In 1947 the Georgia-based band The Ink Spots released the song “It’s All Over but the Crying”. It’s quite a catchy song. For the 2024 General Election perhaps it could be tweaked in order to be the anthem for this election; “It’s All Over but the Lying”. The last 3 weeks has seen a revolting amount of spin that used to be bad in 1997, but now is all the rage now in 2024. The levels of deceit and the double-speak has reached revolting levels that Professor John Curtice of the University of Strathclyde found that the levels of public disengagement with the whole political system in this country have reached far above 50% and are at record levels. Our level of politics is disgusting.
Let us start with the Tories. The incumbent party has been in power for 14 years and is campaigning to be the low-tax party. They have raised taxes to a 70-year high. Millions of people doing middle-income jobs are paying the highest rate of income tax. They say they will keep cutting taxes, but they will not raise the tax threshold. They will not abolish the disgusting inheritance tax (a tax on death). They will maintain taxation on energy bills and will keep stealth taxes like fuel duty. They will not lower VAT and they will not cut public spending. They will raise taxes either through stealth or fiscal drag. The estimate by the Labour Party is £3,000 extra per household per year by the Labour Party, it is probably slightly under that in reality.
The Tories have said they will cut immigration. Let us not bother with much more of your life reading this bit. They said this in the last 4 General Elections and then increased immigration to well over a million as a gross figure. They are lying.
Now let’s look at the Labour Party. It’s hard to pin them down on policy because they keep flip-flopping which is a tough thing to do as the party projected to win this general election. Their green investment programme of £20bn was scrapped. But their policies are not costed and they will raise taxes. Their VAT plan for private schools is a tax on education. Far from raising any money, it will actually cost the country as more parents who can’t afford private schools with far better provision for learning difficulties will have to send their kids to state comprehensives, meaning the state will need to pay more for more schools, school places and teachers. It’s idiotic but it’s a socialist policy that they hope will lead to the abolishing of private schools altogether which Angela Rayner, their deputy leader, stated she wanted to do in 2018. Labour accuse the Tories of forcing the highest tax burden but they will do nothing to change it. They will maintain the frozen tax thresholds and they will raise taxes. £2,000 per year per household, which is the Tory accusation, is probably accurate. Their plan to put a tax on the state pension is not public policy but it was not ruled out by the party. Their Non-Dom tax loophole closure policy they say will raise £3bn, which is a drop in the ocean, but it only applies if Non-Doms stay in the country. If they go, and they have the money to do this, no more money for the UK. The Labour Party have spent this money 3/4 times over.
Labour says it will deal with immigration but it will do nothing in reality. Yvette Cooper, when pushed, refused to mention a number cap, choosing instead to lean into the ‘immigrants are wonderful’ trope that means she won’t answer the question. Labour carry on trotting out the Tory line as well, saying that mass immigration grows the economy. Last year the economy grew by 0.2% in terms of GDP, but GDP per head shrunk by 0.7%. The economy is growing only for those in the highest part of the economic triangle and the people are getting poorer. Mass immigration benefiting the economy is a lie. We’ve had it since 2005 and the state of the economy is far worse. Their illegal immigration plan of ‘smashing the gangs’ means absolutely nothing. So long as there’s money to be made there’s gangs to be created too. Labour will most likely oversee a greater amount of illegal immigration. They say they will lift the backlog and have not ruled out mass amnesties for illegal immigrants; that is what they are going to do.
Both of the major parties have not talked about the crippling debt the country is in. The national debt is over 100% of GDP. Debt interest repayments are the third biggest expense of this country, behind pensions and the NHS. Taxes are going to go up. They will. The major parties are pretending, with the most basic understanding of economics, that they will make things better for the revolting phrase; “working people”. Sorry, that just means the only way you will make money is through working, ideally for the state. If you save money that’ll be taxed under huge capital gains levies and other stealth taxes. Labour themselves have said they will go after tax evasion, which is simply normal people putting money into ISAs. They’ve saved their money but the state wants that too. The levels of dishonesty is revolting and it is disingenuous to accuse other parties of not being serious on the economy when they are about as serious on the economy themselves as a comedy skit by the Marx brothers, in the case of the Labour Party Marx is a good analogy.
