A “punishment election” which isn't

Tories ‘held in contempt by the electorate’ as pressure mounts on Rishi Sunak over betting scandal

The Conservatives have been warned they are “held in contempt” by voters as Rishi Sunak failed to deny cabinet ministers were among senior Tories to place bets on the date of the election.

As pressure mounts on the prime minister over the Downing Street betting scandal, Dominic Grieve, the former Tory attorney general, said the party was getting what “they deserve” after years of chaos.

Paul Scully, a former Tory minister, described it as a “punishment election” for the party, that the outcry over gambling allegations would exacerbate.

Hmm - "the electorate" is being somewhat discriminatory with its contempt here. A broader brush is indicated because we clearly need a “punishment election” for all the main parties. 

Unfortunately the polls suggest we are destined to see a "reward election" for a party which has done nothing whatever to deserve it. 

Oh well, coffee and dark chocolate are our rewards after what has been a pleasantly rewarding day here in sunny Derbyshire.

Not at all ignominious

 

Ignominious

For some reason I woke up this morning thinking what an ignominious thing it now is for Joe Biden to be Joe Biden.

Also ignominious to be Jill Biden and all the entourage of a modern state which has to protect him from his immediate public inadequacies. Plus those who have to pretend that he is the US president and having him sign this and that is all part of the job. All while the rest of the world laughs.

Then seconds later is struck me that it isn’t a good idea to think along those lines and I probably wouldn’t have done so if the thought hadn’t nipped into that strange, ephemeral world of waking consciousness.

Because of course, if we follow that thread it’s an ignominious thing for millions that they voted for old Joe and for that matter it’s ignominious to be intent on voting for any of the mainstream rabble in the UK general election.

In other words it may be better to forget those transient threads of consciousness because we have to live in the world as it is.

The Joe Biden business is still ignominious though.

Keeping her allegiance privet

Labour’s Islington North chairman who ‘hid in bush when spotted campaigning for Corbyn’ quits

The Labour chairman of Jeremy Corbyn’s constituency has been forced to resign after allegedly hiding behind a hedge when caught campaigning for the former party leader.

Alison McGarry is understood to have quit on Wednesday after being spotted urging residents to back Mr Corbyn, who is running against Labour as an independent in Islington North.

She is said to have hidden behind a hedge when she was caught, and later resigned rather than be sacked by the party. Labour’s rulebook states that any members who campaign for rival candidates will be expelled.

It's not very edifying this general election lark. We've always known there are some daft characters lurking in the undergrowth, but it doesn't get any dafter than campaigning for Corbyn. No wonder she hid in a hedge. 

The Old Man at the Bridge

From the video description

“The Old Man at the Bridge” was inspired by Hemingway’s travels as a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. In fact, the story was originally composed as a news dispatch from the Amposta Bridge over the Ebro River on Easter Sunday in 1938 as the Fascists were set to overrun the region. Hemingway was writing for the North American Newspaper Association but decided to submit this snippet of writing as a short story to a magazine instead of as a journalistic article, which accounts, to a certain extent, for its short length.

Tempting

Boris Johnson to release bombshell new memoir as date it will hit shelves revealed

The publication date for Boris Johnson's hugely anticipated autobiography has been revealed, with the publishers promising it will "shatter the mould of the modern prime ministerial memoir".

Mr Johnson's memoir from his political career, including his time as London mayor and in Downing Street, will be released on October 10 this year. A newly-released book description promises expectant readers that it will be "written in his inimitable style".

I don't read political memoirs but this one is tempting. Will it be...

Reliable?  Hardly.

Readable and amusing?  Bound to be.

Cycles

A post about growing old, written from my own perspective because it’s easier to write that way, not because I think these musings are even slightly unusual. Here we go then –

A problem with growing old is how dissatisfaction with the present seems like a nostalgic comparison with the past. Merely the rose tinted spectacles game, but in my case it is generally isn’t that. My memories of the past sometimes compare favourably with the present, but it is too easy to forget the silly fashions, industrial strife, creeping ugliness and the seeds of decline. There are all manner of comparisons any oldie could make, but the seeds and green shoots of decline were there.

As I grew older, a number of changes occurred in my general outlook. I have seen the cycles all old people have seen. The same mistakes, assumptions and fashions cycling round from generation to generation. Lessons have to be learned and relearned, they cannot easily be passed on. No amount of education does that.

As my personal stake in the future ebbs away into younger family members, I also feel a certain indifference towards the present. I know it will pass away and become the past, all old people know that. We know it viscerally in a way that younger people don’t, but in time they will come to know it viscerally too, but we can’t teach them that either.

A strong and persistent impression is how stupidity never relaxes its grip on human affairs. That’s an effect of growing old too, knowing about the durability of stupidity. It’s a human failing, always has been, but we pretend it can be cured in spite of all the evidence that it can’t, it just has to be avoided. Yet stupidity creates opportunities for people who aren’t stupid but are prepared to join in and exploit it.

It’s a core problem, the exploitation of stupidity by people willing to seem equally stupid in order to exploit it. It’s where political equality ends up, a corrupt willingness to seem equally stupid. 

Climate change is just one example, exploited to such an insane degree that it has become racketeering on a vast scale, but this too will fail as stupidity always does. And this is one of the lessons of growing older. Not so much the stupidity, we’ve always known about that, but the intractable nature of it, the impossibility of ever curing ourselves of it.

In my case that’s where the nostalgia comes from, it comes from remembering that stupidity can be contained by sensible people, but today the sensible people have still not found effective ways to counter the overwhelming level of stupid lying our digital world has enabled. The best we can hope for is that this is merely the beginning of another cycle.

Because I can’t stand being lied to

Henry Getley, previously a loyal Labour voter has a gloomy TCW piece on his decision to give up on voting.

Why I’m poll-axing myself

ALONG with the usual junk mail offering me double glazing, funeral plans, investment opportunities, etc, I tore up a somewhat different piece of unsolicited post the other day . . . my poll card for the general election.

I binned it because for the first time in the 54 years that I’ve been eligible to vote, I won’t be doing so on July 4. Instead, I’ll be doing something useful, like mowing the lawn or taking the dog for a walk.

