"Best prepared new govt ever" - what? UPDATED

So the story goes, that the Liz Truss meltdown at the back end of 2022 convinced the world and his dog that Labour was nailed on to be the next government.  At this point, the money and consultancy-resources started pouring in, the media suspended their critical faculties, foreign governments started paying attention to David Lammy, Sue Grey was hired to ensure the would-be ministers were knocked into shape, etc etc[1].  

In short, this was to be the best prepared, most seriously focussed incoming government in living memory.  No more Johnsons, no more Trusses - the grown-ups are in town, taking names and kicking butt!

Well.  In announcement after announcement it transpires they've been winging it all along, and continue to do so.  Just a tiny sample of nonsenses.  Energy: we're obviously covering this one in detail as it unravels, but suffice to note here that in the past few days there's been loose talk from the new energy policy establishment suggesting that when he walked into his new office Miliband had no serious plan whatever to achieve his fatuous 100%-decarb-by-2030 goal, not even a figleaf or some blotchy notes on a napkin: he's now commissioned work to establish whether it's feasible at all[2].

Housing:  any fool could have told Rayner that the Grenfell Inquiry would inevitably result in urgent works to remove and replace cladding up and down the land, absorbing a material chunk of the building industry's available pool of labour.  OK, Yvette Cooper will be told to issue a million more work visas, but it still means Labour's housing targets are as empty as their energy plans.

Tax:  we read today that plans to tighten up on non-doms might raise either nothing at all, or maybe even less than nothing, because walking away is such an easy option for the people in question  -gangway for Mrs Sunak there!  (Is this the most pronounced Laffer Curve known to man?)  But, oh dear, Reeves needed £1bn from non-doms for, err, something worthy!    

You can no doubt chip in with your favourite examples of industrial-scale non-preparedness in terms of detailed policy.  And as for the ethos of casual money-grubbing self-enrichment ...

And then there's Sue Grey herself.  Exactly where is her genius for political management and administrative competence?  Can anyone point to a single manifestation?  The best anyone seems to have on offer - and these are Starmer-directed Cabinet stooges talking off the record in vain attempts to stem the tide of sewage coursing down Whitehall - is that she's really quite a good listener, and if they butter her up nicely they might get some airtime with Starmer just once in a while.

Someone will always say:  Thatcher looked pretty stupid in her early months.  I disagree.  She certainly suffered from Cabinet dissent - not something that Starmer seems likely to replicate - because she'd picked such a 'balanced' team, including some of the most independent-minded, initiative-replete heavyweights that UK politics has produced.  Well, dissent can certainly be a drag.  But she was a master of detail, knew her mind, and had the drive to bring everything with her.  (She also had some genuine capital-P Political strategists on the team: Morgan McSweeney is just a superior student politician of the Jack Straw / George Osborne variety.)  

Very late in the day, Starmer was fed the line that awkward decisions can be dodged if you simply Go For Growth, and that's about all he's got.  A slogan.  Oh, and it's his self-proclaimed responsibility to stop the embarrassing leaks.  Too late, mate, the media have un-suspended their critical faculties and scent blood - lots of it.

Where does improvement in this government's performance come from?  It's not obvious, is it?  

ND

UPDATE:  a BTL Anon has just reminded me of something.  Before the election someone, probably Guido, wrote that Labour high command had been tipped off that a Serious Personal Scandal (within their camp) was circulating in the meejah, and would probably be disclosed during the election campaign; and that they had hatched a strategy for dealing with it.  Then everything fell silent.

If we want to go Conspiracy on this, it's not difficult.  The thing about nuclear weapons is: nobody ever really reckons The Moment has arrived to deploy them - there will always be an even rainier day when you'll need it even more.  The Tories had obviously given up the ghost already - why waste a thermo-nuclear device when there's no hope anyway?  Plus, what has Labour got on, errr, any of us?  Better hold back this time.  That would explain the silence ... but some of those Angry Spads would know ...

Or, there isn't a scintilla of truth in it!

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[1] One can point to several other amusing symptoms, my favourite being the odious Dale Vince who switched from being a financier of the revolting green yoof, to becoming a highly partisan Labour activist, to the point of very ostentatiously attacking the Green Party in seats where they looked like (and indeed were) a serious threat to Labour.    

