Talk of a "uniparty" aggravated me. Then I recalled I used to say, "Vote Labservative for same"…
What does history and public choice tell us about parties, their intentions and their actions in power?
https://fightingforafreefuture.substack.com/p/the-uniparty-benefits-public-choice
💡Delight or shock, horrify or amuse your friends and family, with a custom Cameo video by yours truly.
cameo.com/SteveBakerFRSA
💡Book me to speak through Specialist Speakers:
Right turn ahead for Reeves and Starmer
This is Reeves’s fundamental problem: our system of social democracy is coming apart as it becomes increasingly unaffordable.
The situation is grave. The post-war settlement is breaking down on all fronts—at home and abroad. It is a great unravelling.
To placate the furious Labour left, Reeves will likely resort to yet more damaging tax rises while cutting welfare and increasing defence spending. The centre-right must respond with clarity and discipline. Any other strategy is a mistake:
• Welcome every spending cut.
• Oppose every tax rise.
New article: Right turn ahead for Reeves and Starmer
Against all their instincts, Labour are about to turn further right. Centre-right politicians and think tanks must drive them forward in a situation which is more serious than commonly understood.
https://fightingforafreefuture.substack.com/p/right-turn-ahead-for-reeves-and-starmer
I love high-minded idealism as much as anyone, but don’t expect it from the USA for a few years.
No amount of fulminating about how President Trump treats President Zelenskyy appallingly by whichever historical comparison will make him behave any differently.
The scene is set for Trump to get all he wants, partly by giving Putin what he wants: a broad slice of Ukraine.
In all its brute ugliness, we just witnessed the USA wield its mighty power to great effect to meet its own ends, ends which Europe was hoping against hope would not materialise.
Expect within weeks for everyone to claim victory as Europe commits to guarantee the peace for a smaller Ukraine, a Ukraine mining minerals for America as America moves on.
https://fightingforafreefuture.substack.com/p/trump-vs-zelenskyy
Sometimes it seems we live in a world where every virtue is twisted and perverted into vice.
Love for country is one such virtue, for it is one element which provides for a healthy identity and a basis for those moral sentiments which bind us together as a voluntary community against adversity, both everyday and existential.
https://open.substack.com/pub/fightingforafreefuture/p/love-of-country-for-good-and-ill 
🇺🇦 With talk of UK “boots on the ground” in Ukraine to keep any peace, remember the fiasco of Iraq was supposed to have taught everyone what questions to ask.
💡Now would be the time to apply those lessons.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a81f19440f0b62305b91a48/TheGoodOperation_WEB.PDF 
🙋🏻♂️“The methods of money production in society today are profoundly corrupting in ways that would matter to everyone if they were clearly understood.”
📣As gold flows out of the Bank of England and CoinDesk reports on the US National Bitcoin Reserve, here’s my 2014 speech on money
📺Bitcoin, gold and the Bank of England
🗽The most important subject we face is discussed too little: how money is created and how the process corrupts society. My speech on "Money Creation and Society".
https://fightingforafreefuture.substack.com/p/bitcoin-gold-and-the-bank-of-england 
https://video.nostr.build/c2ea0ea4be2758f36c9b99ee0821894ff5a6fefd87352f68502a02f65721552d.mp4
Too soon Nigel. Too soon.
Nigel Farage is now treading a fearful path to grand failure of his own making; today’s “sources close” story tells me he knows it.
The future of our nation already rests on the shoulders of Nigel Farage: he will decide the next government.
He has trapped himself by his success and seems to know it.
https://fightingforafreefuture.substack.com/p/too-soon-nigel-too-soon 
❓With the post-war social democratic system in collapse as it runs out of young workers to meet pension, health and care obligations, would returning to the EU solve our growth problem?
🤦🏻♂️Not a chance.
https://fightingforafreefuture.substack.com/p/return-to-growth 
New article: Compromise
As we left the EU, eventually I did and my word did it hurt. But it was the right decision
The price tarnishes the prize. But you get to keep the prize and that is why it must be done.
We all prefer total and final victory. It is rare. Leaders compromise. And that is tough.
https://open.substack.com/pub/fightingforafreefuture/p/compromise-a-dirty-word 
🏃The world is changing and the pace of change is only accelerating
💡Book me via Specialist Speakers for unrivalled insight into the forces which shape our world:
👀Yes, that’s right: Journalists - five scenarios
📣You are making the news. Here’s how to survive and win.
5️⃣These are the five key situations with journalists you will face as an MP:
🧻the press release
🧐the proactive individual briefing
😱the unsolicited inquiry
🏉the scrum
🥴lunch
https://open.substack.com/pub/fightingforafreefuture/p/journalists-five-scenarios
🔥”Much more usual in politics is scandal or danger to the community.
😡“Politicians are always alleging one thing or another or seeking to juxtapose the burning platform with the sunlit uplands.
🌱“That is the fertile territory on which the politician usually operates.”
🔟Can't live with them. Can't deport them to South Sudan: ten rules for working with the Press
I spent 14 years in politics experiencing the “fundamental attribution error”, yet Paul Dolan explained it in the first 30 minutes of his new book, out in May.
That’s why together, The Provocation People can help your business make a step change in fostering cognitive diversity without the downsides.
Please contact us for an initial conversation.
https://www.theprovocationpeople.com/2025/01/fundamental-attribution-error/
✍🏻Journalists
🤷🏻♂️Can't live with them. Can't deport them to South Sudan. Ten rules for working with the Press
🐺They will get you if they can. It is in their nature.
Fundamental Attribution Error
How I learned more about the causes of hostility from Prof Paul Dolan in 30 minutes than in 14 years of Parliament
https://www.theprovocationpeople.com/2025/01/fundamental-attribution-error/
