Time is running out for managed decline

Damian Pudner has a useful CAPX piece on why so many people from Tony Blair upwards know why the UK political status quo is running aground.


Time is running out for the political status quo

Even Tony Blair – the man who built managerial Britain – recognises the state has grown too large

For 30 years, the state has expanded on the misguided assumption that someone else would always pay

We are stuck in a slow, painful managed decline

This week I was fortunate enough to sit down with the Rt Hon Liz Truss. We discussed the usual things you expect. The state of the UK economy, the Bank of England, the Civil Service, and to quote Truss, how ‘Power was taken from the elected and given to progressive bureaucrats and judges’. I must admit I found our conversation refreshing.

So let me be just as direct. British politics has reached a point where the old arguments no longer work and the old settlement is visibly falling apart.

For 30 years, the British state has expanded on the misguided assumption that someone else would always pay. Taxpayers. Bond markets. The next generation. That growth was always just around the corner. That all we needed was more spending, more regulation, more quangos, more debt, more promises. And that the productive part of the economy – the private sector – would simply absorb it, that bond markets would keep lending to us, that the public would keep accepting the situation.

Well, they won’t. And deep down, everyone in Westminster knows it.

The whole piece is well worth reading, especially now, with old-style political huckster Andy Burnham in hot pursuit of Keir Starmer's position. Burnham doesn't have the nous nor the answers, but neither do far too many voters.


Time is running out for the political status quo. And the public, I suspect, is far ahead of Westminster on this.

Behave as rationally as possible

Peter Murrell bought 108 loo rolls using money stolen from SNP as panic-buy alert loomed

Peter Murrell snapped up more than 100 toilet rolls using money he had stolen from the SNP - just as Nicola Sturgeon prepared to urge the Scottish public not to panic-buy at the start of the Covid pandemic.

Court documents from his embezzlement trial reveal that on March 7, 2020, with lockdown looming as infection cases soared and supermarkets battled chronic shortages of essential items, the then First Minister's husband spent £55.98 on 108 luxury Andrex toilet rolls.

Just 48 hours later, Ms Sturgeon appeared at a press conference instructing the public to 'apply common sense' by not bulk-buying in shops and to 'behave as rationally as possible'.

There is an interesting point here. All those toilet rolls are a reminder that politicians can't behave as rationally as possible, not when they are doing politics. 

If they were to do that, then politics as we know it would fade away to be replaced by something which isn't easy to envisage because we've never had it. 

AI perhaps.

We’re really important says WHO

About two weeks ago, Kit Knightly had an entertaining off-guardian piece about the World Health Assembly. We all know about that lot, but the whole piece is well worth reading.


WHO in “panic mode” as World Health Assembly kicks off

Today is first day of the World Health Organization’s 79th annual World Health Assembly, where delegates come together to set policies and priorities for global health.

Essentially, it’s a week-long exercise in saying, as loud and long possible, “We’re really important.”

And thank goodness it came along when it did, because…wow.

The hantavirus outbreak is tearing through the world at the unstoppably terrifying rate of five whole deaths every two months.

That’s about 30 deaths in a year or about 0.25% of the number of people who’ll died from falling down stairs.

At least it's not Derbyshire

Sturgeon moves to London - as she defends record over husband's crimes

Nicola Sturgeon has moved to London following the fallout over her estranged husband’s conviction for embezzlement.

The former Scottish First Minister is renting a luxury property in the capital as she looks to start a career in the literary industry, the Mail reported.

She hinted she might move to London while promoting her memoir last year, adding that she felt she could not “breathe freely” at home.

The literary industry eh? There are quite a few obvious jibes we could bung in here, but if she intends to write books, there are numerous subjects she should avoid to head off even more jibes.

For example, a novel where the feisty heroine auditor arrives at a ferry port in her motorhome to carry out an audit on behalf of the government. That won't do.

Scapegoats Needed

Just 7% of London housing target started in first three months of 2026

Just 6,325 private sector homes broke ground in London in the first three months of 2026, new data has revealed – equivalent to seven per cent of the Mayor’s 88,000 overall annual target.

Research from Real Estate consultants JLL suggests that developers are hesitant to build in the current market due to a proliferation of unsold stock.

New data shows that 22,000 properties across the capital sit unsold or under construction, with all types of buyers unwilling to invest in the present circumstances.

As we know, this is merely one symptom of a much wider shambles. A chap is bound to wonder why Andy Burnham thinks he can improve any of it, armed only with his teenage ideology and what appears to be a ludicrous dollop of self-confidence.

He joined the Labour Party at the age of 15, so we already know he hasn't learned much about the limitations of his ideology. Maybe he has been putting some serious effort into lining up a collection of scapegoats, there aren't many other options open to him if we are landed with him as Prime Minister.


Know how to put off Ills on Others. To have a shield against ill-will is a great piece of skill in a ruler. It is not the resort of incapacity, as ill-wishers imagine, but is due to the higher policy of having some one to receive the censure of the disaffected and the punishment of universal detestation. Everything cannot turn out well, nor can every one be satisfied: it is well therefore, even at the cost of our pride, to have such a scapegoat, such a target for unlucky undertakings.

Baltasar Gracián - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

Two viewpoints - but one is Ed's

Britain continues to break clean power records

Households across the UK continue to embrace solar power as the government accelerates its clean power mission.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said:

"As we face a second fossil fuel crisis in 5 years, Britain is taking back control of their energy by generating more clean power than ever before. Record-breaking solar growth means greater energy security, lower exposure to volatile fossil fuel markets which we can’t control.

This is what our clean power mission looks like: backing homegrown energy, giving people more control over their bills, and building a stronger, more resilient energy system for the future."


Wind and solar are parasites on the grid

The unpopular truth about electricity and the future of energy

It seems that wind and solar power can only survive as parasites on the more efficient conventional generators. Lars Schernikau and William Smith have explained this unpopular truth in a slim and elegant book that demolishes some of the most cherished beliefs of the climate and energy warriors in the alternative universe.

It is a scholarly tour de force, combining the depth and detail of a doctoral thesis with crystal clear writing. This is a rare combination. People who don’t need the full story can get what they need to know from the beautifully illustrated 24-minute video produced to promote the revised edition.

Stooge Trip

  

Burnham allies plan cross-party council to stop a Reform UK government

Senior figures from the progressive parties will form a new group to discuss how the "progressive majority" can stop Reform winning the next election, including discussing electoral pacts.

Allies of Andy Burnham will form a new "council" of cross-party figures to discuss working together to stop a Reform UK government.

The "council for the progressive majority" is being instigated by Compass, a centre-left thinktank whose founder Neal Lawson is an influential supporter of the Greater Manchester mayor.

The council will be comprised of two leading figures from each of the progressive parties in the UK - Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, the SNP and Plaid Cymru.

Blimey. Establishment stooges on a power trip, aiming to slam the door on plebs who might prefer the type of democracy where voting makes a difference.

Sorry chaps, stick your mark on the voting paper and clear off.