Why? Because, as has long been obvious to most of us, there’s no point in voting. Under Tories or Labour, we always end up in a progressively worse mess. Right now, things are frighteningly dire under the Conservatives – a crippled economy, rising prices, a proxy war, the Net Zero suicide plan, the Brexit betrayal, the covid con, rampant wokery, gender and racial madness, Islamic militancy, a quisling media and uncontrolled immigration, to name but a few. Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour hordes are jostling to get their snouts into the Westminster trough and take the Tory insanities to even dizzier heights (or depths).


Familiar enough, but it is worth reading the whole piece as a reminder that even some Labour voters may become too tired to care after incessant lying by the major parties. 


As for Labour, Ed Miliband was a predictable write-off, while Jeremy Corbyn had genuine, if idiotic, convictions. Once Corbyn was trounced at the polls, Starmer managed to rise without the inconvenience of any principle or plan. He stands for nothing but getting himself into Downing Street. For all its manifesto waffle, Labour’s only real selling point today is that it’s not the Conservative Party.

Another of the reasons I’m not voting is that I can’t stand being lied to. Blatant, outright, barefaced lies abound. I know being a politician means you’ve got to be a liar – but boy, do we have a prize bunch of truth-twisters in Sunak, Starmer and the rest.

Tea with a buzz

Premium tea products recalled because some 'contain insects'

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) say retailers TK Maxx and Homesense are recalling selected batches of Kintra Foods Organic Premium Leaf Teas.

"Insects may be present in these products, which makes them unsafe to consume," according to the watchdog.

The three varieties being recalled are Calm & Relax, Chamomile, and Sleepy. They were on sale in the stores between April and June this year.

As we are encouraged to look favourably on a Net Zero insect diet, maybe this tea is an experimental product aimed at a yet to be exploited virtue-signalling protein tea for a low carbon future. A tea where we are no longer threatened by bovine flatulence.

'Sleepy' could even be a premium tea aimed at boosting Joe Biden's US presidential election prospects, showing he has no intention of wandering off-message.  

Modern cuisine

McDonald's ends AI drive-thru trial after order mishaps

Videos of McDonald's drive-thru "fails" have gone viral in recent months, leading to a "thoughtful" review of the technology.

McDonald's is ending its AI drive-thru trial after customers reported errors in their orders - including bacon being added to ice cream.

As well as topping a dessert with bacon, the AI drive-thru assistant added $211 (£166) worth of chicken nuggets to another customer's order.

Maybe the AI system is telling us something about McDonald's and fast food. 

Which reminds me of the other day when I was standing behind a young woman in a café queue. She was a perfectly normal modern mother. I knew she was a mother because she had the names of her children and their dates of birth tattooed on her rather capacious back.

Looping back to the ancient art of cookery, this young mother had fingernails so long that she could never have cooked anything for her kids apart from shoving something ready made into the microwave. She could slice open the pack fairly easily I suppose.

 Do artificial nails melt easily? I don't know, but if so that's another cookery problem. Maybe daddy did the cooking, or maybe McDonald's.  

Charlie on The Great Tragedy of Modern Life

 

Almost comically statesmanlike

Sam Bidwell has a very useful Critic piece on the Labour manifesto.


Blairism at its most zealous

The Labour manifesto is a recipe for bland bureaucratic managerialism

If Michael Foot’s 1983 Labour manifesto was the longest suicide note in history, then Keir Starmer’s 2024 successor is surely history’s longest victory lap.

If Michael Foot’s 1983 Labour manifesto was the longest suicide note in history, then Keir Starmer’s 2024 successor is surely history’s longest victory lap.

At an eye-watering 133 pages, one might expect “Change” to set out a comprehensive programme for government, replete with details of Labour’s plans for the next five years. Instead, we’re treated to page after page of carefully-constructed prose that avoids committing to anything too specific, and several full-page pictures of Starmer looking almost comically statesmanlike.


The whole piece is well worth reading as an insight into deranged managerialism, but also as an example of a bureaucratic malady currently destroying the developed world. We see just that in Starmer's leadership, his anxious determination to take the evasion of responsibility to ever more carefully crafted absurdities. 


Yet if it’s radicalism that you’re looking for, Labour’s manifesto has it in spades. Not radical socialism, mind you, or radical progressivism — this is Blairism at its most zealous, a veritable Ma’alim fi’l-tareeq for bland bureaucratic managerialism. For every one of Britain’s major structural problems, Starmer has prescribed a new independent commissioner, a new knee-jerk regulatory intervention, or a new arm’s length body.

Don’t believe me?

For a start, there’s Labour’s new “Ethics and Integrity Commission”, which will be empowered to remove or censure ministers that fail to meet certain arbitrary “ethical standards”. There are also plans to expand the powers of the “Independent Adviser on Ministerial Interests” to enable investigations into ministerial misconduct, and proposals for a new “House of Commons Modernisation Committee”, which will be tasked with policing the behaviour of MPs.

Then there are the open-ended plans for House of Lords reform, the new “Council of the Nations and Regions”, and the promises of further devolution to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. In other words, the sovereignty of our Westminster Parliament is set to be diluted even further.

The role of the Office for Budget Responsibility will be strengthened, meaning that Governments will no longer be able to undertake bold budgetary reforms without facing a Truss-style backlash from the economic establishment.


Mad? Yes it is, quite mad, but also an indication of the finger-pointing culture which is the other side of modern bureaucratic managerialism. Get on the wrong side of this machine, point out the lunacy, or even a few unwelcome facts and you place yourself at the wrong end of that pointing finger.

It's also a reminder of political courage, people who are not cowed by it all and are prepared to oppose the gross excesses of modern bureaucracy. Rishi Sunak doesn't have that courage, his party doesn't have it, Keir Starmer intends to make sure it doesn't matter anyway, nothing will come of it. 

Until Nemesis casts her ice-cold eye over it of course. 

1977 Climate Activist

 

In the opinion of the crazy one

Has there ever been a craze, that was not a great success, in the opinion of the crazy one?

R. D. Blackmore – Christowell (1882)

SNP will have most left-wing manifesto of general election, leader John Swinney says

John Swinney has insisted he is not alienating parts of the electorate but claimed the other parties will not deliver for Scotland.

