advised him on cabinet reshuffles and ministerial appointments.

Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge and Lord Kempsell, two former special advisers in the Conservative government, were appointed to the House of Lords in Johnson’s resignation honours list.

The government’s justification for the appointments, published on Thursday, says that Johnson “entrusted Charlotte with engaging the parliamentary party on his behalf and she was essential to maintaining his relationship with them”.

It added that “Charlotte was later tasked with helping the new chief whip in his role and used her unique knowledge to become a bridge between the prime minister and the chief whip”.

Owen was 30 when Johnson put her forward for the peerage in 2023, after only six years at Westminster in relatively junior roles, making her the youngest life peer in parliamentary history. The former prime minister has previously defended the move saying that she had been an “extremely effective” political adviser.

Johnson’s citation for her also states that “Charlotte led on many sensitive and key projects including advising the prime minister and the chief whip on suitability for ministerial appointments during the reshuffle”.

Owen’s formal nominators for the peerage were Grant Shapps and Chris Heaton-Harris, then cabinet ministers.

Owen was said to have been “essential” to Boris Johnson’s relationship with his parliamentary party

TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL

Kempsell, appointed when he was 31, was also an adviser to Johnson and political director of the Conservative Party. The justification given in his case included: “As political director, he was the most senior policy and political official in the Conservative Party, having overall responsibility for developing the party’s policy platform, political campaigning, media position and managing a team of ten in the party’s policy and research secretariat.

“He provided political advice directly to the prime minister, all cabinet ministers and many MPs, prepared the prime minister for parliamentary appearances and developed the party’s platform for multiple party conferences. He led work on major parliamentary by-elections.”

The reasons were only published after an 18-month freedom of information battle with Martin Rosenbaum, a transparency campaigner.

Rosenbaum took the House of Lords Appointments Commission (Holac) to a tribunal to reveal the letters. Holac had refused his freedom of information request on the grounds that the citations contained confidential personal information but a judge upheld Rosenbaum’s arguments that releasing the information was in the public interest.

Rosenbaum said that the reasons cited for nominating Owen “do come across as very thin, inadequate and lacking in evidence of relevant achievements”. He added: “They leave her peerage as a mystery rather than properly justifying and explaining it.

“I am very pleased that the documentation has now been revealed, but it shouldn’t need an argument over 18 months for the public to find out what reasons are officially provided for allocating certain people important political powers.”

[Fulham Broadway 17,306]

54 minutes ago, Vesper said:

Easy for some:

Charlotte Owen got peerage for ‘advising Boris Johnson on reshuffles’

The former prime minister called Charlotte Owen, who became the youngest life peer in parliamentary history, an ‘extremely effective’ adviser

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/charlotte-owen-got-peerage-for-advising-boris-johnson-on-reshuffles-5qfbvdfvt

Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge was 30 when nominated for her peerage, and had spent six years in relatively junior Westminster roles

Boris Johnson justified handing a junior aide a spot in the House of Lords by saying she advised him on cabinet reshuffles and ministerial appointments.

Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge and Lord Kempsell, two former special advisers in the Conservative government, were appointed to the House of Lords in Johnson’s resignation honours list.

The government’s justification for the appointments, published on Thursday, says that Johnson “entrusted Charlotte with engaging the parliamentary party on his behalf and she was essential to maintaining his relationship with them”.

It added that “Charlotte was later tasked with helping the new chief whip in his role and used her unique knowledge to become a bridge between the prime minister and the chief whip”.

Owen was 30 when Johnson put her forward for the peerage in 2023, after only six years at Westminster in relatively junior roles, making her the youngest life peer in parliamentary history. The former prime minister has previously defended the move saying that she had been an “extremely effective” political adviser.

Johnson’s citation for her also states that “Charlotte led on many sensitive and key projects including advising the prime minister and the chief whip on suitability for ministerial appointments during the reshuffle”.

Owen’s formal nominators for the peerage were Grant Shapps and Chris Heaton-Harris, then cabinet ministers.

Owen was said to have been “essential” to Boris Johnson’s relationship with his parliamentary party

TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL

Kempsell, appointed when he was 31, was also an adviser to Johnson and political director of the Conservative Party. The justification given in his case included: “As political director, he was the most senior policy and political official in the Conservative Party, having overall responsibility for developing the party’s policy platform, political campaigning, media position and managing a team of ten in the party’s policy and research secretariat.

“He provided political advice directly to the prime minister, all cabinet ministers and many MPs, prepared the prime minister for parliamentary appearances and developed the party’s platform for multiple party conferences. He led work on major parliamentary by-elections.”

The reasons were only published after an 18-month freedom of information battle with Martin Rosenbaum, a transparency campaigner.

Rosenbaum took the House of Lords Appointments Commission (Holac) to a tribunal to reveal the letters. Holac had refused his freedom of information request on the grounds that the citations contained confidential personal information but a judge upheld Rosenbaum’s arguments that releasing the information was in the public interest.

Rosenbaum said that the reasons cited for nominating Owen “do come across as very thin, inadequate and lacking in evidence of relevant achievements”. He added: “They leave her peerage as a mystery rather than properly justifying and explaining it.

“I am very pleased that the documentation has now been revealed, but it shouldn’t need an argument over 18 months for the public to find out what reasons are officially provided for allocating certain people important political powers.”

It was also for sucking his cock (allegedly)

[Vesper 30,106]

[Fernando 6,585]

So sad what has happened in California. Losing everything you worked for in a short time is hard to stomach. 

But it also puts into context what the Bible says that this life is like a vapor. Can easily disappeared. 

