A hundred and one conspiracy theories

 

Is the novel coronavirus (COV-Sars-2) real? Is it a risk to most people? Are you more likely to be killed in a car accident than die from Covid-19? Or more likely to die in the bath? Was the lockdown a waste of time which cost lives in additional suicides and cancer cases? Should Britain have pursued a ‘herd immunity’ strategy as was the Governments initial plan and modelled themselves on Sweden?

 

Back in March, Sweden’s apparently more relaxed approach appeared to be working. CNBC reported Anders Tegnell, the Public Health Agency epidemiologist in charge of the strategy, as saying:

“Sweden has gone mostly for voluntary measures because that’s how we’re used to working. And we have a long tradition that it works rather well.”

 

Opponents of both the lockdown and mask wearing in the U.K. have seized upon the Swedish approach as evidence that the approach adopted by almost every other country in the World was wrong, if not part of some evil conspiracy to rob them of their freedom.  Sweden’s approach, whilst eschewing a formal lockdown was not quite as laissez faire as its supporters might claim. It relied on responsible social distancing coupled with home working, restrictions on bars and restaurants and the closure of colleges and universities. What seemed to make the policy workable was that the Swedes, unlike the British, have a strong sense of social responsibility.

Fast forward to June 2020. The British Medical Journal had an article by Heba Habib, which claimed that “Sweden’s public was supportive of the strategy 

but is now paying a heavy price.” The Swedish strategy was not one of pretending that the virus does not exist, nor of seeing it as an invented disease by some shadowy organisation as conspiracy theorists would have you believe, but rather was to develop a ‘herd immunity’, the same strategy which the British government were pursuing until they lost their nerve.

 

As Habib notes the early success of the strategy was quickly overtaken by events. “Sweden has the largest number of cases and fatalities in Scandinavia—around 37,000 confirmed cases at the time of writing, compared with its neighbours Denmark, Norway, and Finland which have 12,000, 8,000, and 7,000 cases, respectively. All three neighbouring countries adopted a lockdown approach early in the pandemic, which they are now slowly lifting. All three have since re-opened their borders, but not to Sweden.”

 

Of course since then the numbers have only got worse. As of Tuesday September 8^th Sweden had 85,707 cases, Denmark 18,356, Norway 11,560, and Finland 8,337. Sweden has now recorded 5,836 deaths, a rate closer to the UK’s than any of its Scandinavian neighbours. Herd immunity, it seemed was failing, but this is irrelevant to the anti-lockdown brigade who have no great interest in herd immunity preferring to believe that the virus is an invented disease aimed at preventing them from going to the pub.

 

Essentially, to reach herd immunity requires something above 60% (some experts say as high as 80%, though at least one person has claimed 20% but that is a little fanciful) having acquired immunity. This is done either through a vaccination programme (there is, of course, no vaccine for COVID 19) or by recovering from the virus and developing antibodies which protect you from a further attack. Researchers from Imperial College, London and the University of Oxford have examined data from a number of sources and “the researchers found little evidence for herd immunity and concluded that the decline in cases and deaths was a result of lockdowns, behavioural shifts, social distancing and other interventions.”

 

So contrary to the theory that herd immunity could be reached without a lockdown, there is currently no evidence that anywhere, including Sweden, has achieved herd immunity, and that it is, in fact lockdown measures that have slowed down the spread of cases.

 

There is a fatal flaw in the herd immunity strategy. No, not the lack of a viable vaccine (the latest miracle cure is currently suspended due to a severe adverse reaction in a test subject), but the fact that most people do not want to contract the virus. Indeed, social distancing is designed to prevent herd immunity, so there is a logical flaw at the heart of the World’s approach to the virus. That said, the idea that herd immunity was a viable option was not widely held by scientists who have spent a lifetime studying viruses (one assumes they know slightly more than an oversized boot boy wrapped in a Union Jack). I searched in vain for a reputable expert who was advocating herd immunity as a strategy and could not find a single one. Even Anders Teggers, the Swedish advocate of no-lockdown has taken a less rigid approach as the Swedish model has run into trouble. In an interview with Sverige Radio he conceded:

“If we were to encounter the same disease again, knowing exactly what we know about it today, I think we would settle on doing something in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done.”

An exception is Nobel Laureate Michael Levitt who has received some attention from Covid-deniers impressed by the fact that they appear to have not only an expert on their side, but one with a Nobel prize to his name.  He has claimed that in Britain the government was hoodwinked by epidemiologists whose predictions were wildly inaccurate. Indeed, the team from UCL predicted around 50,000 deaths. The current figure is around 41,614 (worldometers.info), or according to death certificate data, 51,740 (ONS). He has argued that lockdowns have caused more deaths than they saved by increasing suicides and and cancer deaths. 

 

It might also be pointed out that although Professor Levitt is indeed a Nobel prize winner this was for his work as a chemist not for his expertise on virology or epidemiology. Not that this means he is not entitled to an opinion, nor that he cannot be right. However, the fact that he is a Nobel Laureate is used to give his mathematical modelling a credibility it might lack if he was a painter and decorator from Port Talbot who professed a love of numbers.

 

A search of the web reveals what appears to be scientific evidence supporting the view that the lockdown has caused more deaths than it has saved. But, this evidence, on closer examination turns out to be less conclusive than its advocates like to believe. For example, in June psychiatrist Leo Sher published an article in ‘QJM: an international journal of medicine’ in which he proposed that Covid 19 would lead to an increase in suicide rates. Looking at a range of sources he speculated that:

“Social isolation, anxiety, fear of contagion, uncertainty, chronic stress and economic difficulties may lead to the development or exacerbation of stress-related disorders and suicidality in vulnerable populations including individuals with pre-existing psychiatric disorders, low-resilient persons, individuals who reside in high COVID-19 prevalence areas and people who have a family member or a friend who has died of COVID-19.”

