Staunton

It's a good question. It is extremely difficult to counter a conspiracy that has been operating in secret for seventy years, with the backing of some of the richest individuals and corporations on earth. Some here on Sheffield Forum have been steadfast in drawing attention to the secret doctrine of neoliberalism that has driven the world to crisis. All we can do is seek to expose the facts, demonstrate how neoliberals operate, highlight their ultimate intention, namely wealth redistribution to the already wealthy by any means possible, and at the expense of everybody else. For example, remind people of the disastrous premiership of Liz Truss, who was schooled personally by the Institute of Economic Affairs. This shadowy organisation, set up in the nineteen fifties with the singular intention of promoting neoliberalism (as Peter Hutchison and George Monbiot explain in The Invisible Doctrine, pp. 69-70), was behind her £45bn tax-cutting package, funded by more public borrowing, which meant profit for the rich at public expense. Our only hope is to alert people to the fact that neoliberalism is a sham doctrine hiding a scandal of astonishing proportions that is drawing the whole world into crisis. And that is an enormous struggle. The BBC and other mainstream broadcasters are sworn to keep the secret. The press, even the Guardian, are determined to stay silent on the issue (with a few notable exceptions; among their writers - in particular, George Monbiot himself) We'reon our own, I'm afraid.

That all sounds lovely. However, I don't remember the BBC ever once using the word 'neoliberal'. They are trusted guardians of the secret that Peter Hutchison and George Monbiot expose in their book, The Invisible Doctrine.

'Imagine that the people of the Soviet Union had never heard of Communism. That's more or less where we find ourselves today. The dominant ideology of our times - that affects nearly every aspect of our lives - for most of us has no name. If you mention it, people are likely either to tune out, or to respond with a bewildered shrug: 'What do you mean? What is that?' Even those who have heard the word struggle to define it. Its anonymity is both a symptom and a cause of its power. It has caused or contributed to most of the crises that now confront us: rising inequality; rampant child poverty; epidemic diseases of despair; off-shoring and erosion of the tax base; the slow degradation of health-care, education and other public services; the crumbling of infrastructure; democratic backsliding; the 2008 financial crash; the rise of modern-day demagogues...; our ecological crises and environmental disasters. We respond to these predicaments as if they occur in isolation. Crisis after crisis unfolds, yet we fail to understand their common roots. We fail to recognize that all these disasters either arise from or are exacerbated by the same coherent ideology - an ideology that has, or at least had, a name. Neoliberalism...' (The Invisible Doctrine, pp. 1-2) So write George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison in their new book from Penguin Random House UK, The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (Allen Lane, 2024) This text is essential reading for us all as we face a future of profound threat. Take a look at George Monbiot discussing the book on YouTube: https://youtu.be/PwHTd7AnZ7c?si=ijbG8eF_QMQKAkK2

Newsnight, BBC2, Friday 17 May, 10:30pm In his terrifying analysis of the dangers inherent in the continuing development of artificial intelligence, former Vice President of google, Geoffrey Hinton makes his fears very clear. And in the process he shows how neoliberals imperil the very democratic process they claim to embrace, thus paving the way for the far right that are already destabilising so-called 'Western' values. Geoffrey Hinton: Yes, I'm very worried about AI taking over lots of mundane jobs, and that should be a good thing. It's going to lead to a big increase in productivity, which leads to a big increase in wealth, and if that wealth was equally distributed that would be great, but it's not going to be. In the systems we live in [i.e. neoliberalism] that wealth is going to go to the rich and not to the people whose jobs get lost, and that's going to be very bad for society I believe. Then Hinton goes on to raise one of his own particular fears: Geoffrey Hinton: It's going to increase the gap between rich and poor, which increases the chances of right wing populists getting elected. In Aaron Bastani's NovaraMedia discussion with public intellectual John Gray, available on YouTube and titled Everything You Know About The Future is Wrong, this point is made clear: John Gray: What they cannot understand and will never understand is what they, and other liberals call 'populism' is political blowback against the social disruption that their policies have produced. They can't understand the connection between what they've done and populism. https://novaramedia.com/2023/10/22/philosophys-biggest-pessi

