18th January 2016

As the influence of Jeremy Corbyn moves the Labour Party membership towards the left of the political spectrum, often against the instincts of both his cabinet and back benchers, so the political right digs in deeper to secure its alliances with the worlds of finance, media and business.

Last week I settled down to watch back to back episodes of Silent Witness on iPlayer.

At first as my attention was caught by the developing story line I could see how the current recruitment of Jihadi's might have its roots in the deeper history linking back, as the storyline did, to atrocities carried out in Bosnia in the early 1990's.

But, as the story unfolded it became increasingly clear that I was watching pure, shameless propaganda.

The question underpinning the concept of 'Estates' is essentially: Who is fit to Govern society?

In Europe generally, and in France especially, the First Estate was the Church, which is why the Lord's spiritual, even today sit in the House of Lords.

The Second Estate was the nobility, the Lords, who sit with Bishops in the House of Lords.

The Third Estate was everyone else, who at the start of the French revolution numbered 27 Million!

In England, and Scotland, the third estate is represented by the House of Commons made up as it is of those elected by the population at large to Govern in the interests of, and for the welfare of, the people as a whole.

Over the years and into the 20th and 21st Centuries a 'Fourth Estate' emerged compromising the news media and especially print journalism, as a sub-text to this, the emergence of bloggers and outlets such as independentoped.com, can sometimes be seen as a 'Fifth Estate', although some in parliament might see it as a 'Fifth Column".

These 'Estates' have held sway for generations, where I live in Cumbria the name tithe or Tithe Barn, or Glebe or Glebe Field is a constant reminder of the role and power of the Church as 'First Estate', when a tenth of the harvest was collected and held for the benefit of the Church. But this power has waned to the point where the gathering of Lords Spiritual in Westminster looks increasingly anachronistic and the Churches isolation in areas such as Human Sexuality, Gender and especially in what is usually called 'Gay' marriage, leave it exposed to a lack of public sympathy which is fast becoming for the Church of England an existential crisis.

Ironically, it is the second estate, represented by the House of Lords, that is becoming the unofficial, if not only, opposition to the Government of the day. In the matter of Tax Credits recently it was the Lords who called on the Government to rethink and now the issue of funding of opposition parties and the Government's blatant attempt to secure its own position and weaken the Oppositions by challenging Union funding of the Labour Party and the reduction of what is known as 'Short Money' all of which has been traditionally a Cross Party issue, but which was announced by the Chancellor in his most recent statement as a 'done deal'.

But it is not only the Church which is facing an existential crisis, Parliament itself is becoming increasingly divided as Labour engages in a battle of conscience over the renewal of Trident and the Conservatives battle over to Brexit or not.

Add into this mix, the attacks on welfare and benefits, the bizarre and unsustainable attack on those who wish to seek safety and security in Britain but who are being told that they must earn above £35k annually, £10K above the minimum wage, to stay here if they wish to work as nurses, health care workers, teachers or Barrista's.

When in the early 18th Century France's Third Estate rose to overthrow the First and Second Estates its battle cry was Liberty, Fraternity, Equality.

The soundtrack for the revolution was the rattle of the wheels of the Tumbril's on the wet cobbles, the crashing of the guillotine and the clicking of knitting needles. In Manchester during August 1819, the sound of screams, the thunder of horses hooves, the rattle of Sabres was the soundtrack as Cavalry, the Second Estates storm troopers, charged a crowd of 70,000 people at St Peter's Field as they gathered to demand Parliamentary reform.

Today, as the Davros economic forum opens for business, Oxfam reports that a mere 62 people own more than 50% of the world population.

Divisions have become so glaringly wide that they are now a disgrace which must be addressed urgently, if the world is going to continue to do its business on a daily basis without disintegrating into chaos as the Ponzi economies collapse as though we have all been playing a game of surreal Monopoly.

