"Every day more cases were coming across the desk that had been in the past, hadn't been dealt with adequately, and this was just, it was another case - and yes I knew Smyth but it was absolutely overwhelming" J Welby, 2025
There was an old woman
Who lived in a shoe
There were so many perverts
He didn’t know what to do
So he busied himself
With the wine and the bread
And let them off lightly
And went back to bed
It's two months ago since we last looked at the jockeying for position going on in the Cabinet. At that time we cast our eyes over Reeves (nobody's idea of the next leader, then or now); Streeting (obviously positioning himself actively); Lammy (radiating ambition); and Rayner (also ambitious but actually a joke). For completeness, we mentioned Khan (permanently on the lookout for the Main Chance); Miliband (radiating competence); and Mandelson (devious and unpredictable as ever).
How do things look now? The Grauniad has a telling, tearful piece, avowedly briefed by the wimmin: and it's worth quoting a couple of chunks.
... a female minister spoke directly to the prime minister to complain about the leaks and briefings she saw directed against other women ... including Bridget Phillipson, Liz Kendall, and Yvette Cooper .,. “Cabinet really no longer feels like a safe space for genuine debate,” one minister said ... after weeks of tension felt by some women in the cabinet... Almost a dozen female Labour MPs who spoke to the Guardian said they were unnerved at how female cabinet ministers appeared to be getting the brunt of the blame for issues in government – though there is less sympathy for the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, because of anger over the Treasury’s handling of spending cuts and welfare. Among some of the new intake of MPs, there is a strong feeling that any ultimate successor to Starmer should be a woman – and a resentment of what they see as a campaign to anoint Wes Streeting.
Hahah! More popcorn supplies, please. It goes on:
At the moment [Streeting] has no obvious female rival as the heir apparent. Senior cabinet ministers who did not want to see Streeting win had previously coalesced around Reeves, but her unpopular decisions as chancellor have meant that is no longer the case. Other ministers would back Rayner, but she would face a brutal press onslaught. Among Labour members there is no doubt, however. Rayner is streets ahead of her rivals in terms of popularity with the grassroots ... There is only one cabinet minister ahead of her, who is probably the least likely of anyone around the table to have another shot at the top job – Ed Miliband.
This is not intelligent commentary. First, selecting the next leader when there's no vacancy is well-known to be an absolute mug's game. Genuine, nailed-on heirs-apparent are few and far between in British politics (in the past century or more, only Anthony Eden and Gordon Brown).
Second, Miliband is not at all the least likely to have another shot. In countries like France and Italy he would be the number one contender in everyone's books: competent (at politics, that is), confident, popular, experienced, sure-footed, intelligent, and comfortably dynamic enough. And he has the green-left eating out of his hand - potentially deemed a vital constituency when the Green Party is snapping around Labour's heels in such politically volatile circumstances. That's how he'd be marketed, anyhow.
A couple more comments. (a) You just can't rule out Khan or Burnham. These guys' ambition and political capital is so great. Safe seats aren't so hard to find in a hurry: Boris always found one at the drop of a hat.
(b) Having mentioned the Prince of Darkness last time and just out of interest, I have it on good authority Mandelson has already f****d up royally in Washington. Of course, he's made comebacks in the past from many an appalling situation of his own making, so who knows? But right now, his political capital is deep in the red.
Oh, and Lammy? Speaking of in-the-red, he's so far out of the money right now, I almost forgot him.
ND
When I first joined the Conservative Party as a teenager, many long years ago, the opening sentence of the rules read thus:
Membership of the Conservative Party is open to anyone who opposes Socialism and Communism ..."
