Monthly Archives: November 2023

Every publisher seeks a theme, one that mirrors a countrys soul or mood. This seasons publishing zeitgeist in Britain is UKatastrophe where politics and society in the country is measured, often to be found wanting.

The list of books is growing: former BBC presenter Gavin Eslers often angry polemic Britain Is Better than This; former Conservative minister Rory Stewarts Politics on the Edge; and radio host James OBriens How They Broke Britain.

Born to a single Irish mother and adopted, OBrien, with nearly 1 million listeners a week to his British commercial station LBC daily talkshow, has become the voice of those who hated Brexit, Boris Johnson, and much else about where power lies in todays UK.

Speaking this week as former No 10 Downing Street chief of staff Dominic Cummings laid bare the dysfunctionality inside the building during the height of the Covid crisis, OBrien says half-jokingly that the books alternative title was Why Is Everything So Shit?

Dominic Cummings leaves the UK's Covid-19 inquiry in London on Tuesday. Photograph: James Manning/PA Wire

OBrien believes this even more now than I did when I started writing the book, and more widely than I did when I finished it, because ever since he submitted the manuscript, everyone has been using the word.

I guess theres an argument about whos to blame, but I dont think theres much argument about how low weve been brought and how unnecessary it was, says the presenter of the three-hour-long The Whole Show.

OBrien does not lack confidence, as illustrated, perhaps, by the titles for his previous books, How to Be Right, and How Not to Be Wrong, and he is liked and loathed in equal measure.

As always, he is forthright. There are many to blame for the UKs current woes, he argues. It is a tale of loss and betrayal; of unbridled arrogance and unchallenged ignorance; of personal impunity, warped ideology and political incompetence, he writes.

If youre losing 30 million a year on a commercial project, youre probably not in it for the money

And the British media, TV and newspapers in what was once known as Fleet Street, is at the head of the queue, where politicians get away with declaring the demonstrably untrue by supine or sycophantic journalists.

Equally, he blames a slew of privately, often secretly funded think tanks that have over the last few decades largely seized control of the debate inside the Conservative Party, and won platforms to portray themselves as independent voices across British broadcasting.

Now the battle for hearts and minds has moved fully into TV, with the creation of GB News, fronted by a slew of Conservative MPs, including Jacob Rees-Mogg, and former Ukip leader Nigel Farage. They are soon to be joined by Boris Johnson.

James OBrien: 'I dont buy the idea that liberals are out of touch. I think people who think immigration is the source of their problems are the ones that are out of touch'

Curiously, OBrien argues that GB News can be both successful and a failure at one and the same time; unable, he says, with more than a touch of pride, to touch the kind of numbers that weve been doing for years.

However, he goes on, the real focus for those behind GB News, including hedge-fund chairman Paul Marshall, is not the ill-educated, the disgruntled or the impoverished, but rather to win disproportionate influence over the current and future path of the Conservatives.

If youre losing 30 million a year on a commercial project, youre probably not in it for the money, he says. Theyve bought themselves a seat if not at top table then certainly at a table where seats didnt used to be for sale.

I dont buy the idea that liberals are out of touch. I think people who think immigration is the source of their problems are the ones that are out of touch

The politically right-wing station has put on a cloak of respectability, latterly in the last month or two by getting rid of some particularly ridiculous characters but I suspect that theyll just keep banging the same drum, says OBrien.

Theyll be doing nativism. Theyll be going after refugees. Aneurin Bevan [postwar Labour minister who founded the NHS] put it best: the project has always been about persuading voters to use their power to protect wealth. For people with no wealth to protect those with wealth.

Theyre there to distract from the real reasons for inequality and unfairness and to focus peoples attention on well, in the case of GB News, everything from Covid vaccines to foreigners, that theyre the real reason why your life isnt going in the way that you want it to go.

Is all of this not just the typical argument one expects to hear from a left-leaning, London-based liberal, one untouched by issues that inflame debate?