[2] I can save him the bother, and my fees are modest compared to those of PWC.  The answer is 'Nope'.

Revenge of the SPADS: docs leaked to C@W

We've come by a transcript of the half-year performance review of a 30-something Labour Party SPAD.

*   *   *   *   *

Supervisor (Senior SPAD):  So, Sparquin - what do you feel are the highlights and the disappointments of your work over the past 6 months?

Junior SPAD:  Well, Molly - the Election, obvs!  I reckon I came up with some pretty good 'Lines To Take' when the awkward questions started coming in from the Beeb fact-checkers during the run-up.  Nothing as awkward as the last three weeks, natch!  But at least a couple of my 'Lines' made it onto the One O'Clock News.  One even got into the papers the next day.  Oh, and I managed to get that idiot - sorry, Secretary of State! - Pete to tone down his promises for how many units he was going to get built by 2028.  Pretty f-ing mental, he'd just made that number up, you know?  But I'm fairly sure we're off the hook now: his Department is really pleased.

SSS:   Yes, good catch, we all noticed, and Sir Humphrey loves what you did, the civil servants hate concrete targets - though you might want to tone down the crowing over it, you know?  Pete doesn't forget shit like that and he's a nasty bastard as well as a dumb twat.  Just a suggestion.  Anything else?

JS:  Well, in response to the diktat that we're all to come up with 'collaborative, self-directed, value-adding, no-cost workstream initiatives', me and three other J-SPADS have formed a little team - we call ourselves 'Spad-u-like', nice, huh? - and we've *self-directed* ourselves on a couple of little projects to improve departmental effectiveness around here, plus morale, too!  Oh, and before you ask, yes, we're totally diverse!   Though to be fair, we did all go to the same college ...

SSS:  Great!  And disappointments?

JS:  You need to ask??  FFS - it's getting a £5k reduction in salary!   And being on tenterhooks for three weeks before even that was confirmed.  I'm 34, fuckit - I've given the best part of six years to this Party!  And now we're not even allowed to take freebies off that hedgie wanker who used to bankroll our office when we were in Opposition.  Do you know what rents are like in Homerton?

SSS:  Tell me about it - and I'm in Shoreditch!

JS, under breath:  (You wish!  Half a mile north, more like it).  Out loud:  Oh well, Polly Toynbee says we can expect lots of money to be found down the back of the sofa before Xmas!  Hahah, silly cow.

SSS:  Anyhow, it's for the Cause, right.  Just hang in there, it'll all work out.  Now, how about looking forward - what personal goals are you setting for the next 6 months?

JS:   Finishing the Spad-u-like project to scupper the Gray woman, obvs.  We've made a great start over the past two weeks, made some good networking contacts, called in a few favours at the Beeb, all the good stuff.  Even forged some vibrant links with a couple of career civil servants that she's, errr, interacted with in the past.  Well, she's history, you just watch.  We're targeting end-November.  Finish laughing, clean underwear all round, then a big piss-up before Xmas at the Boom Battle Bar.  Hey, wanna nominate some faces for the axe-throwing targets ..? ...

As leaked to ND

The complex economics & trade-offs of 'net zero'

At the polar-opposite ends of the 'net zero' policy debate are two fatuous positions we may caricature thus:

A.  renewable energy is so cheap and creates so many excellent new jobs, the whole thing will easily pay for itself in economic terms alone (never mind "saving the planet"): it's just a matter of some easily-afforded up-front investment and a bit of planning;

Z.  the very attempt to bring about a 'net zero' economy will destroy the entire existing economy.

Along the spectrum between these two extremes are so many subtle trade-offs that have presumably been resolved to their own satisfaction [1] by those who've made their way to one of the extremes.   Except, we don't see their working displayed very often.

Here are a few:

• Renewables are in fact more expensive than the energy mix they are designed to replace.  True: but we often decide to pay more for a cleaner outcome (cf the Clean Air Act, the water industry, etc etc).
• The roll-out of what we might call a 'net-zero-intended' programme would create a lot of new jobs.  True: but the industries that will be made obsolete along the way will collapse (often "by mistake"[2]) before any kind of equilibrium, let alone positive balance is established.
• There are virtually no short term benefits of most[3] individual 'net-zero-intended' projects upon completion: and even the supposed long-term benefits are questionable.  True, but in certain circumstances the Keynsian insight about digging holes has a lot of force.
• Nuclear energy ticks a lot of 'net zero' boxes.  True, but nobody has truly resolved the short-term / long-term calculus on nukes.
• Something approximating 'net zero', as currently envisaged, would make us less energy-dependent on imports in the long term.  True, but in detail this is an exceptionally complex issue both to characterise fully, and still more to 'optimise'.