And there you have it in a nutshell. Conservatism, and the Right in politics generally, isn't really any kind of ideology - it even has to define itself negatively, by what it's opposed to. It's essentially an unintellectual, not-very-articulate Burkean tendency. Genuinely articulate Rightists such as Roger Scruton are few and far between - and they don't have cults, cliques and followers. Leftists, who really are ideologues and can't envisage any other way of life, spit out words like 'capitalism' as if that, too, is a competing ideology - and that's an ignorant misunderstanding, too. 'Thatcherism'? Not really: Keith Joseph notwithstanding, Thatcher's was a forceful petite bourgeois tendency on HRT. 'Reaganism'? Not much up top, is there? - as Thatcher herself said. 'Gaullism'? Nah - just nationalism. 'Neo-liberalism'? If anything, an expression of the desire to clear the decks for some fairly aggressive money-making. Etc etc etc.
So if you'd asked me any time up until very recently, I'd have said that in my political lifetime the Right has been essentially non-ideological. Frustrating for the Left because, for all their fervour, ratiocination and well-written 5,000-word essays peppered with nicely-turned neologisms, they've nothing intellectual to grapple with except the splitters in the other Leftist factions.
Until very recently. Because now, it's quite evident from the voluminous output of what we might loosely call the 'Trumpite' camp, there is thinking going on that is identifiably ideological.
Of course, it's also messily bound up with some entirely mercenary motives; and as with any broad movement, one can readily discern several camps whose varying emphases in their pro-Trump enthusiasms are really quite different - the makings of fissures and splits yet to become a serious problem for The Donald's regime; but that will come. IMHO it's rather too early to attempt to systematise all this; but it's brewing up to a point where one will be able to.** There are some early attempts at articulation - here's one - but not perhaps very convincing yet. (This of course isn't to be marvelled at, because being essentially Right-ish, the whole Trump thing will have a strong tendency to inarticulacy.)
Meanwhile, as all this is slowly coagulating into something with defined contours we can pin down and gaze at, we face the sobering fact that many of its leading lights in the highest of high places are unhinged, messianic, in a massive hurry, drunk on power, and untouched by normal considerations of prudence. We need no better evidence than the truly amazing spectacle of grown men in high office, with all the resources in the world should they care to use them with due deliberation, conducting their communications like a bunch of doped-up teenagers on their mobile 'phones plotting a Friday-night fight with a neighbouring crew. The average County Lines drugs gang isn't as crass in its actions as these high-ranking promoters of the Trumpian Flame. FFS, what is to become of the 'Free World'?
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** if anyone knows of a good early attempt to do this, or would care to try themselves in less than, say, 100 words, we'd all like to know!
... if Starmer doesn't back down on PIP etc. Oh yeah? Way back in the summer we noted that Starmer had come down hard (very hard, in terms of precedent) on the first batch of rebels, by way of a softening-up of backbenchers for even tougher decisions to come. (That one was over the 2-child limit.) Here's how we concluded then:
Many of them must be trembling at the thought of what they're going to be told to vote for. The Smack of Firm Government, eh? And a summer of riots still to come ... Kier "I banged them all up in 2011" Starmer will be in his element.
Needless to say, La Toynbee has been hyperventilating with her usual subtle mixture of crazy optimisim and severe disapproval. Popcorn supplies having long since been laid in, let's see what happens.
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Gotta chuckle when the Tesla stock price slumps: that's the language they understand & they don't like it up 'em. An "illegal boycott", Mr President? Never heard of such a thing. Fashion is a much underestimated economic force. Plenty of folks across the entire planet, including within USA itself, aren't going to rush to take any Trump-endorsing purchasing decisions.
For a century or more, Corporate America has been the mighty beneficiary of what have effectively been pro-US-lifestyle fashion choices across the globe, from the colas to Hollywood to Disney to Nike and a thousand more. These things can change - and real quick, too: decisions on consumer durables are daily, by the billion. Suppose Tesla is just a harbinger, eh, Mr Apple ..?
See, capitalism can address issues other political & diplomatic forces are relatively impotent to affect.
ND
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| Impressive, or what? |
So what does Li'l Volodya don for his expedition to a safe corner of Kursk? Yep, the khaki hi-neck teeshirt and fatigues. (At least he kept his top on.) Is he trying to channel anyone that Trump might have met recently? Why?!
