Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

“  The single most important factor is the dramatic breakdown of upward social mobility in the UK .”

“ The oil world I inhabited brought together geopolitics and the everyday. It was material and dirty, and bloody and wracked by wars, coups d’état and revolutions. It was a world wrought by political struggle on the streets and at the diplomatic table. Corporations, universities and security apparatuses all had a finger in the pie. And along with the people who worked the oilfields and filled the streets during demonstrations they changed the world in perceptible ways, sometimes suddenly and monumentally, as when Middle East and Latin American leaders negotiated better oil deals for their countries; sometimes gradually, through a series of unintended consequences.” A review of Disorder : Hard Times in the 21st Century by Helen Thompson Laleh Khalili’s critique highlights good missing points in Thompsons’ book. However, Khalili never mentions capital and profit and their role in shaping geopolitics. We blitzed it Related Carbon Democracy

Key Facts 1. Low growth: real wages grew by 33 per cent a decade from 1970 to 2007 on average, but this fell to below zero in the 2010s. 2. High inequality: income inequality in the UK was higher than any other large European country in 2018. 3. The toxic combination: low- income households in the UK are 22 per cent poorer than their counterparts in France, and typical household incomes are 9 per cent lower. 4. Stalled progress: 8 million young workers have never worked in an economy with sustained average wage rises, and those born in the early 1980s were almost half as likely to own a home as those born in the early 1950s at age 30. 5. Levelling up: income per person in the richest local authority – Kensington and Chelsea (£52,500) – was over 4 times that of the poorest – Nottingham (£11,700) – in 2019. 6. Brexit Britain: fishing output could shrink by 30 per cent by 2030 as a result of Brexit, but food and beverages manufacturing output could increase by more than 5 per cent. 7. The...

“Sir Keir’s record shows his evolution into an unabashed authoritarian. As a young lawyer from a Labour-voting family, he dedicated significant time and energy to liberal causes, using his natural diligence to win a number of worthy cases against powerful interests […] his identification with socialists and environmentalists was always secondary to his ambition and the conformist reflexes that came with it.” A Journey to the Right

A very good piece! UK Brexiteers’ libertarian goal

“Britain is at least 90,000 truck drivers short.” “Logistics UK, the trade body for hauliers, said Britain had a chronic driver shortage for many years, but the problem was now acute. Many cite similar tales of poor working conditions for quitting but other reasons include poor wages compounded by a tax reform, known as IR35, that prevented most drivers from operating as limited companies, resulting in a significant cut to take-home pay.” “Add to that Brexit. For truckers, that meant endless paperwork, including customs procedures they were never trained for and queues at the border. Other issues included the need to take UK driving exams that many truckers did not have the language skills for, along with a more hostile attitude to foreigners in Britain. For the EU drivers that have left but still have the right to return and live in the UK, the prospects of higher pay that some UK companies are now offering was not enough. Many said they had already found work elsewhere on higher wage...

 The riots are the death spasms of a broken Britain Related Unrest in Northern Ireland

Via Andrew Burgin 03 February 2021 A resignation letter

Yves Hayat. — «   Brexit   », de la série «   Parfum de révolte   », 2016. Courtesy Galerie Mark Hachem, Paris The COVID pandemic slump and the underlying weakness of British capital are much more damaging to the UK's economic future than Brexit. Brexit is just an extra burden for British capital to face; as it also will be for British households. The Brexit deal

 The division over Brexit. A liberal left view. A civil war with British capitalism Related UK government and military accused of war crimes cover up

 The history remembered, the history forgotten

Higher Education in the UK is morally bankrupt... And I’m off.

The Left, the Party and the Class

"The dark star behind Brexit, without which it cannot be understood, remains the British people’s unreconciled relationship with the experience of empire. The empire is a huge and complicated subject that, to our enduring collective detriment, is barely taught and is thus also barely known and absorbed into public discourse. This is partly why Sunday was probably the first time that most people outside Bristol will ever have heard of Colston." — Martin Kettle, the Guardian

Is it a coincidence that the two pioneer states of the most aggressive form of "neoliberal" capitalism at home and abroad in the last 40 years or so are so far the most affected by the coronavirus? How the Anglo-American model failed to tackle the coronavirus

A new world won't emerge as if by magic

The myth of a progressive EU

The economy must come first?

The revenge of the middle-class anti-elitist

It's a good article. Brexit is a necessary crisis