From Mandelson to the markets: Big Finance’s rule over Britain
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/mandelson-markets-big-finances-rule-over-britain
Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson, September 7, 2001The Mandelson scandal reveals a political settlement in which democratic choice is curtailed and the power of markets eclipses the will of voters – only the left can challenge this, writes JON TRICKETT MP
THE whole Mandelson revelations have been interpreted by the mainstream media through the lens of the appalling paedophilia of Epstein as well as whether or not the PM can survive.
But there are other truths which ought to be equally the focus of attention.
For more than a couple of generations, British politics has been conducted beneath the increasingly menacing shadows cast by the towers of concrete and glass in the City of London and around Canary Wharf.
Buildings that reach for the sky are owned and controlled by global financiers who exercise huge economic leverage. These are the new Masters of the Universe who along with big tech now stride like giants across the global economy. Recent events have cast a light into areas which are largely unseen.
Viewed from this perspective, we see that the emissaries of Big Finance have successfully penetrated governments of all shades. The revelation of Peter Mandelson’s role as an agent of the moneyed elite is extraordinary now in its transparency.
We now know that while the Prince of Darkness was effectively the deputy prime minister, he was funnelling private state information to Epstein the financier. It appears also that the former Prince Andrew was passing information gleaned from his role as trade ambassador.
We must conclude both that the betrayals now revealed were of extraordinary proportions but equally that it was not an isolated scandal or a matter of a few bad apples. It provides a window into a deeper truth: the systematic capture of democratic government by major corporations and financiers.
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The deeper lesson of Mandelson, and of the ongoing obsession with market “confidence,” is that democracy is not something that disappears overnight. As we see in the US, it is eroded gradually.
But it can be challenged. Only the left can do this, because the rest are trapped in a reactionary discourse. Reversing that erosion will require confrontation with power.
We remember the famous dictum about the political right by Nye Bevan: “How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics in the 20th century.”
Recalling those words we must pose once again Bevan’s question to us on the left which is now urgen: “How can poverty use democracy to challenge the power of wealth?”
Jon Trickett Labour MP for Normanton and Hemsworth.
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/mandelson-markets-big-finances-rule-over-britain dizzy: I recommend reading this analysis by Socialist MP JON TRICKETT.