OBrien rejects the point. Most people holding anti-immigrant feelings are not getting their ideas from interactions with immigrants: theyre getting their ideas from people like Nigel Farage telling them that immigrants are awful, he says.

[A proper f***ing lunch with Nigel Farage: I mustnt be sloshed this evening]

Opinion polling taken when British newspapers take their foot off the gas about immigration supports his contention, he argues, since the number of people citing immigration as their number one concern during such times plummets.

So no, I dont buy the idea that liberals are out of touch. I think people who think immigration is the source of their problems are the ones that are out of touch, but I have enormous sympathy for them because of the effort and epic expense put into convincing them of that.

Demographics will change opinions, he says. I mean, if you, or your mums care home is understaffed, you are going to have to ask yourself some fairly tough questions about why you spent the first two decades of this century calling for people to be sent back where they came from.

UK prime minister Rishi Sunak speaks to staff during a visit to Milton Keynes University Hospital. Photograph: Leon Neal/Pool/AFP via Getty

The National Health Service in the UK has 110,000 unfillable vacancies, while hospitality and other businesses are shy of workers because Brexit, driven by insularity and xenophobia, has created an environment into which a lot of people dont want to come, he says,

Despite the promises of Brexiteers, however, immigration into the UK has not fallen. Rather, the source of immigration has changed, with fewer people coming from eastern Europe and more from southeast Asia.

However, the UKs challenges on the issue of immigration could get worse if the same people that managed to inflame baseless racism against eastern Europeans decide to turn their attention to people whove come here from India, or Bangladesh or Pakistan to fill existing vacancies.

If they turn their demagoguery in that direction, things could get quite ugly again. Possibly uglier than weve seen in a while, he says, because this time the immigration debate would have the added ingredient of colour.

You cant turn up in someones life like a hand grenade and pull the pin out the back of your neck

OBrien has faith in the coming generation, one that perhaps has a greater understanding than earlier generations about the sins of the British empire, including an understanding about the countrys role in centuries of the slave trade.

I think that runs deep in our society deeper than I appreciated as a younger man that this belief, that this conflation of patriotism with a sense of superiority, underpins an awful lot of whats going on, he says.

Such attitudes lead some British people to be convinced that the reason why weve got stately homes is because we are a superior breed, its not because we, you know, went around the world robbing and pillaging, and then slaving, he says.

Now a proud Irish passport holder, OBrien enjoys programmes where people trace their family roots, but he has no desire to do the same, even though he knows that his birth mother is still alive, and where she is living.

He easily found his birth mothers name from documents his adopted parents had kept for him in the attic, unlike his friend, comedian Dara Briain, who was adopted in Ireland under much tougher disclosure rules and found the bureaucracy around his search unnecessarily hard.

A lot of women in Ireland in their 60s and 70s have raised families and married men who know nothing about the babies that they gave up. You cant turn up in someones life like a hand grenade and pull the pin out the back of your neck. Youve just not got that right, he says.

His Irish background, which he says he has always romanticised, is important to him, because he often wonders how life for the unadopted me growing up in a small town or village in Ireland would have been like during the 1970s. Not easy, I would suspect.

Ive always had a consciousness of the other me, the unadopted me, he says, saying that it affects his politics and his sense of justice and equality and attitude to privilege: Ive always been incredibly conscious of serendipity and good fortune in my life.

Would he, not because of anyones fault, have grown up less loved, or less privileged in Ireland, he wonders. So the question is not one of nationality, but rather of opportunity lost, or found? Yeah, I think so, its got more to do with the unadopted lad.

How They Broke Britain by James OBrien is published by Ebury

View post:

James O'Brien on post-Brexit Britain: 'This conflation of patriotism ... - The Irish Times

Those who can, do. Those who cant, end up working for GB News.

In a pleasing piece of synchronicity, Boris Johnsons move into his latest career, as a TV presenter working for a man called Paul Marshall, was announced just before what was left of his reputation as prime minister was forensically shredded in the evidence before the Covid inquiry.

It was the wrong crisis for this prime ministers skillset, was how his former comms guy, Lee Cain, evaded the key question of whether Johnson was up to the job.