 

The key words here are “may lead”, and of course he may prove to be right. But this was translated by anti-lockdown activists as evidence of a 200% increase in suicides due to lockdown. The latest suicide figures for England however for Quarter 2, which is the period of the lockdown show a decline in the rate of suicide to its lowest level since 2001 a rate 0f 6.9 per 100k compared to the lowest ever Q2 rate of 8.7 in 2007.

 

Similarly, a paper in The Lancet by Maringe et al., predicted that there would be an increase in cancer deaths due to the suspension of screening programmes. Their findings make sobering reading:

“..we estimate a 7·9–9·6% increase in the number of deaths due to breast cancer up to year 5 after diagnosis, corresponding to .. 329–358 additional deaths. For colorectal cancer, we estimate ..1534–1592 additional deaths; for lung cancer..1343–1401 additional deaths, a 4·8–5·3% increase; and for oesophageal cancer..336–348 additional deaths, 5·8–6·0% increase up to 5 years after diagnosis.”

 

The key words here are “we estimate”. This is not actual deaths, but estimates based on a range of factors which may or may not turn out to be accurate. I am not saying that these “experts” are wrong, they may well turn out to be correct. Of note though is that they were not advocating a retreat from lockdown but rather:

“..the urgent need for policy interventions to mitigate the predicted additional cancer deaths resulting from delays in diagnosis.”

 

In these cases, professionals with a vested interest in their specialisms are suggesting that as the lockdown proceeded it was necessary to take account of the wider implications for healthcare. They were not intending to provide ammunition for a group of people who refuse to wear masks who suddenly, and against type, have developed a concern for the health of  people who may be worse off than themselves.

 

In addition to these scientific papers Covid-deniers have found support for at least one of their theories in the weekly published death statistics produced by the Office for National Statistics. These provide death statistics according to death certificate classification in addition to a 5-year average. It is this average which has provided the source for some wild speculation. 

 

For week 35 (28^th August) the total number of deaths is recorded as 9,032. The 5-year average is 8,241. The number of Covid deaths is 101, and the number of deaths attributed to pneumonia/flu is 795. This makes it look as one Twitter user claimed that there are 8 times more people dying from flu and pneumonia than from Covid. It is also the case that the excess deaths (the actual deaths minus the 5-year average) is 791. In which case, so it is said, rather than reimposing lockdown measures it is time to abandon them completely. 

 

The first thing to say about these figures is that their interpretation is not as easy as the average social media user might think. For starters deaths from pneumonia/flu are not actually deaths from flu or pneumonia at all, but instances where these are mentioned on the death certificate. As the stats note:

“Note: Deaths could possibly be counted in both causes presented. If a death had an underlying respiratory cause and a mention of COVID-19 then it would appear in both counts.”

So, at least one of the figures could be double counted. My own Father died last December after living with dementia for four years, but it was pneumonia which eventually killed him.

 

More importantly the 5-year average is being treated as a reliable indicator of what the number of deaths ‘should be’ in any week. But it does not take much thinking about this to realise that there is no particular reason why deaths should follow a pattern set by an average. The number of deaths in week 35 have ranged in that 5 year period from 7,865 to 9,036. That higher figure is remarkably close to the figure recorded for 2020. Indeed, since lockdown was introduced, excluding Covid deaths there have been 14 weeks where the number of deaths is below the 5-year average, compared to 10 where it has been higher. This pattern would be the similar with or without Covid.  In most weeks the death figures are well within a range that might be expected.  So, any speculation about an excess figure based on the average is just that – speculation.

 

The danger is that public discourse becomes so dominated by a small minority highjacking the genuine concerns of ordinary people that these kinds of papers and statistics become abused to promote an anti-health agenda. This is clearly not what the authors intended. Incidentally, the statistics for cancer deaths are released about two years behind so we won’t know whether there is an increase in deaths due to the lockdown until at least 2022.

 

Most considered opinion on the spread of viruses suggests that the only way to stop the spread of a virus which goes from person to person is to limit contact between people. Of course, the death rate might have come down anyway. But, nobody knows that anymore than I know whether cancer deaths will rise due to the lockdown. It is plausible that the environmental affects of the lockdown (a lowering of workplace stress, a reduction in traffic pollution) could actually cause cancer rates to fall during the lockdown. But, we will never know for certain.

 

What we do know is that wherever the lockdown has been lifted the number of cases has started to rise. Right now we are in the midst of mini-epidemics fuelled by foreign travel and school returns which have seen local lockdowns imposed in Bolton, Birmingham and Caerphilly. But this assumes that we know what a case is. Again, there is plenty of misinformation being circulated on the web, but according to the American Centre for Disease Control:

“A case definition is a set of standard criteria for classifying whether a person has a particular disease, syndrome, or other health condition.”

 

There are some standard uses of cases allowing for cross comparison, but there is no single definition of a case. Which means that attempts by anti-Covid campaigners to argue that a case only refers to somebody hospitalised as per standard epidemiological practice is pure bunkum. The definition of a confirmed case, as defined by the World Health Organisation is:

“A person with laboratory confirmation of COVID-19 infection, irrespective of clinical signs and symptoms.”

Nobody is simply counting anybody who self reports as a case. To be a case you need to have tested positive and that positive test must be confirmed by a laboratory.

The attempt by anti-Covid groups to suggest that both the number of cases and the death rates are lower than published (in reality they are likely to be higher) is part of a campaign to present Covid 19 as of little consequence. An anti-lockdown conspiracist told me that I was more likely to die in a road accident than from Covid. Not so. The latest figures for road accident deaths in England are from 2019 and total 1,870 (according to the RAC). I have also been told that deaths from Covid are less likely than being hit by lightning (hardly, there was only one death from a lightning strike in the U.K. last year), or that I was more likely to die in the bath (unlikely as I only have a shower, but whilst there are no statistics for drowning in the bath, official stats reveal that 321 people drowned in the U.K. last year). An oft repeated claim is that more people die from flu. That is not true. There were 1,692 deaths from flu in England last year, but like Covid 19, flu is a contagious disease, which is more than can be said for drowning, crashing your car, being hit by lightning, or even cancer or suicide.

