A person’s biological sex is on their birth certificate and cannot change. However a tiny minority of people want to present as and be accepted as a gender different from their biological sex. This is permitted by law. Some critics of this deny the idea of “gender”. They find the idea that biological sex can be different from adopted gender unacceptable. The law of the land disagrees.

When it comes to the oft-posed question “What is a woman ?” it seems that the answer is that it is identical to gender whether that conforms to biological sex or only to adopted gender . If a biological male chooses to present as a female-gendered person then he (a man biologically) becomes a woman legally.

If I’m right (tell me why I’m not under the law) then aren’t we making a mountain out of a molehill given the rarity of transitioning.

(To avoid doubt I strongly believe that women who have transitioned need to be exceptionally sensitive in all-women spaces (preferably avoid them) and that they should never compete in female sport.)

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” ( Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen) is a slogan popularised by Karl Marx. But you don’t need to be a Marxist to believe it. Indeed it underpins the political logic of every modern Welfare State.

When the Right vehemently opposes tax rises they are often denying the moral logic of redistribution. And yet a civilised society depends on just that. The principle is clear and, I would have thought, fairly uncontroversial. All societies have a hierarchy of wealth within them – from the rich man in his castle to the poor man at his gate. That the former should help the latter does not require a revolution, though it could lead to one if it is denied.

In late 18th Century France the bourgeoisie played a fundamental role in the French economy, accounting for 39.1% of national income despite only accounting for 7.7% of the population. Whilst the causes of the French Revolution went well beyond wealth inequalities these were unquestionably a major cause. Roll forward to today:

• The U.S. has the highest level of income inequality among developed countries.
• In 2021, the richest 1% of households earned 139 times more than the bottom 20%.

Arguably modern America is a more unequal society than pre revolutionary France. And measures proposed by the Trump administration will widen that gap further. The supreme irony, of course, is that many in the boondocks who voted for Trump will now be comparatively poorer from a low base.

Bernie Sanders has been arguing the evil of inequality for a long time – remember he very nearly won the Democratic nomination in 2016 ahead of Hillary. If he had he might just have beaten Trump. There are strong signs at the moment that his consistent message is helping spur action just where it needs to – in the deprived heartlands of Trump’s Red States. Bernie will be 84 in September and must pass the mantle of articulating the need for redistributive action on to someone else. Many on the anti Trump inspired American Left are waiting in the wings. Bernie called his 2016 book “Our Revolution”. It could be coming.

The violence in America rumbles below the surface much of the time, but occasionally breaks out. History tells us that often the repressed and disadvantaged underclass will only tolerate that position for so long. Trump’s Divine Right of Kings is vulnerable – Revolution is not impossible.

^{“… since Britain is one of just two European powers that has nukes, and no one with even a cursory knowledge of history will allow that Germany should get its own, a large share of this responsibility clearly falls to us.” Juliet Samuel in “The Times”}

What an absolutely astonishing insult to modern Germany. I have a rather more than cursory “knowledge of history” and because of that I understand and welcome the post war creation of democratic West Germany and the achievement of its reunification with East Germany after 1989.

The implication that the horrors of German governance in the first half of the Twentieth Century were in some way a consequence of a malignancy in the German character is deeply offensive. The Great War was the death rattle of Empire – something we Brits know a lot about. Imperialism was certainly not a teutonic phenomenon! And the rise of Hitler and his evil dictatorship was a grotesque political reaction to economic trauma.

The coming to power in previously democratic states of unsuitable and/or malignant leaders has happened all too frequently – and is happening now in the United States. I would certainly prefer to be allied with a Germany with its finger on a Nuclear button than Donald Trump!

Israel would not have acted in Gaza, could not have acted, without the overt and covert support of the United States. In effect this is an American war with Israel in the front line funded by the US. US Presidents as diverse as Carter and Trump (and everyone in-between) have not wavered in their support for Israel.

The Middle East is complicated, not least by the Sunni/Shia split in Islam. But there is nothing more designed, theoretically at least, to create unity than the opposition to Israel. Yes Iran, mainly a Persian not an Arab country and Shia, actually funds the Islamic terrorists and is extremist itself. But across the region there is no love lost between Persians and Arabs !