John Swinney accused Labour of moving to the right which has left the SNP as the only party to the left of centre.

Hopeful actors working for the brand

 

Our Labour party election leaflet shoved through the letterbox this morning together with a more interesting ad for frozen food offers. Candidate details are inside. 

It reminds us of something important about the Labour party when our local candidate is prepared to take a distant second place to a particularly uncharismatic party leader who is hardly likely to have any interest in the constituency. Hopeful actors working for the brand. 

Fake enthusiasm

As we skim lightly across fake media enthusiasm for the UK general election, many of us may be reminded of rigged markets. In this case, that would be a rigged market for political parties in the sense that there is little genuine choice because the major UK parties are so dominant.

It's merely an analogy, but we could go on to view politics as a battle for power over markets, a constant attempt to create rigged markets where the word ‘market’ is wide enough to include a market for political services supposedly provided to voters by political parties. In this sense, voters are consumers of political services. If nothing else, this angle does highlight how threadbare those services are.

Following on from this, we could describe the current media election focus as marketing for those political services. They would be services formerly provided by national political parties, but now in the process of being absorbed by a global market. In which case, UK political parties become regional depots.

Like the demise of the High Street, the main political market is moving elsewhere.

None of it is mysterious

Does Keir Starmer know what his political motives are?

Suppose he describes his motives to an interviewer, then on another occasion he describes his political motives to a different interviewer after major national and international events have coloured general political discourse.

It would not be unusual if Starmer’s two accounts of his political motives differ significantly as they were given on two different occasions under different political circumstances.

In which case, what are Starmer’s true political motives?

Suppose two different people each with a different political outlook examine his career to date, but reach significantly different conclusions. Suppose we contrast those two accounts with the accounts Starmer gave to his two interviewers then add two more accounts recently written by two biographers. That would be a total of six versions of Keir Starmer’s political motives, all different.

Again, not particularly remarkable, but what are Starmer’s true political motives? Perhaps it’s an impossible question because he doesn’t have true political motives, his own account of his motives would be coloured by his audience and his need to maintain the personality he finds internally coherent. His account will be coloured by his audience even if he is the audience. It will be no more objective than any of the other accounts.

There is no deeper account of Starmer’s political motives. It’s all there on the surface, the six accounts plus Starmer’s own account. None of them is a true account. There is no true account. What cannot be left out is what we see - the dishonesty, vacillation, pandering to political fashions, going with what is currently mainstream within his social and political peers and the socialist political outlook he grew up with. None of it is mysterious.

This does not imply that we can predict Starmer’s future behaviour as Prime Minister. It does imply that we will probably be able to make sense of it. Those who would like to see a more rational and pragmatic political leader already know he won’t be that. He may not know it but others do. It's there for anyone to see.

Starmer’s political motives aren’t mysteriously deep, they are there on the surface, visible to all who look. He relies entirely on voters who don’t look.

So much of it about

Upon the classes of this country, democracy has laid a throttling hand. There is a spirit of discontent, they say, among the working-classes, the discontent which breeds socialism. There is a worse spirit of discontent among the upper classes here, and it is the discontent which breeds so-called traitors.

E. Phillips Oppenheim – The Double Traitor (1915)


An interesting observation. We could go on to suggest that the political rise of the working classes was likely to precipitate a certain level of escapist discontent among some members of the upper classes. Perhaps they had to escape from what they saw as a rising tide of democracy undermining their social ascendancy.

It certainly played out that way, right up until the present. Perhaps it is no surprise that the idea of treason and traitors has been downplayed for decades. So much of it about.

When it's all too obvious

We know this but it's worth a reminder, immigration has made Tory lies too obvious. Also a reminder that the polls suggest a possible landslide for Carry On Lying. 

A Boot in the Gongs

‘Dame Tracey’ has a good ring to it, says artist Emin after surprise gong in King’s Birthday Honours

Tracey Emin has said that a damehood “has a good ring to it” after receiving the “brilliant surprise” in the King’s Birthday Honours list.

The artist, 60, has been awarded the recognition for her services to art over a career spanning more than four decades.

An artistic boot in the gongs. Some unknown person has managed to stick the boot into pretentious art and the honours system in one neat kick. Give that person a... well obviously not a medal. 

Party branding

The Conservative candidates ditching the Tory brand

How bad is the Conservative brand?

Bad enough for dozens of its own candidates to avoid using it, according to research from Sky's Online Campaign Team and Who Targets Me.

We looked at the adverts published on Facebook and Instagram by 521 Labour and Conservative candidates from 1 May until 12 June...

Most Labour candidates' adverts are plastered in party branding.

But for a number of Conservatives, it's hard to tell at a glance that they're Conservatives.


An interesting contrast between Conservative and Labour I thought. Not a huge contrast, but interesting, especially if some kind of  trend is emerging. Modern technology does facilitate a much more personal approach to constituency voters.

A thoroughly modern crisis

Mum forced to navigate brambly path or busy road with pushchair on school run

A mother has complained about overgrown verges after the brambles injured her young daughter's hand, forcing her to take a dangerous route across a main road on her daily school runs.

"I cannot push my babies or walk my nine-year-old through this. My toddler touched a thorn few weeks back as we were walking to school and yet nothing is being done."

She said it is "absolutely awful" and that she and other parents have had no choice but to cross the busy road instead and access the school via a different route. "We get some horrible looks from drivers crossing that bit. It's dreadful," she adds.

I hope "Sir" Keir Starmer does something about this and takes personal charge of the brambly path crisis. He could even borrow my hedge trimmer if necessary, nip down to Redruth with a camera crew and boost his electoral chances even further. Come on "Sir" Keir, just do it! 

Interesting use of the word "forced" there.

Corbyn Nails Starmer

Jeremy Corbyn says Sir Keir Starmer rewriting history over 2019 election

It comes after Sir Keir said the Conservatives have built a “Jeremy Corbyn-style manifesto” that will “load everything into the wheelbarrow” without explaining how to pay for it.

Speaking to the PA news agency on Thursday, Mr Corbyn accused Sir Keir of “double standards”.

He said: “Well, he never said that to me, at any time. And so I just think rewriting history is no help.”...