 

As an aside I was in hospital during February and March and whilst there a patient on my ward was diagnosed with flu. I suddenly found myself on an isolation ward and all visitors had to wear masks as did I. But here is the point. I was not happy being in a ward with a person with flu, but I was not terrified that I would die if I caught it. I just worried that my operation would be held up whilst I recovered. I can tell you however that had that man had Covid 19 symptoms I would have been extremely worried because as contagious as flu might be I know that it is unlikely it will kill me (I usually get flu symptoms about once a year), I am not so confident that I would survive Covid 19. I also know that for some people Covid 19 has long term health affects, I am not aware that is the case with flu.

 

The majority of the population in the U.K. support the lockdown measures as can be seen in a number of opinion polls carried out since it began.

The truth is that those who are campaigning against lockdown measures, social distancing and mask wearing have no great interest in either Covid 19 or freedom.  Those opposing the lockdown tend to be right wingers who are using some public disquiet over the handling of the pandemic to recruit people to their perverted ideologies. Whilst they happily quote statistics, some real some imagined, few of them have the intellectual skills necessary to understand the papers on which they are based. An article in the journal ‘Personality and Individual Differences’ based on a survey of 640 individuals found a positive correlation between believing conspiracy theories related to Covid 19 and low educational attainment. It is this demographic who were most likely to vote for Brexit, and also most likely to support the Conservatives in the last General Election. People attracted to the right tend to be less empathetic and less accepting of change, and very often come from deprived backgrounds where they have been subjected to abuse. Of course, there are those amongst the Covid deniers who are perfectly capable of understanding statistics and are choosing to use them for their own ends. Sometimes those ends are overtly political (and not always right-wing), but sometimes just an irritation that a Worldwide pandemic has interfered with what they considered ‘normal life’.

 

What we now have is a perfect storm. Politicians in government, clearly way out of their depth, sending at best mixed and at worst muddled messages. A body politic in the U.K. and USA which has shifted right wards, and a pandemic that has as its best form of defence restrictions on personal liberty. We should remember that for all the noise made by the conspiracy theorists they remain a minority. But rather than making the mistake that the People’s Vote campaign made and calling our opponents thick and uncouth, we should recognise that if confronted with evidence the less committed can be shifted away from the right. The vacuum has been left by established parties (particularly the Labour Party in the U.K.) in thrall to the right-wing dominated media and terrified to speak out lest they lose the support of voters who never supported them in the first place.

 

Sars-Covid-2 is real. It is potentially lethal. It is most definitely not a plot to enslave people. Those arguing such are claiming for the lockdown precisely what they would like to do. The internet and social media have given them a platform greater than they could previously have dreamed of, but the numbers are relatively small. My greatest scorn is not for Covid deniers, per se, but for academics such as Michael Levitt who for some reason known only to their own inflated ego have chosen to use their status to promote theories (and that is all they are, theories) which have the result of undermining public health measures.

 

The left in democracies have always seen education as a key to their role. In this current crisis, with national figures and the media gleefully repeating conspiracy theories as if they are fact we have an even greater imperative to try to help our fellow citizens see through the fog. Covid 19 cannot be defeated politically or by an act of will. It is a health issue that requires a public health approach. Hygiene and safe distancing are what we all can do whilst those with the skill work on developing a vaccine. Stay safe.

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Labour’s election strategy

 

Regular readers of this blog (yes, there are one or two of you) will know that I have been very far from being a supporter of Labour leader Keir Starmer. But, I have to confess that he has been successful at capturing the hearts and minds of the ‘centrist’ media. That is to say the Corbyn-hating media who did so much to deliver this Tory government. To Labour’s right-wing and their media echo chamber Starmer represents the light to the dark days of Jeremy Corbyn.

 

According to The Independent’s John Rentoul, Starmer is doing “opposition by numbers.” This is a softly-softly approach to opposition which consists mainly of saying the Tories are incompetent, as if most people hadn’t noticed. With the exception of a few embittered lefties (that’ll be me then) who “represent a minority in the Labour Party and an even smaller minority among the wider electorate”, this strategy is, supposedly winning over an electorate because, “by the next election, that may be what the British people want to vote for.”

 

New Statesman Political Editor, Stephen Bush, writing in The Guardian tells us that “As summer nears its end, most people have heard of the Labour leader and most of them like him.” This, based on a poll which found him level with Boris Johnson on a popularity scale. It is true that PoliticsHome website report a YouGov poll which gave him a 2 point lead over Johnson, but the Tories still led Labour by 6 points. YouGov rate him the 20^th most famous Labour politician. It would be churlish to mention Jeremy Corbyn tops the list, but SirKeir is beaten by, amongst others Ed Balls, Alistair Darling, Harriet Hartman and Hilary Benn. With four years to go before a General Election, Starmer’s supporters in the press are mostly, it seems, just relieved that a virtually anonymous Opposition Leader is not Jeremy Corbyn.

 

Despite his trumpeted support from sections of the media The Economist, not a traditional Labour ally, reports that under SirKeir Labour is supported by 45% of managerial and professional voters compared to 30% of low-skilled manual workers. The Tories have 35% and 48% of those groups. This, according to polling by Ipsos-MORI. This is interesting because this is precisely the opposite of what new Director of Policy, Claire Ainsley suggests is the key to Labour winning the next election.

