Glaring problem

I don't know how reliable it is, but this is an interesting story. If sound, it is a reminder that ministers don't take enough interest in practical feasibility. We knew that, but this article suggests Rachel Reeves follows that well-worn tradition. Not that anyone is likely to collapse in astonishment if the story is sound.

 
Glaring problem with Labour's war on pensioners means Rachel Reeves will have to back down

A former Conservative pensions minister who served in the role for six years has warned that Labour's pledge to prevent millions of pensioners from receiving Winter Fuel Payments this year "will not last".

Guy Opperman, who served in the top Government job from 2017 to 2023, took to social media this morning to explain why he believes Labour is "making a big mistake" by choosing to target pensioners in this way...

Mr Opperman explained: "Firstly an explainer of our benefit system. It is a big beast made up of 12+ ageing computer systems and 1000s of admin staff. It does not do nuance and fine margins.

To escape a miscellany of delusions

I recently bought a history book about King John, an addition to the three or four I’ve read over the years. I’m not enormously interested in King John, nor the wider history of the Angevins, but it’s one of those casual interests which seem to pop up out of nothing much.

Maybe it’s the prominence of Magna Carta, childhood memories of Robin Hood, an equally casual interest in castles or merely a desire to put aside our present miscellany of delusions for a few hours.

Yes it's probably that, putting aside our miscellany of delusions for a while.

The present may be considered more of a miscellany of delusions than a history—a chapter only in the great and awful book of human folly which yet remains to be written, and which Porson once jestingly said he would write in five hundred volumes!

Charles Mackay - Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841)

The brick wall moves closer

Renewable energy budget increased to over £1.5bn as record funding allocated for clean power

The UK’s renewable energy budget has been increased to a record £1.5 billion, Ed Miliband announced on Wednesday.


Energy bills will rise and net zero savings ‘will take time’, Miliband admits

Energy bills will rise this autumn, Ed Miliband has warned, admitting that savings from the Government’s net zero plans “will take time”.


The brick wall moves closer, Ed Miliband attracts many headlines and enthusiasm for his climate zealotry is less than muted. As for headlines praising his scientific and technical competence, we are into hen's teeth territory there. 

Ed's own description of his heavily-veiled assortment of abilities has been 'super-nerd' and that has been taken up with some degree of headline enthusiasm. Maybe Ed's personal brick wall has moved closer too.  

Ed Miliband claims he is a 'super-nerd' on climate issues

Climate change threatens the natural world more than ground-mounted solar panels do, Ed Miliband has claimed.

Elaborate and costly playthings

The other day found Mrs H and I discussing how so many things become more and more elaborate over time. As if there is nothing at all which cannot be made a little more elaborate than the previous version.


On a chair lay a broken toy, one of those elaborate and costly playthings which serve no purpose but to stunt a child’s imagination.

George Gissing – In the Year of Jubilee (1894)


It applies not only to things, but activities, systems, processes, laws, rules and so on and so on. The curious thing is that we know it, perhaps everyone knows it, but still we elaborate.


Basset was inclined to be rather contemptuous of his half-brother, Lucas, whom he found feverishly engrossed in the same medley of elaborate futilities that had claimed his whole time and energies, such as they were, four years ago, and almost as far back before that as he could remember. It was the contempt of the man of action for the man of activities, and it was probably reciprocated.

H.H. Munro (Saki) - Beasts and Super-Beasts (1914)

Character and Persuasion

Some decades ago I read a Matthew Parris article where he wrote that his mother did not judge politics by policies or a left or right spectrum, but how decent and honest individual politicians seemed to be.

It’s something I’ve always remembered because decent and honest is how the political game should be played but isn't. Some politicians probably are decent and honest in private, especially those who avoid the caring, sharing, lying rhetoric and just tell it as it is. As for the others, we'd probably be appalled at how stupid and ghastly they are.


We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided…

It is not true, as some writers assume in their treatises on rhetoric, that the personal goodness revealed by the speaker contributes nothing to his power of persuasion; on the contrary, his character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion he possesses.

Aristotle - Rhetoric c. 336 - 330 B.C.


Of course Aristotle was right in his refined Athenian sense where politically active people were known to all who mattered. Today, many are still unpersuaded by the political rhetoric of dubious people, but unfortunately it no longer seem to matter.

Today we are persuaded to take sides with the charlatan and the fool, persuaded to cheer the rhetoric as if it were our own rhetoric, to cheer the political colour of it and discount or evade completely the dishonesty of the speaker.

So come on Ed, we know you can make Net Zero work when the Tories couldn't.

No lessons learned

Max Lacour has a useful Critic reminder that the COVID-19 Inquiry is still grinding on. He offers us a brief survey of its first report.


No lessons learned from lockdown

Despite all the nuance and retrospective moderation, the Covid inquiry leaves us no closer confronting the failures of technocracy

“The state ceremonials of classical Bali,” wrote anthropologist Clifford Geertz, “were metaphysical theatre: theatre designed to express a view of the ultimate nature of reality and, at the same time, to shape the existing conditions of life to be consonant with that reality; that is, theatre to present an ontology and, by presenting it, to make it happen – make it actual.” Through its processions, royal cremations, and ritual extravaganzas, the 19th Century Balinese court both built and mirrored and a shared understanding of the cosmos and the Balinese people’s various roles within it.

Modern Western state rituals, like public inquiries, such as the UK’s COVID-19 Inquiry, often function in an analogous way.


The whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder of something which nobody paying attention will have missed. Lacour sums it up in his final paragraph.


Now, perhaps the second report will tackle these questions and open a public conversation about the proper role of models, science, and experts in our politics and our lives. And perhaps, after the first report’s surprising nuance, it is incumbent upon me to remain hopeful. But, dear reader, I am not. Technocracy tends to be ratchet-like and technocratic failure tends to prompt calls for better, brighter technocracy next time. 2020 thrust lockdown into the realm of the possible and, absent a wave of popular scepticism, there is no going back. And, based on this first report, it seems like all we can look forwards to is a future in which better, properly scientific lockdown is our common-sense policy-expectation.

As Lacour says, technocracy does tend to be ratchet-like and the response to failure is more of the same but better and brighter. In people such as Keir Starmer we have a technocrat who is already likely to fit Disraeli’s description of “one who practises the blunders of his predecessors.”

It's all he knows

Chancellor Rachel Reeves scraps some winter fuel payments as she reveals cuts to fill 'black hole' in public finances

Ms Reeves tells MPs she is taking the "first step to clean up" what the Conservatives left behind - but the Tories brand her Commons statement a "shameless attempt to lay the ground for tax rises".

The chancellor said those not in receipt of pension credit will no longer receive the extra money as she repeatedly told MPs: "If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it."

Of course it's a "shameless attempt to lay the ground for tax rises", we knew this would be the plan before the election. A major managerialist expansion can't occur without the expansion and Starmer was never going anywhere else but  managerialist expansion. It's all he knows.

It will be interesting if Ed Miliband brings the brick wall a little closer though.

Plug

What cuts could Rachel Reeves announce to plug Labour’s £20bn ‘black hole’?

