Friday, January 17, 2025
A looming trade war?
The paper says that Reynolds admitted that Trump’s presidency will be a “challenging time for anyone responsible for trade”, amid fears of a global trade war:
In the run-up to his election, the Republican promised to implement 10 to 20 per cent tariffs on all goods coming into the country – a figure that rises to 60 per cent for those from China.
Asked about his incoming presidency, Mr Reynolds told Sky News: “I think it’s going to be a challenging time for anyone who is responsible for trade in a big economy because of some of those pledges that were made in the campaign.”
But he added that there are also “opportunities for the UK”, insisting there are lots of things he would “like to see the UK doing more closely with the US in areas like
“If there’s an offer from the US to talk about how we can collaborate closer together on that, of course we would take a look”, the business secretary said.
Asked if he is worried about the threat of tariffs, Mr Reynolds said: “I am, because the UK is a very globally orientated economy, so the danger to the UK is actually greater than some comparable countries.
“So a lot of our work has been preparing for that, engaging early with the new administration.”
He added that the UK is in a “different position” to the EU and China, as the US doesn’t have such large trade deficits with Britain. But, he added, “we can’t be complacent, and we’re very well prepared”.
Elsewhere in the Independent, Ed Davey has urged Sir Keir Starmer to negotiate a UK-EU customs union to “turbocharge the economy” and strengthen the UK’s hand against possible tariffs from president-elect Donald Trump.
Giving a speech in London on Thursday, the Liberal Democrat leader will say such a deal would help the UK to negotiate with Mr Trump “from a position of strength”.
He will also criticise Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch for wanting to go “cap in hand” to the new US president and “beg for whatever trade deal he’ll give us”, as well as taking a swipe at Reform UK leader Nigel Farage for “fawning over Trump and licking his boots”.
Mr Farage is “more interested in advancing Trump’s agenda over here than the UK’s interests over there”, Sir Ed is expected to tell an audience in London in his first major speech of the year.
Ed Davey is right of course. The UK is not strong enough to stand alone against a protectionist USA. Only the EU has that sort of clout.
Thursday, January 16, 2025
The past continues to haunt the UK's anti-corruption ministers
The Independent reports that the Treasury has become embroiled in a new row with questions mounting over the appointment of Emma Reynolds as minister, who previously lobbied on behalf of Chinese interests.
The paper says that until last year’s election, Reynolds served as managing director at banking trade group TheCityUK, a role which saw her lobby ministers to water down proposed restrictions on Chinese business activity. She also served as the Treasurer for the All Party Parliamentary Group on China.
They add that last month, sources told Bloomberg that Reynolds had campaigned to keep China off the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme’s “enhanced tier”, a categorisation which would have increased transparency obligations for dealings with Beijing, though Labour said Ms Reynolds “was not involved in the government’s China policy”:
The row over her Chinese links comes just weeks after Beijing was accused of spying on the Royal family and days after chancellor Rachel Reeves was heavily criticised for visting China.
Pressed on whether Ms Reynolds would make any decisions on China – the world’s second largest economy - in her new role, the prime minister’s official spokesperson repeatedly refused to say.
“The declaration process for ministers has been followed in the usual way… I’m not getting into the established process for declarations”, the spokesperson said.
The official was repeatedly pressed on whether Ms Reynolds has recused herself from making decisions on Beijing, but declined to provide an answer.
The PM’s official spokesperson denied that failing to answer the question demonstrated a lack of transparency, saying: “This government has strengthened the powers of the independent adviser. We’ve increased the regularity of transparency publications”, insisting that details on Ms Reynolds’ appointment will be published in the usual way.
It seems that Starmer can't catch a break.
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Have cyber criminals been swindling taxpayers?
The paper says that Dan Jarvis has suggested that hostile actors could have extorted thousands from organisations like the NHS without the Government knowing because there is no mandatory reporting regime.
