Rachel Reeves

The Chancellor Rachel Reeves has faced an absolutely vitriolic campaign in the media for misleading or indeed, lying about the state of the UK economy in the run-up to her budget speech last week. She seems to have been unfairly singled out for a concerted attack with blaring headlines almost daily, demanding her resignation or sacking. It's all totally confected rubbish. The BBC’s political reporter Chris Mason actually penned a piece which said: Why, in my judgement, Reeves was misleading on one specific point. Apparently, he has set himself up as her judge and jury, delivering his verdict to the nation, rather than reporting on events as he’s paid to do. In any case, he’s wrong.

Brexiteer fury at NBER report

The recent NBER report on the impact of Brexit has created quite a stir among the right-wing media. First, Ryan Bourne at The Times admitted that Brexiteers need to acknowledge the cost of Brexit. Bourne is one of the Economists for Brexit, but now says “we cannot pretend things have gone well so far.”  And a few days ago, a columnist at The Telegraph went further and declared: Time to admit the truth: Brexit has been an unmitigated economic failure.  It must be said that Jeremy Warner is not a Brexiteer. He is an assistant editor, writing on business and economic matters but, unlike most of the other assistant editors (and there are quite a few), he has never been keen on Brexit.

More questions for Farage

Allegations about another former Brexit Party MEP taking bribes surfaced on the BBC yesterday. Following the sentencing of Nathan Gill for 10 years last week, more WhatsApp messages between Gill and Oleg Voloshyn were released. The BBC has been going through them and uncovered messages that suggest money was set aside for a second MEP referred to as 'D' and David, in return for making pro-Russian statements in the European Parliament. The money came from Viktor Medvedchuk, a wealthy Ukrainian oligarch whose daughter has Putin as her godfather and who is a key ally of Putin.  The BBC has approached a Mr David Coburn, who was a Brexit Party MEP at the time and a colleague of Gill for comment. 

Yesterday’s budget was written in 2016

As usual, there was mass coverage of the budget in all the mainstream media yesterday, very little of which was positive for Chancellor Rachel Reeves or the government. The financial markets at least seemed reassured; Sterling rose slightly, and long-term gilt yields fell. Predictably, opposition politicians lined up to slam the government for incompetence, and the right-wing press was withering in their criticisms. The irony of it all is that many, if not all, of these voices were instrumental in persuading the public to vote for Brexit, the root cause of much of Ms Reeves’ problems.  She, like all recent chancellors, has been hemmed in by a lack of adequate growth, following Britain's exit from the EU single market.

Trump admits to being fascist

During the meeting in the Oval Office between Zohran Mamdani and Donald Trump last Friday, a journalist asked the Mayor-elect of New York City: “Are you affirming that you think President Trump is a fascist?” Mamdani started to offer a conciliatory response, but Trump interjected: “That's okay. You can just say yes. I don't mind.” It was an odd thing for the leader of the free world to say. I can’t imagine any other president of the US or any other nation would ever have made such an admission, even many who were openly fascist.  I don't think the comment got the coverage it deserved.

Trump's 'peace plan' crashes and burns

Trump’s 28-point ‘peace plan’ for Ukraine seems to have crashed before take off, to nobody’s surprise. It must be the first peace plan to be negotiated without the involvement of one of the participants in the conflict, something one would have thought an essential element. More than that, the plan itself appears to have been largely written by the other participant, who is also the aggressor. President Zelensky was, according to reports, given until next Wednesday to agree to it. This is the day before Thanksgiving. Trump apparently wanted to announce he had ended the war in Ukraine to help his polling numbers.

Why does the right worship Trump?

Trump’s polling numbers are dropping like a stone. He is underwater on almost every major issue. The Republican Party, less than a year after winning the White House and both houses of Congress, are looking back on a string of disastrous elections and legal setbacks across the US, even in deep red states. And this is before the worst impacts of his policies, like the huge increases in healthcare premiums, have been felt. The polls are not wrong, yet right-wing movements around the world are falling over themselves to get to the Oval Office for a photo op with the president, as if a seal of approval from Trump will help to boost their own image back home.  

Farage's past is catching up with him

The Guardian has been speaking to schoolmates of Nigel Farage, men who attended Dulwich College at the same time as him in the late seventies and early eighties. What emerges is a reinforcement of the innate racism that has surrounded Farage for years. UKIP, the Brexit Party and now Reform UK are simply vehicles he uses to pursue his own idea of some sort of racially purified United Kingdom, and make a pile of money while doing so. Everything else is a sideshow.  He, of course, denies it, emphatically, according to legal letters sent to the paper by Farage's lawyers. However, there is nothing in the story that is surprising or shocking about Farage's behaviour as a teenager at fee-paying Dulwich College in the London borough of Southwark. Everything is consistent with what we already knew from Michael Crick's book: One Party After Another: The Disruptive Life of Nigel Farage.

Brexit impact twice as bad as thought

You may have seen references on social media to an economic analysis of the impact of Brexit published by the NBER. They estimate that leaving the EU has already reduced Britain’s GDP by 8%. Remember, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has always maintained that Brexit would see our GDP reduced by 4% in fifteen years, taken as being around 2030. The NBR are now talking of an impact twice the size, and five years earlier. Our absolute GDP this year will be over £2.8 trillion. An 8% hit amounts to around £225 billion, and if we assume tax revenue at 35-40% of GDP, we are talking close to £90 billion in lost income for the Treasury.  What would Rachel Reeves give for that now?

World's greatest liar takes on World's most trusted broadcaster

The BBC has apologised to Trump for the Panorama edit in a programme about him that was broadcast in October last year. As expected, Trump has said he will take legal action and sue for “anywhere between $1bn and $5bn, probably sometime next week.” I confidently predict this will never happen. It will never reach court, and if it does, at best, he might get a dime. All the BBC need to do is accept the challenge and appoint lawyers.  Considering the apology is to a man who is said to have made 30,573 false or misleading claims in his first term (about 21 per day) and is even worse in his second term, it's really quite amusing.