Rachel Reeves will outline her plans to grapple with the government’s £20bn “black hole” in public finances on Monday as she lays out a Treasury report into the state of the nation’s finances.


Junior doctors offered 22% pay rise

The government has offered junior doctors in England a 22.3% pay rise to end strike action.

Whole of Society

Jacob Siegel has an interesting Tablet piece on the need to understand American politics via the term “whole of society.”


Learn This Term: ‘Whole of Society’
You cannot understand what’s going on with American politics today without it

To make sense of today’s form of American politics, it is necessary to understand a key term. It is not found in standard U.S. civics textbooks, but it is central to the new playbook of power: “whole of society.”

The term was popularized roughly a decade ago by the Obama administration, which liked that its bland, technocratic appearance could be used as cover to erect a mechanism for the government to control public life that can, at best, be called “Soviet-style.” Here’s the simplest definition: “Individuals, civil society and companies shape interactions in society, and their actions can harm or foster integrity in their communities. A whole-of-society approach asserts that as these actors interact with public officials and play a critical role in setting the public agenda and influencing public decisions, they also have a responsibility to promote public integrity.”

In other words, the government enacts policies and then “enlists” corporations, NGOs and even individual citizens to enforce them—creating a 360-degree police force made up of the companies you do business with, the civic organizations that you think make up your communal safety net, even your neighbors. What this looks like in practice is a small group of powerful people using public-private partnerships to silence the Constitution, censor ideas they don’t like, deny their opponents access to banking, credit, the internet, and other public accommodations in a process of continuous surveillance, constantly threatened cancellation, and social control.


The whole piece is well worth reading as a useful angle on managerialist trends which are also familiar here in the UK. It is already obvious enough that Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are on board.


One can imagine a President Kamala Harris using the whole-of-society push to enact various equity initiatives, which she has championed in the past. But, equally, if Trump wins in November, the same tactic will be used to coordinate the “spontaneous” resistance movement of government groups, media outlets, and billionaire-funded nonprofits who carry out the functions of the party state. It is this party-state itself that is incompatible with democracy. And the whole of society is what it demands.

Government by alphabet agency

A few days ago Graeme Orchard wrote a worthwhile CAPX piece on what he calls "Government by alphabet agency". Some people will have memories long enough to translate this as yet another attempt by government to pick winners via bureaucracy. 

Nemesis has already fixed her inexorable eye on "Sir" Keir Starmer.


Government by alphabet agency spells disaster

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has well and truly hit the ground running less than a month since the general election. The King’s Speech has put in motion Labour’s flagship economic policies which are going to transform Britain, for better or for worse.

It would be hyperbolic to suggest there is going to be a paradigm shift in economic thinking, but the Mariana Mazzucato disciples are in charge, and the free marketeers, if there were any left in 10 and 11 Downing Street, are out.

It means we are going to see government led by five missions: economic growth, making Britain a clean energy superpower, taking back our streets, breaking down barriers to opportunity and building an NHS fit for the future.

All these missions are to be underpinned by a new partnership model, one between the state and business which believes the Government must drive and incentivise the private sector to achieve state-set goals and industrial strategies. Although some of Labour’s missions fall short of of pure Mazzucatoism, it is clear a new economic dogma is driving policy making.


It's a short piece but well worth reading as a reminder that this government already has failure baked into its ideology. Popcorn and a robust sense of humour seem to be the best response.


Although it is still early days, the Conservative Party in opposition will have to decide whether to tinker around the edges or apply a sledgehammer to Reeves’ alphabet agencies and economic thinking. Will the NWF, GBR, GBE, play a role in the Conservatives’ vision for the future? If they do, a new period of economic groupthink is upon us. If not, we must start to hold Labour and their missions to the fire, and judge them on whether they meet their own, admittedly nebulous, goals.

This will be a consequential government, and the challenge to change the political landscape once Reeves and Starmer have done their work could be much greater than we currently think.

The Olympics TV Show

Paris Olympics opening ceremony has best TV audience figures since London 2012

 
The opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics on Friday has attracted more BBC viewers than the last two games, figures show.

About 6.8 million people watched the coverage on BBC One, between 5.45pm and 10.40pm, as Canadian singer Celine Dion performed French singer Edith Piaf’s L’Hymne A L’Amour at the Eiffel Tower.

I don’t watch TV at all and don’t miss it. I used to watch the Olympics, but it’s become more of a global TV show than a sporting event. It’s also about money, politics and sport of course, but the look and feel of it is TV show.

 In gold medal position – it’s the global TV show.

In silver medal position – it’s the money and politics show.

In bronze* medal position – it’s a sporting event.

* There may be some question about the bronze award.

Hectored by your toothpaste

Toothpaste to warn of cancer symptoms in new NHS drive

Toothpaste tubes will carry symptoms of cancer, in a bid to get more people to seek help earlier.

A partnership between the NHS and Asda will provide advice which warns of the signs of mouth cancer, and encourages people to contact their GP or dentist.

The new packaging on toothpaste and mouthwash will warn users to seek help if a mouth ulcer lasts three weeks or more. It will also provide a link to more detailed NHS information about mouth and throat cancer.

"What is it now Angus?"

"Well Doctor Finlay, the fancy new toothpaste I bought at the shop in the village told me I should make an appointment with you as soon as possible."

Unaffordable Pressures

Steve Baker has a useful CAPX reminder of the slowly grinding wheels of our unsustainable welfare state. Useful because we seem to have landed ourselves with a government which is ideologically incapable of doing anything about it.

Rachel Reeves makes her first major misstep

Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is expected on Monday to give a statement on public spending ‘pressures’ amounting to tens of billions of pounds. It is not credible to suggest this will be a surprise, as Paul Johnson of the IFS explained on the Today programme (07:37).

Either it will be a restatement of what is already known – in which case any claim this is a surprise is frankly dishonest – or it will be a wish list of spending which government departments would really like and may have bid for in spending reviews – in which case elements will range from the unaffordable to the fanciful. Reeves is not at all likely to raise taxes on Monday but instead to set the scene for rises later.

It is Rachel Reeves’ first major misstep. Not because the Labour Party promised not to raise taxes on working people: this early in the parliament, as politicians so often do (alas), they may simply break their promises, blaming their predecessors.

It is a major misstep because with taxes at historic highs, and likely at or beyond Britain’s taxable capacity, Reeves would be telling us an unspoken truth which undermines her party’s faith in big government: that the UK cannot afford the state we have. She would be right and the Conservatives should point that out.


The whole piece is well worth reading, because the recent Labour victory has a number of slowly moving but intractable problems to tackle without the slightest hint that it has the ability to recognise, let alone tackle them. Tax, welfare, Net Zero and immigration are just some of the ingredients of Starmer's remarkably poisonous poisoned chalice.

The situation facing the UK and the world is extremely serious. When Rachel Reeves on Monday tells the Commons we cannot afford present spending, the Conservatives should make the most of it in the public interest.

Perhaps the Chancellor means to cut spending, cut taxes and go for the growth we need but it seems unlikely. More probably, Rachel Reeves is more correct than she realises: as a former Bank of England economist, she is without excuse.