The worst part of this is that both of these parties are still in the lead. Labour is only ahead because it is not the Tories and the Tories are in second because of the electoral system making them the only real challengers. Were it for Proportional Representation not only would we have a better class of politician we’d have a more honest discussion about the real problems in this country. Our choice with the two major parties is social democracy or democratic socialism. Only Reform is offering something genuinely different for voters in the mainstream but the level of our politics is such that rather than having a grown-up debate the response to this other option is to hurl abuse or milkshakes or rocks. Our level of politics has become a member’s-only social democrat bar brawl.
If you are reading this wanting a genuine real answer to what is going on; it’s simply Blairism on offer. The Tories drank the Blair Kool-Aid when they removed Ian Duncan-Smith and replaced him with Michael Howard. Since then the Tory party has been run by Blairites. Liz Truss was the only break from this, and she lasted 40-odd days before the party went for her. The Tories are not conservative; they are locked in with big business and corporate interests that favour high tax, low wage, mass immigration, and to hell with the interests of a nation. It’s a form of middle-way socialism but as much money coming from big business as possible. Labour is a coalition of Blairites who have jumped ship from the Tories and identitarian Socialists who don’t care about class. Their leader is an (ex?)-Marxist who had a privaliged upbringing who has basically done deals with Trade Unions and big business to maintain the fiscal status-quo and the increasing size of the state sector. He has done deals with the Muslim-based interest groups on Palestine and the maintenance of the ghettoisation of towns and cities of parallel societies. He has done deals with the elite woke-based establishments in business, the media and students by promising to put the pedal down on identity-driven unequal outcomes emphasising race and transgenderism through the reforming of the Equalities Act. He’s not a leader, he’s a conduit where elements of the centre and left meet, and will please everyone.
There is no prospect of the end result changing, save a complete revolt of people who value democracy and a better style of politics. Labour and the Tories resemble the elitist graduate class keeping the general public at arms-length from influencing decision-making. The Blairite ring of unelected organizations like the OBR and the Home Office civil servants as well as the Treasury Committees make sure that even if somehow some populist politicians get through they won’t be able to actually change anything (Liz Truss found this out very quickly). Labour will win in an election where most people don’t want them, and we call this a democratic election. The amount of lying on both sides of the major party fence should be an extinction-level offence politically, but it isn’t. It’s a political asset for Labour, and a 5/10 year blip for the Tories. Any other country in the world would see both of these parties smashed and replaced with something better; but we don’t have a level of politics where the best rises to the top. We have a politics where you do deals to get selected for a safe seat and do deals to get a coalition of lobby groups to support you to become leader. It’s not a meritocracy of honesty, ideas and popularity, its an aristocracy of elitism of the political graduate elite.
The result of this is the new elite have a new Praetorian Guard of a kind of paramilitary set of youth groups including ‘Antifa’, ‘Hope not Hate’ and others intimidating anyone else providing a different voice. The disgusting attacks on Nigel Farage should horrify everyone, regardless of your political point of view, but that is the result of allowing paramilitary groups to act with relative impunity (see the incredibly relaxed court rulings for Just Stop Oil/Extinction Rebellion etc offenders, as well as accusations of two-tier policing). The media have all signed up to making sure that the perception of British politics is a closed shop of accepted people, views and parties getting to dominate the airwaves. The illusion of an ‘enlightened poltiics’ has been prevalent in Britain for hundreds of years but much like 1906, when a complete dissolusionment with the political elite brought about the end of the Liberals and the rise of Labour 12 years later, this could be absolutely smashed this year. Back then, the First World War accelerated the destruction of the old consensus. Let us pray to God that no such war will come again, but we are at 1906. The Tories will kick and scream but they will go the way of the Liberals. The big difference is what will happen to Labour. They will most likely fail to get a grip of the public finances, constrained as they are to their Faustian deals to big business and trade unions and woke politics. An IMF bailout, mass tax rises and societal discontent on a scale not seen in a generation will bring the Labour Party to its knees well before 2029 and what comes next will be something we do not recognise right now. If it doesn’t then the civilisational moment where democracy is on the line as well as western values will become a dice-roll, with far worse options on other sides of the die, and the democrats and freedom-loving people in this country will hope that their number comes up. The longer this goes on the less likely that will be.
This is a gloomy article, but better ones will come soon. Right now, it is important to understand just how bad things can be, so that people understand just how big the antitide needs to be. Know your demon, know its name, for you will then know how to banish it.
Labour are going to win. It’s all over, but there’s 3 more weeks of lying to go. But hopefully, with regards to our outdated electoral system, our outdated two-major parties and the old social democrat consensus, it is all over, but the crying…
This article first appeared on the TDL Times. For more information, articles and more please visit www.thetdltimes.com.
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