 

In an article in Politico titled ‘How Keir Starmer Plans To Make Labour Great Again’ winning back the so-called “Red Wall” is presented as central to Labour’s strategy for winning the next election. The goal is to convince Labour deserters that their values – “ left-wing economically, but socially conservative, patriotic, proud of the armed forces, on low to middle incomes” – are Labour values. 

 

The theory is that in the so-called Red Wall that Labour supporters deserted to the Tories. A typical example is Don Valley where Blairite Caroline Flint lost in 2019. At first look the evidence for a massive desertion seems credible. Caroline Flint from a majority of 5,169 in 2017 came second 3,630 votes behind the Tory. Clearly Labour voters must have voted Tory. Labour lost 8,372 votes. What proportion of those went to the Tories? Precisely 5.1%. The Tories gained exactly 427 votes. So, where are all these Labour turned Tory voters? The fact is they do not exist. 

 

Empirical evidence is never as exciting as pandering to prejudices, and the Labour establishment is nothing if not riddled with prejudice. Following the election the right-wing of the party, aided and abetted by their friendly media, went into overdrive to hide their own role in Labour’s defeat. Key to this was what has become a de facto truth: Labour voters became Tory because the Tories better captured their values. The key to winning in future was to win back those voters by convincing them that their values were shared by a new, modern, Labour Party. Short of calling it ‘The Third Way’ it could not have been more of a tribute to the Blair years.

 

The analysis is based on Claire Ainsley’s book, written whilst she was Director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, called ‘The New Working Class’. In this, according to Politico, she argues “.. that people's political choices are based on core moral values, among them care and fairness, but also … respect for tradition and loyalty to community and nation.” In an article in ConservativeHome in 2018 Ainsley gave a  précis  of her argument. The class structure in the U.K. has changed, she suggests. The old working class barely exists and has been replaced by a new working class:

“It is made up of people doing jobs in the service sector like retail, hospitality and care; it is multi-ethnic, and diverse; living off low to middle incomes. The new working class is not some distant grouping: it is in every town, city, village, high street, office, shop and place of work. It makes up nearly half the population.”

 

This half of the population allegedly share some common values: “four values stood out for the new working class, and amongst all groups: family, fairness, hard work and decency.” The good thing was that “Labour has a closer alignment with the values felt to be most important to the new working class, and the wider general public.” 

 

A former senior Tory aide quoted by Politico, sees SirKeir’s strategy as signalling a change in Labour. It is not said, neither does it have to be, but SirKeir is jettisoning any commitment to socialism, or the values supposedly held by half the population in 2018 (half way through Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure as leader incidentally). 

 

“I think it is a shift toward a greater respect for tradition, a greater reverence for the nation, a more patriotic politics that [Claire] Ainsley represents and has spoken about,”  It is a recognition “that people are more instinctively small-c conservative than small-l liberal in lots of their views.” 

The evidence for this can be seen in SirKeir’s failure to support Black Lives Matter, describing it as a ‘moment’, his sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey over his disagreement about supporting the teaching unions, his opinion pieces in The Daily Telegraph where he describes his own “patriotism”, and the Daily Mail where he insisted that children should return to school regardless of whether their parents (or their teachers) felt it was safe to do so. All of this makes sense, not just in terms of distancing himself from the socialism of his predecessor but also in a belief that in order to win Tory supporting new working class voters it is necessary to reflect back to them their values.

Claire Ainsley is clearly critical to the policies that Labour will fight the next election on, and they will not be on a manifesto that was regarded as undeliverable. The softening up process by which Labour will relinquish the policies SirKeir promised to keep, will be a slow burn. But, essentially, that process will be sold to Labour members as one of electability. As Simon Heffer in the New Statesman says: 

“When the Labour Party promised to revolutionise public spending and ensure that only the wealthiest 5 per cent of taxpayers funded it, these voters were not merely sceptical, but incredulous.

More than this, when free broadband was thrown to the voters as an additional bone, and £58bn plucked from the air to compensate women born in the Fifties disadvantaged by changes to pension rights, it failed to stimulate a surge towards Labour. To judge from the results, few people believed either was wise or feasible.”

Voters, it appeared, were not beguiled by Brexit after all, nor were they overly bothered by anti-Semitism, but the idea of free broadband was a deal breaker for the new working class. As Lisa Nandy said whilst on the leadership stump her constituents didn’t want broadband they wanted buses to run on time. As if the two were mutually incompatible.

The main problem with this rewriting of history is that it doesn’t begin “once upon a time..”, for despite being widely believed by Labour MPs it is a complete fairytale. Labour’s 2019 policies, which are being systematically undermined by the Labour front bench and their supporters in the media were actually incredibly popular. At least according to a poll conducted by YouGov a few days before the election and reported in Labour List. 60% approved of increasing tax on earnings over £80,000, with 23% saying they were against. When asked about increasing tax on earnings over £123,000, 64% were in favour compared to just 20% against. When asked whether the government should “tax the wealth (i.e. assets, property, investment) of people earning over a certain amount”, 53% were supportive of the policy, while only 30% of people actively expressed their opposition. YouGov found that 56% of people supported nationalising the railways compared to 22% against; 50% of people were for nationalising water companies with just 25% against; and support for nationalisation of gas and electric companies stood at 45% in favour and 29% against. YouGov did a specific poll when Labour announced it’s policy to provide free and fast broadband for everyone. 62% expressed their support for the idea, compared to 22% against the policy. Sorry Mr. Heffer but maybe it was Brexit after all.

Since December 20^th there has been a concerted campaign by Labour’s parliamentarian right-wing to blame the loss on a) Jeremy Corbyn himself b) the “radical” manifesto and c) the number of Labour voters from 2017 who voted Tory. This narrative and I don’t want to repeat it here has been given a theoretical underpinning since the appointment of Claire Ainsley in April this year. As the Mail on Sunday gleefully reported:

“As well as believing that leaving the EU is an 'opportunity' for Britain, Claire Ainsley is an ardent pro-family campaigner…Ms Ainsley, who becomes one of the most powerful figures in the party hierarchy, spent years calling on politicians to listen to voters unhappy about the EU and immigration.”