That didn't take long

Labour shelves free speech law protecting universities from cancel culture

The Education Secretary is poised to scrap free speech laws designed to protect academics from being cancelled.

Bridget Phillipson said on Friday she would “stop further commencement” of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, just days before the new free speech tsar’s powers were due to come into force.

Under the Act, universities, colleges and student unions in England would have a legal duty to promote free speech.


A high priority we may assume. At the moment we may assume it openly, I'm not so sure about the future.

He spoke like an eye-witness

I never was so impressed as by him. The secret was not in his words. It was his peculiar earnestness. He spoke like an eye-witness, and seemed under unutterable fear himself. He had the preacher’s master-gift of alarming.

Sheridan Le Fanu - Willing to Die (1872)


The problem in going along with the climate narrative is a simple one – anyone doing so is aligning themselves with problematic people. Racketeers, charlatans, fanatics, political totalitarians and useful idiots – take your pick.

 

He spoke like an eye-witness

They do, don’t they? The BBC does it, David Attenborough does it, Ed Miliband does it. As if they have seen the scorching flames of an extra degree on the global thermometer, maybe even two if we are very bad.

Snigger

 

It was just luck Joe, but it finally ran out

Biden: I deserved a second term

Joe Biden said his achievements “merited” a second term in office as he addressed the nation for the first time since stepping back from the presidential race.

The US president, 81, suggested his “leadership in the world” and “vision for America’s future” had given Americans reason to elect him again, but said he would “pass the torch” to a new generation to keep his party united.


Those who have been indulged by fortune and have always thought of calamity as what happens to others, feel a blind incredulous rage at the reversal of their lot, and half believe that their wild cries will alter the course of the storm.

George Eliot - Daniel Deronda (1876)

Fifty Years

 

Not to be taken seriously, but worth a post I think.

Anyone old enough to have memories going back fifty years or more must have seen many major cultural and economic changes over their lifetime. Any fifty year period within the past few centuries would probably show equally dramatic changes.

For example, I’ve seen many changes from growing up on a Derby council estate to what sometimes seems like the absurd luxury of modern life. Cultural changes seem even more absurd with politicians now little more than puppets in an insane theatre where imbecile opinion endlessly shouts down rational analysis.

Taking another fifty year period, my parents must have seen enormous changes between 1930 and 1980. They would have seen not only the colossal effects of World War II but major cultural, technical and economic changes afterwards.

As an earlier example, if we take the period from about 1880 to 1930, there are marked changes to the cultural assumptions embedded in fictional detective stories. Writers wrote from within their world for readers who expected much the same, apart from curious daggers, exotic poisons, and shifty butlers.

As we have moved on to fiction, suppose take an imaginary plot for a detective story where a grisly murder has been committed in a local squire’s country house full of guests.

In the 1880 version on this story, the gentry, the local squire and particularly the aristocracy are treated with great deference by the police. The gentry are very well connected, know the Chief Constable socially and have government connections. There are significant limits to the scope of any police investigation, important constraints must be observed, scandal must be avoided and the Squire’s dignity upheld.

Fifty years later, in the 1930 version of the story, the Squire’s social ascendancy and the deference have not disappeared, but the police are firmly in charge of the investigation. They restrict the movement of the Squire’s guests and question them as they choose because knowing the Chief Constable is not the protection it once was. The Squire and his guests may grumble but they defer to police officialdom because they know they must.

By 1930, officialdom wins in the end and the Squire and the gentry know it. They must find other ways to remain influential, join what they cannot beat and move away from the culture of the country house. It has all become something of a burden anyway.

They are still with us of course, even though the country house, tennis parties and tea on the lawn have largely gone. Influence is preserved through different channels. 

And it wasn't usually the butler who did it.

The living puppets

I buy a newspaper now and then. You cannot imagine how strangely those world-echoes impress me. The sage gravity of leading articles, the momentousness of this or that piece of news, the precision of reports, the advertisements, - is it I who am moonstruck, or the living puppets that play in this astonishing comedy? Once or twice I have been so overcome with a perception of ludicrousness as to fall back in my chair and make the roof ring with laughter.

George Gissing - Isabel Clarendon (1885)


The odd thing about the current US presidential situation is how foreseeable the risks were. It must have been obvious to those close to him that Biden was on the way down before he became president. There were enough indications for outsiders, so we may as well conclude that insiders knew he wasn’t a good bet for a four year stint - and Kamala Harris was the spare.

In other words, the current political mess in the US isn’t some plan mapped out by master schemers who foresaw all eventualities and engineered every outcome. No capable political planner engineered this. The current mess looks like the result of a bungled failure to read the situation and the personalities because that’s what it is.

The choice of Kamala Harris as VP and the prospect of now having to invent a raft of obviously fake media enthusiasm for her fictitious abilities adds a good deal of support to the bungled mess standpoint. The people behind all this are not smart people. Evil but not smart.

Wanting to parachute in

Politics has been going in a related direction for some time. Infested with those who dropped in by parachute after university and some political bag-carrying rather than building up experience by working outside politics first.   

Really?

CrowdStrike to overhaul software updates after causing global IT outage

The US cyber security business blamed for last week’s global IT outage has pledged to overhaul how it issues critical software updates.

In a “post-incident review” of the IT blackout, CrowdStrike said it would reform how it tests and sends out future upgrades.

Survival could also be on the agenda.

Soap Opera

Lee Anderson leads calls to scrap licence fee as Gary Lineker tops BBC salary list again

Lee Anderson led calls for the licence fee to be scrapped after Gary Lineker topped the list of the BBC's highest-paid stars for a seventh year running.

The Match of the Day presenter was the corporation's top earner with a salary between £1,350,000 and £1,354,999 last year.

BBC licence fee crisis as half a million UK households ditch it in blow for broadcaster

The BBC's grip on household finances appears to be weakening, with reports indicating that around half a million homes snubbed the licence fee last year.

The Guardian has reported that the number of households paying the £169.50 fee dropped to 23.9 million, suggesting an increasing number of people feel they can do without BBC services.

A headline and a fact

Rwanda scheme ‘most shocking waste of taxpayer money ever’, says Cooper


In 2023/24, UK government raised around £1,095 billion (£1.1 trillion) in receipts – income from taxes and other sources.

There is of course no connection between the headline and the fact, Labour will ensure that none of that £1.1 trillion leaks away into worthless projects and undeserving pockets and Ms Cooper isn't lying about the long, dreary and predictable history of government waste. 

Utterly unschooled in adversity

 

Besides, the more favoured a man is by Fortune, the more fastidiously sensitive is he; and, unless all things answer to his whim, he is overwhelmed by the most trifling misfortunes, because utterly unschooled in adversity. So petty are the trifles which rob the most fortunate of perfect happiness!

Boethius - The Consolation of Philosophy (around 524 AD)


It is easy enough to see this problem in our political and media elites. The comfortable charlatans and bungling rectifiers of petty trifles who tell us how to live our lives. Utterly unschooled in adversity, they still claim the right to guide the lives of others.