But is the Fourth Estate up to the job? Do we have a free press? The BBC, as a public service corporation is meant to be fair and independent, it has been criticised by both this Government and the previous coalition Government as being biased and there are suggestions that its funding arrangements and its franchise should be challenged, secret meetings between Richard Murdoch and George Osborne have been rumoured.

However as recent programmes have indicated the Corporation demonstrates a clear bias against the Labour Parties leadership in its news and current affairs output, as have other red tops, tabloids and print journalism, but the BBC in its entertainment shows such as Silent Witness, demonstrates clearly that whoever you are, whatever community you may belong to, you may well be depicted unfairly and inaccurately, entertainment as propaganda is as insidious as it is wrong.

30th December 2015

So this is the last Blog of 2015.

Here's hoping for a better 2016.

Storm Frank came and went, the rain rained, the wind blew and the storm defences alongside our stream, consisting of interlinked perforated metal barriers covered with plastic sheeting held down by chains, sandbags and clips, were blown apart by the wind, the plastic sheeting ripped off and the perforated metal left utterly useless as a flood defence.

The next storm will be 'G' and should be called 'George' in honour of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the eighteenth storm could be called 'Rory' in honour of the beleaguered minister for floods.

The weather is unpredictable, unmanageable and has been until recently un-forecastable.

Years ago a friend of mine was hosting his church garden fete, so he rang the weather centre at Newcastle Airport in order to check whether it would be safe to plan to hold the fete outdoors, he was reassured but advised to check back on the day which he did, in the morning he was told that a weather front was coming in and that he might be better remaining indoors, two hours later the front had moved direction instead of heading down the South Tyne valley it appeared to be veering North so outside would be good, two hours before the fete he was given the all clear, at Three pm as the Mayor opened the Fete, it rained.

Forecasting is now more scientific and therefore more accurate but Storm Frank, as Eva and Desmond before it, went its own way and is now as I write well out of the way, somewhere near Iceland, with 100 mph winds and about to drop a weather bomb on the North Pole which will raise temperatures by 50% whilst, ironically, making the weather in the UK 'more seasonal!

The unpredictability of weather has its economic parallel.

There is a consensus that Margaret Thatcher changed the political 'weather' by forcing a review of the post war settlement which had been introduced in the aftermath of the Second World War, during a time when the 'political weather' was clement, Thatcher was able to introduce her vision of a free market as that 'weather' changed.

But alongside this the freeing of the market carried with it a view that, like the weather, it was free to move and shift as it chose, controls were anathema and the essential purpose of Government was to encourage the entrepreneurs to make money, which they did of course, but not by making things, as new financial instruments were imagined, money just made money and the dole queues grew longer.

The argument was made that as the wealthy became wealthier so the benefits would trickle or drip down but the evidence (rejected and denied by Thatcher and her Tory supporters) suggested that all that ever 'dripped down' were the chilly waters of increasing poverty which floated the boats of the wealthiest on a rising tide but which overwhelmed and sank the boats of the less well off.

I am grateful to my friend Andy Smith the playwright who wrote in his piece 'all that is solid melts into air' commissioned and performed in Bergen in 2011, for drawing my attention to the quotation which is from The Communist Manifesto.

As Andy writes in the play:

'..... what happens to us when capitalism takes hold. When our values change. When our relationship with things and each other starts to alter. When our infrastructures break down'.

These are the questions that Marx and Engels posed in their text.

Whether it's weather or capitalism it seems the results are very much the same.

Recent floods have brought out the very best in people whether in Carlisle or York or Hebden Bridge but there have been reports of looting, of opportunists seeking to enrich themselves at the expense of deepening others misery.

Insurance companies step back.

Payments are withheld or delayed.

The Prime Minister says he will do, in his classic of cameronspeak 'The Right Thing".

Rory Stewart appears on television standing in flooded streets saying that the defences worked, until they didn't work.

Spending on flood defences has been reduced because the thing with austerity is that we are all in it together.

And relationships change, I know that its not Syria but during the storms I felt under siege, my hatches were battened, driving home from visiting family I drove through flood water and was not at all sure what I would find when I arrived at my front door (still dry, Phew!).