As recently as 2010, Cains own day job involved dressing up as a chicken on behalf of the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror in order to taunt David Cameron and other Conservative election candidates. But, after a stint in Downing Street, he has learned to talk like the fictional Sir Humphrey Appleby.

Johnsons real-life cabinet secretary, Simon Case, was less squeamish in his choice of words. He cannot lead, Case wrote in a WhatsApp thread at the height of the pandemic, and we cannot support him in leading with this approach. The team captain cannot change the call on the big plays every day. Government isnt actually that hard but this guy is really making it impossible This is in danger of becoming Trump/Bolsonaro level mad and dangerous.

Even this was polite stuff compared with Dominic Cummings, the Brexit buddy Johnson brought into the heart of government. It would not be seemly to reproduce much of the language Cummings used to describe his boss and his cabinet, but the words included all the really rude four-letter ones beginning with c, s, f, and w.

I dont suppose Johnson is unduly distressed by the rubbishing of the way he handled his time at Number 10. That was thenand, according to Cummings, he was bored of being PM within a month of getting the job. He has moved onto an extremely lucrative basket of careers including speaker, columnist, global sage and now TV presenter.

Johnsons motives can be easily summed up in three words: money, ego and mischief. The six-figure stipend will be handy. He has an almost sociopathic hunger to be talked about. And, in an impending election year, he has an infinite number of scores to settle.

So thats the easy bit. But what about Paul Marshall? Whats in it for him?

Its possible you havent heard of Sir Paul Roderick Clucas Marshall. Theres no reason why you should have. Until fairly recently he was just another hedge funder/philanthropist whose only involvement in politics was as a patron of the so-called orange book tendency (the fiscal right wingers) within the Liberal Democrats.

But then he caughtand helped financethe Brexit bug. In a 2021 article for UnHerd, which he also funded, he identified himself as a classical liberala group which he thought needed, more than ever, to stand up for our most ancient freedoms such as freedom of speech, conscience and assembly. In other words, dont call him woke.

To that end, he founded GB News, in which he owns a 48 per cent stake. He is thus, in some senses, about to be Johnsons boss.

But why? The parent company of GB News, amusingly called All Perspectives Limited, was established in late 2019since then, six of its 11 officers have resigned.

All perspectives? Well, Johnson joins a line-up of presenters who are still Tory MPsincluding Jacob Rees-Mogg, Lee Anderson, Nigel Farage, Esther McVey and Dehenna Davison. So thats all perspectives within one party from, lets say, pretty right of centre to extremely right of centre. In addition, there has been a motley crew of anti-woke oddballs and climate change sceptics in front of the camera.

Former colleagues of Johnson are beginning to realise that the channeltogether with its incarnations on social mediais likely to prove highly influential in shaping whatever remains of the Tory Party after the next election; youll remember Priti Patels slightly demented conference tribute to the channel as a disruptor to take on the establishment, the Tory-hating, Brexit-bashing and free-speech deniers at the BBC and so-called mainstream media. Which made one wonder if she has, say, ever read a mainstream newspaper.

It is one of lifes mysteries that Ofcom, the regulator which is legally charged with upholding the due impartiality of GB News, appears to think that the all perspectives branding ticks the right boxes.

But Sir Paul is not content with shaping the future of right-wing British politics through GB News alone. He also wants to buy the Daily Telegraph and Spectator.

When I started in Fleet Street the Telegraph was owned by Lord Hartwell, a man with little evident interest in the political line of the paper (albeit the editorial line was always small c conservative).

The board of directors included one marquess, a baronet and four peers. The then-editor, a gentle man called Bill Deedes, was described to me by one of his successors, Charles Moore, as actually very good at news and not very good at comment.

I see no signs that Sir Paul is very interested in news. He seems relaxed, for example, about GB News employing presenters who spout clueless nonsense about the climate crisis engulfing us. But, hey, freedom of speech!