Now the Home Office has launched a consultation on how to crack down on ransomware, with plans under consideration to ban all public sector bodies from making any payments:
Proposals also include a mandatory reporting regime and payment prevention system, designed to increase the National Crime Agency’s awareness of live attacks and block payments to known criminal groups and sanctioned entities.
Speaking to broadcasters on Tuesday’s morning media round, Mr Jarvis said cyber criminals based in countries like Russia are “quite literally holding our country to ransom” and warned the problem was “extensive.”
Asked how much public bodies had paid out in recent years, Mr Jarvis said “significant” sums had been handed over, telling Times Radio: “Millions of pounds have been paid.
“It’s a huge problem internationally.”
On how much the NHS had given, Mr Jarvis said: “The truth of the matter is we don’t know the precise figures, because there isn’t a mandatory reporting regime.”
Asked whether that meant that a trust could have paid out thousands of pounds to criminals to get its computers back without the Government knowing about it, he said: “In theory, that is the case, and that’s why we’re looking to change the law to bring in a mandatory reporting regime so we’ve got much more visibility of these kind of activities.
“But fundamentally, this is about putting measures in place that will ensure that we are much less vulnerable to these attacks in the future.
“We are working internationally with our allies as well, but these cyber criminals are incredibly devious in the tactics that they use, but it is the wrong approach for public sector authorities to actually pay these ransoms, because… there’s absolutely no guarantee even if they were to pay the ransom, they get the information that they require.”
Internet fraud is a massive concern, but if the government doesnt know if it has been a victim then how are they going to stop it in future?
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
An online conspiracy?
The paper claims that Cummings is helping Musk in his aggressive attacks on Keir Starmer and the Labour government:
The pair, who are both fiercely anti-establishment, are said to be scheming on WhatsApp to derail politics in the UK, according to unconfirmed reports in the Mail on Sunday. Sources told the newspaper that Mr Cummings has been fuelling Mr Musks’s attacks calling for Mr Starmer to be removed as PM and thrown in jail in relation to the grooming gangs scandal.
Mr Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former aide, is also reportedly advising Mr Musk - soon to be Donald Trump's government efficiency tsar - in his bid to cut trillions of pounds of government spending in the US. He has been increasingly engaging with the tech billionaire on X/Twitter - including reposting Mr Musk's posts to his own account.
An ally of Mr Musk told the Mail on Sunday: “It is 100% true that they [Musk and Cummings] are talking about smaller government and the end of the traditional party system. It is not just Elon – Dom is in constant contact with major Silicon Valley figures, who are becoming increasingly anti-woke.”
Mr Cummings, who was embroiled in a scandal over his infamous trip to Barnard Castle during lockdown, is planning a new ‘StartUp Party’ to challenge the status quo in Westminster.
Fears over Mr Musk’s interference in UK politics increased last week after reports emerged that he was looking at ways to replace Keir Starmer as Prime Minister. Sources told the Financial Times Mr Musk believes that “western civilisation itself is threatened” and is examining how he can destabilise the Labour government beyond his aggressive X posts.
The Mirror revealed last week that Mr Musk’s tweets were being monitored by counter-extremism officials at the Home Office’s Homeland Security Group.
It will be interesting to see if being a US government official will slow Musk down in anyway. If he doesnt then the Prime Minister really will have to make official complaints.
Monday, January 13, 2025
Will Reeves be forced to break her own fiscal rules?
She says that last week’s market moves, which drove 30-year gilt yields to their highest level since 1998, probably had more to do with the chaos to come in the US than Reeves’s budget plans, but whatever the cause, if it is sustained, the jump in yields will push up the interest bill on the government’s vast debt pile, and that would jeopardise Reeves’s hopes of meeting her fiscal rules:
Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, once warned that the UK was “reliant on the kindness of strangers” (specifically foreign investors) to fund its deficits – and therefore subject to the whims of the markets. It is all the more true post-pandemic, given the sharp surge in government debt.
When the mood of those strangers swings against the government, it is hard to ignore. Some analysts even fear investors may be influenced at the margins by Elon Musk’s obsession with what he seems to think is the dire state of the UK.