There is a soft, soggy futility about it all, a futility which pervades the public arena. It has become a place of mendacious silliness like a vast frenetic meeting room of whispers, waving hands and raised voices where comfortable people mill around waiting and pointing and waiting again for something which never arrives as they said it would. Until...

Until something, but who knows? Whatever we do, the fatuity seems destined to go on and on until we finally reach a certain critical level of feckless absurdity, that tipping point we've been promised for so long.  

It's prediction time

Steve Forbes on what he thinks Biden will do if Michelle Obama enters the presidential contest.

A Weird Freedom

A weirdness of the whole Joe Biden debacle has been the language. His supporters gave themselves the freedom to describe Biden as capable, competent and on top of the job when he was clearly nowhere near their contrived version of his fitness for the presidential role.

It was done through language and it’s worth reflecting on the freedom language offers influential people to spin imaginary realities millions are willing to enter. Not only the media, but millions of ordinary people took advantage of this weird freedom to enter the unreal world of Joe Biden as US President. 

Biden is a remarkably forceful reminder that language enfolds us in positive and negative ways, limiting and liberating we might say.

Liberating if we use the language of possibilities to analyse the language of consensus, but limiting the other way round. Politicians and bureaucrats do it the other way round, insisting on limiting consensus over possibilities. This is the language which supported the Biden debacle for millions – the weird freedom to say what isn’t so.

The language of curiosity says “try other possibilities and see where we go.” Or language of the obvious beckons and says “look at this, it’s there for anyone to see if they look.” Or more specifically, “Joe Biden isn’t up to it – just look and listen.”

But we may be sure that the weird freedom to describe Biden as he wasn’t will be replaced by an equally weird freedom to describe Kamala Harris as she isn’t. Not the language of other, obvious and more liberating possibilities.

Surely not - these are good people

Sainsbury’s just made major change to parking at its supermarkets with new ‘rules’

The change is all to do with ‘ghost charging’, which is where drivers with EVs will park their cars in charging spot and pretend they are using a charging point, in order to nab a space.

Sainsbury’s has conducted its own research and found that over half of EV drivers admit they have worked the ‘ghost charging’ move, in order to get through the weekly shop in a speedier manner.

I'm astonished, I thought all EV drivers were good people who watch BBC television, read the Guardian and approve of Joe Biden...

Oh...

Is Biden Dropping Out?

The situation may change at any time, but this is a useful summary of the media and political games surrounding Joe Biden.

Fixing the car

Henry Getley has, for people of a certain age, an entertaining TCW piece on car maintenance as it was once upon a time.


Car fixing: Those were the DIYs

DURING a clearout of my garage the other day, I pulled from the back of a drawer a book stained with my blood, sweat and tears – not to mention a lot of oil. Seeing the light of day for the first time in half a century, it was a flimsy paperback called Car Repairs Properly Explained...

I had bought the 50p book in 1973 when, unable to pay ruinous garage bills, I was trying desperately to keep my temperamental 1966 Austin 1100 on the road. It had been a good and faithful servant, but it was feeling its age and things were starting to go wrong. A few weeks earlier, the fuel pump had conked out and I’d cobbled together a temporary petrol feed to the carburettor using the washer bottle – not the ideal fix.


Yes, I remember those days, working on our Ford Escort for years before we eventually bought a Datsun Sunny. I remember how amazed I was that it just started reliably every morning however cold and damp it was out there on the drive.


I’m sure there are many talented amateurs out there who can still carry out such tasks – saving themselves a fortune. (My local garage now charges around £120 just for an oil and filter change). But I suspect that if I tried to get to grips with anything ambitious on a modern car, it’d probably lock itself up and set an alarm blaring, or send a satellite signal to the manufacturer, who’d have me arrested for breaching health and safety.

Standing back from it all

 

Last month Mrs H took this photo of a blogger standing by Cromford canal, mainly because of the reflections in the water. We'd set off on a short walk, much of it along a hillside path which is often slippery, hence the boots and walking pole.

Cromford canal is a historic structure and this section is maintained as an attractive amenity which changes with the mood of the seasons, but it is still a canal. 

However, the point of the post is to highlight a contrast between the enduring beauties of the natural world and the stale, seedy mendacity of political rhetoric. Sometimes we have to stand back from it all - otherwise we'll end up as crazy as they are.

Minding your own business

Labour's Emily Thornberry reveals she's running for top parliament role - and why election was 'worst ever'

The senior Labour MP tells Sky's Beth Rigby she was "sad" and "disappointed" not to get a role in Sir Keir Starmer's cabinet - but that she will run for chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee....

She continued: "I think the worst one I had was eight people jumped out at me with masks on and cameras and it's very hard to deal with that when you're just knocking on doors and minding your own business."

Surely the whole point of being an MP is to be minding the business of everyone else, minding it all the time, without a break, nose to the grindstone and so on. That's why a few voters pay attention to how it's done and who aims to do it. 

Oh well, maybe as  chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee she'll have some rewarding and enlightening clashes with David Lammy as they discuss ways in which people overseas mind our business too.

Spot the difference

It's a odd business, but I'm sure there is distinct similarity between 'Sir' Keir Starmer and Professor Ian 'Mac' McClaine of the sixties TV series Joe 90. They may be related of course.

 

British politics is Gething worse and worse

Sam Bidwell has a useful Critic piece on Vaughan Gething and what Bidwell calls the low-scrutiny environment of Welsh politics.


British politics is Gething worse and worse

Identity is being prioritised over competence and ambition

Despite our traditional reputation for political stability, Britain has played host to a number of short-lived political leaders over the past few years. From Liz Truss’ lettuce-length stint as Prime Minister to Humza Yousaf’s ill-fated time as Holyrood chief, political longevity seems hard to come by in an era of economic stagnation, declining cohesion, and ever-expanding bureaucracy.

The most recent addition to this political rogue’s gallery is Vaughan Gething, Labour’s latest First Minister of Wales, who was turfed out of office earlier this week after just four months in post. Gething’s resignation follows revelations about a £200,000 donation to his leadership campaign from a company owned by a man prosecuted twice for environmental offences in the 2010s. He refused to quit after losing a vote of confidence in the Senedd, Wales’ Parliament, but was finally forced out after four ministers resigned from his government on Tuesday.


The whole piece is well worth reading as it hammers home a particularly important point - identity politics is a low-scrutiny environment. It is part of the wider managerial trend where a favoured political identity often kicks integrity and ability off the recruitment tick box.


So what lessons can we learn from the sorry tale of Vaughan Gething? For one, it should remind us that not even relatively homogenous Wales is safe from the all-consuming diversity lobby. In fact, the low-accountability environment of devolved politics has served as a perfect breeding ground for these ideas.

It should also remind us that, if we’re not careful, Britain will soon become a country in which political success is a feature of identity politics rather than of competence. As Keir Starmer’s comments demonstrate, this assumption is already well-rooted amongst senior Labour figures. Continue along our current trajectory, and Britain is bound to be cursed with more Vaughan Gethings.