Phone calls from friends not affected by Desmond were welcome only for their communities to be flooded by Eva.

Street after street of skips filled with the detritus of lives a stark reminder that our relationships, with both things and each other have changed.

The storms have impacted on the infrastructure, whether it is stores closed after flooding Tesco, Sainsbury, whether the services, whose funding has been cut back and back again, overstretched and unable to cope, hospitals struggling to find beds, A&E rooms under siege, local authorities stretched beyond their capacity to provide services, as major centres 'Northern Powerhouses'? left with City Centres under unprecedented depths of contaminated water.

The link between extreme weather and extreme ideological politics is pretty clear as the one impacts to reveal the weakness of the other .......

7th December 2015

Who on earth had the bright idea of giving storms names, and whoever thought that Desmond would be a good name?

At least Abigail had the dubious merit of being a fairly bad pun, as in Abbey Gale, my fellow student in Durham was called Keith Gale and was always known as Windy to his friends at college.

But Desmond?

Where was the pun in that unless some meteorologist who has been a lifelong Beatles fan had the thought:

ob-la-di, ob-la-dah
The wind goes on, bra
La-la, how the rain goes on

And remembered Desmond?

Maybe, if its left to the same meteorologist the next storm will be called Molly?

Life in Cumbria, in the Eden Valley in particular,this weekend was a life under siege.

I recognise that across the world far worse man made events are tearing communities apart and I find myself making an emotional connection between the start of the bombing campaign in Syria and what was happening around me.

Desmond certainly made it personal. Despite living in a flood zone with a feeder stream for the Eden flowing through our garden and the swirling waters from the Eden cutting our village off and closing the main A69 Trunk Road, our feet remained dry as the water flowed past our house, but the wind, the wind .....

My motorcycle was blown over and then swept by the wind sidelong along the ground and into the back of my car.

In lashing rain and driving wind I had to stand the bike back up and then secure it to the side of the house.

ob-la-di, ob-la-dah
The wind goes on, bra
La-la, how the rain goes on

On and on, to set new a record following the previous record which coincided with the floods of 2005 and this despite the Millions of pounds that have been spent on flood defences. Hundreds of homes destroyed again, hundreds of families made homeless again, hundreds of businesses affected again and the Old Fire Station, flooded in 2005 and then rebuilt and opened as an Arts Centre a year ago, flooded again as the centre of Carlisle was devastated by Desmond and his ob-la-di, ob-la-dah.

Apparently, again, according to David Cameron, money is no object and following his Cobra Meeting he arrives in Cumbria to share the pain.

His 'Vicar in Cumbria', Rory Stewart who is also floods minister, in an interview with the parish magazine stated:

The flood defences built since 2005, had given authorities more time to evacuate people and kept flood levels down.

The defences 'held strong' but the huge levels of rain were too much for them.

Who is going to ask the question why were there 'huge levels of rain'?

Standing in the driving rain on Saturday night, holding onto my hat whilst water dripped off my coat and into my boots, I was talking to a neighbour whose husband was loading sand bags into their car in order to seal their doors and stop the water invading their property, we were asking the basic question, what is causing this? Why is it happening?

In Paris the nations debate climate change whilst here in Cumbria we are experiencing it.

Doubtless in the Cobra Committee David Cameron will continue to dismiss 'green crap' and his Vicar on Earth, the Minister for Flooding will continue to rehearse the party line and just blame, well, the weather, of course.

But surely as these events increase and as the world warms to the point where in some places life is made impossible because of heat and aridity and other places, like Cumbria, it is made impossible by winds and rain and flooding courtesy of a storm called Desmond even the Eton educated Mr Cameron and his equally Eton educated Mr Stewart even if they ignored meteorology in favour of politics also undertook some study in logical thinking, putting two and two together and making sense of what is happening around them?

26th November 2015

What on earth is going on?