Take all this into account, and imposing a tougher spending squeeze on Whitehall departments in the later years of the upcoming spending review than Reeves sketched out in the autumn may seem a reasonable response. It is certainly the one government officials have been pointing to, alongside dark hints about the benefits bill and the need for public sector pay restraint.
Yet as the Resolution Foundation pointed out on Friday, kneejerk spending cuts are not just digits on a spreadsheet but will have material implications (see last year’s decision to scrap the winter fuel allowance for the vast majority of pensioners – also made with fretful markets in mind).
The thinktank warned Reeves against “taking permanent and concrete policy decisions with real-life impacts on households, in reaction to bond market movements that may turn out to be temporary”, urging her to “keep calm and carry on” until the autumn budget.
Doing nothing at all could rile the gods of the bond markets – risky for any chancellor, as Kwasi Kwarteng can attest.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out that the projections for the final years of the spending review period already look eye-wateringly tight, with growth of only 1.3% a year pencilled in after 2025-26. The margin for error is very narrow indeed.
Labour went into the election promising not to raise taxes. At the same time, public services are approaching crisis point and desperately need new investment.
Unless economic growth picks up, Reeves is going to find herself caught between a rock and a hard place. Will she be forced to cut spending, or will she break her election promise once again and put up taxes? It isn't a very comfortable place to be in.
Unless economic growth picks up, Reeves is going to find herself caught between a rock and a hard place. Will she be forced to cut spending, or will she break her election promise once again and put up taxes? It isn't a very comfortable place to be in.
Sunday, January 12, 2025
Pruning the money tree
The paper says that they have been been told that talks on further tightening rules on MPs’ outside interests, including media contracts, will be started by leader of the House of Commons, Lucy Powell, at a hearing of the all-party standards committee on Tuesday:
Current and former MPs, including Reform UK’s Lee Anderson and the Conservative former MP and minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, have pulled in six-figure sums as regular presenters on GB News while having seats in the House of Commons. Reform’s leader, Nigel Farage, is also receiving large sums from the channel.
Anderson has listed income of £100,000 a year for eight hours a week for his on-screen work from 1 March 2023, while Rees-Mogg registered well over £300,000 a year for his role as a presenter between February 2023 and March 2024 before he lost his North East Somerset seat at last July’s general election.
David Lammy, now the foreign secretary, topped Labour’s list of highest paid MPs in opposition with additional income of £243,800 between 2019 and 2023. This included £99,300 from his regular radio show on LBC.
In its first few weeks in office, the government tightened the rules on MPs’ outside interests so they would no longer be able to be paid for giving advice on public policy or guidance on how parliament works.
But many MPs, whose salary is now £91,346 a year plus expenses, have still been able to bring in large amounts of extra income. Now ministers are keen to gain cross-party agreement in committee on plans to limit media and other earnings before putting the ideas before the House of Commons.
In December Nigel Farage, who became MP for Clacton last July, was paid £189,300 for working an estimated four hours a month as “brand ambassador” for a gold bullion company in addition to receiving £98,000 a month as a GB News presenter. After winning the election, the government set up the all-party modernisation committee to look at how to improve standards and working practices, and to make the Commons more effective. It is now working with the standards committee to examine ideas on reform.
Speaking to the Observer before this week’s meeting, Powell said: “Trust in politics is depressingly low, as people see parliament as remote and out of touch. The last parliament was one of the worst on record for standards – to the detriment of us all. We were elected on a manifesto commitment to put politics back to service.
This move is to be welcomed. MPs are elected to represent their constituents not to use their position to supplement their income from lucrative outside gigs, that can often be perceived as a conflict of interest.
Saturday, January 11, 2025
Reform MPs profiting from posting on Twitter
The papeer says that Farage, Anderson and Rupert Lowe MP have all declared thousands in payments from the company in their recent parliamentary register of interests, via billionaire Musk’s ‘Creator’ revenue programme:
The scheme allows premium users with more than 500 verified followers to ‘monetise’ their accounts on the controversial site, which has grown increasingly toxic since it was taken over by the Tesla tycoon in 2022.
