LEE ANDERSON is a comically right-wing MP, blurting out ludicrous reactionary brain-farts whenever he can. In Lee World, nurses use foodbanks  because they can’t manage “their own finances.” 

Anyone else uses foodbanks because “you’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly” and “cannot budget.” Because decent meals only cost “30p a day.” 

Other greatest hits from “30p Lee” include accusing the National Trust of being “coloured by cultural Marxist dogma” — colouring reds-under-the-beds hysteria with an anti-semitic tinge — calling Black Lives Matter a “political movement whose core principles aim to undermine our very way of life” and claiming footballers who took to one knee in protest against racism were “alienating traditional supporters.”

He might come across as a nasty golf-club bore and he’s quite likely to lose his seat in the Commons at the next election. It’s slightly complicated: Anderson won the formerly safe Labour seat thanks in part to a very large vote for local “anti-politics” Ashfield Independents, but current polling — with its collapse of the Tory vote — would make Anderson a one-term wonder.

But here are two pieces of bad news. First, there are always rich men willing to bankroll loudmouth rightwingers. 

Anderson has a new job as a presenter on GB News. This television station is funded by two right-wing political activist financiers, investment group Legatum and hedge fund boss Paul Marshall. 

It’s struggled for viewers and lost big-name presenters, so GB News has resorted to sprinkling “anti-vax” conspiracies into its programmes to grab interest. 

It’s also hired Anderson — initially for a modest £200-a-week, one-hour show. But my guess is Anderson is testing the water for a post-Westminster career.

Thanks to rich propagandists like Marshall and Legatum, you can vote Anderson out, but he will still hang around like a bad smell.

The second piece of bad news is that Anderson is a product of the Labour Party. He was a Labour councillor and for five years office manager for Ashfield’s sitting Labour MP, Gloria De Piero. 

This team are reunited in GB News — De Piero has been one of GB News’ main presenters since 2021. 

It’s striking that a hard-right “culture wars” TV station getting into anti-vax conspiracies is the home for this formerly Labour pair. 

Anderson hasn’t shifted markedly to the right — this was how he was when he was a Labour councillor. He says he  jumped ship to the Tories because he was upset by “hard left” and “Momentum” supporters in the party. 

Anderson is the right-wing rentagob he appears to be. De Piero is an opportunist — a journalist who wangled her way to being an MP in 2010, but stood down in 2019 — I think because she could see which way the wind was blowing. 

The Labour Party regularly tries to expel or suppress its left wing, but is a home to incubate closet Tories and opportunists who go on to run GB News.

The lessons of Thatcher – divide and rule

FACED with growing strikes, the Tories have — and this is lucky for us — completely lost their ability to “divide and rule,” at least temporarily. 

This point was made by a fairly perceptive article — from a Tory viewpoint — in an article by Spectator political editor Katy Balls printed in the Guardian.

Balls, whose sympathies are strongly pro-Conservative, wrote: “Tory MPs say they want a leader like Thatcher — one who is not for turning. But on strikes, Thatcher did not treat each one as the same and picked her battles.” 

Balls was arguing that Thatcher knew how to buy off one set of workers, the better to be able to fight another. 

Lots of political journalists writing about the current strikes discuss them almost entirely in terms of how “popular” they are, what the “polls” say, as if the public would take some kind of vote on whether they thought they should win or lose. 

But, while strikes being popular helps workers fight them, it isn’t the determining factor. The key question is can strikes cause enough disruption to force their employer to settle. 

Being popular helps encourage strikers — it can build solidarity — but strikes are a battle, not a popularity contest. Balls seemed to grasp this point, which suggests some of the senior Tories she talks to also get it. 

Balls wrote about the degree to which the strikes were hitting the economy, and quoted one senior Tory saying: “If the country isn’t working — and it isn’t — the government will always be blamed in the end.” Some on the right understand that disruption, not “popularity,” is the key.

If the Tories do recover their understanding of divide and rule, it makes things harder for us. If the Tories are obviously forced to give in to the demands of one set of workers, that will encourage other workers to fight. 

But if they buy off some strikers more quickly, and create the impression they are in control, they will be in a stronger position to isolate other unions taking action. 

There are signs they are beginning to think a bit more tactically, although it is a bit little and late for them. 

As Balls wrote, “So far, only a handful of Tory MPs have spoken out publicly to call for Sunak to show greater flexibility in order to find a resolution.” 

In early January the Sun also floated the idea that the rail firms might try to settle with Aslef train drivers — it was another sign, but the discussed amount, “4 per cent for two consecutive years,” was unrealistically low. 

The idea of trying to buy off one set of workers in order to fight another isn’t a Tory left v Tory right thing, it is a tactical one. Some on the Tory hard right are mulling it over. 

The Institute for Economic Affairs, think tank of the hardcore Liz Truss headbanger wing of the Tories, argued that “few people in the private or public sector should expect an above-inflation pay rise this year, but front-line workers” in the NHS “deserve a more favourable settlement.”  

It’s to our advantage that the Tories cosplaying Thatcher are less effective than Thatcher herself, but if even the otherwise headbanging IEA are shifting, we should watch out for upcoming divide-and-rule moves by Rishi Sunak.