That the Israeli response to the Hamas attack was not proportionate is ever more obvious daily. As is the fact, admitted by senior Israelis, that the creation of a (much) “Greater Israel” is a goal. In other words the destruction of Palestine. The “Two State solution” is dead in the water. The gaining of Lebensraum is underway.

The Sunni countries, led by Saudi Arabia, are reasonably united and well armed. They don’t want war though and Israel is smart enough to confine its territorial ambitions to Gaza, the West Bank and Syria where, it seens, no Sunni State is going intervene.The reality is that only one country can restrain Israel. The United States. And they are not going to.

Moya Lothian-McLean ‘s diatribe against Keir Starmer in the New York Times today is unbalanced and unfair. After fourteen years of increasingly incompetent Conservative rule and five Prime Ministers – and the absurd decision to quit the European Union – there was an Augean Stables for him to clean up. That task would be a challenge to any leader and especially to one comparatively new to politics. And Sir Keir has had to cope with a hostile media environment the mendacity of which was on display from the start.

Like the United States Britain is a lone wolf internationally. Dean Acheson told us what to do as a post Imperial medium sized country more than fifty years ago. Look to Europe, and for a while we did. But a hard “Brexit “ has destroyed that and is gradually destroying much more. Starmer has refused to countenance strengthening our European ties anything other than superficially. But in time we , or what’s left of us, will have to return to Europe again. Trump’s America can survive as an international pariah. Starmer’s Britain cannot.

Brexit has damaged us economically but more importantly it has driven us towards a toxic National Conservatism. This is backward looking with every opportunity taken to celebrate past triumphs and to wave our flag. Meanwhile our infrastructure is crumbling and even to build a modest High Speed Train line linking London to our second city Birmingham seems a challenge too far. 

The National Conservatism is present in Nigel Farage’s Hard Right “Reform” party which is riding high in the polls. Our electoral system is such that for Reform to win an election, as suggested by this article, is highly unlikely. That election is four years away. Farage was once seen regularly with Trump – it was almost hero worship. That love-in suggests the choices Britain must make. Segue towards the increasingly authoritarian United States or reestablish our place as a significant democratic and liberal European power. 

Keir Starmer is certainly struggling in part because he has decided that he cannot do what deep down he knows is necessary. Culturally, economically, geographically and emotionally we Brits are Europeans. Let’s start acting again like we are.

It is certainly true that all antisemites oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza but it does not follow that all of us who oppose the actions are antisemites. I am not Jewish but have always regarded myself as a Zionist – the word needs rescuing from those who have turned it into a term of abuse. I support the principle of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. But what Israel has done is closer to Lebensraum – a chilling irony.

The problem was originally of Arab making. Arab nations opposed Zionism in successive conflicts. The West supported Israel, as did I. Israel had every right to defend itself and did, with our help. But there was no right to the expansionism that followed – the settling on land militarily acquired had no justification in international law. In short it was theft.

To oppose Israel’s expansionism and the organised planting of settlers is not Jew hatred nor antisemitism. It is not unreasonable to believe that Israel’s borders should be determined by negotiation not by war.

It is clear that Israel’s goal in Gaza is to incorporate the territory in Greater Israel. And that what is effectively ethnic cleansing is the strategy chosen. The irony that this has a direct parallel with the all too many pogroms Jewish people have suffered over the centuries is another irony.

The IDF is the legitimate Armed Forces of the State of Israel. It operates solely under political control. It is possible to oppose what it is doing (I do) – but that opposition needs to be directed at Netanyahu. He’s in charge, the IDF is his means.

John Kampfner in The Times reflects on the significance of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” . Here is my view:

There is a direct comparison between Mein Kampf and today’s politics – the overwhelming presence of a blame culture. Politicians of almost all persuasions, and their followers, see a problem and seek someone to blame. Hitler’s rise was constructed on this premise. His early political life, for which Mein Kampf was the instruction manual, told Germans to hate – and to blame the Jews for everything.

Donald Trump uses the blame culture all the time and, like Hitler, links it to an overt narrow nationalism. This nationalism, again like in the Third Reich, is strongly promoted by symbolism. The two tall flagpoles on the White House are modern vestiges of Nuremberg Rally symbols.