A recent exchange of emails with my MP resulted in his repeating the Low Tax, Low Welfare, High Wage economy mantra.

My response:

Your reply to  my recent email is both patronising and wrong in all aspects.

We are now being subjected to the most ill considered social experiment, conducted by Millionaires , as though it were a set test at Eton.

How can you destroy 70 years of social progress in one parliament?

This Government, of which you are a part, is taking us back to the 1930's whilst protecting your friends the bankers and tax dodgers.

This is even more than the Grantham Grocer's daughter dared to imagine in her wildest dreams.

I suggested that we might meet and he responded with an invitation to meet him at one of his surgeries, even suggesting dates before Christmas.

But now it seems that with a further £27 Billion, a hypothetical £27 Billion as various commentators have noticed, being found behind a hypothetical settee or Green Bench, we are it seems being offered a high welfare, high tax (especially if you are a second home owner or buying to let) economy with wages still below the level that they were in 2008.

This Autumn Statement was a breathtaking act of legerdemain, with rabbits in hats, silk scarves being waved to deceive the eye and the political trickery outshining the economic sense and coins materialising out of thin air.

Where was the investment in the future?

Now nurses lose their grants and are offered loans.

Young people are discouraged at all levels.

A social housing programme which is ultimately without meaning.

There is little evidence of research in technology, science, engineering what we have in fact to look forward too in the light of this budget is a low investment, low return, client economy, with the investment such as its is being made by foreign governments.

The shadow chancellor's reference to Mao's little red book may have been a ham fisted but it contained more than a kernel of truth which, unfortunately the China loving chancellor was able to capitalise on.  But the long view that is contained in Mao's vision of the struggle to defeat capitalism and introduce socialism continues to inform the Chinese Government in its global strategy.

What could be smarter than taking a leading share holding in Britain's energy supply in the years ahead?

As the Red Book says:

We communists never conceal our political views.

As for imperialist countries, we should unite with their peoples and strive to co-exist peacefully with those countries, do business with them and strive to prevent any possible war, but under no circumstances should we harbour any unrealistic notions about them.

Even, I imagine, whilst drinking beer and eating fish and chips in a Cotswold pub.

The autumn statement was a series of sound bites designed to capture headlines and in this it was a triumph, but what will happen next?

The building industry has shortages not only in raw materials, from steel to bricks, but also a shortage in skilled workers, from bricklayers to site managers. It is doubtful whether, beyond the headlines, the houses will be built but in the anti revolutionary fervour which underpins the small state society and economy toward which the Tories seek to lead us that won't matter because as 2020 comes around, as the music stops in the game of musical chairs played at the Tory Party Conference, he will blame him or him or him or they will all blame her.

The mantra of high wage, low tax, low welfare is a smokescreen to cover the obvious and barely concealed shifting of the social and economic landscape as greater inequality is achieved through enormous and unjustifiable bonuses for bankers and huge and salary hikes for CEO's.

Alongside the question of Weapons of Mass Destruction leading to the invasion of Iraq, Peter Mandelson's comment about being relaxed about the rich contributed hugely to Tony Blair's undoing.

So there should be, in any decent, contemporary society, a relationship between the earnings of those at either end of the wage spectrum, views about what that relationship should be vary but a recent suggestion was a range of 1-20 with 1 being the lowest and 20 being the highest.

Whilst there is no evidence at all that the Tory Party shares this view, of course not! The evidence published by The Equality Trust plus other commentators is that a more equal society is a society that flourishes socially, educationally, and in the physical and mental health and well-being of its citizens.

In today's newspaper's the left suggested that there had been a U Turn and whilst welfare will still be reduced, (the devil in the detail) nevertheless the age of austerity is officially over, whilst the right decried the budget as 'socialist' more or less what Ed Miliband might have done if the public had been foolish enough to return him to power.

My view when I see Chancellor and Prime Minister side by side enjoying the joke of having caused such discomfort to the opposition, that this is simply an exercise lifted almost entirely from the edition of a Tom Brown's Schooldays that I missed.