And so on.  

All this deserves better policy-making than we get.  And more transparent, too.  I am heartily sick of being lied to - by both 'sides'.

ND

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[1] Obviously that credits them with at least rudimentary intellectual processes that in practice may not have troubled them too much.

[2]  Watch, for example, the UK oil & gas industry, as illustrated here (always assuming the collapse of the mining sector isn't enough evidence already).  The Unions know this, of course.

[3] Most, but definitely not all.

Man City: day of reckoning draws near

The Premier League's case against Man City is now being heard.  Should a free-marketeer care about what private football clubs do with their money?  Is this just something to appease sports fans who'd prefer a more level playing-field (and a bit of justice & fairness)?  The same team winning every year is pretty bloody dull.  And if it goes against Man City and they get relegated, how will their quite ridiculously overpaid squad respond?

Personally my game is RU and I have very little interest in the details of this hoo-ha.  But I will summarise the RU precedent for those who don't know it: Saracens, who'd also been winning quite a lot and had comprehensively busted the salary cap -  systematically and quite creatively - to assemble a very hard-to-beat squad with a great many top notch players**; more than anyone else could remotely afford.  They were duly fined and relegated (via an insuperable points deduction).

To me, aside from evening things up a bit and dealing out some justice, the interesting phenomenon was that almost all their prominent players stuck with the team through a dull, and actually somewhat debilitating year in the lower division: they just didn't get sufficiently competitive matches to keep them fully sharp.  But they came back up after a single season via promotion in due course, and they all sharpened up quickly enough thereafter.

The loyalty was impressive.  Whatever money they'd splashed around illicitly, they'd nevertheless obviously built a team ethos that wasn't merely mercenary.

Views on the questions above?

ND

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** Plus Owen Farrell

Starmer's striking unpopularity, and a lesson

This past week has seen publication of Starmer's popularity ratings that, by comparison with the (downward) trajectories of the ratings of previous new PMs, show he has become staggeringly unpopular in an unprecedently short time.  We've noted before that Machiavelli advocated the new Prince carry out his unpleasant measures very early in his new regime; and also that the Prince should prefer being feared to being loved.

OK: but he didn't say it's a great thing to be deeply unpopular per se, never mind being thought of in terms of the specific negative attributes with which Starmer is increasingly associated - ask any pensioner of your acquaintance.  Is Starmer playing with fire here (assuming he's broadly in control of his actions)?  Mainstream commentary tends to reckon he's gone beyond setting expectations & establishing the smack of firm government, and is maybe even undermining the economy by the negativity of his early decision-making and his strident, stern messaging.

Here's a personal anecdote which isn't on a precise parallel, but it has a lesson of sorts that might have some bearing.  At the age of 19, I took command of my first troop of soldiers in the army - a scary business: there were 45 of them and my sheltered, essentially middle class upbringing[1] hadn't exposed me to the rigours of tough working-class mores where disagreements are settled with fist and boot, and the sense of 'fairness' (what soldiers consider fairness, anyhow) is never to be trifled with.  

On my very first day, I ran into a couple of 'Spanish practices' among the men that seemed to me intolerable, and I told the individuals involved - just a couple or three in each case - to desist immediately, and not to do it again.  Later in the week I inspected their lines (the accommodation of those of the men who lived in barracks - by far the greater number); and as well as marvelling at how in very communal circumstances (8 to a room) they fiercely guarded their personal privacy and possessions, I couldn't help but notice the 'Morale Chart' on the wall in the corridor: a rather neatly-drawn graph with daily entries.  With some surprise I noted that on the very day of my arrival, a huge up-tick had been registered! - and yet the only two things I'd done on that first day were the two bollockings I'd administered.

I short while later, I asked one of the more mature corporals what I was to make of this.  Oh, he said, it was great!  Straight off the bat, you locked up a couple of the blokes who were out of order! [I hadn't in fact issued any punishment, still less locked anyone up.]  Things had got much too slack around here!