“He was part of the campaign. He and I spoke together at events and I find it actually quite sad.

“Get over it and get on with it. He was in the shadow cabinet, he was at the Clause 5 meeting. Both those meetings unanimously agreed the 2019 manifesto, and he was there.”

As many have said already, Starmer is likely to be worse than Corbyn. He supported Corbyn, agreed the 2019 manifesto, is likely to have a large majority if the polls are sound and is considerably more dishonest than Corbyn. Not an enticing prospect.

This dazed and floundering opportunism

 

Plaque on a stone building in Matlock which
housed a Victorian charity school until the 
1870 Elementary Education Act

There is nothing that so much prevents a settlement as a tangle of small surrenders. We are bewildered on every side by politicians who are in favour of secular education, but think it hopeless to work for it; who desire total prohibition, but are certain they should not demand it; who regret compulsory education, but resignedly continue it; or who want peasant proprietorship and therefore vote for something else. It is this dazed and floundering opportunism that gets in the way of everything.

G. K. Chesterton - What’s Wrong with the World? (1910)


I've used this quote before, but it’s an interesting one now the general election seems to have highlighted Chesterton’s link between compulsory education and what he calls this dazed and floundering opportunism.

Educated people and socialists do seem to be floundering around in their frantic attempts to take advantage of every opportunity offered by events and the unstable sands of political fashion.

Net Zero Intelligence

 

Greens pledge

Greens pledge to halt ‘all new fossil fuel projects’ and tax top 1% in manifesto

The Greens have pledged to stop “all new fossil fuel projects” in the UK as they launched their manifesto promising to “be more ambitious than any other party”.

Co-leaders of the party Adrian Ramsay and Carla Denyer also pledged to “mend broken Britain” by overhauling the tax system at their manifesto launch event in Brighton and Hove.


The disturbing thing about Greens is how childlike and unserious their cult is. We have a genuine and widespread problem with infantile adult behaviour, but Greens have made a political party of it, based on an outlook only a little more realistic than an Enid Blyton story. 

The Enid Blyton comparison is an exaggeration of course, but it is not so much intended to disparage Greens as to highlight how disturbing it is that adults can believe and behave as they do. Adults make necessary concessions to the real world, Greens seem to have found a way to avoid that and in so doing, avoid an important aspect of adulthood. 

The big picture

Labour promises to fix one million extra potholes a year

A Labour government would fix one million extra potholes a year, Sir Keir Starmer has pledged.

The opposition leader said the number of road craters in need of repair across the country was a “plague” as he promised to tackle the issue if elected on July 4.

Contractors filled in just over two million potholes last year but the RAC estimates there are still around a million potholes at any given time as British roads continue to crumble.

Of course the issue isn't the potholes, it's the incompetence, one of those tricky issues which can't be tackled in a party manifesto. With the likes of Rayner, Reeves and Lammy at Starmer's back - well it's a poor show when the only answer is more popcorn.

The Great Debate

 

Source

It isn't excessively stuffy

At the moment it isn't excessively stuffy in our little corner of Derbyshire. We aren't sweltering our way through the catastrophic effects of global warming. Although it's June 11th we have the central heating on and the gas fire glowing merrily away here in the living room.

In these circumstances a chap is bound to wonder if there is any mention of this kind of thing in the main party manifestos so diligently compiled for the election. For example, right at the front of the manifesto there could be a single sentence pledge to stop lying to us, not only about the climate game, but about everything else.

Then the rest of it would be worth reading, but not otherwise. It's such a pity after all the effort which must have been expended in composing the manifestos, but without that pledge the thing isn't worth reading.

Of course, taking the notion a little further, the no more lying pledge would have to be endorsed by someone reputable. That could be a problem too.

Ed to the rescue

Lib Dem manifesto: Right to see GP within a week at heart of Ed Davey’s plan to transform Britain

Patients, tenants, carers and young people were put at the heart of the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto which was unveiled on Monday.

Sir Ed Davey proposed a £9 billion “rescue package” for the NHS and other public services. The Lib Dem manifesto includes:

A right to see a GP within seven days, or 24 hours if urgently needed, with 8,000 more GPs — half through recruitment, half through better retention — as part of a £3.7 billion boost to day-to-day NHS spending.


Easily the best act in any general election is the Lib Dem contribution. "Sir" Ed Davey* is particularly good at being amusingly unconvincing so that his people don't get carried away, which of course they would be in a more civilised and caring world.

Not so long ago we could go down to our local GP surgery and wait to see a GP, but Ed's lot seem happy enough for taxpayers to fund a more relaxed arrangement than that stuffy, out of date, dangerous, uneconomic and thoroughly old-fashioned approach.

*Presumably his stage name.

No, I wasn't wondering about that

Why Liberal Democrats' manifesto is far less ambitious than previous one

When Jo Swinson was Lib Dem leader back in 2019, her manifesto involved spending plans of roughly £63bn a year. The spending plans in today's manifesto are basically half that size - even less once you adjust for inflation.

First things first, if you're wondering whether the sums in the Liberal Democrat manifesto add up and - to adopt the phrase that leader Sir Ed Davey used rather a lot today - are "fully costed", the answer is: well, yes, sort of.


No, I wasn't wondering about that and I don't suppose many others were either. The only ambition Lib Dems have is to acquire a few more MPs by not being the Tory party and by not being disturbingly sensible. Ed Davey has a gift for that - a gift for not being disturbingly sensible 

To a very good approximation, nobody in the entire universe gives a fig for Lib Dem spending plans because the chance of them needing a brand new set of spending plans is not high. Zero would be another good approximation. Zero often is a good approximation when it comes to anything Lib Dem, whatever the context.

Corporate Café Culture

The other day found Mrs H and I sitting in a café not far from a group of people with identity lanyards and earnest faces obviously engrossed in some kind of work meeting.

We caught occasional phrases such as ‘that would be the cherry on the cake’ and ‘it’s where we end up, not how we get there’ and ‘we need to firm up on that’. Mrs H and I agreed that we felt far, far removed from their world and weren’t sorry to be far, far removed from it.

That too familiar meeting which could never be informal even though it was meant to be an informal café meeting, it left a certain impression of something which should have been edgier. 

