Venezuela

Imagine if Theresa May suddenly announced that her government was going to devalue the pound by 96 per cent; increase the minimum wage by 6,000 per cent; pay the wage increases for millions of businesses for three months; tie the pound to a mythical cryptocurrency; prepared for petrol rationing; and impose a 0.7 per cent tax on big financial transactions. It would be seen either as an act of lunacy, of a collapsing country — or both. For the long-suffering people of Venezuela, it’s just the latest stage of their country’s grand socialist experiment. President Nicolás Maduro has just issued a new currency, called ‘sovereign bolivars’. The original idea was

Although the local elections saw the Conservatives do better than expected, there is a sense that the Tories are not out of the woods yet when it comes to defeating Jeremy Corbyn at the next election. In that vein, last night the Centre for Policy Studies’ ‘New Blue: Ideas for a New Generation’ launch, with Ben Bradley and Michael Gove. The Defra Secretary gave the keynote speech and used it to say it wasn’t enough for his party to bang on about Venezuela and then expect the problem of socialism to go away: ‘Simply to rely on a few tired arguments about what has happened in Venezuela, heart rending though the

Venezuela’s crisis shows no sign of stopping: protesters have been gunned down, opposition leaders rounded up – and the country recently unveiled a plan to combat food shortages by telling people to eat their rabbits. The country’s situation ‘ain’t perfect’, admits Labour’s Chris Williamson. In an interview with the Morning Star – where else? – the Corbyn ally is still keen to look on the bright side though: ‘I accept that Venezuela has its problems still…But look at where they’ve come from and where they’ve got to’ Admittedly, Williamson is angry at the ongoing situation. But instead of directing his fury at the country’s leadership, he turns it elsewhere: towards

The victims of foreign dictatorships have become chips in our political games. In our corner of the rich world, for instance, the suffering of Venezuela matters only because Jeremy’s Corbyn’s enemies can use it to attack his support for the Chavist regime when it was unchallengeable, and his cowardly equivocation when the inevitable catastrophe followed. Saudi Arabia matters only because leftists can use it to damn the British establishment’s bootlicking support for the House of Saud and its suppression of democratic, women’s and minority rights. Yet the smallest concern of the Venezuelans is the praise the western far left lavished on their corrupt and massively incompetent dictators. I don’t mean

Jeremy Corbyn finally broke his silence on Venezuela this week, but in the manner of a man who has his head buried in a very large bucket of sand. He condemned violence ‘on both sides’, painting the country’s problems as a battle between factions rather than a case of a repressive government snuffing out popular protests. No one would know from the Labour leader’s words that President Maduro’s regime is engaged in what the UN Human Rights Office described this week as a ‘widespread and systematic use of excessive force’. More revealing still was Corbyn’s reply when prodded on the economic and social conditions which led to the protests. The

Mark Carney is often accused of being downbeat about Brexit. But the Bank of England’s quarterly inflation report is ‘more sanguine than one might expect’, says the FT. The paper points out that despite a cut in the country’s growth forecast, the Bank ‘expects stronger net trade and business investment to drive a recovery in 2019’. Yet Carney remained ‘candid’ about the damage Brexit is already doing to Britain’s economy. Businesses are investing less, reports the FT, and ‘this has uncomfortable implications’. With the Bank warning that ‘the level of investment in the UK economy (will be) be 20 percentage points lower in 2020 than it forecast before the referendum’,

As Jeremy Corbyn tries to enjoy his summer holiday, the Labour leader is under increasing pressure to speak out against the Venezuelan regime. With opposition leaders under arrest and mass protests ongoing, the Labour leader has so far kept shtum on the regime he previously lauded as showing a ‘better way of doing things’. So, why the silence among Labour’s top command? It can’t be that they don’t think Venezuelan politics to be of interest. As David Aaronovitch notes in today’s Times, there was a time when Corbyn’s comrade John McDonnell compelled every MP to step up and talk about the country’s regime. Speaking at the Hands Off Venezuela national conference in

Venezuela is on the brink of collapse, with thousands taking to the streets and the government locking up those who dare stand in its way. Yet while Jeremy Corbyn has been all too eager to voice his support in the past for Venezuela, the Labour leader is keeping a radio silence on the current situation. Corbyn has said that the country’s previous leader, Hugo Chavez, showed ‘a different and better way of doing things’. Having been called on today to condemn the country’s current regime by Labour MPs, Corbyn has so far kept schtum. But Mr S was curious to note that Jezza isn’t afraid to speak out on some matters close