Immigration – Giving Away the Lives of Others
Feed-The-Rich Privatisation
Hungary – the Wounds of 1956
Snippets
Structureless Protests are Fun, but Failures
USA Resenting Indian Success
Hindu Home-Grown Racism
Poland Replacing Coal With Nuclear.
Sunlight for Power and Food
Robots – Dangers and Hopes
Still Fighting to the Last Ukrainian
Did Russia Invade Poland in 1939?
Give Me Liberty, and I Will Morosely Shoot Myself
Corbyn, the Man Who Would Not Be King
Immigration – Giving Away the Lives of Others
Remove all barriers to immigration, and maybe a couple of hundred million needy people move to Great Britain. Not a solution for anyone.
The main problem in Britain is multi-millionaires taking an unfair share of the national wealth. Doing nothing extra to justify it. But to convince people of this, it’s best to admit that continuing new arrivals are a lesser but entirely genuine problem.
The recent supposed mass outbreak of fascism was nothing of the sort. Right-wing racists organised it, but it was ordinary British-born people offended that their needs were being neglected,
“‘I’m angry. My son can’t get a house, but they’re housing these first. It’s not right, this is our country,’ says Mandy, as she stares at the Holiday Inn on the edge of Warrington that is now being used as an asylum hotel.
“Mandy lives in a street across from the hotel, and is one of dozens of locals who have joined weekly peaceful protests to get the hotel shut.
“A short drive up the M6, there are different concerns in Wigan, a town without any asylum hotels but 900 homes in multiple occupation – HMOs – some of which now house asylum seekers.
“‘I’ve had intimidation, confrontations in the street, illegal working,’ says local Adrian, anxiously pointing to several redbrick terraced homes in his neighbourhood that he says are such homes. One is next door to his.
“‘I was never asked. My voice has never been heard,’ he says in frustration.
“Hundreds of people have got in touch with Your Voice Your BBC News about the issue of small boat crossings, illegal immigration and asylum-seeker accommodation.” (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c07vn1y2jz2o).
Until the 1950s, Britain as the core of the British Empire / British Commonwealth put no limits on where its subjects could live. We were all known as subjects then, until the legalities were tidied up in 1981. The newly-defined British citizenship intentionally excluded some people, notably the people of Hong Kong.
New laws all over the world recognised that cheap mass transit made economic migration an option for maybe half the human race, if there were no legal barriers. So Britain got legal barriers.
The USA had them far earlier, when they started getting unfamiliar immigrants from Italy and from the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe and the Tsarist Empire. Jews before then had not been much targeted, because they had arrived with other West European immigrants and knew the culture.
Controls in Britain allowed the existing immigrants to be integrated. The 1958 White-Racist riots at Notting Hill were never repeated. And when Black Britons rioted in Brixton in 1987, I went against most other views and said that these were ‘Reformist Riots’. (https://gwydionwilliams.com/40-britain/the-brixton-riots-of-1987/). Trickles of Blood, rather than the rivers of blood that Enoch Powell had warned of.
I didn’t go so far as to predict an Asian as Tory Prime Minister, followed as party leader by a very black lady brought up in Nigeria and the USA. But broadly I got it right.
And now I suspect that continuing issues with asylum seekers are being carefully calculated to irritate the portion of the abused 90% who still define themselves as English. But that does not mean the issue does not exist.
It’s not just economics. The culture has changed, and I myself have always been comfortable with it. But with a Welsh father and a left-wing family, I always felt somewhat outside of it. And being part of the ‘Next Nine’ who have not been economically damaged by the rise of the super-rich 1%, I was never hurt personally. Yet I still recognise that it is not only minorities that are suffering.
One of the Trade Union research departments should do an ‘economic cake’ showing how much of the national wealth has gone to the 1%, the Next Nine and the 90% between 1979 and 2025. The 1% have got almost all of it.
Contrast this with the modest wealth of all those who arrived in Britain since 1979. It would be much smaller, quite apart from having been honestly earned.
Feed-The-Rich Privatisation
We’d have a very different Britain if Margaret Thatcher had been a genuine conservative, as Stanley Baldwin was in the 1920s and 1930s.
Baldwin reduced trade union power after facing down the 1926 General Strike. But he did not then rip up the country’s economic norms. Nor trust to unlimited market forces, even before they caused the 1929 crash.
With hindsight, we can see he should have opted for something like the USA’s New Deal, and which after 1945 came to be called Keynesianism. But he avoided destroying anything.
