It’s another holiday week in the US.
On Thursday, American men will engage in the usual tacky July 4 ritual. They’ll grill animals, drown themselves in cheap beer and risk their fingers playing with small ordnance to honor a handful of treasonous colonists whose homicidal aversion to taxes accidentally spawned the greatest empire the world’s ever known. (The butterfly effect’s a helluva thing.)
While drunken Americans revel in the humiliation of the British empire, UK voters will humiliate Rishi Sunak who, despite being relatively capable himself, couldn’t overcome the ignominious legacy of his three successively disastrous predecessors. After 14 years of clownish frivolity, the Tories will face the wrath of a disaffected electorate.
It’s worth noting that Reform UK briefly overtook the Tories in at least one poll, prompting famous idiot Nigel Farage to declare his party the opposition. It says a lot, none of it good, when voters would rather “Farage” themselves than cast another ballot for you.
Last week, Farage got all the bad press he was after (and then some) when he accused NATO of provoking the war in Ukraine. To be fair, he’s a noted expert on provocations.
Farage’s bellicose claims about Reform’s status belie the legislative reality. Reform’s not going to win a bunch of seats. Rather, Tory vote defections (to Reform) will amplify Labour’s seat gains.
Whatever the case, it’s gonna be rough for the Tories. The Guardian underscored the scope of the looming catastrophe. Conservatives “hav[e] lost more than half of their support and [are] polling more than 10 points below their worst ever previous result,” an election primer read.
As the figure shows, the swing to Labour is set to be the most dramatic ever. In the same linked article, The Guardian called the vote “an electoral asteroid,” noting that “some projections have the Tories falling below 100 seats — an extinction-level event for Britain’s oldest and most electorally successful party.”
And, so, the question isn’t how the Tories will fare (badly), it’s how well Labour will do. And more to the point, how large Keir Starmer’s majority will be.
Sunak, bless him, suggested Sunday that the Tories might still win. “I think people are waking up to the real danger of what a Labour government means,” he told the BBC.
Late last week, Starmer warned Labour voters against complacency. “We’ll need a clear mandate,” he said. “If you don’t believe me, take a good look at the Tories. Chaos under Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak who never had a clear mandate.”
“A homicidal aversion to taxes” really is woven into the DNA of the United States. From war “partner” to revolution in 12 short years, most of it related to not paying taxes to help pay for said war (Seven Years / French and Indian if you’re American).
The history of the Seven Years War is so fascinating. Its impact on history was enormous, yet it’s mostly forgotten (and not just by Americans).
You already brought up how it was a direct antecedent to the American Revolution (not to mention being the venue for George Washington to make his bones). In France, Louis the XV began the process of beggaring France, which would lead to XVI’s beheading. Meanwhile, Austria’s dominance would finally be humbled while Prussia was established as a great power. In a way, it’s the war whose outcome set the stage for the entire modern era in the West.
TBH, it’s not much more forgotten than all the wars beyond WWI and WWII. And even there, few can give you any details. Almost no one care enough about history to learn anything about it beyond managing to pass the history class in high school and then promptly forget all about it.
Wow, that’s a colorful opening paragraph.
“famous idiot Nigel Farage” — excellent.
Starner has moved Labour away from the Corbyn left toward the political middle. I’m envious of Britain’s choices. Wishing Starmer the best.
He’s going to have a tough job. Britain never recovered from the GFC and Brexit made everything worse. Apart from London (where millionaires are leaving in drove in fear of taxes), the UK feels pretty impoverished.
But it’s a pretty vicious circle – how do you convince people to let go of what they have (i.e., pay more taxes and invest for the future) when they’ve seen nothing but decline for at least 15 years and that was on the tail end of the Thatcher/Blair reorganisation of the UK economic life with its increased wealth divide etc etc…
I recently read an article in The Telegraph which stated that had the rate of productivity increases that existed in the 1970’s continued to present, then governments today would have more than enough money to fund current social spending.
It does seem like there is a significant amount of wasteful/low productivity government spending that could be channeled into more productive channels with better long term benefits than we are currently realizing (i.e. – better healthcare and education and more housing and nuclear).