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.