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The Gallup Poll asks Americans about their attitudes toward capitalism and socialism on a semi-regular basis.

Some recent results are reported by Jeffrey M. Jones in Socialism, Capitalism Ratings in U.S. Unchanged (December 26, 2021, from a poll carried out in October 2021).

This figure shows the share of Americans who have a positive image of capitalism or of socialism. The answers over the last decade are, perhaps surprisingly, quite stable.

To put those percentages in context, heres a ranking of capitalism and socialism relative to some other terms.

Everyone loves small business. If you are a supporter of capitalism, it may be a good public relations move to refer instead to free enterprise, and thus perhaps to sidestep possibly being associated with big business. However, big business generally garners more positive support than either socialism or the federal government. The rankings of these other terms have remained the same in the last decade, too, although levels of positivity associated with both big business and government have declined since about 2012.

Finally, you might think that people view capitalism and socialism as two sides of a coin: that is, you favor one or the other. But this isnt necessarily true, asFrank Newport points out in Deconstructing Americans Views of Socialism, Capitalism(December 17, 2021). As the figure shows, about one-fifth of Americans have a favorable image of both capitalism and socialism, and another one-fifth have an unfavorable image of both.

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Public Opinion on Capitalism and Socialism - BBN Times

FOX Business host gives his take on the rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine, tax cuts and Biden's energy policies on 'Kudlow.'

The best line of today, by far, came from my hero Elon Musk, who you may recall wasTIME's "Person of the Year."

At various moments, I have nominated him for Fed Chair and other big government jobs because he's a brilliant guy with a lot of real-world horse sense and a sense of humor.

So, after President Biden met with Ford and GM yesterday about building more electric vehicles (and of course he never invites Tesla to those meetings even though Tesla vastly outsells Ford and GM EV's), Elon Musk tweeted, "Biden is a damp sock puppet in human form."

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Elon Musk attends TIME Person of the Year on December 13, 2021 in New York City. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images for TIME / Getty Images)

Elon went on to say that, "Biden is treating the American public like fools."

I'm not totally sure what a "damp sock puppet" is, but I have a feeling it's not a compliment.

Musk, by the way, has criticized Biden's big government socialist agenda, saying at one point we don't need any of it. There's an absolute truth!

He also said we don't need more electric car subsidies. Musk has taken them in the past, but he's saying enough is enough and I totally agree.

In the "Build Back Better" bill from the House, families earning $800,000 a year were eligible for $12,500 in subsidies if they bought an electric car. Somuch for safety net means testing! So much for a policy that's utterly ridiculous.

By the way, to fully qualify, the electric car and its batteries had to be built in union shops. Musk has moved a big chunk of his car business to Texas, which is a "right to work"state and he's using non-union shop.

ELON MUSK DRIVING AWESOME NEW TESLA CYBERTRUCK AHEAD OF EARNINGS CALL

I wonder if a family earning $800,000 could possibly buy an electric car without $12,500 dollars coming out of the pockets of middle-class working folks. In fact, the "damp sock puppet" is having an all-around hard time.

In a recent poll from Politico Morning Consult, Biden just lost to a generic Republican: 46% to 37% and of course the usual litany of Afghanistan catastrophe, open borders disaster, record inflation, parents are domestic terrorists, record crime, and now an unconstitutionally divisive ethnic and racial standard for an open Supreme Court seat which wouldn't even pass muster on college campus.

Now the "damp sock puppet" is in a brutal chess match with Vladimir Putin and seems to be losing. I hope he doesn't, but right now, he's certainly on his heels and time is running out.

So, this morning's news report from the Wall Street Journal goes into some length describing how White House officials were holding marathon video calls with officials around the world to get more liquid natural gas over to Europe if the U.S. sanctions the Nord Stream Pipeline. That's a big "if."

But 40% of Europe's natural gas comes from Russia, which of course Putin knows full well. When the "damp sock puppet" removed the Nord Stream 2 sanctions, it was a great gift to Putin. Now that pipeline has come home to roost.