 

The ex-Tory Chairman and now “independent” pollster, Lord Ashcroft carried out survey and focus group research shortly after the election. Amongst all voters two issues dominated the reason why people had not voted Labour: a dislike of Jeremy Corbyn and Labour’s Brexit policy (concocted mainly by Corbyn’s successor Keir Starmer). But among Labour voters, and lets not forget there were 10 million of them, there was a definite feeling that the most important reason for voting Labour was simply to get rid of the Tories which was chosen by 71%, followed by Labour’s commitment to public services (61%), Labour’s policies (52%) and identification with Labour values (42%). 

 

What Lord Ashcroft and the dozens of right-wing media pundits who lapped up his report took from it was that Jeremy Corbyn and left-wing policies more generally, were unpopular. What they never questioned was why Jeremy Corbyn was so unpopular when the policies he was promoting had such widespread public support. Indeed, Lord Ashcroft’s report was in keeping with the ideas being promoted by the right-wing of Labour, supporters of whom overwhelmingly endorsed the proposal that “the most important thing is to win a General Election even if that means making a compromise on principles.” If winning is all, then it really doesn’t matter what policies you win on. If to win it is necessary to be racist, to be sexist, to be anti-trade union, to pursue policies that are pro-business and anti-worker then so be it. In other words, for many long-standing Labour members policies are not at all important. And, neither is socialism.

For Claire Ainsley, and presumably now the over-bloated Labour Shadow Cabinet the key to winning is telling prospective voters exactly what they want to hear. If they are patriotic, then we’ll be patriotic, if they are against immigration then we’ll dust off those anti-immigration mugs, if they want kids back in schools and blame the teachers then we’ll distance ourselves from the teaching unions, and definitely make no attempt to repeal the anti-trade union laws because that might upset our target voters. And, who are this new working class that hold the key to our fortunes? Claire Ainsley gave a description of them in I-News:

“People living on low to middle incomes in Britain’s modern economy today undertake hundreds of different types of jobs, employed as shop workers, bar tenders, teaching assistants, cleaners, cooks, secretaries, delivery workers and so on. A reasonable proportion combine work with caring or other responsibilities. Typically they would have an annual income less than the median of £27,310. But even though most will be working, they may struggle to meet their costs. The issues research found concerned them most are finances and debt; health; immigration; caring responsibilities; work; and housing.”

 

According to Government statistics the proportion of people in service industries is around 60% of the employed population. The problem, or at least one problem with the analysis presented by Claire Ainsley in her articles, is that she conflates three variables: employment, income and values. Let’s just briefly talk about the last of these. 

 

If her contention is that over half of the population share common values it is likely that the values are likely to be so vague as to be meaningless. After all is ‘family’ a value at all? What does it mean to say “I believe in family.” We might hazard a guess but it is unlikely that whatever you think would be the same as what I think. Similarly, ‘decency’ means, well, what exactly? Even ‘hard work’ seems more an invocation or aspiration than a value. Which leaves us with ‘fairness’. Given that the great political philosopher John Rawls wrote 4 books and dozens of articles trying to enunciate his idea of ‘justice as fairness’ it seems fair to argue that as values go fairness is no more helpful to policy formulation than ‘equality’. Perhaps less so because at least equality suggests that a remedy is needed for an objective reality, whereas feeling that something is unfair is precisely that, a feeling.

 

Ainsley’s, and now it seems Starmer’s, analysis hinges on an assertion that half of the population are in low paying, service jobs and that it is this reality that leads them to their particular values. This is doubtful on an empirical level. As a YouGov poll carried out following the 2019 election surmises: the two most significant variables explaining voting are age and education. Broadly speaking, the younger the voter and the better educated the more likely to vote Labour. Class, whilst important, is less significant.

The point though is not that Ainsley’s analysis may be flawed, though that may turn out to be the case, but that Starmer has brought Ainsley in precisely because he thinks her analysis holds the key to victory. That analysis is already seeing the light of day as Starmer and his loyalist front bench are pursuing policies which are aimed at this “new” working class. What is interesting about this strategy is that changing popular progressive policies to appeal to a mythical conservative (with a small c) voter may gain a few voters in some swing seats, but it also runs the very real risk of losing existing voters who were attracted to the party because of its radical agenda. The question for Starmer and Ainsley is will they gain enough voters to offset the abstainers and defectors, and will they gain them in places where it will result in more seats rather than lose them in places where it will cost seats?

 

For Starmer, much like the Blairites who support him, selling a political party is very like selling any other product. On that analogy if the Tories are Kellogg’s Cornflakes, and Labour is Aldi’s own brand the pitch is ‘buy our cornflakes because they taste exactly the same as Kellogg’s.’ I don’t know about you but if I’m going to buy a different brand of cornflakes I would only do so if there was something radically different and better than the original well known brand. Perhaps that’s because I’m old working class and simply don’t understand why somebody telling me exactly what I want to hear is not particularly compelling. But for those in the Labour Party selling our own-brand of Toryism is precisely what we will be asked to do in the next few years. Some people, some who regard themselves on the left, will do so on the basis that our brand of Toryism is better than the established brand. For me, I’m giving up cornflakes for the foreseeable future, just lately I’ve found they have been sticking in my throat.

 

Postscript:  After all, it’s still policies, stupid!

I’m genuinely interested in what motivates people to vote in certain ways. This Twitter poll, carried out this week (and as unscientific as most polls these days) suggests that policies are the key motivator for most Labour supporters. 