And as we approached the end of the age the Bible speaks how everything will be be ending the only thing that is certain is our right relationship with him and others. 

Edited January 11 by Fernando

[KEVINAA 129]

the inauguration is at 12pm us ET later today

5pm UK

6am NZL

anytime before 6pm us ET the 2nd nine eleven could happen, be on guard pay attention to every code word or buzz word in tv media.

 

 

Live streams to watch live on YT

[search term]

(DONALD TRUMP INAUGURATION 2025 LIVE)

Edited January 20 by KEVINAA

[Vesper 30,106]

 

Right-Wing Extremists Are Abuzz Over Musk’s Straight-Arm Salute

“Incredible things are happening already lmao,” wrote Gab founder and Hitlerbot innovator Andrew Torba

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/elon-musk-salute-reaction-right-wing-extremists-1235241866/

https://archive.ph/kgVpW

Right-wing extremists, white nationalists, and neo-Nazis are celebrating an alarming gesture made by the world’s richest man. 

 

At a post-inauguration rally Monday, Elon Musk thanked Donald Trump’s supporters with a gesture that resembled a Roman salute, first putting his palm to his chest and then extending a stiff right arm toward the crowd, at a slight elevation and with his palm down.

 

It wasn’t a one-off. He later repeated the gesture.

 

Musk’s sway in the new administration is hard to overstate. The billionaire spent hundreds of millions to get Trump elected, and has been sitting shotgun for much of the transition period helping Trump shape his cabinet and incoming administration.

 

Trump has tasked Musk to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a quasi-governmental effort to eliminate hundreds of billions in federal spending.

 

And in his inauguration speech, Trump also embraced Musk’s life goal of colonizing Mars — as part of America’s “manifest destiny.”

Regardless of whether the South Africa-born Musk intended the salute as a “Sieg Heil” salute favored by the followers of Adolf Hitler in World War II, as some online commentators have suggested, it was eagerly received that way by extremists online. 

 

 

Christopher Pohlhaus, the leader of the notorious neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe, posted the clip of Musk’s salute on Telegram with a lightning-bolt emoji (evocative of the Nazi SS) and the caption: “I don’t care if this was a mistake. I’m going to enjoy the tears over it.”

 

Another neo-Nazi leader, Christopher Hood, who founded the New England race-separatist movement NSC-131, also posted the clip to Telegram with the emojis ⁉️and 😁.

 

Andrew Torba is the founder of the far-right Christian Nationalist social media platform Gab, which pioneered AI-powered Nazi chatbots. He shared the clip on his account with the caption: “Incredible things are happening already lmao.”

 

Far-right author Keith Woods, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center has called a “self-described ethno-nationalist and antisemite,” shared the clip in a post on X, writing: “Ok maybe woke really is dead.”

 

Thomas Sewell, an Australia-based neo-Nazi, whose Telegram avatar is a picture of himself throwing a Roman salute, posted the video of Musk calling it a “Donald Trump White Power moment.”

 

The Proud Boys Ohio chapter posted to a clip of the Musk video to its Telegram channel with the text, “Hail Trump!”

 

A chapter of the white nationalist group White Lives Matter posted a note of appreciation on Telegram, along with a picture of a banner drop the group had previously executed at a freeway overpass reading: “Elon Musk Stop White Genocide.”

 

The Telegram caption read, “Thanks for (sometimes) hearing us, Elon. The White Flame will rise again.”

 

Alternative explanations for the gesture are plausible. Musk is socially awkward, and he may have been stiffly trying to throw love to the crowd for helping put Trump back in office. “My heart goes out to you,” he said after he did the gesture a second time. 

 

However, Musk has allied himself with far-right movements in Europe, including the extremist German party AfD.

 

After purchasing Twitter, which he renamed X, he welcomed long-banned white nationalists back to the platform in the name of free speech.

 

And his X account is sometimes hard to distinguish from far-right extremists. In late 2023 he went on a so-called “apology tour” to Israel after responding to a post about an antisemitic conspiracy theory on X with the words “the actual truth.”

 

He often posts Pepe frogs, and other images and memes associated with the alt-right, including recently temporarily adopting the handle “Kekius Maximus.”

[NikkiCFC 8,294]

 

[YorkshireBlue 3,265]

2 tier kier talking absolute bollocks again I see.

[Special Juan 28,124]

The biggest threat to the UK is the people running the country

End of

[KEVINAA 129]

the SUN PLUTO CONJUNCTION starts at 12:28 pm UK  today / 07:28 am US ET before NYSE opens at 09:30 am and my time at 01:28 am NZL - WED 22 JAN. 

 

THEN STOCK MARKETS CRQSH COLLAPSE BEGINS at : 07:28 am NEW YORK TIME before 09:30 am OPENS begins stock trading.

 

SUN PLUTO CONJUNCTION - watch Bloomberg live streams in ten background to watch all the markets GO RED and loose BILLIONS.

[Fulham Broadway 17,306]

Drill baby Drill.....Trump pulling out of the Paris Accord. Only Yemen Iran and Libya have not signed up to it.

Just shows what a 75 million dollar 'donation' to Trump by fossil fuel companies can get you.

Looking forward to more California fires....

[Fernando 6,585]

1 hour ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Drill baby Drill.....Trump pulling out of the Paris Accord. Only Yemen Iran and Libya have not signed up to it.

Just shows what a 75 million dollar 'donation' to Trump by fossil fuel companies can get you.

Looking forward to more California fires....

I still think that California fire was weird. Like some guy set on fire around the pacific palisades. 

As well the ineptitude of the California government by cutting funds to fire department and not improving the water situation.