Here's the trouble: For the past year, the "sock puppet" has been bad-mouthing oil, natural gas and all fossil fuels. It's been pathetic. When oil prices started spiking because American producers pulled back, recognizing their government was going to war with them, the "sock puppet" and his team again went around the world to find more oil and perhaps natural gas going hat and hand to the Saudis and of course, Russia.

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Tesla owner and Bitcoin miner Siraj Raval reveals how he mines up to $800 in cryptocurrency a month with his car.

If "Team Biden" had any horse sense whatsoever they wouldn't have canceled the Keystone Pipeline in the first hour after inauguration. They wouldn't have canceled ANWR. They wouldn't have lifted drilling fees on public lands. They wouldn't have nominated bank regulators who would deny credit to fossil fuel producers and they wouldn't have invented totally false, whacked out climate risk scenarios that have no basis in science or fact or common horse sense.

The U.S. can produce more natural gas than any other country in the world. Our guys have already shown that until Biden stopped them out. Bet he wishes now he hadn't. I don't hear one word of praise from him about our great fossil fuel producers and drillers and innovators and entrepreneurs.

Finally, the "damp sock puppet in human form," (Again I'm merely using Elon Musk's phrase.) wants to take credit for today's GDP report, which came in a bit better than expected at 6.9%, but with 7% inflation.

The inflation was caused by the first dose of big government socialism last spring and frankly, lingering economic growth really stems from the Trump tax cuts that the "sock puppet" and his allies want so desperately to repeal.

Here's a warning: Ifyou look under the headline, it actually was a rather weak report. Private consumer and business spending was very soft. The bulk of the growth came from a massive inventory increase which will not be sustained.

Now heres a thought: Half of the states around the country are cutting taxes while the "sock puppet" wants to increase them. If he ever gets his tax hike, that will be his second monumental economic mistake.

The first was shutting down fossil fuels. The second would be adding root canal without Novocain to the economy at the same time the Fed is taking away the punch bowl.

The Federal Reserve building is pictured in Washington, DC, on January 22, 2022. (STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)

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Democrats should instead make the Trump tax cuts permanent. Scott Rasmussen's poll says 60% of the country wants that. You know why? Because people are smarter than these D.C. swamp politicians.

As Elon Musk said, "Biden is treating the American people like fools." Just like a "damp sock puppet in human form." That's my riff.

This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow's opening commentary on the January 27, 2022, edition of "Kudlow."

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Larry Kudlow: Elon Musk is right to criticize Joe Biden's big government socialist agenda - Fox Business

The World Socialist Web Site condemns the escalating provocations by the United States and NATO against Russia. Their aim is to manufacture a pretext for war. These reckless actions threaten to trigger a global conflagration that would cost the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

The Biden administration announced yesterday that it is placing 8,500 troops on standby for deployment to countries in Central and Eastern Europe, on Russias border. This follows a report in the New York Times that the US government is developing plans to send up to 50,000 troops to the region.

US Colonel Alexander Vindman, who is involved in top-level US talks with the Ukrainian regime, declared: Why is this important to the American public? Its important because were about to have the largest war in Europe since World War II. Theres going to be a massive deployment of air power, long-range artillery, cruise missiles, things that we havent seen unfold on the European landscape for more than 80 years, and it is not going to be a clean or sterile environment.

Like the disastrous US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the road to war with Russia is paved with lies. The military build-up in Eastern Europe is being justified with media-hyped claims that an invasion of Ukraine is imminent, which even the Ukrainian government has questioned. This has been supplemented by warnings, without any factual basis, that Russia is planning to stage a false flag operation. If such an operation takes place, one can be certain that its authors will be in Washington, not Moscow.

The latest lie is the claim, manufactured by the British government, that Russia aims to forcibly install a puppet regime in Ukraineprecisely what Washington, Berlin and the NATO alliance did in 2014, backing a far-right putsch that seized power in Kiev. This lie has already exploded in Londons face. The man identified as the putative leader of a Russian puppet regime in Ukraine, businessman and former parliamentarian Yevhen Murayev, is in fact banned from Russia, which has seized his assets.