Thatcher won her 1980s confrontation, but then started ripping up the system that in the 1950s and 1960s had delivered the fastest continuous growth that Britain ever had. She believed right-wing dogmas that the market would always get things right.
“The public has paid almost £200bn to the shareholders who own key British industries since they were privatised, research reveals.
“The transfer of tens of billions of pounds to the owners of the privatised water, rail, bus, energy and mail services comes as families face soaring bills, polluted rivers and seas, and expensive and unreliable trains and buses.
“As a result, citizens have been paying a ‘privatisation premium’ of £250 per household per year since 2010 alone, the analysis found.
“Recent focus has been on the privatised water industry, which has run up long-term debts of £73bn and paid out dividends of £88.4bn in the past 34 years at the same time as overseeing record sewage spills, according to the latest figures.” (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/16/uk-public-paid-200bn-to-shareholders-of-key-industries-since-privatisation-study)
With the loss of secure jobs, the social conservatism that Thatcher cherished declined even faster than before. Life got rougher and less trusting: the very reverse of her hopes.
But why did New Labour embrace it? Why treat Thatcherism as a necessity, even though British growth is no better than it was in the ‘disastrous’ 1970s?
You have to look at MPs as individuals. They are securely in the ‘Next Nine’, with salaries of nearly £94,000. With many ways to legally make more. And all sorts of extra temptations:
“Newly unearthed emails last week shone light on Epstein’s role as freelance client development officer, acting as a channel between political figures and business titans, greasing up the former with lifestyles they could not afford and the latter with avenues of political influence.” (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/13/jeffrey-epstein-emails-wealth)
Hungary – the Wounds of 1956
While rejecting anti-Russian hysteria, Hungary’s government still believes a lot of the New Right nonsense.
“Sell-offs of public housing and the right’s promotion of home ownership has left too many unable to afford accommodation…
“Only about 10% of all housing-related government spending has targeted lower-income groups. Meanwhile, Hungary’s public housing sector has shrunk dramatically, from covering 20% of the housing stock in 1990 to a mere 2% today.
“The government’s longstanding neglect of the housing issue is no accident. It stems from a deeply rooted ideological narrative. In 2014, the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, declared in an interview: ‘My basic principle is that my house is my castle – I am a believer in owner-occupancy and family homes.’ This narrative – common across former eastern bloc countries – paints home ownership as a kind of cultural destiny, portraying the state socialist era’s large-scale public housing programmes as historical aberrations.
“But this view is neither historically accurate nor economically realistic. In fact, socialist-era housing policies bore strong similarities to public housing systems in western Europe. Affordable housing developments helped the upward social mobility of millions, creating opportunities that had previously been unimaginable. Yet after 1990, anti-communist sentiment combined with ‘shock therapy’ reforms – including the rapid privatisation of half a million dwellings – forged a political imagination that has sidelined rental and public housing, replacing it with the dream of universal home ownership.” (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/04/hungary-budapest-renting-housing-crisis.)
In Britain and most of Western Europe, Moderate Socialists in the 1970s took for granted the shift that happened after 1945. That happened when the elite feared public sympathy for the Soviet example as a strong alternative. But when the Soviet model failed, they lost faith in themselves. Under Blair, they treated Thatcherism as an unavoidable truth.
Thatcher as a conventional conservative took advantage of the Hard Left in Britain sabotaging the Moderate Socialist ideas of Workers Control and Incomes Policy. But they then accepted her notion that privatisation, less government control and lighter taxes for the rich were economic necessities.
They stick rigidly to this belief even now that four decades of real-life experience have shown that ‘trickle-down’ was always nonsense.
We’ve always seen it differently. The post-Stalin leadership was foolish and self-harming when it refused to let Hungary make its own sort of socialism in 1956. That was a contrast with Stalin forgiving Finland for being part of Hitler’s coalition, and then not trying to invade Yugoslavia.
Snippets
Structureless Protests are Fun, but Failures
Is the main point of protest to separate yourself from a wicked world? Increasing numbers of leftists are seeing it so.
“Young, politicised, far left: Who are France’s ‘Block Everything’ protesters?…
“Launched on social media in July, the campaign has drawn early comparisons to the 2018-2019 Yellow Vest (‘Gilets jaunes’) protests – a grassroots revolt that began over fuel taxes and ballooned into a nationwide uprising against inequality, economic hardship and a political establishment seen as out of touch.” (https://www.france24.com/en/france/20250906-young-politicised-far-left-who-are-france-block-everything-protesters.)
The Yellow Vests petered out without gains. An irritated electorate chose Macron. So now let’s get Macron as well!