Somebody should have thrust aside their coffee, burst out of the iron fetters of corporate diffidence, climbed to their feet and demanded to know why the blue blazes they were sitting there emitting corporate platitudes at each other.

But nobody did that.

We don't need AI to translate that

Labour pledges to create 100,000 extra nursery places in schools

Labour will convert over 3,000 spare classrooms into nurseries, funding the works by ending the tax breaks enjoyed by private schools.

The plans were welcomed by the NAHT teaching union which said there is "certainly a clear logic in using free space in primary schools to expand nursery provision".

But its general secretary Paul Whiteman added: "Having the right space is one part of the picture, and it will be equally important that there is a strong focus on attracting more people into the early years workforce."

We don't need AI to translate that -

"Having the right space is one part of the picture, and it will be equally important that there is a strong focus on attracting more union members into the early years workforce."

The lost tones of our harp

His words I can give, but your own fancy must supply the advantages of an intelligent, expressive countenance, and, what is perhaps harder still, the harmony of his glorious brogue, that, like the melodies of our own dear country, will leave a burden of mirth or of sorrow with nearly equal propriety, tickling the diaphragm as easily as it plays with the heart-strings, and is in itself a national music that, I trust, may never, never — scouted and despised though it be — never cease, like the lost tones of our harp, to be heard in the fields of my country, in welcome or endearment, in fun or in sorrow, stirring the hearts of Irish men and Irish women.

Sheridan Le Fanu - The Purcell Papers (1880)


There is a kaleidoscope of poetic aspects to culture which cannot be lost without losing the culture too. Sheridan Le Fanu was of course Irish, but the lost tones of our metaphorical harp are no longer understood, played and adapted through successive generations. 

To keep the notes audible and understood, there must be some common cultural soil in which the roots are  secure. It is not a political aspect of culture but a poetic aspect, yet it can be trashed politically.

The Legacy

Gregory Vigil called Mr. Paramor a pessimist it was because, like other people, he did not know the meaning of, the term; for with a confusion common to the minds of many persons who have been conceived in misty moments, he thought that, to see things as they were, meant, to try and make them worse.

John Galsworthy - The Country House (1907)


It’s a common problem this, describe things as they are and numerous people think you are someone who would make things worse. Even the most obvious improvements to a current situation can be draped with this particular shroud before they ever see daylight.

It’s how Net Zero has been sold, and the whole climate catastrophe game. Once established as the authoritative narrative, any criticism is seen by believers as sceptics wanting to make things worse.

In that sense Net Zero is an extraordinary achievement in the engineering of human belief. A policy which will undoubtedly make life worse for millions of people is turned around such that those same people see its critics as wanting to make things worse.

It also explains how Net Zero is destined to fail, however its failure may be dressed up as modest success, which it probably will be. Once enough people grasp that proponents of Net Zero are the people trying to make things worse, then the switch may be unstoppable.

The legacy that people were indeed persuaded against their own interests, that stays.

Hugely Iconic

 

Huge BBC series confirmed for return after 25 years


It turns out this prehistoric show hasn’t gone the way of the Dodo as after 25 years, Walking With Dinosaurs is returning. The iconic BBC show will arrive on screens next year as a brand new six-part series that takes viewers back in time to explore the extinct giants. Originally airing in 1999, the reimagined show will ‘tell the dramatic story of an individual dinosaur’ in each episode, according to the BBC. With so many dinos out there to choose from, Walking With Dinosaurs will focus on those whose ‘remains are currently being unearthed by the world’s leading dinosaur hunters'


Huge and iconic apparently. A huge number of things have become iconic in recent decades. From Google's Ngram Viewer -

The drive towards the unattainable

Eliot Wilson has a useful CAPX piece on the political optimism we should have learned and retained from Margaret Thatcher.


Today’s Tories should learn from Thatcher’s optimism

When Nigel Farage announced earlier this week that he had changed his mind and would offer himself as a candidate for Parliament, he described the election campaign so far as ‘boring’. Many would disagree: from the Biblical weather of the Prime Minister’s announcement, through national service and Keir Starmer’s renewed enthusiasm for nuclear weapons, to a purge of left-wing candidates in the Labour Party, there has been plenty to hold the public’s interest. It has, however, been depressing and dispiriting.

The Opposition is bound to dwell on the negative. It is a fundamental element of the challenger’s playbook that the nation is in a terrible state and the government should be held to blame. The answer, in Starmer’s mind, is that it’s time for a change.


The whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder that any political outlook has to be 'for' something rather than merely against what we have now. This is Starmer's weakness, he is not clearly 'for' anything other than spending more of your money. Even if he is 'for' something else, he won't be tomorrow. The Tories are much the same. 

Political optimism probably is necessary, but it isn't what is guiding Starmer towards No. 10. The major parties are not 'for' anything attainable at all, but between them they will end up with most of the Parliamentary seats if the polls have any value at all. 

Even a challenger such as Reform has to take a generally negative stance. Reform must be against the unattainable because the drive towards the unattainable is where the problems are.   

Echoing the dissatisfaction of the electorate is the political equivalent of a comedian’s cheap laugh: it provokes an instant response and makes people agree with you. But it is not nearly enough. When the country has seemed to be in decline before, it has been the party offering solutions as well as an assessment of the problems which is ultimately victorious: Harold Wilson’s ‘white heat’ of technology in 1964, Margaret Thatcher’s ‘free society’ in 1979.

Perhaps this is where the problem lies. It is not possible to be optimistic about a drive towards the unattainable. Whatever the rhetoric, nobody believes it. I don't think many people were enthused about Harold Wilson’s ‘white heat’ of technology in 1964, but the development of new technology is at least attainable. 

Margaret Thatcher’s vision of a ‘free society’ was a plausible ideal in 1979, but we have swapped a plausible ideal for a drive towards the unattainable. It isn't easy to build optimism on that. 

A pity it doesn't apply to manifestos

Tesco issues urgent food recall for popular chocolate bars over 'undecleared ingredient'

Tesco has issued an urgent recall for two brands of popular chocolate bars as they warned the products could pose a “possible health risk”.

The British supermarket chain has advised customers to return the affected items to the supermarket for a full refund.