The biggest lie of all is that the US and NATO are engaged in a defense of democracy and against foreign aggression. The Ukrainian government and state apparatus is riddled with neo-Nazi paramilitary forces who played a central role in the 2014 putsch. This includes the Svoboda party, which the European Parliament had formally condemned for its racist, anti-Semitic, and xenophobic views, and the neo-Nazi Right Sector militia and Azov Battalion.

As for the Biden administrations claims that it is defending the sanctity of Ukraines national sovereignty against foreign aggression, the list of countries invaded and/or bombed by the US in the last 30 years includes Panama, Iraq, Kuwait, Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya and Syria.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the NATO military alliance has extended its borders 800 miles to the east, incorporating Poland, Hungary, Czechia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia. In 2021, NATO officially recognized Ukraine itself as an aspiring member, and Sweden and Finland are also considering joining the anti-Russia alliance. Both Finland and Estonia are less than 200 kilometers (125 miles) from St. Petersburg, and Ukraines eastern border is less than 750 kilometers (465 miles) from Moscow.

While the US and European powers are denouncing Russia for alleged troop movements within its own borders, billions of dollars in arms have been supplied by the US to the Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia which are now being shipped to Ukraine. The US already has more than 150 military advisers in Ukraine, including Special Operations Forces, joining advisers from the UK, Canada, Lithuania and Poland. Under these conditions, how could Russia not assume that it is the target of a military attack?

While the lies used to justify imperialist aggression are no more credible than the claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the new lies, as with the old, are presented by the media as absolute truth.

Neither the Biden administration nor its NATO allies have explained what they believe will be the outcome of the escalating confrontation. What is their worst case scenario?

The US claims that it will not be directly involved in a military conflict with Russia. This is a lie. The United States, pouring arms into Ukraine and stationing American military advisers in the country, isin law and in practicealready engaged in hostile action against Russia.

What do the US and NATO plan to do if their actions lead Russia to take military action not only against the Ukrainian puppets but also the American and Western European puppet masters? And does the Biden administration and the CIA really believe that a war with Russia will be a small and easily contained localized conflict? If so, they should think again.

A war with Russia would rapidly escalate into a global conflagration, inevitably involving China and, for that matter, every country in the world. The US-NATO provocations have made the danger of a nuclear war greater than at any point since the height of the Cold War conflict between the US and the Soviet Union.

It may appear that only the insane would provoke a war with such potentially catastrophic consequences. There is, however, a logic to this madness.

First, there are the geopolitical calculations of US imperialism. The reference by Biden at his recent press conference to Russias eight time zones and immense resources indicate the criminal calculations that motivate US military planning.

US and European imperialism view Russia, as Hitler did in 1941, as a vast arena for plunder. Through a combination of war and internal destabilization, imperialism seeks to instigate the breakup of Russia. Their aim is to carve up Russia into numerous puppet states that would exist as colonies of the major imperialist powers.

Further, the United States views the integration of Russia into its sphere of influence as essential to preparations for war with China.

But all of this is taking place within the framework of a catastrophe produced by the ruling classs response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly 900,000 Americans are dead from COVID-19, according to official figures. As the Omicron variant spreads without restraint, the ruling class has abandoned any pretense of containing, let alone eliminating, the virus. Schools and workplaces are being kept open, guaranteeing mass infection on a scale that has not been seen throughout the entire pandemic.

In the UK, the principal co-conspirator with the US in the war drive against Russia, the government of Boris Johnson, is hanging by a thread. But Johnson, the political and social lowlife who infamously declared, let the bodies pile up in their thousands, only exemplifies the degeneration of European bourgeois politics as a whole.