I wrote some years ago in the Church Action on Poverty newsletter that if you replaced the word 'Victorian' with the word 'Dickensian' then the effect of Tory policies in the 1980's becomes clearer.

Victoria we are told 'was not amused' and neither should we be ........

9th November 2015

I have just finished reading Jane Smiley's trilogy in which she follows a family for a hundred years, from 1920 to 2020.

The research that went into this novel was comprehensive and is evident in the narrative as it unfolds.

Each chapter, and there are a hundred spread over three books, is titled with the year that it covers.

The novel unfolds with family members being born and dying, experiencing tragedy and success, loving and being loved, but all the time being shaped and changed and challenged by external events.

The historical chapters faithfully reflect the events as they occurred in each respective year but as 2015 gives way to 2016 and through to 2020 there is a fascinating and subtle change to the events described and their impact on the family.

Smiley did not anticipate the outcome of the elections in Canada and quite sensibly did not reflect on the impact of the anti-austerity movement in Europe probably because it had little consequence in America.

But two geo-political phenomena dominate both the historic developments as the author describes their effect on her families and their possible effects from 2016 onwards.

These phenomena are Global Warming and the political strength of China.

As I read the final chapters I began to develop a deep pessimism about the future as it is emerging under the current British Government, as Global Warming reaches a tipping point beyond which it becomes irreversible and as we sign deals with the Chinese Government whilst apparently severing our links with Europe so the list of discontents, not just with Globalisation a la Stiglitz but with our own elected government and the outcomes of austerity as it impacts on individuals and families, lengthens.

Inequality increases as manufacturing declines, as the service sector enlarges and financial services are freed from control or supervision so wealth flows towards the rich increasing inequality and limiting the life choices of those without resources.

A recently published OECD Report indicates that income inequality has risen (is rising) in Britain faster than in other rich nations.

The reason for this increase in inequality is given as the rise of a 'financial services elite' concentrating wealth into the hands of a tiny minority.

Peter Mandelson may well have been relaxed about individuals becoming extremely wealthy but it is becoming clearer and clearer that the outcome of money flowing into the pockets of the wealthy and somehow mysteriously replicating itself is a deeply unjust and unequal society, a society that is not at ease with itself, a society that could be described as broken.

Changing things is not easy when the manicured hands of those with the money and the power rest on the levers which can make change happen.

In my neighbourhood I notice that the balance of ownership and renting is changing, those who own the asset hold on to it, better to rent than sell, better for whom? But that is the equation. As house prices rise it makes all kind of sense to hold on to the asset and through letting to derive an income from it.

And as social housing is sold off through right to buy so choice becomes more limited for those households seeking to access the market and the private sector adjusts itself accordingly.

And what is happening at the local and community level is reflected at the global.

Public ownership is rejected in favour of private except that the so called private investors are themselves publicly owned so as China signs an agreement to build our nuclear energy future we hand over our energy dependency to the Government of China.

We can march, campaign, write letters to editors, blog, protest, pray and with luck, in five years time, vote for change.

But the damage will have been done.

The low paid will be paid even less, inequality will be deeper.

Affordable houses will remain unbuilt.

We may no longer be part of Europe.

The coastline of the UK may start to look very different as the oceans rise and the storm blowing outside my window will if anything be blowing more fiercely.

I buy my energy and telephony from energy and telephony co-operatives they are successful but if the   economic and political climate changes who knows?

Even more scarily, although apparently I read in today's Guardian that someone under eighty should not be referred too as elderly, nevertheless I will be older and possibly more reliant on health care being available free at the point of  need.

In her novel Jane Smiley asks through one of her characters 'have we lived through a golden age?'

That is indeed the title of the third book.

I was born before the NHS was founded in 1948, I was a baby boomer, I lived and grew up in a welfare state that I learnt to take for granted whilst appreciating and valuing the real benefits that it provided for me and my family, I can say that in my lifetime I have lived through a golden age.

It is however hard to imagine what future generations will experience.