In a chilling warning of the dangers inherent in the continuing development of artificial intelligence on Newsnight (BBC2, Friday 17 May, 10:30pm), former Vice President of google, Geoffrey Hinton, tells presenter Faisal Islam about his fears. And in so doing, he reveals one of the central secrets that operates within the prevailing neoliberal system. I present the relevant parts of the exchange below. (20:05 - 21:37) Faisal Islam: What sort of society do you see evolving? Which jobs will still be here? Geoffrey Hinton: Yes, I'm very worried about AI taking over lots of mundane jobs, and that should be a good thing. It's going to lead to a big increase in productivity, which leads to a big increase in wealth, and if that wealth was equally distributed that would be great, but it's not going to be. In the systems we live in, that wealth is going to go to the rich and not to the people whose jobs get lost, and that's going to be very bad for society I believe. Hinton goes on to relate one of his particular fears: Geoffrey Hinton: It's going to increase the gap between rich and poor, which increases the chances of right wing populists getting elected. Then he gives his support to a Universal Basic Income, which no doubt angered the the Downing Street people who sought Hinton's advice. Faisal Islam: So, to be clear, you think that the societal impacts from the changes in jobs could be so profound that we may need to rethink the politics of the benefit system, inequality... Geoffrey Hinton: Absolutely, yes. Faisal Islam: Universal basic income? Geoffrey Hinton: Yes, I certainly believe in universal basic income. I don't think that's enough though, because a lot of people get their self respect from the jobs they do, and if you put everybody on universal basic income that solves the problem of them starving and not being able to pay the rent, but it doesn't solve the self respect problem. Faisal Islam: So, what, you just try to, the government needs to get in with it. It's not how we do things in Britain, you know, we tend to sort of stand back and let the economy decide the winners and losers. [Note: there's Islam himself giving away another sneering aspect of that same neoliberal strategy. That's not something we generally expect from a BBC presenter. Oops.] Geoffrey Hinton: Yes, actually I was consulted by people in Downing Street, and I advised them universal basic income was a good idea. (22:56 - 23:52) Faisal Islam: People, parents, talk to their children, give them advice on the future of the economy, what jobs they should do, what degrees they should do. It seems like the world's being thrown up in the air by this, by the world that you're describing. What would you advise somebody to study now to surf this wave? Geoffrey Hinton: I don't know, because it's clear that a lot of mid-level intellectual jobs are going to disappear. I mean if you ask which jobs are safe. My best bet about a job that's safe is plumbing, because these things aren't yet very good at physical manipulation. That'll probably be the last thing they're very good at. So I think plumbing is going to be safe for quite a long time. Faisal Islam: Driving? Geoffrey Hinton: Driving, that's been slower than expected. Faisal Islam: Journalism? Hinton ends with an uncomfortable thought for Faisal, along with the other eight million employees at risk of redundancy that he mentioned in his introduction (not transcribed here) to the interview. Geoffrey Hinton: Erm, journalism might last for a little bit longer, but I think these things are going to be pretty good journalists quite soon. Probably quite good interviewers too. It's necessary to overlook that rather romantic nobility of work notion that Hinton indulges. I'm sure his position at google was rather more rewarding in so many ways than a night shift in an amazon warehouse or the unforgiving demands that call centre personnel are expected to meet. Nevertheless, such revelations as those that feature in his message, from someone fully acquainted with the ways of wealth and opportunity, help us to connect the dots and notice that our poverty is planned.

Margaret Thatcher's insistence that there is no such thing as society was a statement of intent rather than an observation of fact. And her intentions have been made clear in the Post Office scandal. Yesterday, at the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, Alan Bates, one of the central figures in the campaign against the Post Office said: 'As you got to meet people and realise it wasn't just yourself, and you saw the harm and injustice that descended on them, it was something you felt you had to deal with...' The neoliberal project demands that ordinary people are forced into the position of isolated individuals, alone and defenceless, in order that they may be made fully exploitable. And the government departments, corporate companies and smaller businesses who do the exploiting will, as Bates went on to explain in a witness statement in relation to the Post Office, engage in 'denying, lying, defending, and attempting to discredit him and other sub-postmasters [who had been routinely told that none of their colleagues had been experiencing any problems] over the last two decades.' The denial of community, of society, is a central component of the neoliberal project, along with privatisation, dismantling public services, deregulation and tax abuse, that is structured to profit the privileged few at the expense of everybody else.

Perhaps alchresearch didn't take the trouble to listen to Hannah Fry's expose? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001r1s4

Of course, Osborne's austerity rhetoric was bogus. His claims were based on a flawed research paper, as Hannah Fry details in part ten of her Uncharted series on BBC Radio 4, titled Devil in the Detail. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001r1s4 Don't expect such revelations to humble George Osborne though. His motivation was entirely ideological, the same ideology that the failed premier Liz Truss attempted to enact in her disastrous policy impositions.