More than £10,000 has been paid to the right-wing trio since July last year, with Mr Farage having earned the most so far, according to parliamentary filings. The Clacton-on-Sea MP, who has 2.2m followers, has made in excess of £5,000 since entering the scheme.
A Labour source told The Independent: “We’ve always known that - for every person who spreads hateful rhetoric on X because they want to divide our society - there is another set of grifters who do it just to make money. It looks like these Reform MPs fall in both categories, and no-one will be in the least bit surprised.”
Carla Denyer, MP for Bristol Central and Green Party co-leader, said the profits mark an “unholy alliance” between the right-wing and Elon Musk.
“The fact that Reform MPs are profiting financially from posting on Musk’s X tells us all we need to know about how genuine their motives are,” she said.
“Neither Musk nor Farage have ordinary people’s interests at heart. They don’t want to make people’s lives better, and they don’t value our democracy. They want to strip away protections for workers to make it easier for them and their super-rich buddies to make money, and don’t care what damage they do to our communities in the process.”
The paper adds that a former X/Twitter curator, who worked for the organisation for seven years, has warned of the dangers of monetising content:
Writing for this publication, Marc Burrows said: “Unlike traditional media, where editorial standards might temper the most inflammatory content, X’s monetisation strategy actively incentivises division.
“The more outraged people are, the more they engage. The more they engage, the more the poster earns. Truth, accuracy and adding value to public discourse are secondary concerns. This is about generating heat rather than light.”
The former curator, who left his post a month before Mr Musk arrived in protest, added: “By monetising outrage, X has created a self-perpetuating ecosystem where inflammatory content rises to the top, dragging political discourse ever further toward the extremes.”
This is how far this site has sunk.
Friday, January 10, 2025
Fantasy economics is back
The paper says that the former prime minister’s lawyers have said the remarks - made since the lead-up to the general election - are likely to “cause serious harm to her reputation”, claiming they are “false and defamatory”.
The paper adds that the former Prime Minister's lawyers also suggest that assertions made by the Labour leader before the July general election contributed to Ms Truss losing her South West Norfolk seat:
Sir Keir has repeatedly claimed the former prime minister crashed the economy, referring to the weeks after her 2022 mini-budget which sparked gilt market freefall and a run on sterling after she introduced unfunded tax cuts.
The letter, originally seen by the Telegraph, argues that the fallout did not amount to an economic crash, since there was no fall in economic output or rise in unemployment.
It's difficult to know where to start in writing about this letter, however as one lawyer tweeted, 'in six pages of calling Starmer's remarks about Truss crashing the economy "defamatory", Truss's lawyers never once threaten proceedings if he doesn't comply. It doesn't suggest confidence in their position.'
He goes on: 'All the more remarkable becuase the letter says the statement *is* false and defamatory, and *has already* caused her damage. If that's right, isn't the right response to seek a remedy (even if just an apology)? Suspect the lawyers have privately advised suing would be hopeless.'
Truss practised fantasy economics as Prime Minister, now she is practising fantasy politics. What did she think she was getting into when she stood for Parliament?
Sir Keir has repeatedly claimed the former prime minister crashed the economy, referring to the weeks after her 2022 mini-budget which sparked gilt market freefall and a run on sterling after she introduced unfunded tax cuts.
The letter, originally seen by the Telegraph, argues that the fallout did not amount to an economic crash, since there was no fall in economic output or rise in unemployment.
It's difficult to know where to start in writing about this letter, however as one lawyer tweeted, 'in six pages of calling Starmer's remarks about Truss crashing the economy "defamatory", Truss's lawyers never once threaten proceedings if he doesn't comply. It doesn't suggest confidence in their position.'
He goes on: 'All the more remarkable becuase the letter says the statement *is* false and defamatory, and *has already* caused her damage. If that's right, isn't the right response to seek a remedy (even if just an apology)? Suspect the lawyers have privately advised suing would be hopeless.'
