Jul
2025
I’m So Bored With the USA: All Tomorrows Party’s
DIY Investor
8 July 2025
“She’ll turn once more to Sunday’s clown
And cry behind the door”
My, my, how time flies, even when you not having fun.
Labour have now been in-power for 1yr, and have achieved the remarkable feat of turning a 147-seat majority into one where they had to virtually withdraw legislation as their own MPs would have voted it down.
The promise of change has disappeared into a void do dominated by caution. But, even the caution is inept, leading to ongoing U-turns as they seek the economic miracle of funding better services without raising taxes, instead preferring to pick on the elderly and disabled.
I would like to think Labour are playing the long game, but, other than fiscal rigidity, it seems a reactive strategy.
The party’s messaging is constantly negative, “we can’t afford this”. In difficult times people require belief, competence is replaced by conviction and the ability to instil that belief.
Because their messaging has been so negative, their successes have been overlooked. Decisions to raise the national minimum wage, improve workers’ rights, build more affordable housing and cut NHS waiting lists have all been popular. Even more starkly “Labour” policies such as nationalising the railways, introducing VAT on private schools fees and threatening water firm bosses over sewage have been well received.
‘the economic miracle of funding better services without raising taxes, instead preferring to pick on the elderly and disabled’
But, the polls tell a different story, Farage’s Reform are in the ascendancy in the polls, and the PMs own personal approval rating has tanked.
As I wrote in “Personality Crisis” the PM no longer knows what he stands for. A comment echoed by a senior Labour figure, who said: “What does Keir actually want? What does he stand for? For all the contradictions with Tony and Gordon, you knew they were driven by ideas. It seized them. What does Keir stand for? Whatever it is, we don’t know,”.
His light blue instincts override the party’s voice on justice and solidarity. Under his leadership the party continues to veer rightwards convinced that is where the its electoral threats lies. This misses the fact that the left is regrouping, young voters are alienated and Muslim support is fracturing. Should a charismatic left-wing rival emerges, Labour’s electoral coalition could be seriously damaged.
Over the weekend it was revealed that a new left-wing party is being created by independent MP Jeremy Corbyn and suspended Labour MP Zarah Sultana
Sultana, the MP for Coventry South who had the Labour whip suspended last year for voting against the government over the two-child limit on benefits.
While Corbyn has long hinted at plans to establish a more organised platform for leftwing and pro-Palestinian campaigning, he has so far avoided confirming any formal structure or leadership arrangements.
‘What does Keir stand for? Whatever it is, we don’t know’
A Labour source said: “The electorate has twice given its verdict on a Jeremy Corbyn-led party.”
I am not sure this party will gain sufficient traction to be a threat on the left, both the LibDems and Greens have been making more inroads.
Corbyn has already proposed a bill asking for an official inquiry over our involvement with Israel and the conflict in Gaza, which is expected to be blocked by the government. If so, he is likely to persist, as he has support from 22 NGOs working on issues in the region for an independent tribunal.
The NGOs led by Action Aid said: “In light of reports of atrocities committed by the Israeli government in Gaza and reports of the UK’s collaboration with Israeli military operations, it is increasingly urgent to confirm whether the UK has contributed to any violations of international humanitarian law through economic or political cooperation with the Israeli government since October 2023, including the sale, supply or use of weapons, surveillance aircraft and Royal Air Force bases.”
They said establishing an independent public inquiry would provide clarity as to whether the UK’s actions upheld international law. The possible inquiry comes in the week that the UK courts threw out a 20-month legal battle to force the government to end indirect sales of F-35 parts to Israel for use in Gaza.
The judges ruled it was not for the courts to make sensitive political judgments regarding whether the risk of curtailing the supply of F-35s for use by Nato outweighed the danger that the IDF with UK weaponry was acting unlawfully in Gaza.
There is a similar story building in America, with Elon Musk proposing to bankroll his new America Party. This decision appears to have been bought about by his falling-out with Trump, and concerns over the spending bill that the president has signed into law.
‘Trump has also publicly discussed deporting Musk from the US’
Writing on X, he said: “One way to execute on this would be to laser-focus on just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts. Given the razor-thin legislative margins, that would be enough to serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws, ensuring they serve the true will of the people.” that would initially focus on a handful of attainable House and Senate seats while striving to be the decisive vote on major issues amid the thin margins in Congress.”
In addition, he also suggested the party would run during the 2026 midterms.
New political parties do not have to formally register with the Federal Election Commission “until they raise or spend money over certain thresholds in connection with a federal election”.
Musk spent $277m supporting Trump’s victorious 2024 presidential campaign and was rewarded with the role of leading the unofficial “department of government efficiency”, or Doge, which abruptly and chaotically slashed various government jobs and programs while claiming it saved $190bn.