As the conservatives contemplate the collapse of their support in the next election, commons officials, in an oh so reasonable sounding proposal, are arranging that MPs losing their seat should enjoy tax-payer funded training from HR contractors to support them as they face unemployment. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67629470 But let us not forget that once the tory/lib-dem coalition had been formed in 2010, George Osborne lost no time in unleashing his ideologically imposed austerity, which led to a staggering number of public sector employees being made redundant. For example, the police nationally lost twenty thousand skilled and experienced officers and even more civilian staff, HMRC lost thousands of tax officials, and local authorities across the country were forced to make front line staff redundant, which led to a rapid decline in service provision. But things didn't end with these cynical neoliberal assaults on the public sector. Osborne and his tory colleagues then went on to demonise unemployed people, with shirker and scrounger rhetoric (with the eager assistance of the right-wing press). "According to the document, a scheme could see defeated MPs offered "on-demand" career coaching and access to "networking opportunities". It adds that they could also have access to a career coach to help them identify their transferable skills, and write a CV "that stands out in the crowd". Nice! The hypocrisy is stark.

Today Programme, BBC Radio 4, 21 June 2023 (1:51:25 - 1:57:31) Presenter; Nick Robinson Robinson: We're Sorry. We got it wrong. What we told the public, the media, even the courts, was not true. Yesterday Sheffield City Council issued a lengthy and extraordinary apology for its highly controversial programme to fell seventeen and a half thousand street trees, many of which the council now accepts were healthy. An independent report published earlier this week concluded that the dispute had done significant harm. We're joined by the leader of the Sheffield City Council, Labour's Tom Hunt, and also by Rebecca Hammond, who's a member of the committee of the Sheffield Tree Action Group. Morning to you both (both: 'Good morning'). Tom Hunt, first of all, as the new leader of Sheffield City Council, why did you decide it was right to apologise, and what, for those listening beyond the city, are you actually apologising for? Hunt: We have published the apology because we are truly sorry for the actions of Sheffield City Council during the street tree dispute. We know that there were significant failings and they caused significant harms to people in the city. As you've mentioned, that caused the loss of healthy street trees. But it also meant that there were a number of individuals, campaigners, who suffered individual harms. People were wrongly taken to court, there were harms to the people of Sheffield, [who?] have lost their faith in the council, and so our public apology is to the people of Sheffield for our actions throughout this whole street tree dispute. Robinson: Underpinning it though, Tom, was the fact that the council simply didn't tell the truth, did they? When it was alleged that there was a programme to replace an arbitrary seventeen and a half thousand trees over twenty five years the council kept saying no no, no, there's no target at all, and there was one. Hunt: That's right, and when people were rightly pointing out that we were getting things wrong and raising concerns, instead of listening and engaging with them the council doubled down and sought to escalate rather than de-escalate and change course. Robinson: Have you as a new leader analysed why this happened? Let's just assume that most of the people involved in public life are doing it for the right reasons, this was a mistake by officials as well as by councillors, how did they come to set a programme that wouldn't have got public support I suspect, and then when there was a dispute about it to lie about it? Hunt: As a resident during those years, I wasn't a councillor then, I had the same questions. We all wanted to know how things had got so bad, and that is why in 2021 the council commissioned Sir Mark Lowcock to complete a full public enquiry into the street tree dispute. His report, as you've mentioned, was published earlier in the year, and this week the council is implementing every single one of those recommendations. We did that so that we could understand just what went wrong, so that now my job is to right those wrongs so that a dispute of this magnitude can never happen again. Robinson: Well let's turn to Rebecca now of the Sheffield Tree Action Group. Having fought this for years how did it feel to hear those words? Hammond: It's been a long time coming, but it is very much appreciated. Sir Mark Lowcock's report, which was published in March, did make us feel vindicated, everything that we thought was actually correct, all the things that we thought had been going on it turned out had been going on, and this apology this week is, like I say, very much appreciated. I think now the question for us is whether the council is capable of making the massive cultural change that is necessary to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. Robinson: What about your own group because as it were you didn't start it, but your own group, the Sheffield Tree Action Group, had to apologise for its treatment of public officials. Hammond: Yeah, so within a couple of days of Sir Mark Lowcock's report he did highlight that at times the behaviour of campaigners had not always been as it could have been, and we did make an apology for that, particularly bearing, we were particularly mindful of, for example, the more junior council employees who got caught up in the débâcle because of decisions made by their seniors. Robinson: And we've only a little bit of time left so, Rebecca, if you would, and then Tom: what do you reflect is the wider national story about this, about how to get these relationships right between councils and those that they serve? Rebecca first. Hammond: So, the apology makes a specific reference to a culture unreceptive to external views, discouraging of internal dissent, and prone to group-think. And I think that's really important for all councils across the country to bear in mind. You know, this happened to be about street trees, but it could have been about anything. You know, we've recently heard about the situation in Woking which has just got itself into an absolute financial mess, probably because of a lack of reception to internal challenge to 'is this the right thing to be doing?' Robinson: Tom Hunt, is openness the lesson that you learned? Hunt: Openness is absolutely the lesson that we learned. Openness, transparency and accountability are the watchwords by which we will now be proceeding at Sheffield City Council. The council is there to serve the people of Sheffield. That means we must always listen, we must learn, yes we may get things wrong but we can never then just plough on. We must understand where things go wrong if they do, and then but always, always be on the side of people and implement a culture of engagement that runs throughout the council. Robinson: And a final word to you Rebecca Hammond, trees matter. Hammond: Absolutely yes. Street trees are there wherever people are, and they have benefits for peoples' health and wellbeing, even if you don't live on that street, but people travel along those streets every day, so they are hugely important for everyone. Robinson: Rebecca Hammond of Sheffield Tree Action Group, Tom Hunt, new Labour leader of Sheffield City Council, thanks for joining us.