A full refund for undeclared ingredients in political manifestos sounds like a fine idea. Unfortunately, undeclared political ingredients have been a problem for many years. Expect it to continue.

Bunglers are Bunglers

And now he made the cardinal discovery, which marks an epoch in the life of every man who arrives at it, that world-celebrated persons are very like other persons.

Arnold Bennett – The Old Adam (1913)


I’ve used this quote before, but it is still interesting in the context of the current UK general election.

A significant number of people seem to view the main political parties with a degree of contempt which is much more than dissatisfaction with habitual political duplicity and incompetence. Many ordinary folk do not look up to what we sometimes call “the powers that be”. Not in a sense where those who wield power and responsibility deserve respect due to their position.

This shift has been going on for a long time and powerful people and institutions have always been lampooned and ridiculed, but a matter-of-fact egalitarian outlook seems to have become increasingly widespread. 

An outlook where even senior political or government charlatans are merely bunglers who should be sacked, not superior crafty schemers. An outlook where bunglers are just bunglers, whatever their level of seniority, whatever political narratives they spin to cover their bungling.   

As if we are becoming more egalitarian, but not in a way that is likely to meet with the approval of progressive politics. It feels more genuine than that. No wonder there are such frantic moves to snuff it out.

Sir Slippery

A useful Spiked summary of Keir Starmer's remarkably slippery approach to political power. Also a reminder of how big the useful idiot vote must be. It ain't rocket science.

High Bar

I read many online comments in the mainstream media stories covering many current issues. Only those stories where comments are allowed of course, which are not necessarily the interesting or controversial ones.

As we would expect, mainstream comments show huge differences in relevance, coherence and eloquence. They vary from crude partisan abuse to incoherent nonsense to cogently expressed points which are worth remembering. Yet all of them are interesting at a number of levels, particularly in the way they reveal how people build and adjust their viewpoints - or don't.

Equally interesting is how many people have strong opinions which come across as more of an adopted formula than a personal opinion. Formulaic abuse, or words and phrases which appear to have been borrowed from a limited range of mainstream sources. 

Throwaway anti-Brexit phrases with no context and little relevance to the story. Or anti-Trump phrases where the story isn’t even about Donald Trump. Everyone does throwaway stuff and abuse, but some at least pay attention to context and try to add something more than a repeated formula.

In general, the standard of mainstream media comments is not high. Too much of it is formulaic language saying nothing worthwhile beyond the formula. No hint of personal input, no glimmer of a creative mind at work, moulding language and possibilities around context. 

All of which is disturbing because, and this is the point of the post, many mainstream media comments exhibit less intelligence than a modern AI system. For some people, AI has already set the bar too high.

Thick bundles

Labour manifesto: Top secret Clause V meeting will be a pivotal moment in Sir Keir Starmer's election campaign

The meeting will take place on Friday with just one huge item on the agenda: agreeing the manifesto that Sir Keir is expected to present to the country on 13 June.

It's a meeting that's so top secret that those attending - at a secret location - are ordered to surrender their mobile phone and any other electronic devices when they arrive.

They're given numbered copies of the agenda, thick bundles which are then collected from them at the end of the meeting. Security is extremely tight. Nothing is left to chance.

This is one of those general election rituals which seems more and more weird as elections come and go. There can't be anyone who actually believes election manifestos are worth reading except as ammunition for later. Do many voters read them? I don't know, but I wouldn't bet on it.

It's bonkers. If manifestos were seen as important, then voters would not respond to the polls, they would insist on waiting for the manifesto. But they don't because presumably most voters don't care about the manifesto.

Although on second thoughts, Sir Keir is so slippery that his manifesto could be worth a read. Version one could be worth reading anyway.

Wartime Reticence

I don’t have any family anecdotes about D-Day and only a few about WWII. Although my father and the uncles we saw most often all fought in the war, they were reticent about it for their entire lives.

My father was in the Royal Navy, having joined a few years before war broke out. He had a few amusing or interesting stories to tell, but not much about the conflict itself. From a few clues, I know he was involved in something hairy in the North Atlantic for example, but he never said what.

I also know Dad’s ship destroyed an enemy radio station situated on a small Atlantic island because he mentioned it a couple of times. He related it as a bit of gunnery fun though. It must have been more than that, but he never elaborated.

Dad’s generation were often reticent about the grim and bloody aspects of war and didn’t pass on the horrors of it to youngsters. It was something adults didn’t do.

Trailblazing

Harvie: Really disappointing to see former Green MSP campaigning for Labour

Scottish Green co-leader Patrick Harvie has said he is “really sorry” to see his predecessor campaigning for Labour in the General Election.

Robin Harper, who was the first elected Green parliamentarian anywhere in the UK, has been volunteering with shadow Scottish secretary Ian Murray as he bids to hold the Edinburgh South constituency.

Mr Murray tweeted a photograph of “former trailblazing Green” Mr Harper in his office, saying it was “lovely to have a new volunteer”.

I'm not sure if Greens are allowed to go trailblazing, it sounds much too exciting, as if fiery is fun and we can't have that. Excitement is never very Green, doom is much more their line. Maybe Mr Harper realised how dull the Greens are, offering no opportunities for trailblazing at all. 

On the other hand, the whole business becomes even odder when we remember that "Sir" Keir Starmer is most unlikely to have any trails which need blazing either.

The driver of the bus self-extricated

Derby bus fire saw crews tackle huge blaze near Derbion shopping centre

The fire in Morledge sent thick, black smoke across the city today

A spokeswoman for the fire service said: "Road closures and diversions are in place at Morledge.

"Fire crews were called to the incident at 11.33am. The driver of the bus self-extricated prior to the arrival of the fire service. There were no passengers onboard the bus at the time of the incident."

That's what I'd do, I'd be self-extricating like blazes.

Great Train Robbery

 

Fantasy land

Both parties are in fantasy land - but Sunak's tax attack on Labour is rich given what his government has cost voters

The parties fighting this election have yet to publish their manifestos. Until they do, their number-crunching is just speculation. What we do know is what Sunak's policies have cost households so far. And that both main parties are making outlandish claims which don't add up.

Before we get on to any of the numbers - from Rishi Sunak's claim about Labour raising taxes by £2,000 to the more outlandish numbers going around today - here's the most important thing you have to know right now.