Just the way you get actual fascism. Make ordinary life impossible. Then be utterly astonished when a majority choose functional authoritarianism instead of endless fun protesting.
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USA Resenting Indian Success
“India Was the Economic Alternative to China. Trump Ended That.
“A lurch in policy has shaken the India-U.S. economic alliance against China, leaving India little choice but to consider reversing its own strategy.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/business/india-china-trump-tariffs.html)
Trump is moving the USA away from cosmopolitan culture. He might not reject splitting the USA, even. And would sooner partner with Putin’s Russia, seeing it as a bastion of the White Race.
Hindus in the USA have been outstandingly successful. And maintain their own culture, while able to work very efficiently within US power structures.
Also true of Chinese, but that was Biden-Harris as much as Trump. Ethnic Chinese, many of them emigre anti-Communists, were never defended when scapegoated in the Covid crisis.
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Hindu Home-Grown Racism
Mahatma Gandhi would not attack the Caste System. He just wanted it to become ‘nice’.
Not a realistic hope.
“Death penalty for Indian man who burnt alive wife over skin colour
“Lakshmi’s murder eight years back and the judgement, delivered at the weekend, have made headlines in a country where public obsession with colourism is well documented…
“Girls and women with darker skin tones are called derogatory names and face discrimination; and skin lightening products make for big business, earning billions of dollars in profits.
“In matrimonial columns, skin colour is almost always emphasised and lighter-skinned brides are more in demand.” (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyryrwwdj7o)
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Poland Replacing Coal With Nuclear.
“Poland will build Europe’s first BWRX-300 small modular nuclear reactor (SMR), marking a major step in its shift away from coal and toward cleaner energy, state-run energy giant Orlen announced Thursday.” (https://www.euronews.com/green/2025/08/28/poland-to-build-europes-first-of-its-kind-small-scale-nuclear-power-plant-in-wloclawek).
Western Europe retains a terror of nuclear power. This has proved unalterable, even where the establishment accepts global warming as a much bigger threat.
Poland knows better. And similar things are happening in China. New technology allows for small safe reactors that can use the boilers etc. of existing coal-burners. (https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3325263/china-mulls-converting-coal-fired-power-plants-nuclear-facilities)
Western Europe is dominated by fears and obsessions. The rest of the world is going its own way.
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Sunlight for Power and Food
Solar power is a threat to farming, we are told. But that’s just not true.
China, with vast semi-desert regions in its west, is using much of it for power. But are also world leaders in re-foresting.
India has little spare land. But is trying dual-function farming:
“Not all crops will grow under solar panels. Depending on the layout, the panels reduce the light getting through by between 15% and 30%. Some denser layouts will block too much sun for staple crops including wheat, rice, soybeans or pulses.
“‘What works well are high-value crops with moderate or low-light needs, like green leafy vegetables, spices such as turmeric and ginger, and some flowers’…
“To allow farming underneath, the solar panels need to be at least 11ft (3.5m) off the ground. That makes them between 20% and 30% more expensive to install than panels on a regular solar farm, where they are much closer to the ground.” (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2en1yyp4d9o.)
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Robots – Dangers and Hopes
“Rented Robots Get the Worst Jobs and Help Factories Keep the Humans…
“When they adopt robots to do some of the most dull, dirty, dangerous, repetitive, backbreaking tasks, people stay, right? Because you’re not lifting heavy boxes 12 hours a day” (www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/business/factories-robot-rentals.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hE8.Ur4T.oZAiLTXHVnNe&smid=bs-share)
That’s how it could be. But without regulation, big business mostly prefers to replace expensive humans with automated systems that lack flexibility. Like all of the ‘help’ and complaint options that are not quite bad enough to lose a majority of customers.
I’ve written about how it all went wrong in the early 19th century. (https://labouraffairsmagazine.com/m-articles-by-topic/40-britain/arkwright-and-the-rise-of-the-factory-system/). This time round, things could be different.
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Still Fighting to the Last Ukrainian
In 2022, Russia called their support of pro-Russian Ukrainians a Special Military Operation. Support for a majority in the east and south of Ukraine that no longer wanted a separate Ukraine that hated everything Russian. And where the economy remained the corrupt mess that Putin had fixed for the Russian Federation.
It was never about restoring the wider hegemony that Gorbachev and Yeltsin gave up. They had seen what the USA and Western Europe failed to grasp in the 1990s: you can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.