There could be so many lessons to draw from this silly little incident[2], but the one that seems relevant here is that a couple of early "smacks of firm government" can - in some instances - actually improve morale as opposed to sapping it.  I'm not suggesting the parallels are exact: but I am saying that given how his own smacks have gone down, along with his general demeanour in government, Starmer shouldn't be remotely complacent about his own impact on the mood of the nation.

More popcorn, please, as we watch how this plays out.

ND       

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[1] My father left school at 14 to become an apprentice, and was conscripted as a private soldier.  But he commissioned from the ranks and despite some of his war-stories from the working classes, he'd firmly left all that behind; and my own upbringing could only be described as middle class.  Dealing with the soldiery was a big shock for me.

[2]  Another, rather more philosophical, is what I take to be the great theme of Hilary Mantel's superb Wolf Hall trilogy: that the received version of history is often not particularly accurate, even if (hopefully, sometimes) it captures some of the essence of what actually happened.  This categorically includes even very recent and very trivial 'history', e.g. 'what happened yesterday', as the case of Cromwell sleeping with the (woman) hotel-keeper when on his mission to parlay with Catherine of Aragon: the story of this minor event has already become currency - in a distorted version - back at his own house, even before he arrives home a day or so later.

Government looking for a fight. Several fights.

Today we've seen two things that strongly suggest to me that Starmer & his strategists aren't just hanging tough on controversial issues, they are positively looking for a fight.  Indeed, several.

Exhibit A: the NHS. Starmer, in today's 'NHS' speech [1] -

... So hear me when I say this. No more money without reform. I am not prepared to see even more of your money spent ... That isn’t just solved by more money - it’s solved by reform.

This was reinforced pugnaciously by Wes Streeting on all channels, and of course we are absolutely meant to cop the headline aggression. 

Exhibit B: Net Zero.  Chris Stark (of whom you may never have heard, he's Ed Miliband's "mission control" for Net Zero) at an event today - 

"The government is very clear that it will cost too much" [2] to put new Grid cables underground. On meeting the Net Zero goal he was “not pissing about” [3]

More ostentatious headline aggression.  This is all of a piece with blunt pre-election announcements that Starmer & Miliband intend to steamroller planning processes that might delay their fatuous schemes for 100% decarbonisation of electricity by 2030 (and new housing, too).  In this they are taking on a vast constituency of nimbies - ably represented in many cases by their Green and Labour MPs! - who are dead set against the countryside being covered by windfarms, solar farms and swathes of new Grid pylons.  (And new houses, too.)

Now Machiavelli, as we know, strongly advocated the new Prince carrying out his unpleasant measures very early in his new regime.  This isn't just getting 'em in, it's positively relishing them; and it starts to make the Child Benefit Cap and the Winter Fuel Allowance look, not so much as avoidable early miss-steps, as part of the bar-room brawler's "Oi'll foight any t'ree of yus".  Or thirty million, it seems.

BTW, Old Nick also advised that it was better to be feared than loved ...  Hey, we can do the second part of that for you, Kier.

ND

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[1] In response to Lord Darzi - an NHS surgeon - publishing a report saying that the NHS needs, errr, a load of money.  Did someone say this is an "independent" report?   

[2] He's not wrong about the cost, of course.

[3] In that case, sunshine, why not aggressively tell us what we all know to be true, that our electricity bills will be going up?

Starmer & winter fuel: break open more popcorn

Somewhat to my surprise, there's to be a pre-Party Conference set-piece in Parliament - tomorrow - on the winter fuel allowance thing.  The Deputy Speaker who allowed it obviously has a sense of humour - the Speaker's office evidently didn't enjoy being bamboozled and bullied last year over the Gaza vote, eh? 

And with Kier 'Bang'em Up' Starmer digging in at the weekend, and a hapless[1] junior minister being disowned by No.10 this morning, it's looking set to be another virility test.  

Of course, there are loads of simple ways Starmer/Reeves could sugar the pill a bit, but everything seems set fair for an outright 3-line whip / loyalty test on the blunt and brutal means-testing they've announced[2].  The most they've done so far is very pointedly to re-confirm the triple lock on pensions: but as everyone has chorused - so what?  OK, he's read his Machiavelli about getting your nastiness in early: but is Starmer really sure he's pursuing clever politics here?  There are also loads of ways of cracking the whip in an ostentatious and salutary manner: summary deselection of Mr 'Renters Champion' Athwal would be a start.  But a massive falling-out over an emotive social policy so very easily weaponised by everyone else, just ahead of Party Conference, for just £1.4 bn? 