Following record breaking temperatures in the UK yesterday of over 40°C, and the unprecedented experience of intense heat we all had here in Sheffield, no reasonable person can continue to deny the climate emergency.

To be clear, just seven percent of children in the UK have a privileged independent school education, and these go on to take over half of the places at Oxbridge (many other places at these, the UK's most prestigious centres of learning, are grabbed by wealthy foreign students - they are not welcoming of ordinary people who might wish to share in the educational and cultural advantages on offer, in spite of any claims to the contrary). To send a child to an independent school for one year will cost more than the average annual salary in the UK. Our children are excluded by our lack of wealth. Because we are not from that high-income privileged sector, we are not permitted to enjoy access to high-status education or the networking opportunities that come as part of the package. Our children can only hope for 'training and skills', not education and wealth. Also, around seven percent of the population have ease of access private healthcare. The rest of us are dependent upon the NHS, that former public service now being vigorously eroded by the tories by privatisation and the associated employment techniques that mean a slow decline of skilled staff because cheaper labour is more profitable for the private contractors taking over our NHS. And these contractors are not interested in providing services, their only aim is profit. Who are these contractors? All those tax- abusing multinationals and the in-crowd with tory connections that enjoy those 'warm' introductions. Anyone who doubts this need only cast their mind back to the PPE and test & trace scandals last year, shocking crony capitalist scams that cost the taxpayer £billions, that's public money that went to fraudulent and incompetent outsourcing companies, or who used their tory contacts to win bogus contracts, a scandal that cost thousands of lives in the UK during the pandemic. The political project of the tories is to support this seven percent, maintain their privilege and work to further enrich the already enormously wealthy class, and to do so at the expense of everybody else. There are a few hangers on of course, who see themselves as members of this privileged minority and gather the crumbs from under the table, but around 90% of the population are exploited, forced to live a life of subservience to the few and watch our living standards erode and our childrens' schooling decline in this 'not what you know but who you know' culture of independent school, Oxford or Cambridge University and the old boy crony network that is revealed by the transcripts in my OP. Unless you are from that privileged section of society, a vote for the tories is a vote against your own interests. Always. There are those who will still seek to distract and confuse. Their bluster and blather is as easy to spot as Boris Johnson's. Ignore them. These themes will never be covered in the mainstream media. Even when some elements are revealed by the BBC or the Guardian, it will be in their documentary programmes or special reports, never on the front page, never on the Six O'clock News. The dots sometimes emerge but they are never connected so that we ordinary people might get an idea of what is going on. My work here on Sheffield forum over the last ten years has been an attempt to reveal what is hidden.