Available from Mehring Books

Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony, 1990-2016

The pandemic has triggered an economic, social and political crisis of the entire capitalist order. Over the past week, Wall Street has seen the steepest declines since the collapse in March of 2020. Soaring inflation threatens to undercut the Federal Reserves policy of providing unlimited cash to the financial markets, which has fueled a speculative mania unlike anything seen since the years prior to the Great Depression.

The Biden administration barely survived a fascistic coup a year ago that was aimed at blocking it from taking power. The instigator of the coup, Donald Trump, remains the de facto leader of the Republican Party, and the conspiracy to overturn the Constitution and establish a dictatorship continues.

For the past year, the obsessive fixation of the Biden administration has been unity. With regards to the divisions within the ruling class, Biden is using the provocations against Russia to forge an alliance with the most right-wing sections of the Republican Partythat is, a unity of the ruling class on the basis of military aggression abroad.

The greatest fear of the ruling class, however, is the growth of social opposition from below. The fight against the pandemic is beginning to take the form of a class struggle, as expressed in walkouts by teachers and students, and growing anger among broader sections of the working class. Just this month, teacher struggles have erupted in Chicago and across France, followed by student protests and walkouts in New York, San Francisco, Oakland, Boston, and in Austria and Greece. A wave of wildcat strikes against sell-out contracts agreed to by the trade unions has erupted in mines and metalworking factories across Turkey.

The fear of the emergence of a mass working class movement is what imparts to the anti-Russia campaign its hysterical and homicidal character. This would not be the first time that war is utilized in a desperate effort to establish a false national unity.

Historically condemned ruling classes have frequently turned in the past to suicidal policies of war in an attempt to preserve their class rule. In his work on this subject, titled Internal Causes and Purposes of War in Europe, 1870-1956, Princeton University historian Arno Mayer observed, In their bid to recover greater internal control, embattled governments tend to flaunt the specter of external dangers with the calculation that international tensions short of war can help to foster domestic cohesion.

Such considerations were central to the war on terror, which was used to wage war abroad and domestic repression at home. After the debacle of the war in Afghanistan, which culminated in the withdrawal of US forces last year, the temptation of the ruling class is to find a way out through an even more catastrophic military conflagration.

A ruling class that proves willing to needlessly sacrifice millions of lives during the pandemic will ultimately prove no less willing to sacrifice tens or hundreds of millions, or even billions, in a war.

The Russian as well as the Ukrainian working class is confronting the catastrophic consequences of the dissolution of the Soviet Union by the Stalinist bureaucracy in 1991. This criminal act was justified with the claim that Russia would be enriched by its peaceful integration into the bountiful world capitalist order. As for the potential danger of imperialist aggression, Gorbachev and Yeltsin and the Stalinist theoreticians of capitalist restoration dismissed this as a bizarre Marxist fantasy. Imperialism was merely a Leninistor still worse, Trotskyistconcept, invented to justify the 1917 October Revolution and socialism. This invention is now armed to the teeth and preparing the violent dismemberment of Russia and its transformation into a colony of world imperialism.

The Putin regime, which rules on behalf of the capitalist oligarchs that dominate the country, has no viable, let alone progressive, response to the threat. Hostile to the working class, it oscillates between attempts to negotiate a deal with the imperialist powers and threatening them with Russias military might. No political support whatsoever can be extended to the Putin regime by the Russian workingclass.

The situation is urgent. The working class must be made aware of the war danger and of the necessity to intervene politically to stop it.

The fight against war must be connected to the growing movement of the working class against the ruling class policy of mass infection, unprecedented levels of social inequality, and the growing danger of far-right and fascistic dictatorship. That is, the fight against war must be developed as an independent political movement of the working class against the ruling class and the entire capitalist system.

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Why the US and NATO want war with Russia - WSWS

With Brazils extreme right president Jair Bolsonaro up for re-election later this year, the desire to have him thrown out of office is running high and not just in Brazil. Millions across the globe want to see an end to his government, which has presided over mass impoverishment, environmental destruction and one of the worlds worst COVID-19 death tolls.

The Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL) has been among those at the forefront of resisting his government inside Brazil. Roberto Robaina is a member of the PSOL national leadership and a leader of the Socialist Left Movement (MES) tendency within it. He is also a city councillor in Porto Alegre and editor of Revista Movimento.

Green Lefts Federico Fuentes spoke to Robaina about Bolsonaros extreme right project, the upcoming elections and how Brazil might fit into the new wave of left governments in the region.

* * *

How would you assess Bolsonaros government role domestically and internationally?

The Bolsonaro government was a disastrous experience for the Brazilian people, who have endured a brutal rise in unemployment, a wage squeeze and environmental devastation.

More than 40 million workers have been pushed into the informal sector, where they have no rights such as superannuation or holiday leave.

In the past year, we saw a new record in terms of destruction caused by wildfires in the Amazon.

Perhaps, worst of all, was the traumatic experience endured due to his COVID denialism and opposition to vaccines and science, which led to more than 630,000 Brazilians dying from COVID-19.

The Brazilian people were not prepared for this traumatic experience. But they learnt a lot fromit, leading to masses of people turning against his government.

Evidently, expectations have focused on finding a way out of this trauma, which in turn has led to a narrowing of horizons in terms of peoples expectations.

Internationally, Bolsonarism was an example for the extreme right. Its defeat will have strategic importance. The extreme rights unpreparedness to run Brazil has been exposed to the world.

The process of politicisation has expressed itself in actions. Parts of society were forced out of their comfort zone and felt obliged to confront Bolsonaro. As a result, we have seen large street mobilisations.

While these protests did not bring down his government, they did impact on Bolsonaros ability to implement his full project. In these elections, he will be defeated.

It is clear, however, that the extreme right will not disappear with the end of his government. It has won support from a section of the proletariat and from desperate sections within the poor and middle class who, confronted with capitalisms crisis and the lack of left alternatives, have deposited their hopes in these types of projects. And this trend is continuing. It is based on mobilising peoples most destructive instincts.

However, the extreme right has suffered some heavy defeats. We saw this first with [Donald] Trump and we will see it with Bolsonaro.

At the same time, we need to mobilise and organise because we know that, in the last instance, the extreme right is a product of capitalisms continued existence.

With elections later this year, there is undoubtably pressure to support a lesser evil candidate against Bolsonaro, most notably Workers Party candidate and former president Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva. Can you tell us how the election is shaping up and what MES/PSOLs position is regarding which candidate to support?

Millions of Brazilians have their hopes set on a Bolsonaro defeat. Defeating him is the priority.

In this case, it makes sense to support a lesser evil, because a second term for Bolsonaro would represent a further rise in political violence. The government has used the state apparatus to promote violence, to further restrict the freedoms of the left, of the working class and of the media, incentivising hatred towards the press while promoting disinformation and fake news.

Bolsonaros continuity represents such a threat to democratic freedoms that it is vital he is defeated in the elections, given that street mobilisations, while having prevented him from consolidating his project, have not been able to bring his government down.

One section of the Brazilian capitalist class, while continuing to push for ways to further exploit the working class, opposes Bolsonaros strategy of a counterrevolutionary regime, of eliminating democratic freedoms. Bolsonaros disastrous management of the pandemic has deepened this division.

Therefore, it makes sense to seek out a lesser evil, and we recognise that Lula even if the PT is much weaker than it was in the 1980s and during its time in government maintains strong electoral support.

During [Lulas] time in government, capitalisms crisis was not as deep as it is now. The PT was able to pursue a developmentalist policy and manage the interests of capital, allowing it to accumulate capital, while pursuing social measures, mainly in the forms of cash handouts, to attend to some of the demands of the poorest sectors.

At the time, the countrys growth was linked to the boom in commodity prices, rising exports and Chinas growth; they were years of certain economic stability.

Part of the search for a lesser evil can be understood by the fact that many had a better experience under the PT, while life has been a trauma under Bolsonaro. The hope many have is to put an end to this trauma, this disaster.