31st October 2015

In 1983 Neil Kinnock warned people against embracing Margaret Thatcher as the next Prime Minister with his warning, 'Not to be ordinary. Not to be young,. Not to fall ill. Not to be old.

Thirty two years after the electorate ignored his warning and despite the intervening years of New Labour ascendancy with Blair and Brown, his words ring truer that ever and apply to an ever wider cross section of the electorate.

There is certainly little reward today in being a steelworker, in being low-paid, in being an immigrant or asylum seeker, in being young, in falling ill or becoming elderly.

The current furore over tax credits, a constitutional crisis according to Cameron and Osborne more accurately described by Jeremy Corbyn as a crisis for three million families.

Despite repeating his question six times Cameron avoided answering six times, repeating instead the current mantra of the Tory Party:

A high-pay, low-tax, low-welfare economy.

This meaningless phrase sits alongside the other meaningless phrase repeated again and again by this Tory Government of a country:

Living within its means.

Apart from the sight and sound of two millionaires lecturing people on the need to live within their means, (and George Osborne and David Cameron are not the only millionaires on millionaire row, the net worth of the Tory front bench is estimated at 70 Million with 18 of the 29 members of the Cabinet also qualifying as Millionaires) it is the hollowness of the phrases that emerge in the debates about hard working families when all the evidence points clearly to the fact that most of those three million who rely on tax credits are the very same people who work hard to earn their poverty.

Over the five years of the Tory led coalition wages in fact stagnated or fell back so that it is only now that wages are approaching levels last seen at the end of the New Labour era. So far from actually delivering a high wage economy the pursuit of austerity has resulted in lower investment, lower wages, and lower productivity.

The rhetoric employed by Cameron and Osborne is empty and hollow, we do not have a high-pay economy and are unlikely to see one emerge any time soon. The proposed national living wage is nothing more than a trick with mirrors, legerdemain, sleight of hand and as our manufacturing capacity collapses (first we sell it to Asian Businessmen who finally, because they cannot make a profit and there is no Government support withdraw because it is their only realistic option, why go down with a sinking ship?) so we become increasingly reliant on service industries or as Cameron suggested, self-employment, neither of which sectors offer the possibility of transforming a families budget overnight.

Alongside death, taxation is one of the few things of which we can be certain in this life. For Daniel Defoe, in his 1726 book, The Political History of the Devil, only: things as certain as death and taxes can be more firmly believed unless of course you are someone who is considered to be outside the circle of those subject to a shared responsibility for contributing to the, common good, so the better connected you are, the better your lawyers are, dependent on where you base your head office or where you claim to be trading from and which country, you may or may not pay tax, HMRC will doubtless cut you a deal and the cabinet will look out for its own.

As Leona Helmsley was quoted during her trial, We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.

Low taxes for some then.

But welfare also needs, according to Cameron and Osborne to be lowered, because as a country we need to, live within our means. 

How is welfare to be lowered? What is welfare? How are our means determined?

Britain is in fact a rich country, determined by both our domestic product and spending power Britain is the second largest economy in Europe, and fifth and tenth respectively in the world.

Because our manufacturing base has eroded with jobs exported both to Europe and to Asia so our service economy has grown and in particular financial services. Alongside this re balancing of our economy, because money flows into the single largest financial services centre in the UK, London so London has become more prosperous and wealth has gravitated South. Alongside this process so inequality has grown, the rich have become richer (as have the poor) but the imbalance has grown larger and larger as the rich become richer still.

As a nation living within our means would be relatively easy if our means were distributed more fairly and concepts like the Common Good, were owned by those who through good fortune, inheritance, hard work or  simple luck had achieved a more financially secure position.

Welfare is often taken to mean benefits, it certainly appears to be the mission of Ian Duncan Smith to define welfare as benefits, and with each new measure he introduces so benefits are reduced whether by singling out those with a spare room, or those who, through disability find work difficult or impossible he focuses our attention on benefits. But welfare is more, far more than benefits.