Truss practised fantasy economics as Prime Minister, now she is practising fantasy politics. What did she think she was getting into when she stood for Parliament?
Thursday, January 09, 2025
Is Facebook embracing a new right wing agenda?
The paper says that on Tuesday morning, Meta disbanded Facebook and Instagram’s third-party factchecking program and will recommend more political content across its social networks, as its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg attempts to curry favor with Donald Trump’s incoming administration:
“Recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech,” he said in a video posted on Instagram. “Factcheckers have just been too politically biased.”
Notes from everyday users will replace corrections from vetted factchecking partners, similar to Twitter/X’s Community Notes feature. In a post on Threads, Meta’s answer to X, Zuckerberg also vowed to reduce “censorship mistakes”, rhetoric that mirrors US conservatives’ longstanding charges that Facebook and Instagram unfairly penalize conservatives, for which there is little evidence. He lambasted coverage of Trump by “legacy media, which has pushed to censor more and more” and said that his own company’s previous content moderation policies resulted in “too much censorship” and had “gone too far”.
Trump immediately welcomed the changes. Asked if Zuckerberg was making so many rapid changes in response to invective from Trump – the president-elect threatened the CEO with “life in prison” in August – Trump said: “Probably. Yeah. Probably.” Trump told Fox News that Meta had “come a long way” and that its “presentation was excellent”.
The night before, Meta announced the appointment of Dana White, CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the de facto sport of the Maga movement, to its board. White has backed Trump since 2016.
The departure of Nick Clegg, has seen Meta's most prominent conservative appointed to its top policy job. Joel Kaplan is a former deputy chief of staff to the Republican US president George W Bush, who has championed conservative causes inside and outside Meta:
Within, he has pushed Meta to partner with rightwing news websites on factchecking; placed prominent Republicans in key roles; and advocated for Facebook not to restrict fake news, arguing such a crackdown would unfairly penalize conservatives. Without, he championed the nomination of the conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh to the US supreme court. When Kavanaugh was called to testify about allegations of sexual assault, Kaplan sat behind him, visible on the aisle seat of the Senate chamber.
Meta – not Zuckerberg personally – donated $1m to Trump’s inaugural fund, as have a host of tech leaders. The CEO did dine with Trump at Mar-a-Lago two weeks ago and gifted him a pair of Meta Ray-Bans, the company’s camera-equipped glasses.
Meta’s most well-connected Democrat, Sheryl Sandberg, is no longer its chief operating officer nor even on its board. Zuckerberg has replaced her with White. Where Sheryl Sandberg wrote the manual for white-collar feminism, Lean In, White was filmed slapping his wife at a party in 2022 after she slapped him.
The paper adds that Zuckerberg’s moves mirror steps Elon Musk, who gave about $200m to elect Trump, has taken in his haphazard management of X:
Musk likewise dispensed with any third-party factchecking on X in favor of elevating Community Notes, though there was less there to begin with than on Facebook, Instagram and Threads.
“In a shift driven largely by Trump ally and X-owner Elon Musk, third-party factchecking has gone out of fashion among social executives. Social platforms have become more political and polarized, as misinformation has become a buzzword that encompasses everything from outright lies to viewpoints people disagree with,” said the eMarketer principal Jasmine Enberg.
Zuckerberg’s plays for approval from conservatives may spook liberals and even advertisers if Facebook and Instagram’s brand safety declines. They are ultimately unlikely to hurt Meta’s bottom line, though, she said. “Meta’s massive size and powerhouse ad platform insulate it somewhat from an X-like user and advertiser exodus. But any major drop-off in engagement could hurt Meta’s ad business, given the intense competition for users and ad dollars,” she said.
In announcing the dissolution of Facebook and Instagram’s factchecking, Zuckerberg said he would likewise shunt Meta’s content moderation teams from the Golden state to the Lone Star state. The CEO said the change of location would “help remove the concern that biased employees are overly censoring content”. Musk moved X’s headquarters to Texas from California, as he has done with SpaceX and Tesla.
