You can’t handle the truth

The election campaign rumbles to a long-awaited end with neither of the main parties daring to mention Brexit. Neither is being fully open about the hard choices which will face the next government, with the Tories pretending that they can cut taxes (the kind of promise you make when you know that you have no chance of having to implement it) and Labour saying they will not raise taxes on “working people” (a formula which leaves quite a lot of wriggle room). The voters know that the public services need a huge investment over many years to restore them to working order, and that this has to be balanced by taxation to a large extent, but it’s political cyanide to say so. Similarly, migration. Farage says he’ll cut immigration to (net) zero; the Tories still promise to reduce it. Labour equivocate. All know that we need immigration and that the economy would collapse without it. The overwhelming majority of the 600,000 net immigrants last year were legal and authorised by the government; and this is a government which is not short of immigrant-hatred. They know, though, that the damage inflicted by cutting off immigration would be too great to deny.

Both major parties have also avoided talking about Gaza. Sadly, this is because they both support the genocide going on there; we have no real chance to elect a government which would not be complicit in this ongoing crime. They also, very largely, avoid talking about the climate; it’s treated as a minority-interest subject.

So, we have a “You can’t handle the truth” election campaign. Labour know they can win by simply not being the Tories; while the Tories have amazed us by running such a terrible campaign, with the D-day fiasco and the betting scandal. Not many of us have the chance to bet on our own decisions, or indeed on any kind of inside information. But, in their final act before being cast into the political wilderness, several Tories have been caught nicking the teaspoons on the way out. It reminds me of something George W Bush said when he succeeded Bill Clinton. When asked what he would do first on reaching the Oval Office, he said that he’d get the furniture steam-cleaned. Twice. I wouldn’t be surprised if Keir Starmer had the same reaction.

So, tomorrow, we will vote in a Labour government with a big majority. They will have sufficient political capital to completely reform the neoliberal system, and to dismantle the many extractive mechanisms which concentrate the nation’s wealth, but will have promised not to do so. They will also have promised not to rejoin the single market, the key to restoring our economy. What will they do? Well, they will need to raise money, and can do so most usefully if (as I’ve often said before) they close the loopholes and scams by which the very rich avoid paying inheritance tax. IHT is critical to the right-wing project; its ineffectiveness is the key to maintaining massive inequality and the huge concentration of wealth. Last month, 93 year old Rupert Murdoch (again) married a woman 26 years younger than himself; it seems at least a possibility that her plan is to shag him to death as fast as possible, and in this we may wish her every success. Wouldn’t it be great if Rachel Reeves got her hands on 40% of Murdoch’s UK assets?

The “working people” phrase also suggests they could raise taxes on non-work income, such as CGT and corporation tax, and cut the many concessions made to the better off (such as 40% pension contribution relief). But, not all the money they need to make use of, has to be raised in tax. The huge investments needed to rebuild the nation after years of deliberate neglect could be found largely by directing the investment of pension assets, in return for continued enjoyment of their substantial tax privileges. Directed investment is just as good as actual public money. Abolishing tax havens and bringing all British citizens into the same tax net would also bring in a worthwhile amount; there is around half a trillion pounds hiding offshore. As I’ve often pointed out, there’s really no shortage of money, it’s just a political choice whether or not to tax it or to direct its investment.

Labour will also have to deal with right-wing populism embodied by Nigel Farage and his Reform party, formerly the Brexit party, fond of the slogan “I just want my country back”, which evoked a spurious nostalgia for an imagined golden age of a monocultural society and imperial power. Well, I want my country back too: the country I grew up in, where education was free (and excellent); the NHS was adequately funded and you could find a dentist; where the utilities were in public ownership and run for the common good; where the rivers weren’t full of sewage; where people didn’t have to rely on food banks; and where we enjoyed all the marvellous rights and freedoms of EU citizens, and the accompanying prosperity. How should we deal with populists? Proportional representation would do the job. This country needs a proper socialist party and a one-nation Tory party which is pro-European; and, yes, there’s always been room at the extremes for a reactionary, hateful right-wing party too (and it shouldn’t be the Conservatives). There should also be space for new parties to arise; the Greens have never made it far in Britain because of our system, but deserve a break. We desperately need to escape the duopoly of first-past-the-post which gives absolute power to the largest minority. Ours is the worst electoral system which can be described as democratic at all.

But, if our politics is bad enough, just look at America. In his debate with Trump, Genocide Joe was cruelly exposed as the senile old man his opponents have long believed him to be; his blank face and unfinished sentences were the equivalent of the screen full of error codes on a crashed computer. There’s no question of him getting re-elected; donors will dry up, and American politics runs on money. Some profound questions are raised by this event: why did the Democratic party managers, fix the nomination for him, knowing (as many must have known) his incapacity? How did they think they could gaslight the voters right through to November? And, who is actually running the USA? Clearly, not this man who you wouldn’t really trust to run a bath, let alone have his finger on the button. Presumably he will now be persuaded to retire at the end of his term, and be replaced as candidate by someone with a full set of marbles. Names are already being suggested. Our politics has given us such profoundly unfit leaders as May, Johnson and Truss; but nothing quite as shocking as Biden. The US political machines have gone badly wrong: having fixed the nomination for Hillary Clinton by suppressing alternatives such as Bernie Sanders, the Democrats have given us a President who is clearly in no fit state to govern. Meanwhile, the Republicans have been taken over by a lying populist demagogue who is also profoundly unfit for power. American citizens have every right to feel cheated by their system if it can go this badly wrong.