The really funny thing is that the video clips and stills of his soldier-boy "visit to the front" shown on Russian TV were of poor quality. Instead of ignoring this glitch, or even revelling in the cinéma vérité realism of the situation Putin, ever one for a carefully curated image in the style he feels is appropriate for his status as co-equal of Trump and Xi, had his spokesman bluster defensively about it in a press conference. Do they not realise it makes them look even more phoney?
Let's see how Putin's "Yes but No" response to a ceasefire goes down with Trump. The Donald will certainly want someone to blame if his "fighting stops within 100 days" boast doesn't come about.
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What are the epochal economic changes in my lifetime? I'm no student of macroeconomics, as any reader here will know, so I don't have a ready list. The rise of China comes first to mind, along with its concomitant, the (relative) de-industrialisation of the West, and its precursor, the collapse of (left-wing / doctrinal) communism. The oil crises of the 1970s. Economic migration towards the West and the suppression of labour costs. And ... economic "neoliberalism"? The period of the "great moderation"? - maybe. The banking crisis 2007-09? - not really: what changed? Any others people care to nominate? [I'm not looking for lists of new technologies here.]
Anyhow, now we have a serious new candidate: the Keynsian turn of Germany announced just days ago, which is probably just the cornerstone of the EU letting rip, as many in the EC and several member countries have wanted to for decades now. So much latent borrowing power! Assuming it actually happens as presaged, expenditure on weaponry (of course) but also infrastructure, stands to become a truly massive boom, with the added twist that there could be a strong strategic reluctance to outsource all this upsurge in manufacturing and construction to China.
The markets don't think it all looks so obviously great for the USA, either: are we seeing the turning-point in a 25-year bull run on the DJ, and maybe early suggestions of the USD going out of favour? US recession, even, as the tariffs bite? Nice one, Donald - though at least there will be plenty of ongoing demand for his natural gas.
Writing as a non-economist, I'd say that the whole thing also sounds rather inflationary, too - for all of us. The older I get, the gladder I am for my substantial inflation-hedge.
What do we all reckon, at this critical juncture?
ND
PS - did you notice the Irish offered themselves as part of the Macron/Starmer coalition of the willing?! See, this is real !
I don't want to insult t'readership by assuming you don't know all this, but ...
Athenians : ... you should try to get what it is possible for you to get, taking into consideration what we both really do think; since you know as well as we do that, when these matters are discussed by practical people, the standard of justice depends on the equality of power to compel and that in fact the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.
Melians : ... we who are still free would show ourselves great cowards and weaklings if we failed to face everything that comes rather than submit to slavery.
Athenians : No, not if you are sensible. This is no fair fight, with honour on one side and shame on the other. It is rather a question of saving your lives and not resisting those who are far too strong for you... if one follows one’s self-interest one wants to be safe, whereas the path of justice and honour involves one in danger.
There's nothing new under the sun. Xi hs always explicitly espoused this. It's always possible as a policy. What's to oppose it? Only self-restraint, based (ideally) on nobility and strength of moral character, but otherwise on proper consideration of the long term. But for Old Men in a Hurry ..? We have three of them stomping the world stage now. Heaven help us all.
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On paper the Starmer government wants to be quite radical. Sweep aside planning laws; aiming for impossible energy and housing targets, etc etc etc. So there will be a load of Consultations coming down the pike - indeed, there are already. And often very rushed, which isn't just a tactic, it's their mantra right now.
So: who responds for the ordinary punter? In theory of course, absolutely anyone can respond. But Joe Public ain't gonna find his hand-written views reflected in the Conclusion of the exercise. And lobby groups don't always fare much better, although the smarter ones pick their fights and sometimes do OK.