Though judging by the comments they felt “the other sides” voters were impressed by simplistic slogans. 

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The question for Labour is: does it want to be a party with policies that attract support or one who follows blindly behind whatever slogans appeal to a demographic they may never win anyway?

 

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The Road To Socialism

 

The road to socialism is not easy, that’s for sure. Two hundred years after the word ‘socialism’ was first used we still seem no closer to realising it. For the most part socialists content themselves with opposing the forces of reaction that rage around us. But, if all we do is stand on the sidelines shouting that things could be better we are little better than those men who used to frequent town centres with their ‘The End Is Nigh’ signs. Still can’t decide whether they were genuinely crazy or amazingly prescient.

 

I am going to propose that the mistake of the left historically is to over-estimate their own role in the process. This is based, in part at least, in my understanding of the Hegelian influenced views of Karl Marx which came to be called dialectical materialism. What this unwieldy sounding phrase means is that things hold within them the seeds of their antithesis. To put that simply, if you think of a daffodil, it was first a bulb. The bulb held within it the daffodil, and in becoming a daffodil the bulb was transformed out of existence.

 

Apply this to society and we can suggest that as capitalism transformed feudalism out of existence, so socialism will (eventually) transform capitalism out of existence. Socialism is not a break from capitalism, but rather it’s completion. For those who think of socialism as a totally different sort of society this might take a little convincing. The fact is without capitalism there could not be socialism. For it is capitalism, big bad nasty capitalism, that has provided socialism with all the tools it needs for the future socialist society. 

 

Think of the tools we have, and try to forget about how the tools are in others hands for a moment. We already have democracy, we have expanded the productive capabilities of the Earth to provide in abundance for everybody (admittedly not without some environmental issues), we have roads, rail, and an infrastructure even the Romans would have envied, we have hospitals, schools, farms, factories, even offices and shops at least some of which might still be useful. Perhaps, most crucially we have technology which allows us to connect beyond our immediate environs. Indeed, almost everything we need to take humanity to a new level already exists. So when people say what will socialism look like, the answer is much like this only better and arranged to the benefit of all not a few.

 

This all being true there are a couple of minor hitches. Namely, the avaricious rich and the comfortable, smug, middle classes who do all they can to support the rich. Unfortunately, between them these groups control parliaments, war machines, propaganda industries and indeed just about everything else. So, how do we prise their control from them?

 

One possibility, the one dreamed of by generations of socialists, includes the equivalent of storming the Bastille. Or, an armed insurrection a la Fidel Castro. I’m not saying these would not be effective or desirable but they would also involve many people giving their lives in what might well be a futile gesture. There is nothing romantic about being dead incidentally. But I see this happening another way. Change will most likely come at a time of shortages and hardship, as people take to the streets against their rulers, and as their rulers lose their legitimacy by failing to provide the basics. The middle classes, so important in maintaining the status quo, will lose faith in the ruling class and quite likely defect to the class that seems best equipped to provide it with something resembling the lifestyle to which they feel they are entitled (entitlement figures large in middle class life, as I’m sure you know).

 

Harvard academic Erica Chenowith has calculated that it takes just 3.5% of the population to affect radical change. But the crucial factor in successful movements are general strikes which, she says “are probably one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, single method of nonviolent resistance.” A successful “revolution” can not occur by disgruntled middle class lackeys turning on their erstwhile providers. They do not have anything like the power they like to think. 

 

I hesitate here to use the word revolution because it has become a cliché. And, whilst revolutions do occur they are usually the end of an evolutionary process. But, the transformation to socialism is likely to be brought about by general strikes of manufacturing workers who still comprise a sizeable portion of the workforce. In the USA almost 12 million workers are employed in manufacturing. In the U.K. in 2018, according to government statistics, manufacturing accounts for 10% of GDP, but 42% of exports. It employs almost 3 million people.

 

What Marx called the industrial proletariat has not disappeared as many sociologists would have you believe, but has simply relocated. Of course, general strikes will involve more than just industrial workers: teachers, nurses, firefighters, office workers, bar workers will all play a role. I used to think that workers were most likely to take action when times were good, because they had more confidence. That may be true, but it is also true that when times are good and profit margins high employers can make concessions which can always be taken back at a later date.

 

Transformative change will not occur when the capitalist class and its lackey class are themselves confident. This is why the gradual, reformist road to socialism proposed by generations of Labour Party activists is so wide of the mark. In good times those reforms are used to buy off radicalism. In bad times they are snatched back from a movement weakened from within. 

 

There is a balance between demands for change and the capacity of the system to allow that change. The reason those of us in the so-called developed nations have decent homes, jobs, holidays, access to education, even the vote was not because capitalists are a benign group of humanitarians, but rather because generations of ordinary people have fought for better conditions. By constantly moving capital, and importantly production, around the globe the ruling class have been able to buy off dissent at home whilst maintaining profit margins. Our better standards of living have been bought at the expense of exploited workers elsewhere. But rather than feeling guilty about that it is the job of socialists to stand with those workers as they pressure capital for the conditions we take for granted.

 

Capitalism has always relied on pitting workers against each other. There is no particularly good reason to discriminate against people on grounds of gender or ethnicity. From a capitalist perspective one worker is pretty much the same as another. However, individual capitals do benefit from playing off workers against one another. If male workers think they are worth more than female ones it helps keep the wages of both lower than they would likely be if they were united. So the transformation to socialism will have to sweep away centuries of prejudice and discrimination. And, it is here that socialists (together with other radical thinkers who don’t necessarily identify as socialists) come in to the equation.

There are some on the left who believe that they can foment socialist revolution. But, revolutions do not occur because of revolutionary parties. Revolutions occur when there is a class who can no longer rule and a class that can rule ready to replace them. Socialists however are not engaged in fruitless activity. Well, not necessarily and not by design. It is important that as we get closer to a period of upheaval that the new dominant ideas are not just a variant of the old ones. If humanity is to progress it is not just the material basis of socialism that is important, but the ideas that accompany it.

