Votes for 16-17's: very bad politics on autopilot

Well, it was in their manifesto.  But I seriously though it might be one they'd quietly forget.  I happen to know that there are people in Starmer's policy team that think giving votes to 16-17's is a Really Bad Idea.  And it is.

This is the same cohort that progressives traditionally seek to exempt from criminal responsibility or the right to join the Armed Forces.  Would they like to be arrested by a 16-year-old copper?  Or tried by a 16-year old magistrate?

Of course, there's a naive body of progressive / leftist thinking that somehow assumes da yoof is inevitably more progressive than their seniors.  Recent empirical evidence suggests otherwise - in some cases, blood-chillingly so - & thus it isn't even particularly self-serving, though without the slightest doubt it's  intended to be.  Actually what da yoof is, is easily swayed** by whatever is the latest viral TikTok meme, which will naturally come out of nowhere just days before the election, spread like wildfire, and not leave any time for political countermeasures.

And - irony of ironies - it is many, many more times likely to be generated by Andrew Tate (or indeed Nigel Farage) than by Kier Starmer.

So: while we may be sure this looked like a brilliant idea five years ago - a Labour-voting ratchet for all time - it looks utterly, utterly stupid now: Starmer is just going through the motions blindly, on autopilot without consideration of what's going on.  Because of course it comes just as the structure of 'traditional' British politics is being buffeted mercilessly by the four winds.  We don't even need to mention the appalling Tate: has Starmer not realised that any of the Greens, the new lefty party, the Islamist 'independents', Reform - even, just possibly, Ed 'Mr Blobby' Davey - are likely to wipe the floor with him in this age group?

Does politics get any more crass?

ND

[1] I attended a talk by the very thoughtful and erudite producer of a reality TV show (seriously!).  He said that there is a long-running survey conducted by Gallup or one of the venerable polling agencies, that has for decades asked the same batch of questions to each new cohort of young adults.  One of the questions is: in very serious matters where you're in doubt as to what you should do, who do you turn to?  Up until GenZ, the answers have always been:  my parents / older family members I look up to / elders in the community I trust / teachers / people in authority / professional people etc etc.  But not GenZ, for whom the answer is: my friends.  And modern life being what it is, that generally means: whatever meme my friend-group is currently in thrall to.  This is appalling, end-of-civilisation stuff.

[2] A friend of mine gave a talk to a secondary school recently.  Before he went in to the hall, he was begged by the teachers, not under any circumstances to engage with anything from the kids relating to Andrew Tate.  That's how bad this is. 

Justice & efficiency: Marten/Gordon & other cases

Tabloid stuff, I know: but accounts of the Marten/Gordon trial make extraordinary reading.  There was a way of handling such people in days of yore: they would be declared Outlaws, and lose the usual privileges afforded to run-of-the-mill wrong'uns by the justice system.  'Scofflaw' is another evocative term, though generally applied to much lesser nonsenses than this one.

Although the judge in the M/G case seems to be an experienced one, it's hard not to feel the court wasn't sufficiently brisk when first confronted with their outrageous behaviour.  The consequence was many more months of the same: (and will there be an Appeal to come?)  I'm no criminal justice expert, but I believe that wholly uncooperative defendants can be tried in absentia - correct me if I'm wrong.  Unsurprisingly, this is only a last recourse.  But if justice requires a degree of accommodation to chaotic behaviour on the party of unhinged or even malicious defendants, well, there has surely to be a limit. 

And Contempt of Court is definitely a Thing.  A couple of years ago I was on the jury for a prolonged murder trial at the Old Bailey (in essence, gang warfare).  One of the defendants in particular was fairly uncooperative (on nothing like the scale of M/G, but he was still clearly taking this piss, and caused some gratuitous delays in proceedings.   One of the (several) QCs involved - there were three defendants - called him an "annoying little bugger", which the judge chose not to hear.  But overall the judge was having none of it and kept fairly good order (until the 'guilty' verdicts were read out, which was followed by a couple of minutes of rather scary mayhem).  

By way of example of what a judge can do: in the case in question, a family member of one of the victims (who were, *ahem*, no angels themselves, though nobody deserves to be knifed to death in the street) was caught filming the proceedings in court!  This, as everyone entering court is told, is strictly a "go straight to gaol" matter, which is exactly what happened: matey was gaoled on the spot.  

Contempt of Court is a Thing - and so is Summary Justice.       

ND

Miliband "tells the truth" (sic)

Yes, it's the Silly Season, and the hot weather has gone to somebody's head.

On Monday ... Ed Miliband is to explicitly call out politicians who reject net zero policies for betraying future generations in an unprecedented update to parliament about the state of the climate crisis, which he is calling “an exercise in radical truth-telling” ... In what is planned to be an annual event, [he] will make a “state of the climate” address to the Commons setting out the findings of a new Met Office-led report that says the UK is already facing extreme weather and its effects. “I feel a deep sense of responsibility to the British people to tell them the truth about what we know about the climate and nature crisis.  I want this to become an annual statement where it’s an exercise in radical truth-telling about the state of the climate and nature."

If he's for the chop, he's decided to go down fighting.  Well, let's see what he comes up with.  I'm thinking we might have something to say about this. 

ND

UPDATE: well, nothing to see here! - what a bizarre outpouring of hot air that pre-briefing was. "An exercise in radical truth-telling", my arse: the much-vaunted "Statement" is completely empty.  (Check for yourself: it's 30 second's reading at most)  Another day in the crusading life of Mili.

AFTERTHOUGHT:  In fact, it's so vacuous, I'm half-inclined to wonder whether he was reined back on something more "substantial" he'd intended to say ...    

Macron's Cunning Plan, parts 14 & 15

So as well as completing the stitch-up over Sizewell and Hinkley (as discussed here many, many times), there's Macron's new "one out, one in" plan for the small boats.

Let's see if I've got this right.

So for every illegal that arrives on these shore that we send straight back, we must grant asylum to a "genuine" one.

But as we know, many of these people keep setting out, over and over again, until they succeed.

So. on a ratchet basis, one single illegal can be 'recycled' endlessly, to offload as many "genuines" from France as they are quickly able to turn him around for another crossing .. .. ?

Oh come on, Starmer can't be that stupid .. can he?  Please?

ND

Blog stats update: tell me this isn't AI-coordinated ...

 OK, here's another graph to go with last time's: this is hourly data at the peak of the recent surge.

• That steady 6k per hour was absolutely typical of several peak days in a row;
• The within-day spread of "locations" from which those hits came was very much as per the table I posted last time.

Given how egregiously high that "readership" was, it speaks to me of both a (prolonged) automated web-crawling episode AND one that deliberately uses "readers" spread across all those locations in a coordinated manner.  In other words, taken as a totality, it's a single "visit".

(It's subsided now, although only to daily levels that would have been rare in earlier years.  This being the case, my decision not to bother trying to harness the surge for ad revenues has not troubled me.)

You gotta admit, all this is somewhat interesting!  So I shall still be looking for an authoritative explanation.

ND