So the business of running the country resumes,
We can resume the national sport —
Bending over backwards
to accommodate transnational capital
Few call out how similar the line the Daily Mail trots out is to Labour’s.
Alex Brummer, the Mail’s City Editor, is forever warning about foreign takeovers.
So’s Larry Elliott of the Guardian.
Mail Business Editor Ruth Sunderland who, like Brummer, is ex Guardian, can’t stand Corbyn and McDonnell.
Despite holding identical views on the fleecing of the worker, the consumer, and the shareholder.
So is this country’s progressive opposition actually just an occasional alliance between the few business journos that manage to get genuine stories into the press, and a few backbench & opposition MPs who then put them in front of Select Committees?
Does the non-binding scrutiny of select committees lead to consistent meaningful progressive change?
The very few people who own newspapers, tv stations and silicon valley social media platforms can, of course, run their own campaigns.
And of course there may be some autonomy in the News Room.
For the rest of us, the shop is closed.
Progressive change is slow and often torpedoed by lobbyists.
But how else to allow the “growth” of the economy while allowing for a bit of social justice?
This appears to be as far as Press Barons would stretch — they are the ones who matter — guardians of public opinion — controllers of dissent.
And they prefer their ad revenue, tax avoidance, financial portfolios and blackmail rackets to acknowledging their readers’ views thirst for community, opportunity and genuine political change.
So real change, at scale, never happens.
Foreign Takeovers
British Steel and Cobham are traditional UK Industrial and Defence firms. If they are to be key to the UK’s future strategy then they ought to be saved. But if the UK plans to be the farm on tax competition and financialisation at the cost of everything else then these industries as well as many others will be let go of sharpish.
Let’s see if central government cross subsidises loss making industries and regions in return for precious votes. I hope it does.
It’s quid pro quo in the devolved political market place.
But what about the people who have been losing out down south, particularly in cities like London?
And will UK Small & Medium Size Enterprises get any help exporting abroad?
Or will Big Capital rule the day and allow the UK to become a hedge fund only environment with all industries sold off?
Stay tuned to find out…