Lula has emerged as the candidate capable of defeating Bolsonaro. Given Lula will undoubtably make it to the second round of the election in Brazil, elections go to a second round run offs if no candidate wins more than 50% we as MES believe PSOL should present its own candidate in the first round with a transitional program comprised of measures capable of attending to the most profound interests of the working class.

Achieving this aim will require attacking the interests of the millionaires, the large multinational corporations and big Brazilian capitalists in order to genuinely redistribute the wealth. This means basic measures, such as raising taxes on profits and dividends and taxing large fortunes.

We know that the capitalist class is strongly opposed to this. It will not accept state investment in policies that help the country develop through improvements in the living conditions of workers and the construction of an internal market in which wealth is generated via means that do not rely on the super-exploitation of the working class or relegate the country to a dependency on exporting commodities to the world market.

We have proposed federal deputy Glauber Braga as PSOLs candidate. Another wing of the PSOL believes we should support Lula in the first round. Unfortunately, they are the majority.

We also do not believe it is a certainty that Bolsonaro will make it through to the second round, precisely because his popularity is so low.

If Bolsonaro makes it to the second round, then Lula would absolutely count on our support to defeat him. But we believe elections are an opportune moment to present our partys program, and that a party that does not present its program in an electoral contest will have great difficulty developing.

We believe that we must develop an anti-capitalist alternative in Brazil, capable of mobilising youth and workers, because the fight against capitalism is a necessity and the fight against the extreme right will not end at the elections.

Lulas alliance with Geraldo Alckmin, a capitalist politician who governed the largest state, Sao Paulo, for almost 20 years [and has been proposed as his vice-presidential running mate], demonstrates that the PTs project remains social liberal.

So, of course, it is right to vote for Lula against Bolsonaro. But not presenting ones own candidate in the first round would represent a capitulation.

What impact do you think recent progressive victories in Chile and Peru might have on the elections? How do you see the general situation for the left in the region?

Gabriel Borics victory in Chile was fundamental because his opponent was [former dictator Augusto] Pinochets heir. Borics victory was ultimately due to the protests and rebellion of recent years in Chile.

At the same time, and as a reaction to this rebellion, an extreme right has emerged in Chile that almost won. It failed to win because, in the second round, millions of people felt the need to ensure the extreme rights defeat.

Pedro Castillos victory in Peru was also an expression of a longer process in the country. As a teacher who emerged on the political scene in 2017 as the leader of a very important teachers strike, Castillos victory came by surprise.

His discourse was very left-wing, challenging mining companies and multinationals and the predatory, extractivist program implemented in Peru for their benefit.

The processes in Chile and Peru are part of a new wave of the left in Latin America that is seeking out alternatives to capitalism, to neoliberalism. This new wave had its starting point in Bolivia.

At the time, the 2019 coup against former Bolivian president Evo Morales appeared to represent a key turning point for the extreme right and for the return of neoliberalism.

However, the coup was ultimately defeated and a leader of the Movement Towards Socialism was elected president after a period of very intense resistance in the streets.

Bolivia was the start of this new wave, which now faces the challenge of developing a program for Latin American integration, in which these experiences can feed off each other and potentially pursue a common economic policy.

If Lula wins in Brazil, the challenge we will face is making sure he does not act as he did previously. During the previous left wave in Latin America, the Brazilian government acted like a firefighter, attempting to extinguish the processes of mobilisations rather than pursuing genuine Latin American integration.

It sought advantages for Brazilian capital in these countries rather than a policy of integration in which the state used its resources to construct a common Latin American internal market and achieve true independence.

This will be a challenge because it appears as though no lessons have been learnt from that previous experience; instead, we see the continuous pursuit of negotiations and collaboration with sections of the capitalist class that have no interest in regional independence.