The tragedy of Hardy

My mother-in-law used to work in Eastwood, the birthplace of D.H. Lawrence. During the early part of her working life, she encountered a few elderly Eastwood residents who had known Lawrence and the Lawrence family and didn’t think much of the man behind the novels. Apparently he wasn't highly regarded locally.

In this D.H. Lawrence quote, he writes about Thomas Hardy and what he calls the tragedy of Hardy. Yet this is also the tragedy of Lawrence, his inability to inhabit the security of established convention and perhaps his failure to find beyond it what he hoped to find. 

This is the tragedy of Hardy, always the same: the tragedy of those who, more or less pioneers, have died in the wilderness, whither they had escaped for free action, after having left the walled security, and the comparative imprisonment, of the established convention. This is the theme of novel after novel: remain quite within the convention, and you are good, safe, and happy in the long run, though you never have the vivid pang of sympathy on your side: or, on the other hand, be passionate, individual, wilful, you will find the security of the convention a walled prison, you will escape, and you will die, either of your own lack of strength to bear the isolation and the exposure, or by direct revenge from the community, or from both.

D.H. Lawrence - Study of Thomas Hardy (1914)

Bob Newhart

American comedian Bob Newhart dead at 94, publicist says

Low grade rhetoric

Foreign Secretary David Lammy defends calling Trump a 'neo-Nazi sociopath'

David Lammy has defended calling Donald Trump a neo-Nazi sociopath, saying all politicians had something to say about the former US president "back in the day".

When he was a backbench MP in 2018, the now-foreign secretary wrote in Time magazine of the then-American leader: "Trump is not only a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath. He is also a profound threat to the international order that has been the foundation of Western progress for so long."


The problem here is the obvious one, not that Lammy was wrong, but what he wrote was stupid. It's the kind of low grade sub-Guardian rhetoric seen in online comments. Not something an aspiring UK politician should ever have written for Time magazine.

Maybe that's why Starmer made him Foreign Secretary, Lammy makes Starmer look like a statesman and this seems important to him. For one thing, it's crucial for his EU shenanigans. 

From what we have seen so far, could Starmer have been this cynical in the Lammy appointment?

Yes.

Unpopulist snake oil

Undo last government's climate policy rollbacks to lower people's bills, top advisers say

Reinstating former PM Rishi Sunak's cancelled schemes will lower bills, the Climate Change Committee said in its largely critical review of the UK's climate action. But despite the UK being off track on many key measures, the top officials were hopeful about the future...

Energy secretary Ed Miliband said: "The good news is that this report confirms that a clean energy future is the best way to make Britain energy independent, cut bills, create good jobs, and tackle the climate crisis."


Good grief, it's a bit grim to be bombarded with yet more evidence that the previous miserably useless government was less miserably useless than this one.

Good grief...

Bats

 

I bet he said it with a straight face too

King's Speech: Keir Starmer attacks 'snake oil charm of populism' as he outlines bid for growth

Sir Keir Starmer on Wednesday vowed to resist the “snake oil charm of populism” and return to “serious government” as he revealed Labour’s first legislative programme in more than 14 years centred on reviving economic growth.


A return to serious government says the man with Angela Rayner, David Lammy and Ed Miliband as government colleagues. I bet he said it with a straight face too.

Change two letters

Labour urged to build new town for up to 350,000 people - and thinktank says where it should go

There hasn't been a new town built in England for more than 50 years, but could that be about to change?..

So where are the new homes going to go? According to a thinktank, there's one obvious place that makes sense.

Tempsford New Town, as the authors call it in their report, would sit at the intersection of the East Coast Main Line (which connects London to Edinburgh) and the planned East-West Rail line (which will re-establish a rail link between Cambridge and Oxford).


Tempsford sounds about right, but change two letters to Tentsford and we may be even closer to the direction of current trends.

Writing speeches for Margaret

Bruce Anderson has an interesting CAPX piece on writing speeches for Margaret Thatcher.


How to write a speech for Margaret Thatcher

Most Tories regard opposition as a deeply unnatural state of affairs. We are the natural party of government: the real national party. Now we are condemned to exile from power for at least one Parliament. There is a certain amount of whistling in the dark: ‘what goes down can also go up’. But we have an almighty task to be ready to mount a challenge by 2029, the fiftieth anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s accession to power...

Back then, suppose anyone had suggested that she would help to win the Cold War while subjecting the trade unions to the rule of law; impose financial discipline on the nationalised industries and indeed privatise them whenever possible; deal with inflation (at least for a few years); and revive the animal spirits of the British middle classes while promoting the sale of council properties in a radical measure of economic emancipation for many working-class families? Imagine, in short, someone suggesting in 1975 that Mrs Thatcher would become the UK’s greatest domestic PM. What response could they have expected? Incredulity would have been an understatement. No wonder many Tories still regard her as their regina quondam, reginaque futurus.


The whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder that our subsequent political decline has been inescapably obvious - we hardly know what political oversight is supposed to achieve. It is not merely a few misty reflections in those rose-tinted spectacles. Margaret Thatcher's grasp of political leadership may be measured in terms of  those who still loathe her memory. 


Just after the 1987 election, I wrote that Mrs Thatcher was one of the greatest women who ever lived. At moments, I have been tempted to drop the ‘one of’. Almost all those who ever worked for her knew how exasperating she could be. They also knew that there was an overwhelming consolation: being a witness while history was in the making.

Refurbished

We met relatives for a pub lunch today. The pub is only a 30 minute drive from where we are, but not being pub people we haven’t visited it for a few years. At that time it was very busy but with rather tired décor and scruffy menus. Food was okay at best.

Today the pub had obviously been refurbished. Smarter, better menus and slick service. Pub food but a good choice, well cooked and the service was good. A significant improvement on a few years ago.

For some reason the roads there and back were worse than a few years ago. They hadn’t been refurbished.

The Managed Identity

Here in the UK, Net Zero makes no sense technically, scientifically nor economically. It makes no sense anywhere else and because it makes no sense we may as well accept what we already know - there is another aspect of political narratives which is more important than making sense.

It is easy enough to see that the language of climate change may include “evidence” which not evidence in any rational, objective sense. It is merely orthodox to describe it as evidence within the narrative conventions – it doesn’t have to be evidence in any other sense. We could describe it as managed evidence.

It can be useful to move on from this and see the orthodox climate narrative as an issue of managed identity. Belief frequently is an identity issue. The need to maintain a consistent sense of self, a consistent sense of personal identity can be far stronger than even the most obvious real-world evidence. For many people, self seems to come first, rational evidence a distant tenth.

The orthodox climate narrative is an aspect of the managed identity in the developed world, managed primarily by a network of official and semi-official managing agencies. It has no more relevance to physical evidence than a taste for fashionable clothes, fine dining or expensive sunglasses. An officially managed identity with few personal consequences beyond bolstering an orthodox identity and avoiding an unorthodox one. 

The climate narrative is evidence of something, it is evidence of a trend towards the officially manged identity. Not a scientific, environmental, economic nor engineering issue, but a managed identity issue. This is why Net Zero enthusiasts tend to be dull. Part of their identity is merely a managed narrative, an official formula which isn't going to work. 