The interwar years presented strong challenges to all nations but especially to Germany. In fact the Weimar Republic could probably have succeeded had it not been for the Wall Street crash of 1929. But economic collapse was just the evidence Hitler needed. The “What have we got to lose” imperative propelled Hitler to power, as it has twice for Trump. 

The blame culture is driven by mendacity. Goebbels knew that if you keep repeating a lie people will come to believe it. So did, and do, the promoters of Brexit – another example of the blame culture. Those who spread the pro Brexit lies always did so in a Union Jack displaying situation. The raw nationalism did persuade sufficient voters. As it had for the author of Mein Kampf.

The apparent rise of Reform , untested as yet in a national election, is another example of overwhelmingly negative campaigning and the blame culture. And of a Goebbels type mendacity. As with Trump those who are culturally and racially different from the White Anglo Saxon Protestant majority are blamed. And symbolism. Reform chairman Zia Yusuf announced that “Reform-controlled English councils will move at speed to resolve that the only flags permitted to be flown on or in its buildings will be the Union Jack and St George’s flag”.

In 1997 the BBC documentary “The Nazis: A Warning from History” examined Adolf Hitler and the Nazis‘ rise to power in Germany. The title was unequivocal. Don’t imagine that history cannot repeat itself.

In Britain we’ve had the Labour Party taken over by Jeremy Corbyn and the Conservatives by Liz Truss – neither could be described as being of their party’s One Nation/centrist traditions (or fit for high office). We have flirted with the extremes. And we still are. Reform is very much in the Trump disruptive mould and “Leave” in the 2016 Referendum campaign appealed to the gut not the brain, and won. “Reform” , incidentally, takes its name from the third Party in the US formed by Ross Perot and which got nearly 20% of the vote in the 1992 US Election. His influence lingers on.

Francis Fukuyama around the same time as the 1992 US Election argued in “The End of History and the Last Man” that the progression of human history as a struggle between ideologies was largely at an end, with the world settling on liberal democracy. With Clinton in the White House and Blair in the wings to move into Number 10 this seemed, Perot aside, a good call. They called it the “Third Way” to emphasise the difference with the binary ideological past.

The search for an explanation as to why the Third Way, and to an extent liberal democracy itself, has collapsed is fraught because it seems to defy common sense and conventional political logic. The causes are complex but if we look for one defining event I suggest that it was 9/11.

America, Pearl Harbor aside, had before 9/11 never been attacked. We Europeans knew what it was like – they didn’t. The subsequent lost wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were based on the presumption that overwhelming military power will always prevail. The lessons of Korea and Vietnam were ignored. Losers can be dangerous, they often, as now, segue to the extremes. (See also Germany in the 1920s and 1930s).

Trump is, like Perot, a protest against liberal democracy. As is Farage’s Reform. Whilst the Right generally likes military adventures in the name of “Freedom” it doesn’t like losing them. The reasons for America’s longstanding support for Israel are politically complex but resolute. In a macro political climate that is confrontational and binary the US will, rightly or wrongly, keep supporting and arming Netanyahu.

Opponents of Trump might object to the idea that his election in 2016 was a consequence of military failure but the “MAGA” slogan has an unmistakable militaristic ring about it. His election in 2024 was qualitatively different – here the underlying “failure” , as presented, was domestic. Ross Perot had reduced arcane and highly complex technical arguments about quotas, tariffs, and regulation down to simple “truths”. Like Trump, Perot harkened back to a golden age of U.S. industrial manufacturing. He was an unashamed economic nationalist, as is Trump.

Macroeconomic management in an economy as large as that of the US requires a subtle hand on the tiller. Trump’s inconsistent vacillations on tariffs just cause confusion and, unlike Perot, there is no intellectual underpinning for them whatsoever. However a political manifesto which includes knee-jerk positioning on populist issues like immigration will, and did, have mass appeal. Combine that with tax and other benefits (like patronage for government contracts) for the rich elite of Mar-a-Lago (and similar) and you’ll get enough Electoral College votes – as Trump did.