The parties fighting this election have yet to publish their manifestos.

Each manifesto will be fantasy too. It isn't obvious why either party would allow itself to be deported from fantasy land via a manifesto they themselves have concocted. Fantasy land is their home where anything may be whatever they wish it to be. It's a form of lying.


There’ll never be a Utopia, and it’s only a form of lying to set such ideals before the multitude.

George Gissing - Denzil Quarrier (1892)

It's brilliant leadership - or else

N. Korean scientist executed in 2021 for COVID-19 research

The execution was a terrifying shock not only to the researcher's colleagues at the bioengineering laboratory, but also to the entire North Korean scientific community

In September 2021, a researcher at a bioengineering laboratory under the North Korean State Academy of Sciences in Pyongyang examined samples taken from a Pyongyang resident suspected of having COVID-19. By comparing the samples with information from an international research paper, the researcher discovered scientific grounds to confirm that the patient did indeed have COVID-19...

While the researcher deserved recognition for a research breakthrough, he was instead branded a traitor to the state and secretly executed that December. His family members disappeared without a trace around the same time...

The most important thing for the North Korean regime at the time was to strengthen Kim Jong Un’s political base under the guise of a successful campaign against the disease. That is why North Korea so vigorously claimed that Kim’s brilliant leadership had kept COVID-19 out of the North while the world was ravaged by the disease.

It may be weird and it may be curiously primitive, but it is an inflexible North Korean policy to present the supreme leader as virtually god-like in his superhuman ability to understand everything and issue infallible instructions about any issue or problem. Challenge this in any way, even inadvertently, and the consequences are insanely severe.

Yet in a milder and far less dangerous sense, our political class has laid claim to a god-like ability to predict the state of the global climate decades into the future. Not the same perhaps, but buried in there is a not dissimilar god-like claim. I'm almost surprised Welby hasn't noticed... 

No I'm not.   

A Bureaucrat's Vow

Keir Starmer vows to ‘close door on Putin’ with GB Energy

Labour would “close the door on Putin” by reducing Britain’s reliance on fossil fuel from overseas, Sir Keir Starmer has said, as he accused the Tories of leaving the nation exposed by failing on energy security.

The party leader claimed Rishi Sunak’s “political collapse” on net zero commitments risks leaving the UK “over a barrel” as he linked the green power transition to issues of national security.

On Tuesday, he will say the party’s plan to set up GB Energy – a publicly owned clean energy company – will help to protect the UK from spikes in the price of fuel like those that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

We appear to be in the odd situation where the next PM is likely to be a bureaucrat in that more bureaucracy seems to be "Sir" Keir Starmer's political philosophy. Far from providing democratic oversight of the permanent administration, he clearly intends to be part of it. That's his notion of oversight. And democracy.

GB Energy is a good example, a bureaucrat's wheeze if ever there was one. Even side-lining some of his political headaches such as Jeremy Corbyn was not dissimilar to a chap sorting out his filing system.   GB Energy is intended to "sort out" Net Zero and our energy problems. And Mr Putin apparently.

Yes it's insane, yes it's bound to be ludicrously expensive, yes it's bound to be a net negative for voters, yes it's bound to be supported by wealthy charlatans, but it does sit rather nicely in the bureaucratic comfort zone.

 Apart from Reform as a loose cannon in the electoral game, Starmer as PM seems likely to erode political oversight of the permanent administration even further. Parliament becomes little more than an outlet for  marketing official policies and narratives. Not that we are widely separated from that scenario now.   

Even Jeremy would fancy his chances

Nigel Farage: I will lead political revolt to topple the Tories

Nigel Farage declared “I’m back” on Monday as he returned to front-line politics and vowed to lead a “political revolt” aimed at toppling the Conservative Party.

Reversing his decision not to stand in the general election, Mr Farage said he would run to become the MP for Clacton and also replace Richard Tice as leader of Reform.

At a press conference in London, Mr Farage warned that backing the Tories was a “wasted vote” and even claimed Reform had a chance of winning more support than them at the ballot box.


Unfortunately we are in a situation where any vote for a major party is a wasted vote. As things stand, "Sir" Keir Starmer seems likely to become PM on a great pile of wasted votes. 

Oh well, perhaps we may hope for something more worthwhile to emerge, because even Jeremy Corbyn would fancy his chances against Sunak's Tories. 

 

Sunak denies stoking sanity

Sunak denies stoking culture war with pledge to change law around biological sex

Rishi Sunak has denied stoking a culture war with his pledge to overhaul equality laws, while the women and equalities minister could not say what kind of paperwork people would need to show to use single-sex spaces under the plans.

The Conservatives announced an election campaign proposal to amend the Equality Act to make clear sex means “biological sex” rather than gender.

I doubt if we'll see Keir Starmer or Ed Davey stoking sanity quite so shamelessly as this. Whatever next?

Well no - understatement is not something they do

Nurses declare 'national emergency' as NHS patients treated in 'cupboards and car parks'

Patients are receiving cancer diagnoses in public areas, and may have to undergo intimate examinations there too, the Royal College of Nursing says...

In order to show how widespread the practice has become, the RCN is calling for mandatory reporting of patients cared for in corridors.

"Our once world-leading services are treating patients in car parks and store cupboards," Prof Ranger will tell delegates.

"The elderly are languishing on chairs for hours on end and patients are dying in corridors. The horror of this situation cannot be understated.

As we are reminded every day, this is the run-up to a general election, so understatement would be off the agenda anyway. The solution is familiar though - mandatory reporting of patients cared for in corridors. In other words more bureaucracy 

I took a relative to hospital the other day and there were no patients being treated in the corridors or the car park, even though it's a big car park and it was quite pleasant outside.

I didn't look in any store cupboards.

Not a good move

Scientist set to become Mexico's first woman president after deadliest election with 38 assassinations

Claudia Sheinbaum has won Mexico's election and is set to become the country's first woman president, according to an official quick count...

The 61-year-old climate scientist, who is a former Mexico City mayor, campaigned on continuing the political course set over the last six years by her mentor President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who was elected in 2018.