Figures suggest

Biggest UK population increase in 75 years driven by immigration, figures suggest

The population of England and Wales has risen by its highest annual rate in 75 years after the arrival of more than one million people from overseas in 12 months, official figures revealed today.

The Office for National Statistics said that an extra 610,000 people had been added to the two countries during the year ending in mid-2023 to give a total population of 60.9 million.

It said that migration was the main reason for the population surge, with 1.084 million arrivals from abroad counterbalanced by the departure of only 462,000 in the opposite direction — giving a net inflow of 622,000.

Either the figures are wrong or they do far more than suggest. An increase of 622,000 people is approximately the population of a city the size of Bristol. Even Keir Starmer's cabinet knows what this implies in sustainability terms.

Maybe Ed Miliband could express the problem in terms of his 'rooftop revolution' - the rate of new roof building we'll need to house everyone and meet his solar targets. Unfortunately there won't be time to build the house as well.

Millions of UK homes to get solar power as Ed Miliband aims for ‘rooftop revolution’

Empire of Dust

Excerpts from the 2011 documentary Empire of Dust. Chinese construction business CREC based in Kolwezi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is there to build a 300km road. 

Lao Yang is the logistics guy trying to source local materials via Congolese translator Eddy who speaks fluent Mandarin. We see a catalogue of cultural differences as Lao Yang tries to deal with local Congolese entrepreneurs after the government failed to deliver the materials he needs.

Ubiquitous Tony

Boris Johnson dances with ex-Austrian PM as he and Tony Blair enjoy India’s ‘wedding of the century’

Boris Johnson waved his hands in the air. Next to him, the former prime minister of Austria Sebastian Kurtz smiled and tapped his feet...

They had come to see Anant Ambani, the 29-year-old son of Asia’s richest man, marry Radhika Mechant, his fiancee, in a ceremony that brought parts of the city to a stand-still.

Arriving for the festivities, Sir Tony Blair and his wife Cherie paused and smiled for the cameras, shuffling into the right spot on the walkway at the request of waiting photographers. Unlike Mr Johnson – who opted for his usual suit and tie - the Labour leader chose a black sherwani jacket with a white pocket square.
 

In total, 1,200 guests crammed in for the wedding estimated to cost almost £250m, or 0.5 per cent of the Ambani family’s fortune.

There's trouble at t' mill

Angela Rayner is already being frozen out, allies fear

To the unsuspecting onlooker, it would appear that Sir Keir Starmer is running a rather slick operation.

But just over a week into the new regime, tensions are bubbling under the surface. Allies of Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary, fear she is being “frozen out” and believe she is already being unfairly stripped of responsibilities.

Ms Rayner, directly elected by Labour members as Deputy PM and therefore unsackable, has already been identified as the biggest potential threat to Sir Keir’s authority.

We may as well translate here -

it would appear that Sir Keir Starmer is running a rather slick operation

translates to -

we in the mainstream media are giving Starmer an easy time as we now have plenty of fresh political material to be going on with

The anticipation here is that this benign period may come to an end as the nature of Starmer's not at all slick cabinet comes the the fore. Angela may be ghastly but she's not politically dim if judged by the mephitic standards of modern politics. She may well provide lashings of new media material. 

Popularity Plunge

Paris 2024 Olympics: France's sports minister swims in River Seine amid pollution concerns ahead of Games

Amelie Oudea Castera took the plunge in Paris, where she was joined by Paralympic triathlon champion Alexis Hanquinquant...

Ms Hidalgo initially planned to swim in the Seine last month - prompting an online campaign by her critics threatening to defecate in the river on the day of her dip.


It's not something I ever thought of doing before taking a river water sample - first make sure nobody is crapping in it. 

Joe and Names

Biden’s supporters boo press after he accuses reporters of ‘hammering me’

Joe Biden supporters booed journalists at one of the president’s rallies after he accused reporters of “hammering me” for making “a lot of mistakes”.

Speaking in Detroit on Friday evening, Mr Biden addressed reporting of his gaffes on the world stage at the Nato conference, where he introduced Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin”.

Mr Biden acknowledged he had been panned by critics in the media, but suggested that the same scrutiny had not been applied to his Republican rival, Donald Trump.

Referring to Biden's supporters in the plural is a bit of a stretch. Jill plus claque presumably.

Yet even Joe's "supporters" are bound to wonder if he should just steer clear of names altogether. We don't want to hear him going on about Donald Putin, Vladimir Xi or President Obama.

Four Headlines

June 8th
Out of luck: the bleak economic outlook that Starmer would face

June 26th
Forget the ‘worst economic inheritance since the war’ – Labour could get very lucky indeed

July 5th

UK election-winner Starmer inherits weak economy with 'no magic wand'

July 11th
Why Starmer might be about to inherit an economic boom

George Bernard Shaw: Socialist

 

Some things, doubted by most of the world

Approval of new UK coal mine was an 'error of law', new government says

The coking coal mine in West Cumbria was approved under the last government in 2022 by Michael Gove - but the Labour government said it won't defend the plans when a legal challenge is heard in the High Court next week.

The decision to approve a new coal mine in West Cumbria was made unlawfully, the UK's new government has admitted, as the carbon emissions from eventually burning the coal should have been taken into account.


Some things, doubted by most of the world, are for these people true and beyond argument; this certainty of theirs gives them a kind of stamp, as though they lived so much in their imagination as to have very little assurance as to what is fact and what fiction.

Hugh Walpole - All Souls' Night (1933)

Gung-ho Keir

Defence chiefs ‘disappointed’ over Starmer’s Storm Shadow missiles faux pas

Sir Keir Starmer went too far by publicly confirming that Storm Shadow missiles given to Ukraine can be used to hit Russia, defence sources have said...

Defence sources told The Telegraph that they were “disappointed” Sir Keir had allowed the conversation with Mr Zelensky to be made public, as it is more operationally effective to keep such plans under wraps until they have been executed.

I'm no expert in these things, but even I knew Starmer was far too gung-ho with this announcement. I'm not sure if even Boris would have bungled that one - and Starmer clearly has bungled it.

Blunder

  

Ed Miliband just made blunder that'll cost UK billions and trigger tsunami of legal claims

The Labour Party is pushing through its manifesto commitment to ban new drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea in a move that will delight party activists and should horrify the rest of us.

It will drive up domestic energy bills and leave us totally exposed to the next energy shock. Even Labour-backing unions are up in arms at the move.

Worse, it will do absolutely nothing to slow climate change, because the UK will be just as dependent on fossil fuels as before. The only difference is that we will have to source even more from overseas.

Not that it's likely to make much difference. Nobody is likely to invest in new drilling until the loons and charlatans have left the stage and that seems to be extremely unlikely. More gesture than blunder, but politically significant.

A touching moment

Starmer says US relationship is 'stronger than ever' as he meets Biden in White House - with the help of personalised gift

The meeting comes after Sir Keir held talks with other world leaders, including Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as he arrived in Washington DC for NATO's 75th anniversary summit.