In 1945 the rhetoric of the Labour Government was rich and challenged the nations conscience. homes for heroes, education for all, treatment free at the point of need. It was a vision for which people of this country had fought two bitter wars, it was the Kingdom of Bevan.

It was the earnest socially rooted vision of a society that was just and fair, and I benefited from it.

The nightmare (it is certainly not a vision) of Cameron and Osborne is of a society increasingly divided between rich and poor, a society at odds with itself, a society where the young bear the weight of student debt into their adult lives, a society where home ownership becomes a remote financial possibility, a society of uncertainty and insecurity, a society of mac job's, serving lattes to machismo bankers.

The key to understanding welfare is to define the word:

Welfare, as defined in the OED means: the health, happiness and fortunes of a person or group.

The question facing Cameron and Osborne is not Jeremy Corbyn's question it is Neil Kinnock's.

In what way will a high pay, low tax, low welfare economy bring health, happiness and fortune to children, to young people entering adult life, to families in work or out, to the sick, to the elderly?

7th October 2015

I cannot bear to watch the news this week.

The Tory Party parading its narrow minded mendacity in Manchester.

Even the Guardian Newspaper has no choice but to report what is being said from the platform which makes for difficult reading.

If it is possible to draw any comfort from this pantomime of the vanities which is being played out in Manchester it comes from Greece, not the Greece of anti-austerity Syriza and Yanis Varoufakis, but the Greece of Herodotus.

Herodotus, a Greek Historian, born in Turkey in 485 BC.

Herodotus was credited with inventing history as a form of critical study and in his writings drew attention to the two great Tectonic Plates of History.

Hubris and Nemesis.

So I take comfort from my Herodotus as I see the pictures and the read the reports of the drama being played out in Manchester: Ian Duncan Smith advising the disabled to work (whilst showing no understanding of the tragedy that disability can mean for the individual so affected and their families), or Theresa May vilifying the stranger and the refugee in our midst (and being criticised not only by charities but by the IoD!) or George Osborne, declaring that Jeremy Corbyn spoke at a fringe meeting (as he will continue to do for the next five years), or David Cameron announcing how house building will start happening once builders can build for sale and not for rent.

And all this rhetoric set against the realities of what is happening not only Globally with climate  change and conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan which is displacing people from the Middle East and Africa, but what is happening locally in the lives of those affected by the reductions in Tax Credits, the increase in food bank dependency, the closure of the steel works in Redcar.

I make no great claims at understanding what fundamental shifts are taking place in the economy either in the UK or in China, but what is clear as I read Piketty and Stiglitz is that as inequality grows so the future becomes more precarious and as automation and technological change advance relentlessly, so precariousness shifts its way up the social strata from blue to white collar workers and obscene wealth aggregates to what we now call the 1%.

Manchester was the scene for the Peterloo Massacre which happened on the 16th August 1819.

Poor economic conditions and a lack of suffrage in Northern England resulted in a demonstration held in St Peter's Fields in  Manchester.

Some 60 - 80, 000 people gathered to protest and listen to speeches. The Magistrates deployed the Military to disperse the crowd and a Cavalry Charge with drawn sabres killed 15 people and injured over 500.

The tragedy was christened Peterloo in an ironic reference to the Battle of Waterloo fours years earlier.

Clearly the Tory Party have chosen Manchester to emphasise their aim of stealing Labour's ideas and promoting the Northern Powerhouse under the Chairmanship of postman's son. Lord Adonis, who despite his name is not, as far as I know, Greek.

As neither was Herodotus, but his survey of Greek History serves to remind us that if there is one great truth to be drawn from history, and this should perhaps be a warning when the Tory Leadership is unable to treat the Labour Leadership with the courtesy that fellow MP's should offer one another, that Hubris is always followed  by Nemesis.

So, and it is a small comfort, but I take comfort from seeing and hearing Tory Hubris at its loudest and most grating in Manchester, because I know that it will end in tears.