All the Regulators have some kind of very promising-looking "we are here to protect the public" statement on their "About" page, but again, that's in theory. In practice, (a) it's often the Regulator itself that is doing the consultation; (b) they are all as political as Hell, and if they are responding to a Government department's consultation exercise, they are hand-in-glove (or indeed hand-in-puppet) and not to be expected to be independent or neutral in any way, shape or form[1]; (c) right now, the Starmer government has given all Regulators etc an extra formal mandate, which is to Promote Growth. And they immediately fired the bloke at the CMA who didn't seem enthusiastic enough on this score, pour encourager les autres.[2]
Where, then, do we look for our defence? There's only one answer: it is the venerable Citizens' Advice, which is a Statutory Consultee in many consultation exercises. Not the organisation with the most prestige or biggest, best-paid professional HQ staffing, but in my experience (energy, of course) they do an heroic job. Only they have consistently called out the nuclear power nonsenses. It was they who absolutely, forensically skewered the outrageous Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon scam. Etc.
Can they keep their heads above water during Starmer's radical deluge? It'll be a tall order - and if they start looking like the resistance, they stand to get bulldozed themsleves. Good luck to them - they may need it, just as we all need them.
ND
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[1] This isn't just cynicism and supposition, it's a copper-bottomed fact, amply illustrated by FOI docs
[2] Maybe he was genuinely useless, I don't know. He was certainly the one they made an example of
Current public pronouncements on the apparently untrammelled use of power - from absolutely any quarter with skin in the game (any game) - are to be taken with a high degree of circumspection. Newspaper editorials? Academics of repute? Elected politicians? NGOs? Businesses? To a greater or lesser extent they all live in fear of reprisals from a man, his entourage and his outriders who are drunk on power and their ability frighten everybody. Yes, we are all afraid. So, the signal degree of caution being displayed by all the above - who privately would all wish to articulate something much stronger - does not mean the western body politic is in some way calmly acquiescent. The relative acquiescence is that of hostages in a bank raid whose only immediate instinct is to lie quietly on the floor with their heads down, and not move too much.
So what's to be said, on a humble US-hosted blogging site? OK, at the very top there is very great power, formal and increasingly informal. We all knew that. Almost all politicians at the top of their own governmental tree, whatever constitutional form that takes, have such power. Effectively unlimited cash or credit as regards short-term measures they might want to take. An administrative regime, enough of which will take their orders. A monopoly on effective violence domestically, should they choose to flex their muscles. Typically, the power to declare an emergency and to suspend due process, acting by fiat. (Just check out the EU 'constitution': almost every right and freedom a naïve EU citizen might imagine to be sacrosanct, is subject to being suspended or withdrawn on grounds of 'national security'.)
So we all know that a rogue government of any stripe and constitution can shoot its own people out of hand etc etc etc if it wants to. To any but the most innocent, this is not news.
So how come we mostly don't lose sleep over it: what's to stop rogue use of ultimate unilateral power happening? Supposedly, a number of things. (i) since modern times, elections - some kind of rough-and-ready filter on who gets to the top, their temperament and general suitability to wield such powers; (ii) the commonsense of most humans capable of getting to the top - by whatever means - and wishing to stay there, that (ab)use of such powers, however tempting, is best deployed extremely sparingly, in the interests of the longer game; (iii) the fabled 'checks and balances' boasted by many constitutions: although if that means a material delay in any such counterbalance taking effect (as in the UK, to take one example, that if a PM takes emergency powers he must apply to Parliament for ratification after a while), then plenty can have happened in the meantime. (And Johnson, of course, figured he could simply prorogue Parliament!)
We recognise (iii) - and its (short-term) limitations. We think we've understood what went wrong with (i) - and history will not be kind to Biden and his imbecile entourage. But (ii)? Well, (i) having failed, (ii) is that bit more likely to fail, also. But drunk-with-power seems the most likely. Just look at their faces. The passengers in any plane with a drunken pilot have reason to be scared witless.
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Some pretty dire scenarios are easily envisaged, but it's anyone's guess now, on any geopolitical question you care to speculate on. Has global politics ever hinged on pettiness and petulance to this degree? Even remotely? "well, checks and balances ..." Really?
There is, at least, one thing we may be sure of: Xi will be determined to make his move on Taiwan before November 2028.
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