No, it appears that Sir Paul wants his hands on the Telegraph/Spectatoras well as GB Newspresumably so that he, as publisher, can call the shots in terms of how right-wing politics develops over the next generation or so. Hes made his millions (his fortune was 645m in 2021): now, it seems, he wants to be a player. A kingmaker.

Am I being unfair? How would you know? The ownership of major mainstream media platforms does not involve submitting yourself to any kind of serious scrutiny. So, assuming his bid is nicely pitched, Sir Paul could soon be a mini-Rupert Murdoch. Pulling strings, wielding unseen power.

So who better to hire as a star GB News presenter than Boris Johnson, his old Brexit confrere, whose previous career as a journalist displayed at times only an intermittent relationship with the truth. Who knows, if Sir Paul is successful in his bid for the Telegraph, maybe the editors chair at the top could be kept warm for the old rascal?

The Spectator was in its prime as a journal of opinion 300-odd years ago. There are times when Britain feels as if it is still in the grip of an 18th-century system of patronage, information and government. And Johnson continues to flit between all three.

See the rest here:

What's really behind GB News signing Boris as the voice of Brexit ... - Prospect Magazine

Garages are being forced to pass on increased parts prices to customers, with Brexit and Covid a double-edged sword against a backdrop of cost-of-living rises.

The prices of some components have more than doubled in the past two years, with European brands the most affected.

William Morgan of Morgans Motor Engineers in Drayton, Norfolk, says that hes unfortunately having to pass costs on to customers, as he doesnt fit non-OEM parts to cars in his care.

On one occasion, Morgans had to wait several weeks for some Honda suspension parts to enter the UK supply chain, even though the company still has its European headquarters in the UK at Bracknell.

The delay was a hold-up at customs while Brexit checks were concluded and duties determined.

We tend to source most of our parts and consumables through the main dealership networks, as the quality is known and far less likely to have problems than some other sources we choose not to entertain, he said.

If its not good enough for one of our own vehicles, its not good enough for our customers thats how we have always operated.

Brexit checks are holding up parts deliveries. This PA image from September 2019 shows a sign over the M3 near Camberley warning of the impending changes

Because of supply and demand, prices for oils and parts most definitely have increased and these increases are continuing all the time.

It may be coincidental but since being bought by PSA, Vauxhall parts have most definitely increased in cost.

Morgan believes that Brexit is a key factor, not just because of the additional duties levied on parts imported from mainland Europe but also because of increased labour costs caused by driver shortages in the supply chain.

The problem has been exacerbated since Brexit, thanks to a number of European drivers no longer working in the UK.

The cost of living, Covid, Brexit and the war in Ukraine are all factors that are causing prices everywhere to increase, unfortunately, he added.

Operational costs have increased due to fuel and energy costs shooting up, and as a result parts prices have been pushed up. When things will settle down again, I truly dont know.

William Morgan of Morgans Motor Engineers in Norfolk says Brexit is a key factor in him having to pass increased costs on to customers

His views are echoed by Bob Chittenden from Peterborough, who is an independent repairer specialising in vans and light commercial vehicles.

My business model is to buy vehicles that are non-runners and repair them for resale and I tend to only do Ford Transits now, he said.

Previously, I used to do quite well with Mercedes-Benz Sprinters, which have always had a good following, but these days theyre much more expensive to repair.

I cant get new parts at sensible prices and the lead times for getting them are much longer.

With Transits, theres always a good parts supply locally so theyre much easier to get parts for quickly, which is what you need when you have to get a vehicle back on the road.

The issues arent just being experienced by mechanics.

In a survey of its members earlier this year, the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA) reported that 90 per cent of them many of whom are fleet managers had seen costs go up as a result of Brexit and Covid.

For the fleet and mobility services sector, there really is no such thing as business as usual any more, said BVRLA chief executive Gerry Keaney.

BVRLA chief executive Gerry Keaney says many of its members have seen costs go up as a result of Brexit and Covid

Hampered by Brexit, Covid-19, inflation and carbon reduction targets, the global automotive supply chain continues to lurch from one crisis to another, with BVRLA members bearing the brunt.