To cement the two countries' relationship, Sir Keir gifted Mr Biden a personalised Arsenal shirt - printed with his surname and the number 46 on the back, a nod to his presidential number.


A touching moment. I hope Joe showed Keir how to do the blank stare and hold it for at least thirty seconds. Keir is bound to find a use for that in cabinet meetings, especially when Angela pipes up.

Too many people in politics treat power as a game

Here's a YouTube clip where Steve Baker says there are too many people in politics who treat power as a game. "We need to be rid of them" he says.

The problem seems to be that politics has always been a game. In a wider sphere, gaming the system is everywhere, from local societies to government, from claiming benefits to the arts, science, media, gaming the culture - it's everywhere.

We all know what Baker means when he says this, we have just acquired a new Prime Minister who does nothing else but treat power as a game. This much was obvious enough well before his undeserved elevation. We can't get rid of such people, it's what political parties now want in a leader, what the media want, what voters vote for.

As Santayana pointed out over a century ago, the life of reason is a heritage. Lose this and the games people play are no longer constrained by that lost heritage.


The life of reason is a heritage and exists only through tradition. Half of it is an art, an adjustment to an alien reality, which only a long experience can teach: and even the other half, the inward inspiration and ideal of reason, must be also a common inheritance in the race, if people are to work together or so much as to understand one another.

George Santayana - Winds Of Doctrine Studies in Contemporary Opinion (1913)

A ‘minefield of imbeciles’

Labour sets out priorities on energy and climate - but how achievable are they?

Keir Starmer's new government talked a lot about energy in the election campaign, and has already made a slew of announcements this week. Sky News breaks down the top commitments, and why they will be harder than they sound.

Labour says it can get the UK off foreign fossil fuels, cut energy bills and tackle the climate crisis in one fell swoop: by making electricity 100% clean by 2030. (Last year was 51%).

It's not drastically different to the Tories' 2035 target. But the earlier date will require an "Apollo moon mission-like effort", said Adam Bell, director of policy at Stonehaven.


Starmer's cabinet has been described recently as a ‘minefield of imbeciles’ and a ‘combination of misfits’. Too kind in my view. This farce is closer to unprincipled charlatans jumping on a bandwagon where only the bandwagon and its opportunities count, nothing else and certainly not voters. 

 Watching it fall apart could be fun though. Let us hope Labour voters are watching too. They may learn something.

They are doing it still

 

 

Arrian

It’s fascinating how common it is to find hints of modern thinking in ancient writings. The example below comes from Arrian of Nicomedia and his Discourses of Epictetus which were Arrian’s notes on lectures given by the Stoic philosopher Epictetus.

For how do we proceed in the matter of writing? Do I wish to write the name of Dion as I choose? No, but I am taught to choose to write it as it ought to be written. And how with respect to music? In the same manner. And what universally in every art or science? Just the same. If it were not so, it would be of no value to know anything, if knowledge were adapted to every man’s whim. Is it then in this alone, in this which is the greatest and the chief thing, I mean freedom, that I am permitted to will inconsiderately? By no means; but to be instructed is this, to learn to wish that every thing may happen as it does. And how do things happen? As the disposer has disposed them? And he has appointed summer and winter, and abundance and scarcity, and virtue and vice, and all such opposites for the harmony of the whole; and to each of us he has given a body, and parts of the body, and possessions, and companions.

Arrian of Nicomedia - Discourses of Epictetus (c 108 AD)


There are hints of behavioural psychology in there –

Do I wish to write the name of Dion as I choose? No, but I am taught to choose to write it as it ought to be written. And how with respect to music? In the same manner.

Centuries go by and we forget so many ideas offering worthwhile development. Again and again we sink back into dogma, lies and futile ideologies spun by the rich and powerful and their academic stooges, endlessly reinventing the conceptual wheel in case we catch on.

They are doing it still.

Like an approaching storm cloud

Europe's newest rocket Ariane 6 blasts off in 'historic' maiden voyage

If the full launch is a success, it will give the European Space Agency (ESA) the ability to launch satellites again by itself.


Europe smarts as Elon Musk’s SpaceX wins key satellite deal

Launching a weather satellite with SpaceX and not Ariane 6 is a “surprising” decision, said Josef Aschbacher, director general of the European Space Agency.


Like an approaching storm cloud, we can almost see the anti-SpaceX propaganda looming. The indications and the sniping have been around for a while, naturally enough perhaps. Musk is too outspoken, too successful and worst of all he's unofficial.

Proud

Keir Starmer praises Diane Abbott and hails diverse Commons in first speech to parliament

Sir Keir said his first words at the despatch box as prime minister, having secured the keys to No 10 Downing Street after last Thursday’s general election.

He said: “Mr Speaker-elect you preside over a new parliament, the most diverse parliament by race and gender this country has ever seen.

“And I’m proud of the part that my party has played, proud of the part that every party has played in that.


Begin as you mean to continue, that's the bureaucratic spirit. Careful, empty twaddle anyone may interpret as they choose. Or just leave Hansard to file it.

As an aside, it's interesting how empty the word 'proud' has become. As in "proud to stock Izal Germicide" or -


Joe Biden proud to be ‘first black woman to serve with a black president' in shock gaffe

Two headlines

Blair predicts £50bn Labour tax raid

Sir Tony Blair has warned that Sir Keir Starmer will have to put up taxes by more than £50 billion unless he comes up with radical new ways to improve productivity.


Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivers message to world: Britain is the place to do business

Rachel Reeves has trumpeted to the world that Britain is a “safe place to invest” after political turbulence of recent years discouraged some businesses from doing so.

This drive will be successful

About five years ago I read The Managerial Revolution, a book published in 1941 by James Burnham.

Now the UK general election is over and although many people will have read the book already, a few paragraphs are still worth quoting. The blog post title is taken from the second paragraph.


This transition is from the type of society which we have called capitalist or bourgeois to a type of society which we shall call managerial. This transition period may be expected to be short compared with the transition from feudal to capitalist society. It may be dated, somewhat arbitrarily, from the first world war, and may be expected to close, with the consolidation of the new type of society, by approximately fifty years from then, perhaps sooner.

What is occurring in this transition is a drive for social dominance, for power and privilege, for the position of ruling class, by the social group or class of the managers (as I shall call them, reserving for the moment an explanation of whom this class includes). This drive will be successful.

The control of the state by the managers will be suitably guaranteed by appropriate political institutions, analogous to the guarantee of bourgeois dominance under capitalism by the bourgeois political institutions.

Outright acquisition by government of rapidly increasing areas of the economy is, however, only one phase of the process. Still more striking, and far more extensive in range, is the widening control by government of more and more parts and features of the economy. Everyone is familiar with this control, administered by the long list of commissions and bureaus and alphabetical agencies.

The actual, day-by-day direction of the processes owned and operated by the government or controlled, without full ownership, by the government is in the hands of individuals strictly comparable to those whom we have called “managers” in the case of private industry: the men of the innumerable bureaus and commissions and agencies, not often the publicly known figures, who may be decorative politicians, but the ones who actually do the directing work.

