Trouble Ahead

(Read on, or view here: https://youtu.be/k_nzvRHyX7A )

Karl Marx’s suggestion that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce, doesn’t seem quite right, because this summer’s threatened wave of strikes doesn’t feel particularly funny. But with doctors, nurses and teachers up in arms about their proffered pay rises, we could be looking at a rerun of the chaos that the Tories were grappling with in their dying days. And that’s just for starters.

The next flashpoint is less than three weeks away, when the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, reveals how much she’s dishing out for each branch of government.

Because she insists on keeping a bit of cash in the nation’s piggy bank, many of them will be allocated less than what they’d need for the pay rises which the workforce say are too small anyway.

That’s likely to lead to a double whammy, of departments having to cut back on frontline services while at the same time having to deal with walkouts by their disgruntled employees.

All drearily familiar. Part of the ongoing payback after Wall Street spivs crashed the banks seventeen years ago. This disaster topped up by Brexit, and the cost of managing the Covid crisis.

The upshot being make do and mend, with everything fraying at the seams, if not actually falling apart. Charles Dickens’ character Wilkins Micawber was on the money, excuse pun, with his best known line:

‘Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen shillings and sixpence, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds and sixpence, result misery.’

British voters didn’t exactly share Micawber’s deliciously misguided optimism, that ‘something will turn up’ when they in effect lent rather than actually gave Labour their support last July.

And polls now clearly show masses of buyers’ remorse, as they’ve decided Nigel Farage’s Reform Party is the something they were hoping for really.

No question he’s extremely good at promising the earth to everyone, even though large chunks of the everyone in question actually want completely different things. Which makes delivery problematic.

Besides which, his problem is compounded on two further fronts.

If Keir Starmer somehow manages in the next four years to fulfil his pledge to grow the economy and make everyone feel better off, then Labour’s fortunes might revive after all.

But if he doesn’t, and Farage does actually make it to Number Ten, he’ll be in the same bind as the last lot, and the Tories before them. Strapped for cash and stuck with grimly unwelcome choices.

Classic case in point, last week’s controversial review into how long old lags should spend behind bars.

The idea of sex offenders and domestic abusers being released alongside other violent criminals after serving just a third of their sentence has provoked predictable outrage, especially from Tory papers.

But the fact is that our jails are teetering towards full, the Conservatives added just a few hundred extra places in well over a decade, and the projected shortfall in three years’ time is nearly ten thousand.

Without drastic action then the cops wouldn’t be able to collar anyone, as the courts couldn’t bang them up. Basically, that’d be law and order up the Swanee. Which is seriously scary.

Of course, as well as shortening sentences the government is planning to create extra capacity. But, like Rome, prisons don’t get built in a day.

Same applies to mending fences, though Keir Starmer is without question at least starting to repair the rift with our neighbours caused by the UK’s departure from the European Union.

He made much of the benefits stemming from the deal he struck last week, such as better cooperation on law enforcement and energy supplies, and quicker getaways on hols via e-gates at passport checkpoints.

Arguably he over-egged the practical aspects slightly, but the symbolism of what’s just happened is huge.

When the European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen told, to quote, ‘my dear Keir’, that this was an historic moment she was right. Because it was the first ever EU/UK summit.

We had to give as well as take, and the whole thing added up to less that what the former Tory PM Theresa May managed to sort before Boris Johnson blew it all apart, but it did break the ice.

Essentially, what the deal achieved was the licence to make new deals. And while Starmer has all the

rhetorical agility of a three-legged giraffe, he is good at quiet diplomacy.

He also publicly conceded something that British governments have doggedly refused to admit for years, that leaving Europe has damaged Britain. To the extent of a drop in exports of nearly a quarter.

If that was a mea culpa on UK’s behalf it certainly chimes with public opinion. A YouGov poll marking Brexit’s fifth anniversary showed that two-thirds of us now give it the thumbs down.

And it’s unlikely that Donald Trump’s latest transatlantic threats will shift that dial. Trade wars come and go, especially with the Orange Manbaby at the helm, but the next doors will always be next door.

Besides, it’s all proof that the adage about it being a woman’s privilege to change her mind is so last year. As even the Prime Minister’s checking out the new swivel-on-a-sixpence range.

Remember how he wasn’t going to reverse the cut to the oldies’ winter fuel allowance? Absolutely not, no matter how badly it played with the punters. End of. There’s no going back.

Until, that is, there was. At Prime Ministers Question Time on Wednesday. Calls to mind the old saying that in politics nothing is ever true until it’s officially denied.

And for all his blather about how the nation can suddenly afford this concession it’s blindingly obvious. Starmer can read the runes when they’re splattered across his face like a wet kipper.

None of which detracts from his immensely bigger dilemma in regard to the threat from Nigel Farage.

He could tack left to prevent potential Green or Lib-Dem voters from peeling off. And, short term, to appease increasing numbers of his own MPs who’re threatening to vote against welfare cutbacks.

Or he could lurch right, to seduce some of those disgruntled folk who’ve clearly decided the Tories are a basket case but do think Nige is just the ticket.

Certainly, Starmer’s making quite a lot of noise about immigration, Reform’s big bugbear, suggesting he’s up for the imitation game. Which can be surprisingly effective.

Footage has emerged from Turkey showing a special vending machine that picks up the sound of moggie mewing, and responds by dispensing a portion of cat food for passing strays.

Brilliant technology. Except that it doesn’t distinguish between the real thing and an enterprising copycat, pardon language, that’s picked up on the feline vibe.

Normally you’d think this bold pretender would steer clear of a space that’s attractive to clawed creatures that enjoy nothing more than it and its kind for breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner.

But this particular one is as fearless as it is clearly talented. If you don’t believe me, click HERE.

Yup. It’s a seagull. And, as for the sound it makes, boy has it got mews for you.