 

For some people on the left, the socialist revolution will sweep away all the old ideas and we will all live happily ever after. Of course, this is a fairytale. At the point of transformation millions of people will be cut adrift with all their beliefs challenged by circumstance. We can imagine who they will blame for the loss of their certainty. And, it won’t be capitalism. How strong socialism is at this intersection of decaying capitalism and emergent socialism may well be crucial in whether we do, as Rosa Luxemburg said, descend into barbarism or rise into a socialist future. Arguments had in the here and now, ideas spread through social media, discussions among fellow socialists will help to shape the future.

 

What is important is to realise that there is an end goal. Not a Labour (UK) or Democrat (USA) victory at an election, but the goal of influencing the transformation of society when it inevitably occurs. The more discussed socialist ideas are, the more we counteract the vile racist, sexist, nationalism of the mainstream, the more likely the end of capitalism will result in a freer, more democratic, more equal society rather than the authoritarianism which lurks on our horizon permanently.

 

The road to socialism is in sight. As capitalism is unable to survive its own contradictions, it will result in shortages, strikes, mass demonstrations. Has this process begun? Possibly, I don’t know. How will we know? Can’t help there either. Which demos, which strikes, which shortages will be fatal to the capitalist epoch it is not possible to say. As socialists we must prepare ourselves for the possibility it won’t happen in our lifetime, but at the same time keep the flame burning so that if it does we are not a tiny minority. We can’t make socialism happen, what we can do is ensure that the idea of socialism grows to that of a counter dominant idea.

 

 

Can you imagine...

Can you imagine a World without war, without refugees, without multinational companies, without billionaires? Can you imagine a World where nobody, especially children, goes hungry? A World where people are judged on their character not on where they were born, or their skin colour, sexual preference or gender. A World where ordinary people have a say in the decisions that affect them, where democracy is valued more highly than weaponry and where every decision taken has at least one eye on the environmental impact so that the World is preserved for future generations. If you can then you are a socialist. You may also be a feminist or an environmentalist – these things are not mutually exclusive. To hold these beliefs you don’t have to be British, European or English-speaking, because socialism is an international language.

 

Contrary to what some people might think you do not need to be poor to be a socialist. Actually, it makes little difference how much wealth you currently possess, socialism is not a creed based on envy. You do not have to hate billionaires, I don’t know any billionaires, do you? But, in a socialist society whilst nobody would be a billionaire (simply because nobody needs that much of the cake) those who currently have wealth will benefit just as much as those who are currently poor. Not in terms of their material wealth, but rather in terms of their general well-being. They will no longer live in fear of losing their wealth, but rather will live their lives as human beings engaged in a common endeavour to raise the well-being of everybody not just a tiny minority. Increasingly, a minority who were born with wealth, acquire more wealth and are encouraged to think that this alone makes them superior to others who have not been so lucky.

 

As socialists we want to create a society in which work is not just a means to earn a living, but a way in which we express our inherent creativity. Where boring, repetitive work rather than being the function of a class of people is either mechanised or done collaboratively. Nobody will want to have servants, cleaners or menial workers. More importantly, no self-respecting citizen in a socialist society would be prepared to be so demeaned as to be reduced to cleaning up after others, apart perhaps from their own family.

 

Would there be wage differentials? Indeed, would there be wages as we currently understand them? It is relatively easy to imagine a World without money for, as Marx described it, money is the ‘universal panderer’, a more efficient means of exchange than simple barter. But, money has become more and more obsolete, a process speeded by the pandemic where most transactions are done using an electronic transfer of figures on a sophisticated spreadsheet. Where once currency was related to something material – the gold standard, which both Britain and the United States abandoned in the 1930’s, it is now related only to a country’s need to print currency. So, what does money represent? It represents value, specifically surplus value which is the means to capitalist profit. Without profit as the goal of all human endeavour what role would money play?

 

Can you imagine working for the intrinsic pleasure of doing so? Not in the job you do now necessarily, but in socially useful work of one sort or another? Can you imagine a society where instead of working to earn a wage that barely allowed you to survive, you worked because there were jobs to do that would benefit your community? Such a World is not only possible but is pregnant within capitalist society. Let us be clear that capitalism has achieved plenty in terms of lifting the living standards of millions of people and creating efficient systems of production. But it is now a fetter to the further development of humanity. It can only reproduce the structures we now have that work only for the few, a few that are constantly at war with each other in a desperate attempt to maintain their market position. Socialism has to change the relations of production using all the methods bequeathed by capitalism.

 

Work, specifically production, would no longer be organised on the basis of private capital. We have been victims of a great fraud in which natural resources, which should be common resources, have been stolen by private individuals and companies. We have been conned into thinking that private enterprise is efficient and innovative whilst public enterprise is wasteful and inefficient. This is plainly not the case. Without public schools, hospitals, universities, roads, electricity grids etc private enterprise could not exist. Without public expenditure the private sector would certainly not appear efficient, and it is arguable that it is any more innovative than the public sector.

 

People do not have good ideas because somebody pays them to do so, they have good ideas because they have a curious mind. The private sector is a parasite, creaming off the profits when times are good and demanding state handouts when times are bad. If you want to know who are the real benefit scroungers look no further than the banks. On October 8^th 2008 they received a rescue package worth £500 billion in the U.K. alone to bail them out because of their pitifully poor (and greed driven) business practices. In April this year, £7.5 billion was paid to big business to help them survive the COVID pandemic. In 2019 EasyJet which received £600 million in the package posted pre-tax profits of £427 million; Greggs which received £150 million had profits in 2019 of £108.3 million. 