Yes Blair's back - narrative over reality

British police to be deployed in Europe to fight people smugglers

Hundreds of police officers will be deployed across Europe to stop people smugglers as part of Sir Keir Starmer’s new UK Border Security Command.

Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, announced on Sunday the first steps in setting up the command by kickstarting the search from Monday for a former police, military or intelligence chief to head it.


As pointed out by Sam Vega in the comments yesterday, the focus is to be illegal migration. Specifically the unofficial people smugglers rather than the official ones  in Whitehall. It's to be narrative, narrative, narrative all the way down. As an msn commenter observes -

British police have been in France for quite a while, working with the French police using drones etc to spot boats and smugglers before they leave the beach. There was a whole programme on TV about it. Hasn't stopped many though.

I've tagged this post as 'propaganda'. I think I'll be doing a lot of that over the next five years.

The Fourth Point

Tony Blair wades in to offer advice to Keir Starmer with 3-point takedown of Reform

Sir Tony Blair urged Sir Keir Starmer to come up with a plan for controlling immigration in a bid to tackle the threat posed by Nigel Farage.

The former Labour leader offered the Prime Minister a three-point solution to fight Reform UK.

He said Sir Keir's focus should be on illegal migration with the introduction of digital identity cards, a robust approach to law and order, and avoiding "vulnerability on wokeism".

It's no surprise that Tony's plan avoids the obvious fourth point. Net Zero is set to continue chewing its way through the last sorry residues of government technical competence.

Maybe we'll eventually need those digital identity cards to turn on the central heating.

The decline seems set to continue.

The mind that never finds its way back

Only ‘Lord Almighty’ can tell me to stand down, says Biden

Joe Biden has said only the “Lord Almighty” can tell him to stand down, as he refused five times to say what he would do if his allies in the Democratic Party turned on him over his health.


The mind that finds its way to wild places is the poet’s; but the mind that never finds its way back is the lunatic’s.

G. K. Chesterton - What's Wrong With The World (1910)

Cranks

 

Weaponising 'weaponising'

Martin Lewis hits out at Tories for ‘weaponising’ him against Labour

Martin Lewis has hit out at the Conservatives for using video footage of him to make one last desperate plea to voters.

The TV personality and campaigner accused the Tories of “misdirection” by using a short clip of him discussing Labour’s manifesto in its campaign material.

Not only the weather being weaponised, but unprecedented tsunamic of weaponising seems to have become fashionable in the public arena. The very concept of weaponising is being weaponised.

Sunak and Starmer are even attempting to weaponise mendacity. Starmer seems likely to weaponise it more effectively though.

Even Democrats must know that

Trump claims Biden is quitting election - and calls vice president 'pathetic'

Donald Trump has claimed Joe Biden is quitting the presidential race after his poor performance in last week's debate and criticised vice president Kamala Harris as "so f*****g bad".

It's why she's there and why a combination of extrajudicial ploys and crude propaganda have been used in attempts to stymie Trump.

Trust the Experts

Many thanks for all the anniversary congratulations - we're just about to whizz off. As I look out through the window before I crank up the jalopy and wait for the sat nav to warm up, I can't help noticing how grey, wet and cold it is outside.

Not entirely what we were led to expect by the climate experts, but we shouldn't confuse weather with climate. Trust the experts - only they know how to confuse weather with climate - plus journalists, politicians, celebrities, activists, the BBC...

...I'm not supposed to be doing this, I'm supposed to be packing the car.

Short Break

Mrs H and I have our 50th wedding anniversary coming up so we're off to the coast for a short break. Blogging is likely to be limited until Sunday.

State-paid functionaries

The working man no longer wishes to remain a working man, or the peasant to continue a peasant, while the most humble members of the middle classes admit of no possible career for their sons except that of State-paid functionaries. Instead of preparing men for life French schools solely prepare them to occupy public functions, in which success can be attained without any necessity for self-direction or the exhibition of the least glimmer of personal initiative.

Gustave Le Bon - The Crowd: a study of the popular mind (1895)


And so it continues to this day. Expand university admissions and we were bound to see an increased demand for careers as State-paid functionaries. It's what our MPs are. Marginal seats may be less secure than a career in the Civil Service, the NHS or the BBC, but State-paid functionary is what many MPs are, especially those who bagged a secure seat years ago. 

Our MPs are advised by more State-paid functionaries, pass laws drafted by State-paid functionaries but supposedly they oversee the activities of millions of State-paid functionaries. It can't work as claimed and it doesn't.

Keir Starmer seems to think it's all a jolly good idea, so much so that we need more of it. From what we see so far, he intends to bring the role of MPs even closer to that of a of a State-paid functionary. 

BBC Professionalism

BBC presenter sparks fury after calling for Donald Trump to be 'murdered' by Joe Biden

David Aaronovitch, who presents Radio 4's Briefing Room show, took to X/Twitter shortly after 5 pm and said: "If I was Biden I'd hurry up and have Trump murdered on the basis that he is a threat to America's security #SCOTUS".

The hashtag suggests his wild opinion was sparked by the ruling from the Supreme Court today, which ruled that former presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for their official acts.

The post from Mr Aaronovitch sparked instant backlash from those who saw it, with many pointing out an egregious breach of the corporation's rules around employee impartiality.

This is just one more BBC lapse from anything resembling professional standards. It doesn't even reach casual blogging standards, but past performance suggests there will be more lapses because it's a feature, not a lapse at all. 

We seem to reached a point where the BBC has collectively decided it may as well stop pretending to know what employee impartiality means.

Fine - if there is a market for crude bias, go for it and get rid of the licence fee.

Kidnapped by Aliens

Did something similar happen to Joe Biden? We should be told.

Sponsored Connections

Lacking hope, desperate for change: the UK towns devastated by Tory rule

There were about 30 people standing outside Birmingham Central Mosque, and they formed as diverse a crowd as the city’s population. It was food bank day: inside a portable building in the car park, a team of four spirited women were efficiently sorting through crates of groceries and handing those who had finally reached the front of the line what they needed.

As they did their work, we had a snatched conversation. “The queues are getting longer,” one of them said.

Polls suggest that voters are likely to vote for even more devastation, this time inflicted by a Labour government. There is no indication to suggest otherwise.

It's tempting to think that anyone voting for Keir Starmer's Labour party must have a long-term vacancy in the top storey, but it's not that. Most people aren't sceptics, if they were, our main political parties wouldn't exist and Keir Starmer wouldn't be a major political leader. Something else leads people to waste their voting opportunities, however flimsy those opportunities may be.

It has been said that too many people don't make connections, abstract connections between different things. An example of that would be a connection between the likely direction of a future Labour government and Keir Starmer's known faith in government by bureaucrat and his inclination to go back on anything he has said previously. 

To ask why people don't make this particular connection is probably too deep, it is simpler to stick with the surface of things. The mainstream media do not pursue the obvious connection between Starmer's fashionable mendacity and his likely behaviour as Prime Minister, so the connection is not prominent in the mainstream media debate. 

Mainstream media connections are sponsored connections, sponsored commercially or politically by staying on-message wherever the money or the power are. Off-message connections just aren't made and many voters are not sceptical enough to make them.