Why does this matter? What are the consequences of tax abuse? Why are the Panama Papers, like the series of previous exposés, so important? Well it is foundational to the neoliberal project to accumulate wealth in the pockets of the already rich and privileged. These few, still not satisfied with their riches, have been equipped with the means to pervert the system and enrich themselves even further. And that wealth, enjoyed by the one per cent and their hangers on, simultaneously drains resources (that's money) from local communities everywhere. It has a real impact on the lives of ordinary people, people like most of us here in Sheffield. Even if we are managing, our children won't, as the low wage economy is increasingly established, and now that tax abuse is firmly embedded. And once people are shunted into a low-wage existence, they cannot afford to buy a house. Enter the landlords, enjoying unearned wealth (in fact that wealth is earned by others, of course, their tenants, who must labour day and night to pay the rent, to enrich the rentiers) and using that wealth to buy yet more property to add to their portfolio and fill their pockets with ever more unearned income. And the tax abusers recycle some of their stolen money into the funding of compliant political parties, as the Pandora Papers reveal, parties wholly hostile to the needs of ordinary people (as I demonstrated earlier in this thread with reference to the Imperial College study on life expectancy). And the tax abusers are also financing the neoliberal think tanks and lobbyists that champion the Mont Pelerin doctrine of neoliberalism. When businesses abuse the tax system, and when they exploit and underpay their employees, these neoliberal scandals drain localities like Sheffield of the funds required to provide vital services and allow communities to flourish. As I explained in my very first posts here on Sheffield forum more than ten years ago, tax abuse is an integral component of the neoliberal project. That project is destroying the world, and these facts are now clear for anyone to see, if they choose to look.

Here are two BBC Radio 4 offerings from the last few weeks which reveal the deceit at the heart of the neoliberal claim that we should all stand on our own two feet and that the state should be reduced to force this bogus doctrine upon us. (Listen on BBC iPlayer) You and Yours, BBC Radio 4, 7 October 2021, presenter, Winifred Robinson Robinson: Why do you think it is that few black owned businesses in the UK have burst through into this unicorn group of people? Kent-Braham: It starts really at the very start of an entrepreneur's journey. One of the biggest barriers to overcome is raising capital. If you're from a certain background and you haven't essentially gone to a very good school and a very good university, you don't have the network to be able to raise capital from friends and family and venture capitalists. And so venture capitalists will often say, 'look, for me to invest in you, you need to have a warm intro to us.' But that warm intro's really easy to get if you literally went to the same school as someone or to the same uni, it's very hard to get when you're from a very different background. And so already there's a big barrier there. Robinson: And how about you, did you have those warm links that helped ease you in? Kent-Braham: We just got very, very lucky. Part of our first investment round, we just, someone we worked with knew someone at Monzo Bank who then we had a coffee with, who then offered to introduce us to one of their investors. And so we got that warm intro. It was just really, really lucky. Robinson: That was Oliver Kent-Braham, one of the founders of Marshmallow Insurance. (31:15 – 32:17) Today Programme, BBC Radio 4, 8 October 2021, presenter Justin Webb Webb: A new play is being staged next week: Grenfell: Value Engineering, Scenes from the Inquiry. It uses transcripts from the inquiry into the 2017 fire which caused the deaths of 72 people, that inquiry of course still going on. It opens at the Tabernacle in nearby Notting Hill, it moves then to Birmingham. And it aims to give an overview and access to some of the most important evidence that's been heard so far at the inquiry. Nicola Stanbridge has been to meet the people involved. (1:21:26 – 1:21:57) Stanbridge: Yvette Williams' campaign group Justice 4 Grenfell is working with the production: Williams: I've lived local for thirty something years, called to the fire on the night because a friend of mine lives underneath, the horror of it. I know two people that lived in the tower who died amongst the seventy two. Now I've been in the inquiry when evidence was given. None of the corporates mention people, you know, you hear about money, you hear about, you know, free lunches, you hear about them getting contracts for their mates... (1:22:25 – 1:22:59) As ever, it's who you know not what you know that eases the path to privilege and opportunity. Independent school and the right university are basic requirements. Without that privilege, and those warm intros and jobs for their mates, standing on our own two feet is a very difficult and precarious thing to achieve and maintain.

All tax abuse is unacceptable, whether it's called evasion or avoidance. However, this is in fact a bogus distinction. Whilst the billionaires and corporates have the bent accountancy firms arranging their tax abuse and working inside HMRC to rig the system, no one is helping the little people to cheat, and the small traders trying to scrape a few extra quid out of their labours in the informal economy are the only ones criminalised. And rightly so, if it were fair, but it clearly isn't. Steal a little and they throw the book at you, steal a lot and you can fly to space. Off shore is now off world, for the big tax cheats. But this sneering distinction is important, because it reveals just how important taxes really are to the neoliberal project - the taxes we ordinary people pay, us 'little people' that is. It's what funds what little there is left of our public services, and I'm sure we none of us need reminding who are increasingly contracted to deliver those services. That's right, those very tax abusing corporates who don't trouble to pay taxes themselves. Indeed, every individual and company making a profit or enjoying an income in the UK should be pay all tax lawfully demanded and properly payable.