The sentiments shared in our latest Industry Outlook Survey highlight this, but they also tell a story of optimism and remarkable resilience.

Green shoots are appearing with vehicle supply and most of our members are seeing growing sales.

We are not out of the woods, but we have every reason to believe that businesses in our sector are on the right path.

This feature appears in the current edition of Car Dealer issue 188 along with news, views, reviews and much more! Click here to read and download it for FREE!

See the original post here:

Revealed: How Brexit and the Covid hangover are affecting the ... - Car Dealer Magazine

Is there a single defining image of Brexit? The one that stands out for me is not of a victorious Nigel Farage with arms aloft on referendum night, or border queues or empty shelves. Its of what its photographer describes as a Brexit Statue of Liberty figure the first thing you see when you approach Great Britain by sea this wonderful middle-aged man in a dress and a bonnet waving at you while holding a union jack, welcoming you to the promised land.

The picture of Grayson Perry features in Muse, a new book that collects a decades worth of images of the artist-broadcaster-national treasure by award-winning photographer Richard Ansett. We were planning the shoot at a time of horror, extraordinary tension after the referendum, and I was thinking of a set piece about cliches of Britain like the White Cliffs of Dover and how to open up ideas of what Britishness can be, he says. But how do you sum that up in one picture? And as the idea developed it became so good that I couldnt have taken the heartbreak if it didnt come off. I was saying: If we dont do this, Im going to burn peoples houses down sorry, everyone dies unless we do this.

Grayson said yes, and so I had this amazing gift of his persona to temper the rabid nationalism and the toxicity of the union flag. And of course, we had a literal cliff edge. And the place we shot it, Seven Sisters cliffs on the South Downs is a suicide spot it is literally at the spot where people jump. The shoot was fantastic. Theres Grayson in his handmade dress, with a 2 union jack that I stuck into his hand. At that time, it just was extraordinary to be there with this wild cackling genius of an artist coming over the hill in his dress and bonnet.

Perry calls the book a mix of ridiculous fantasy and crumpled reality which might sum up Brexit almost as well as that photograph. As the subject I look at these photographs with joy in that they are funny and delightful and horror in knowing that I am that raddled old trannie, he adds.

For Ansett, whose subjects have included female prisoners at HMP Foston Hall, the first same-sex couples to obtain civil partnerships in London and child survivors of Grenfell Tower and the Manchester Arena bombing, the book is not just a collection of photographs of one man, but an opportunity to examine what the hell has been going on between him and me and us all over the last 10 years.

There are memorable images that evoke the surreality of Donald Trumps White House years (a triumphal Perry in a gingham dress with a Harley-Davidson and the stars and stripes behind him) and the dilemmas posed by gender-based culture wars (Perry as the Madonna, with child). Created in part to promote the artists successful Channel 4 documentary series, they serve as beautiful, simple echoes of the themes he explores in his pottery and epic tapestries.

Ansetts pictures also chart a decade in which he says Perry, who won the Turner Prize in 2003 but was then far from a household name, has seeped into the national consciousness in a way few British artists have ever managed. The dresses and makeup help, of course, but so does Perrys inquisitiveness about those he might naturally be at odds with, as seen on those documentaries, and the generosity of spirit he displays in the Graysons Art Club TV show, which became a lockdown sensation. Having sold out large theatres on a recent tour, he seems to be easing past the status of an easily recognisable eccentric like Gilbert & George and is approaching the ubiquity of a British Warhol or Dal.

I think hes increasingly sort of national treasure material, rather than this sort of obscure, complex existential artist that no one fully quite gets, says Ansett. I think Art Club, which was very warm and comforting and joyful, offered support to people when they needed it and Graysons humility and humanity has made this person who is clearly different accepted by the mainstream.