It's not quite the same, but one is reminded of the wonderful line in Bolt's A Man For All Seasons:  

"It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world ... but for Wales?"

Break open the popcorn - again.

ND    

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[1] ... and I do know what 'hapless' means, unlike 95% of Guardian writers (And 'elide', ditto ditto.)

[2] Can't find it just now, but some bright researcher has found a clip of Reeves advocating means-testing for the WFA about 6 years ago.  So much for "we didn't want to do this" - she's always wanted to do it! 

Weekend Fun

So this weekend the wife has booked us in to a 'boutique hotel', and I'm sure we'll have a wonderful time.  The establishment offers a range of different rooms, of which this is one.

Wonder what attracted Mrs D's attention to this place ?

ND

Guardian Goings-on(2): Better news - and at Beeb too!

Having recently had a go at the Graun for its evident decision[1] to proselytise actively on behalf of a partisan position on contestable energy issues, this is by way of a follow-up suggesting that things might be looking up, both at the newspaper and also at the Beeb.

The paper first.  At the weekend, their rather good columnist[2] Sonia Sodha had this to say: 

Free speech is neither a “nice to have” nor a rightwing project: it is a fundamental tenet of democracy and when it is under threat, it is disempowered minorities who suffer most. Labour needs to stop seeing important free speech protections introduced by Tory ministers as expendable fuel for attacking their predecessors.

And on a quite different topic, Nils Bratley opined as follows: 

... before Drax is promised a penny extra from billpayers, Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, should commission a properly independent review of the business model of burning wood pellets to generate electricity. It should cover both the environmental impact ... and the stupendous subsidies.

I strongly applaud both sentiments.  And both are clearly opinion pieces, which is the honourable way to go for a proper newspaper.

Now for the Beeb.  I am delighted to note that they have genuinely got their teeth into two stories that essentially reflect a proper critique / criticism of Starmer's Labour Party.  The first is the Winter Fuel payments issue, which Reeves and Starmer have strongly signalled they intend to tough out - it's in that category we highlighted of Reasons Aplenty for Ruthless Whipping.  But, patently, they can't be taking any pleasure in the way it's rumbling on.  The awful Alastair Campbell used to say that if an awkward story runs for more than 3 days, you've got a problem.  Well, this one is several weeks and counting, and the Beeb has taken it to its heart in ways that make the problem worse for the government.  As well they might - it's an early unforced error and an acute political test for Labour: but personally I had felt there'd be a longer period where the uncritical pre-election fawning over Starmer would be continuing in that quarter.  Seemingly not[3].  This isn't any more than their charter requires of them, but given past performance it's moderately encouraging.  Credit where it's due.

The send is their gleeful playing-up of the outrageous story of "Parliament's biggest landlord", the reprehensible Jas Athwal MP.  One has to pick through issues like this with caution, but in the background there's the sordid prevalence of a certain type of landlord mercilessly exploiting tenants of the same ethnicity as themselves - "own-country landlord" is generally how the victims ruefully express their plight.  Maybe Mr Athwal's portfolio is not of this profile - but the Beeb evidently knows.  Their ability to report on renters' profiles has however been hampered by the fact that the people they got interviews from were subsequently intimidated into silence, as the Beeb reported, and withdrew permission for their statements to be used.  Reasonable people will doubtless draw their own conclusions.  The Beeb clearly has it in for Athwal - a man parachuted into his seat in Labour's nasty little pre-election deselection campaign - and, often with smiles on their faces when reporting his twisting and turning, seems determined to run him to ground.  Once again, credit where it's due, & plaudits to them for their journalism.  

ND

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[1]  By way of explicit ratification, here's their resident green wingnut George Monbiot: 

"For every pound or dollar spent on ['climate crisis'] persuasion by an environmental charity or newspaper ..."

[2]  Inter alia, she's broadly sound on the baleful 'trans' issue, too.  How much sh*t must she get from the fundies at the Graun?

[3]  Of course, anti Starmer animus can easily come from several angles: many lefties hate him cordially, as much as does anyone with the slightest regards for probity & intellectual integrity