Whether there is a prospect of Fukuyama’s liberal democracy returning may depend mainly on Europe. There are challenges from the Right in many member countries of the European Union but the Union itself is holding firm. Churchill saw a “United States of Europe” as being a guarantor of avoiding descending into the deadly conflicts that had so scarred the first half of the Twentieth Century. That unity may be facing its biggest test.

For some Right Wing European politicians Donald Trump in the White House was a godsend giving some legitimacy to their nationalist and populist positioning. But in the main Europe remains democratic and liberal and the institution of the EU is designed to keep it that way. Trump may well have left the G7 early because he felt outnumbered by those who think transnational cooperation (anathema to Trump) and liberal democracy (likewise) is worth preserving. But it’s fragile and nothing is certain.

There is a curious parallel between the Ayatollahs’ rule and that of Trump. In neither case are there effective checks on power and in both cases there is insidious patronage throughout the administration that rewards the loyal. And whilst Trump doesn’t (yet) hang his opponents from cranes in public, dissent is treated with harsh sanctions.

Meanwhile in the “Middle East’s only Democracy” (sic) dictatorship no less venal has committed atrocities that are not only not condemned by Western powers but they provide armaments to facilitate them to be carried out.

A fish, they say, rots from the head down. Iran replaced the decidedly rotten Shah with something infinitely worse. And then dictators’ repression has eliminated opposition using religious texts and imperatives to justify their actions. Similarly in Israel the Lebensraum driver in pursuit of a “Greater Israel” is given a phoney legitimacy by references back two thousands years to Old Testament times. And Trump is not averse to justify his social repression (and kowtowing to the Religious Right) with biblical references.

The absence of effective democratic leadership in the tinder box world of the Middle East has brought the region into peril. The greed of the Arms supplying western countries and the blinkered support for Israel ignores the complexity of the status quo and makes it “Good Guy v Bad Guy” binary – which it isn’t.

“The bad thing of war is, that it makes more evil people than it can take away.“ (Emanuel Kant). We’ll see.

It’s fair to assume that the remarkable Elon Musk knows a thing or two about Brand Management. The success of Tesla is one of the great brand success stories of modern times. The cars are prestigious, original and confer practical and emotional benefits on the user. Almost the Holy Grail for a branded consumer product. Or they did! As we know Tesla sales have nose-dived recently even though the cars haven’t changed. What has changed is that Musk seems to have forgotten that, as Sameena Ahmad wrote in The Economist nearly twenty years ago, brands – even the best ones – are vulnerable. As she put it “… a brand must be cosseted, sustained and protected… a hint of scandal can all too quickly send customers fleeing. The more companies promote the values of their brands the more they will need to seem ethically robust and environmentally pure. “

In his 2010 seminal book “Brand Society” Martin Kornberger said “… there is more and more scrutiny not only on what a company is doing but how it is doing business. Ask Nike or Shell or McDonalds – they can tell you how external parties try to change internal process”. Don’t they just! In my Shell days we had a raft of those “External parties” commenting on us – about Brent Spar, Nigeria, the Environment and a host of other things. Today Shell and the other oil/gas multinationals have achieved almost pariah status. And, it seems, they don’t know what to do about it. They’ve lost sight of the fact that brand and reputation are not a given.

Back to Mr Musk. Perhaps he thought that his brand pre-eminence (at the upper end of the electric vehicle category) was so strong that he was fireproof. Well pride goes before a fall. Musk’s romance with Donald Trump has done the brand significant harm everywhere. Consumers have choice and you ignore tham at your peril. As David Ogilvy once memorably said “The customer is not a moron. She’s your wife”. And the automobile is one of the most visible manifestations of your personal identity. Where once to drive a Tesla was cool and conveyed prestige now it suggets that you support the Orange twerp’s best buddy!

Shopping is seen as a form of Surrogate voting. The consumer is sovereign, as Kornberger reminds us. Ask the Sun Newspaper how sales in Liverpool are going! Whilst it is quite rare for a brand to go from hero to zero overnight (though those with long memories will remember Gerald Ratner doing it) Musk has a long haul ahead to re-establish his position – not least because he and the Tesla brand are inextricably linked.