Unfortunately -

In 2007, she joined the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at the United Nations in the field of energy and industry, as a contributing co-author on the topic "Mitigation of climate change" for the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. The group won the Nobel Peace Prize that year. In 2013, she co-authored the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report alongside 11 other experts in the field of industry.

Lies, lies, nothing but lies

Those who worship their own lying

What’s the most offensive is not their lying — one can always forgive lying — lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth — what is offensive is that they lie and worship their own lying....

Fyodor Dostoevsky – Crime and Punishment (1866)


Or lie for the love of lying

Very talkative people always seemed to me to be divided into two classes — those who lie for a purpose and those who lie for the love of lying;

Ambrose Bierce - The Man and the Snake (1890)


Or take pride in thorough lying 

What do I care? I lie more often than I tell the truth. I have a sort of pride in it. If a man is to be a liar, let him be a thorough one.

George Gissing – The Emancipated (1890)


Or adopt a confidential servant's lying

Lies, lies, nothing but lies! But I daresay I’m too ‘ard on him; isn’t lies our natural lot? What is servants for but to lie when it is in their master’s interest, and to be a confidential servant is to be the Prince of liars!

George Moore - Esther Waters (1894)


Or lie about themselves

“I began something that has been going on and on in me all these years,” he explained. “It is a trick one practises, this lying to oneself about oneself.”

Sherwood Anderson – Many Marriages (1923)


Or blend lying into the act

He scowled. “Damn all actors anyway. You can’t get at ’em. Professional liars, that’s what they are when you get down to it. You can’t tell when they’re acting and when they’re not.”

Christopher Bush - The Case of the Amateur Actor (1955)

The message is - Vote For Daft Ed

Ed Davey defended by Lib Dem MP on ‘daft’ campaign antics: ‘We take politics very seriously’

A Liberal Democrat MP defended Ed Davey regarding his ‘daft’ campaign antics over the past week.

The Lib Dem party leader has been spotted falling off a paddleboard, riding a waterslide in a rubber ring and skidding down a hill on a bike - all as part of his campaign trail.

Speaking on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg on 2 June, Daisy Cooper MP sprung to Davey’s defence, saying, “All of those stunts are designed to deliver a message, and so when he was falling into Lake Windermere, he was obviously delivering a message about how we’ve led the campaign to tackle raw sewage dumping”.

Somewhere between one and more than one

Cooper: Labour wants to cut migration levels but we have no specific target

Labour has refused to set specific targets on how it wants to reduce net migration to the UK should it win the General Election.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the party wants to see “significant changes” and is clear that net migration “must come down”.

But she stopped short of setting a target, saying the Conservatives have failed when they have done so and arguing that “variations” each year – such as the war in Ukraine – must also be considered.

In which case, Labour has committed to reducing migrant levels by at least one. Maybe they have a particular person in mind. 

It's a weird business where political parties base their appeal on claims nobody but a dimwit would believe. Maybe this means there are more dimwits than any democracy can cope with.

Sunshine and blue sky

A fine morning here in our little bit of Derbyshire. Sunshine and blue sky so we plan to tootle off in the MX5 in search of Shangri-La. 

Or failing that, coffee in Matlock.

Rat's Nest

Eliot Wilson has a useful CAPX piece on Whitehall failures during the pandemic. Useful because it's a reminder that the performance of the permanent administration, including senior officials, ought to be a more significant area of public debate.

The Covid Inquiry has exposed Whitehall’s lack of grip

After a period on the margins of public attention, the public inquiry into the government’s handling of the Covid pandemic has returned to the foreground with the delayed appearance of the Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case. He had been due to give evidence to Baroness Hallett’s review last October, but had to take medical leave from his position and only returned to work in January this year.

Case’s role in the pandemic is critical. In May 2020, as the crisis unfolded, he was appointed Downing Street Permanent Secretary and tasked with ‘supporting the Prime Minister and Cabinet in developing and implementing the government’s coronavirus response’. A few months later, then Cabinet Secretary, Sir Mark Sedwill, was eased out of his role by Boris Johnson and to general astonishment, Case was appointed to replace him as Head of the Civil Service and the Prime Minister’s Principal Official Adviser. He was only 41, the youngest ever Cabinet Secretary, and had never run a Whitehall department.


Johnson's fault? Possibly, but presumably Case could have turned down the appointment as beyond his level of experience.


The Cabinet Secretary admitted to problems in many areas. The relationships between Cummings, Sir Edward Lister, Johnson’s Chief Strategic Adviser, and the two senior civil servants in the Prime Minister’s private office, Martin Reynolds and Stuart Glassborrow, were ‘very bad’, and ‘that did not help at all’. This toxic atmosphere had wider consequences for Downing Street staffing: a WhatsApp message from Case said ‘Good people [were] being put off… because it is such a rat’s nest’.

Trying to plant the same tree

 

Sunak pledges cash to towns as Starmer pitches ‘wealth creation’ amid election campaign

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pledged cash to towns, while Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said “wealth creation” is his top priority as the General Election campaign enters its second weekend.

The tree they are both trying to plant is of course the Magic Money Tree. Enid Blyton had a similar idea, maybe that's the original source. Meanwhile, the zero carbon caper seems to have been defenestrated for the duration.

After being cleared of an investigation by Greater Manchester Police and HMRC, Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner is ready to “power up” as she unveils the Labour battle bus on Saturday.

Sir Keir and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves will join Ms Rayner as she sets off on a 5,000-mile journey to battleground seats across the country.

Death in the wheel

Lately a gladiator, who had been sent forth to the morning exhibition, was being conveyed in a cart along with the other prisoners; nodding as if he were heavy with sleep, he let his head fall over so far that it was caught in the spokes; then he kept his body in position long enough to break his neck by the revolution of the wheel. So he made his escape by means of the very wagon which was carrying him to his punishment.

Seneca - Epistulae morales ad Lucilium c. 65 AD


Not what we usually think of as the courage of a gladiator. Not quite the Hollywood image, yet it must have taken a considerable degree of courage because even partial failure was not an option. 

Or is it a Roman urban myth about the courage of gladiators? It must have been remarkably fertile ground for gladiatorial myths. We know that because we know myths and how pervasive they are. We have political parties built around them.

Here's an earlier post on the same subject.