 

Now perhaps there is an argument for not letting banks go to the wall, but why should you and I pay our taxes to support a budget airline and a sandwich maker? Admittedly these are unusual times but these transfers from the public purse to the private are not unusual. A socialist society would not see profits as the be-all and end-all of human endeavour. Far more important than how much would be what worth? Worth would no longer be counted in dollars or pounds, but in whether it would increase the well-being of people whilst at the same time protecting the environment for future generations. And, innovation far from being left in the hands of a privileged elite would emerge from ordinary people having good ideas, that their community wanted to develop. And, what worked in one community would be shared in others allowing all humanity to benefit from the innovation of each other.

 

But, how would things be organised if there were not employers, managers and professional politicians to tell us what to do, how to do it and, critically, what to think? Can you imagine a society where ordinary people would have a say in all those important decisions? From whether there should be a new school, road or housing estate to how rubbish was collected, streets were cleaned or what the speed limits should be? The experts, the real experts, on your local community are the people who live in it, not the egoists who profess to speak on your behalf. Democracy will not be casting a vote for one of an identikit array of people who want to “represent” you. A socialist democracy would create an informed electorate who would make decisions based on both evidence and their lived experiences. The officials and administrators would not work for the mayor or the local council but for the people. All positions of civic responsibility would be open to all, shared and subject to democratic recall.

 

We have been conditioned to think that the epitome of democracy is the possibility to vote for a representative every few years. These representatives then go some way from the communities they ostensibly represent and make decisions in their own career interests, which may not always align with the interests of those who voted for them. Liberal democracy is held up as some kind of gold standard in which the only debate is how to vote for those representatives: essentially a choice between first-past-the-post or some form of proportional representation. But it is possible to imagine a democracy which was more direct. They had such a democracy for a short time in the Paris Commune. Liberal democracy is certainly preferable to autocracy. But, the debate we never have is what do we want the democracy to provide? Is it a means to provide a good career and networking opportunities for a small cadre of people, or is it the means by which decisions are taken which have the consent of a majority of people affected by them? Is it a place to discuss the concerns of a small elite or a place or places where ordinary citizens can express their views and pursue projects they consider worthwhile?

 

Autocratic rule is always accompanied by an attempt to close down the free press. Presently in western democracies the press and media serves the interest of a minority and rather than holding power to account, assists power to cover up the defects of its own system. Socialists do not fear a genuine free press, we encourage a press that can report the news impartially and ask awkward questions. The media will not, as now, be dominated by the privately educated but as private education would be an anachronism, would be staffed by people from all walks of life. Ordinary people in a socialist society would have a significant role to play in the media, in culture, in the judiciary, in decision making, indeed in every facet of socialist life. In short, in sweeping away social class socialism would bring ordinary people from the shadows into the light.

 

Of course, this sounds ridiculous because the petit bourgeois and bourgeoisie have convinced us that they, and they alone, have what the Liberal theorist John Rawls describes as “talent and abilities”. This is quite a neat trick for it has convinced generations of workers that the boring, low paid jobs that they are forced to do in order to survive are exactly what they are supposed to do in order that those with “talent and ability” can have better jobs, better houses and just a better life all round. But what is a ‘talent’ or an ‘ability’ – is it really the case that the children of better off parents are born naturally talented? Do poor people possess none of the abilities that bring esteem in our society? The future socialist society in bringing about an end to class society will also sweep aside such childish notions. 

 

At the heart of the socialist endeavour will be lifelong education. What this will mean is that every citizen will be continually able to test their abilities, for without trying things how is anybody supposed to know whether they can do them well? How is it that those from wealthy backgrounds can find out that they can (or can’t) play the piano, or dance, or act or compose? Where exactly is it written that if your parents are rich you will have talent, but if your parents are poor you do not? In a socialist society the ending of class distinctions based on wealth and income will mean that every child, no matter who their parents, will have a, roughly, equal chance to excel in whatever natural tendencies they possess. 

 

Can you imagine an education system which is not obsessed with cramming children’s heads with “facts” that mean little to them and then testing them on their memory of those disconnected facts? Education should be about preparing young people for adult life, but it should also be about teaching people how to solve problems and make decisions. In case anybody thinks that in the society I am describing children would be forced to recite Marx, Lenin and Mao, rest assured whilst these theorists would be accessible for study nobody in a society based on maximising freedom will be forced to recite obscure texts, and that includes the bible, Quran and Torah, though of course all of these texts will be accessible so that people can explore their spirituality or not, as their predilection takes them.

 

The socialist education system would be, because it will have to be, holistic. Currently education is used as a means to further the class system by turning out pegs for holes. Thinking skills are low down the list, as are basic survival skills. Of course, we will still want people to learn math, science and technology, but to do so in an environment where life skills – problem solving, morality, ethics, politics, physical and emotional well-being -  are developed.

 

Can you imagine a World where the concept of nationality was of no more importance than the concept of height. Where Nationalism would be as unimportant as the colour of your hair? In such a World racism would be swept away as we learned to relate to each other on a human level. There would be no more “illegal” immigrants because we would live in a World without borders. And, whilst naturally people on different parts of the planet would have different cultures related to their particular circumstances, they would share freely with one another the fruits of their labour.

 

In short, where do we want to be? A World without irrelevant distinctions, a World where men and women, regardless of skin colour, ethic background, religion or other arbitrary factors would be accorded the maximum freedom compatible with the same for others. A World where civic duty and responsibility would be the background to everything we do. A World where resources far from being scarce and something to hoard and fight over would be marshalled to the benefit of all. A World, one World, where the sum of individuals would not be isolated individuals but a Worldwide commonwealth of freethinking, free acting citizens pursuing their individual abilities for the benefit of all. A World in which each would put in what they were able and take out what they needed. A socialist World.

 

How do we get to this World? That is the subject for next week’s blog.