Research by the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan non-profit dedicated to studying the federal workforce, found that Doge’s actions may also have cost taxpayers $135bn.
Trump responded, warning Musk – a native of South Africa and naturalized US citizen since 2002 – that directly opposing his agenda would be personally costly, saying: “Without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head to South Africa”. Trump has also publicly discussed deporting Musk from the US.
Aside from ailing and failing governments, there is a still a real world out there.
The Texas floods highlight the unpredictability of the weather caused by climate changes. It’s the black swan event that we are told to ignore, it’s too expensive to deal with, even as it plays-out in front of us.
The hard-right denies it, scientists are part of an “establishment” that they hate, and the cost of it will stop them cutting taxes, which they love.
Trump is a classic example of climate change denial, taking the US out of climate agreements, slashing funding to universities, and killing Biden’s renewable power initiatives confirms his intent to move America back to gas-guzzling cars, and plays to his voter base.
‘Trump is a classic example of climate change denial’
The fact that Biden’s climate investment subsidies were designed to benefit the deindustrialised rust belt states where much of Trump’s MAGA electoral base resides, is just another example of Trump screwing his own voters.
The left or, what is left of it, are so frightened by the rise of the right, that they can’t see the wood for the trees.
Whilst of lesser magnitude than the disaster in Texas and climate change, Nationwide’s decision to refuse members a binding vote on a 43% pay increase for its chief executive, Debbie Crosbie, that could see her pay reaches up to £7m, typifies what is happening with executive pay and inequality.
The CEO of a FTSE 350 company is paid £2.5m, 52x as much as a typical worker, according to a new report from the High Pay Centre campaign group, which measures of inequality between bosses and their employees, for the year 2023-24
The widest gap was found at the cleaning, security and waste management group Mitie, whose CEO, Phil Bentley, was paid £14.7m, 575x more than a middle-earner.
Tesco ranked the second highest, with their CEO, Ken Murphy, enjoying a package worth nearly £10m, 431x more than a typical Tesco worker that year. The most recent ratio, for the company’s 2024-25 financial year, was lower, at a multiple of 373 as Murphy’s pay fell to £9.2m.
The pay-gap ratio was even starker among FTSE 100 companies, where the median pay of chief executives was 78x higher than their median employees. When compared with the lowest-earning quartile, the multiple rose to 106.
‘while most people expect executives to be well paid, their pay packages had “spiralled out of control”’
The High Pay Centre blames the gap on a number of factors, including the decline of trade union membership, low levels of worker participation in business decision-making and a business culture that puts the interests of investors before workers, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders.
Hannah Peaker, director of policy at the New Economics Foundation thinktank, said that while most people expect executives to be well paid, their pay packages had “spiralled out of control” and show “how inequality is baked into our current economic model.
“This isn’t a fair distribution of the wealth workers are responsible for generating. We need a new approach to ensure everyone can benefit from the wealth they help create, including promoting more democratic forms of ownership, like coops and publicly owned utilities, and boosting the rights of trade unions and workers’ bargaining power.”
It has been over 4-years since I wrote “Beginning to see the Light – Background”, which introduced the new post-Brexit column and focused on inequality.
‘in life you tend to get what you deserve rather than what you wish for!’
In that time the situation has gotten worse not better. I had expected that a Labour administration would make this a priority, but they appear to have bigger issues. The main one being how they see off the challenge of Reform and stay in-power for a second term.
If so, they might wish to consider the fact that, in life you tend to get what you deserve rather than what you wish for!
“Some people work very hard
But still they never get it right”
‘I find it remarkable that both the UK and US are headed in the same direction, despite taking different routes.
Trump is the great communicator, even if most of it is lies, who is able to convince his electoral base that he is for them. The truth is quite the opposite; his big, beautiful bill benefits the rich at the expense of the poor, and repeals legislation, such as Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, that was helping them.
Over in the UK, we have a dithering PM who doesn’t know what he is, let alone have policies to pursue.
Both are vulnerable to a new challenge.
Trump has been quick to dismiss Musk, saying that third-parties don’t work in the US. He might be right, but, at the same time, his own takeover of the Republican party has created a very different party, you could almost say a new party.
In spite of this, he is likely right, and, if there is to be a challenger to him, it will come from a rejuvenated Democratic challenger, perhaps supported by all the MAGA voters who are, and will be disappointed by their champion.
In the UK, Corbyn et al are too niche, and he is too discredited by failure. If there is a challenger to Labour it is clearly Reform.
Lyrically, we start with one of the great bands, the Velvet Underground and “All Tomorrow’s Party’s”, and end with their “Beginning to See the Light”.
I think endure might be more appropriate than the usual “enjoy”?
Philip.’
@coldwarsteve
Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.
Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s
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