Zuckerberg believes that Trump is dictating the terms of mainstream discourse in 2025. The CEO wrote that Meta would “remove restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are out of touch with mainstream discourse”. Immigration and gender – two of Trump’s main campaign issues, harped on about again and again at his speeches. A dozen years ago, Zuckerberg wrote that immigration was vital to the US’s white-collar economy as he founded an organization to facilitate more of it, aligning with thrust of Barack Obama’s policies with the help of Sandberg.
If one state is biased, so is its replacement. Facebook and Instagram are so large that their terms of service in effect set the Overton window for online conversation across the world. That window has moved to the political right. The politics and laws of the state California allows people obtaining driver’s licenses to choose a non-binary option for their gender, X. Texas, by contrast, bans gender-affirming care for transgender minors. California’s governor has vowed to defend healthcare providers performing out-of-state abortions. Texas instituted a six-week abortion ban in 2021 before Roe v Wade was overturned. The laws and politics of the state will in part determine the acceptable range of discussion on Facebook and Instagram.
The future looks bleak for social media as the right wing in the States seeks to use it to spread its agenda to the rest of the world.
Wednesday, January 08, 2025
Divide and conquer - Jenrick playing dangerous games
The paper says that Jenrick was challenged repeatedly on Tuesday morning for having failed to act on the outcome of an inquiry into grooming gangs while he was in the Home Office, despite now demanding one, and for rarely mentioning the issue in the House of Commons until this year:
Badenoch had previously defended the shadow justice secretary’s right to make the comments, which have caused private disquiet among some Conservative MPs.
“What I have said is that millions of people have come into our country in recent times, but some of them are coming from countries and cultures that have backwards attitudes to women,” Jenrick told Times Radio. “And that’s backed up by the evidence that we have seen from the Jay report and the testimonies of the victims.
“Pakistani men are over-represented in those who are involved in the grooming gangs, and the evidence we have seen is that some of those have specifically preyed upon white, working-class girls because they viewed them as worthless.”
Prof Alexis Jay’s independent inquiry into child sexual abuse did not conclusively find there was an over-representation of Pakistani men, saying it found a lack of data which meant it was “impossible to know whether any particular ethnic group is over-represented as perpetrators of child sexual exploitation by networks”.
The Liberal Democrat deputy leader, Daisy Cooper, said: “Robert Jenrick’s attempt to exploit this appalling scandal for his own political gain is completely shameless. He didn’t lift a finger to help the victims when a minister, now he’s jumping on the bandwagon and acting like a pound shop Farage.
“Kemi Badenoch should sack him as shadow justice secretary and condemn his divisive comments, instead of letting him run a leadership campaign under her nose.”
As serious as this issue is, my party's reaction to this, as with other issues, is becoming rather predictable. They call for people to resign so often that they are devaluing the response and undermining their own case. And this time a call for resignation is actually justified. But what is Jenrick up to?
Well, the Guardian also reports that Tory insiders have privately accused Robert Jenrick of stoking divisions to fuel his own leadership ambitions.
One senior Conservative MP and Badenoch leadership supporter said: “Many in the Conservative party are worried that Jenrick is using the issue of grooming gangs for his own leadership ambitions. Painting a whole culture as alien is nothing short of xenophobic, and undermines the important issue of achieving justice for those poor girls who were let down by so many.
“He is busying toxifying the Conservative brand while [the Reform party leader] Nigel Farage is looking like the reasonable one. All because Kemi has failed to rein him in.”
One former Conservative colleague of Jenrick said he was “poisoning the discourse which could damage a very pertinent and important cause”. Another Tory MP described Jenrick’s morning interviews as a disgrace.
This attempt by Jenrick to carve a constituency for himself is dangerous and irresponsible. A previous Tory leader sacked Enoch Powell when he did something similar, Badenoch should follow suit with her maverick spokesperson and she should do it immediately.