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'Millions have their hopes set on a Bolsonaro defeat': An interview with Brazilian socialist Roberto Robaina - Green Left

A few months ago the suggestion that Keir Starmer was a lucky politician would have produced bucketfuls of scorn. Luck, of course, is a vital element in any politicians career, but given events since Starmer took over the reins of his party from his predecessor in April 2020, you would be hard pressed to argue that he enjoyed anything other than the bad sort.

After a positive start, when voters were simply relieved they no longer had to live with the incessant soap opera of Jeremy Corbyns leadership, Labours poll ratings started to slide again, as voters got to know Starmer and decided, on the whole, that they werent particularly impressed with him. Last years local elections, which coincided with the Hartlepool by-election, was a nadir for him and his party. Starmers subsequent performance during the pandemic didnt help much: the public seemed content to stick with the devil they knew rather than take a chance with the new boy on the block.

In the last couple of months everything has changed, mostly for reasons that are nothing to do with Starmer or his front benchs valiant efforts. Labours poll lead, however long it lasts, is wholly down to unforced errors by Johnson and his team. But who cares about that? Certainly not the shadow cabinet, who will accept the fruits of victory however they were won.

It may be significant that Johnsons troubles have largely been caused by his apparent disrespect for anti-Covid rules, including his irresistible urge to attend parties (or work events, depending on the terms of Sue Grays final report), and Johnsons ill-fated attempt to rewrite the rules on House of Commons standards to protect former parliamentary colleague Owen Paterson from censure.

Because even before this winter of discontent for the Conservatives, there were siren voices warning that the Johnson government was already straying too far from any known understanding of the word conservative. The pandemic changed the political and economic discourse; measures such as furlough and a range of business support initiatives, including unexpected billions in public support for the railway and bus companies to see them through a period of historically low passenger numbers, transformed the traditional economic arguments that usually define our politics.

It's certainly true that Labour has been unable, even in these times of staggering levels of public spending, to resist its instinct to demand even more cash from the Treasury. But by the time of the next election, the reliable tactic of pointing the finger at their spendthrift opponents will simply no longer seem a credible tactic for the Conservative Party. Covid has changed much in society but its impact on the political arena goes far beyond arguments over the length of lockdowns or the effectiveness of mask mandates.

How does a small state party (in name and reputation, at least, if not in practice) resurrect the successful tactic employed in past elections of putting their opponents on the defensive over their spending plans when they themselves have just presided over the largest short-term increase in public spending since World War II?

Its when such questions are asked that you begin to see the tactical wisdom of Labours enthusiastic support for multiple lockdowns. Their primary concern, as with the government, was public safety. But for Labour, watching from the side lines as the government borrowed on the never-never and wielded the power of the state to control and direct everyones lives, the last two years was as much a confirmation of their political philosophy as it was a repudiation of the Conservatives. Supporting restrictions was, in essence, a win-win.

Unexpectedly, at least for the Right-wing of the Conservative Party, it was not Rishi Sunaks over-stretched credit card that started to push his partys fortunes lower in the polls but the personal foibles and judgment of the prime minister. The public seem quite content with a high-spending, high-tax party of government, so long as its leader isnt seen to be flouting rules on personal behaviour that he himself set.

It's difficult to see how that can be good news for the Conservative Party, or at least for a Conservative Party that claims it wants to recapture the low tax, small government agenda. Labour, on the other hand, would be only too happy to continue what Johnson and Sunak have begun, and they would at least do it enthusiastically and deliberately, rather than with an apologetic wince every time a few billion was committed or a few per cent added to our tax bills.

It may be hard to believe, but one day the daily revelations about parties at Number 10 during lockdown will cease and the media caravan will move on. At some point, the forces on both sides of the political divide will have to reassemble on the battlefield and decide what theyre actually fighting about. On public spending, the game has already been partly won by Labour. If there is no counter-attack, a new post-Thatcherite consensus will emerge that will be difficult to challenge. And the only casualty will be the Conservative Party.

Originally posted here:
Thanks to Keir Starmer, the Conservatives are ushering in a new era of socialism - Telegraph.co.uk