But you still have an obligation to help friends. Ethnic Russians and Russia-speaking Ukrainians, after Kiev from 2014 demanded complete submission to hatred. And in the ‘aggression’ against Georgia, they protected South Ossetians who feared Ethnic Cleansing after conflicts with the Georgian majority.
Most commentators either want to keep their nice interesting and well-paid jobs, or else genuinely fail to see through the deceptions:
“Why Haven’t Sanctions on Russia Stopped the War? The Money Is Still Flowing.
“For decades, companies feared being on the wrong side of U.S. sanctions. That’s not always true anymore.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/business/russia-sanctions-ukraine-war.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hE8.7Wy_.htsQG3Gh1RvH&smid=bs-share)
It’s true that the balance of power has shifted. But the USA hasn’t given up anything they seriously needed. And gained by bullying Western Europe to take their expensive Liquified Natural Gas instead of cheap Russian natural gas.
Did Russia Invade Poland in 1939?
In 1919, the Western powers tried to define what an independent Poland should be:
“The Allied victors agreed that an independent Polish state should be recreated from territories previously part of the Russian, the Austro-Hungarian and the German empires…
“The Supreme War Council tasked the Commission on Polish Affairs with recommending Poland’s eastern border, based on spoken language majority, which became later known as the Curzon Line… Instead, the final Peace of Riga … provided Poland with almost 135,000 square kilometres (52,000 sq mi) of land that was, on average, about 250 kilometres (160 mi) east of the Curzon Line.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curzon_Line#Early_history).
In as far as international law was real, this was land illegally occupied by Poland. It should have been part of Belarus or Ukraine, but the Soviet Union did not make an issue of it. Instead Stalin sought a pact with the British Empire and French Empire to force Hitler to keep the peace.
He could not get an agreement. But then Poland unexpectedly rejected a modest offer from Hitler to accept Poland as it was, in exchange for majority-German Danzig. Stalin took the opportunity to get Hitler fighting Poland and the West while he built up strength.
No one at all was expecting the sudden collapse of Poland – Serbia in World War One had lasted more than a year in a worse position. But it was still a sensible choice.
And a mere reclaiming of land that Poland had illegally occupied.
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Give Me Liberty, and I Will Morosely Shoot Myself
US culture makes life not worth living:
“Global suicide rates fell 30 per cent since 1990 – but not in the US
“While most countries have seen a steady decline in suicide rates, the United States has witnessed the opposite, with suicides jumping almost 30 per cent since 2000” (https://www.newscientist.com/article/2496424-global-suicide-rates-fell-30-per-cent-since-1990-but-not-in-the-us/ – pay site)
I had long ago concluded that US culture had emerged from the crisis of the 1960s to 1980s in an unworkable form. People who had all the material means to live very nicely, but their culture had given them bloated expectations. A feeling that either the world had let them down, or they themselves were unfit to live. Or maybe both – see https://labouraffairsmagazine.com/very-old-issues-images/1994-to-1999-magazine/the-world-as-a-global-night-club/ and https://labouraffairsmagazine.com/past-issues/isolated-labour-affairs-pages-before-2015/money-and-gun-power-globalisation-as-it-is/.
The original ‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’ man was a slave-owner who hoped slavery would end eventually. Who could not translate this into politics. His great-grandson, Colonel William Aylett, fought for the Confederacy in the American Civil War.
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Corbyn, the Man Who Would Not Be King
I won’t say much about the fast-moving crisis in ‘Your Party’. But I had always seen Jeremy Corbyn as having failed when he accidentally became Labour Leader. He should have let his supporters in constituency parties purge the MPs who were clearly determined to ignore him and return to Blairite policies.
He let Kier Starmer oversee the road to Brexit. Given the bad terms that were the best the European Union were offering, he should have pushed for a second vote. A crucial 5% would have shifted when promises of an easy exit had proved false. Instead they let Labour contribute to a Parliament that systematically rejected all possible solutions. Let Boris Johnson scoop up habitual Labour voters with a promise of Brexit at any cost.
It was not a rejection of leftism – Corbyn in 2017 had won more votes than anyone since Blair’s first victory. 2019 was special, see https://labouraffairsmagazine.com/editorials-from-labour-affairs/the-brexit-defeat/labours-lost-seats-causes/.
Corbyn had to be pushed into launching a new party, and now backs away from making it real.
Zarah Sultana shows a real will to be a leader. Facing real party politics, she might get flexible about views from the fashionable left that most working-class voters won’t accept.
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Old newsnotes at the magazine websites. I also write regular blogs – https://www.quora.com/q/mrgwydionmwilliams
Copyright ©Gwydion M. Williams. September 19th
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