Ansetts first images of Perry, taken before the artists Reith Lecture at Tate Modern in 2013, show him in a blood-red womblike room. Grayson is clutching his handbag, hes looking at me with horror because hes expecting to be given direction, but Im not speaking to him. Someone described that picture as him looking like he was being mugged at a cashpoint. It went into the National Portrait Gallery more or less straight away, a huge chance for a photographer. And it made me think, well, what do I do next with this guy? Whats next right now is a project for Londons Wallace Collection, involving Perry as a Victorian ghost.

There must be a reason why he keeps asking me back, continues Ansett. His wife Phillippa is a psychotherapist and Ive done Gestalt therapy and been a Samaritan for 20 years, so thats one link. And I do think that we have a common interest in British society and real people, like my photographs of the children of Grenfell Tower and things like that. But when I photograph him we dont sit around discussing psychology. Its a fun event; as soon as youve got the camera out he just becomes this spirit of chaos, spirit of joy, shouting and flying around and putting costumes on.

Muse: A Portrait of Grayson Perry by Richard Ansett is available now from ACC Art Books, price 40

Excerpt from:

Grayson Perry's portrait from the edge - The New European

Thursday 02 November 2023 5:33 am

By: John Oxley

John Oxley is a political commentator and associate fellow at Bright Blue

Theres a political vibe shift, and the Conservatives are on the losing end of it is Brexit finally takes its final exit, writes John Oxley

Last week the Tories once again flirted with the idea of removing the cap on bankers bonuses. Its a policy that is probably economically sensible but is certainly politically damaging. That the party is looking at it shows they are prepared to take the risk. More than that, it marks the political vibe shift that is going on. The long 2010s are ending.

Political eras are rarely neat, and one moves into another almost imperceptibly. Before you have even realised it, the underlying contours of the debate have moved. The issues and the fights are different. Now this is happening under our feet. As the great winner of the late 90s vibe shift, Tony Blair, put it, a new dawn is breaking, is it not?

The bankers bonus cap was symbolic of the financial crisis. It was a totemic, and largely symbolic, way of trying to rein in financiers excesses. It rankled with some Tories, especially those close to the City, but was ultimately popular. That the party feels it can finally remove it shows us two things about the shifting political sands.

The first is that we moved on from the aftermath of 2008. The credit crunch has become a historical memory rather than something politically current. It will mean bad PR, but not the same toxicity as it would have in the past. Second, it shows the waning of Tory dominance, their last chance to get some of their least popular changes through because, well, they are getting booted out anyway.

As we move towards the next election this sensation will become more and more apparent. The era of the Tory government will feel more past and less present. Cameroonism already seems that way, with the former PM off in his shed and most of his acolytes and proteges out of parliament. The rancour and relevance of Brexit too is fading, with the Tories struggling to resurrect it as a dividing line. Next years first-time voters will have been just fourteen when the referendum happened.

The news around the Covid-19 inquiry this week also feels like a throwback. Johnson and Cummings are no longer the centre of our political fray, but each making their own journey through exile. The failings and the debates around lockdown already seem like they are disappearing from the rear-view mirror. An aftertaste of incompetence remains, but the details and the day-to-day is hazy.

Now the debate is dominated by the cost-of-living crisis, by housing, and by the rising fortunes of the Labour Party. Tory psychodrama and infighting are old hat, and so too are their policies. Now they are largely running down the clock. The current questions are how Labour will engage with business, how Starmer will navigate investing in public services with a constrained ability to raise taxes, and if he can find a foreign policy that placates his party.

The political landscape changes slowly, then all at once. We are reaching one of those inflection points. For anyone who wants to understand or influence the debates, its important to recalibrate as the times do. The Tories, in their own small way, are starting to do this as they sneak through a measure which plays well with their supporters but will likely cost them votes elsewhere.

With the impending Kings Speech, we are about to enter the last phase of this government. It will likely be the last year of Conservative power for some time. As their time wanes, so do their options for new policies and legislation, but the mood of the debate will also shift. After thirteen years of Tory rule, it feels almost impossible to remember a time before it. Soon, most of it will be forgotten.

Read the original:

Bankers bonuses are back and the long 2010s dominated by Brexit ... - City A.M.