Starmer's bizarre pleading

For all those inclined to calibrate their psychological assessments of Starmer, the recent (very sympathetic) Observer interview offers quite a lot of input.  Inter alia, we learn he "deeply regrets" his "island of strangers" speech, thusly: 

Starmer insists ... the speech was simply a mistake. “I wouldn’t have used those words if I had known they were, or even would be interpreted as an echo of Powell,” he says. “I had no idea – and my speechwriters didn’t know either,” he says. “But that particular phrase – no – it wasn’t right. I’ll give you the honest truth: I deeply regret using it”  ... he doesn’t blame his advisers or anyone else except himself for these mistakes ... Starmer says he should have read through the speech properly and “held it up to the light a bit more”. The prime minister also accepts there were “problems with the language” in his foreword to the policy document that said the record high numbers of immigrants entering the UK under the last government had done “incalculable damage” to the country.

Sorry, matey, that won't wash.  For starters, in that speech he also said his immigration policy statement was promoted on the back of it being "right - because it is fair, and because it is what I believe in", Boris Johnson's opening of the immigration floodgates being a "squalid chapter".  Secondly, over the following few days he did the classic Starmer thing of initially doubling down on the first utterence: when quickly challenged on the "island of strangers" language, he emphasised that "well, it is a danger".       

Does anyone, let alone a lawyer-PM, outsource the articulation of "what I believe in, what I think is right" to Spads?  Or, to put the question another way:  what sort of lawyer-PM does this?   

ND

Trump and his solo bomb damage assessment

There's history when it comes to "bomb damage assessment* by top-down diktat" & I'll relate one example closer to home than the Donald's private, untutored convictions about what has happened in Iran.

The UK started WW2 with an outmoded aerial reconnaissance model which (in a different context) we've written about before. 

The original use of aviation in WW1, right from the very first days in 1914, had been for reconnaissance.  The second use was for shooting down the enemy's recce aircraft!  Hence, the received wisdom was that recce results (at first, visual; later, photographic) had to be fought for.  So the RAF's plans before WW2 revolved around a relatively fast armed aircraft - the Blenheim light bomber, operated by Bomber Command, which upon its initial introduction was faster than any biplane then in service with the RAF.  From the very first week of WW2 they started flying Blenheims for recce against German targets, in ones, twos, threes, even in fives and sixes.   Bravely flown as they were, they were shot down in alarming numbers and, sadly, brought back precious few photographs (albeit occasionally of very good quality).  By 1939-40 the Blenheim was no longer up against slower biplanes; and the training of its crews and the cameras it carried were only geared to what would now be regarded as low-level photography.  They were sitting ducks.  

Notwithstanding Bomber Command's legendary willingness to take casualties (and this was even before Bomber Harris took over), the Air Ministry at the top was less sanguine.  These casualties "were not to be borne"... 

Blenheims, "... even in fives and sixes"
Photo, © IWM CH 2992

So of course quite shortly there-after, the suicidally slow and low-flying Blenheims were replaced by Spitfires, flying fast and high, with much better cameras.  But there was another problem, which became apparent after the very first RAF bombing raid of the war, on a German seaplane base on the Baltic coast.  Based on the pilots' accounts, Bomber Command claimed a major success with key buildings having been destroyed.  However, careful analysis of recce flown the next day showed that not a single piece of damage could be identified, and that it seemed the bombs landed harmlessly in adjacent sand dunes.  Continuing the story:  

Such is the bizarre nature of service politics that Bomber Command was allowed to [insist] that only its own people carried out Bomb Damage Assessment - they were determined to mark their own homework.  Eventually they were called up on this too, much to their disgust - as it was proved conclusively that their bombing was not even remotely as accurate as they claimed.  Though his Command's relations with [the newly-established specialist air recce interpretation unit] were often strained, to his credit Bomber Harris personally came to value its accurate output.   

Private BDA conducted by a deeply ignorant politician with a transparent agenda?  The very worst things happen when a powerful leader is grovellingly indulged in all circumstances, whatever he does: and we now have two of them - Trump and Netanyahu.  Not even obliged to exercise normal political caution (not something I'd say of Putin, for example, or Xi).  What will Trump not do in pursuit of his personal gratification?  Aside from the likes of Starmer, Rutte, and the Trump Cabinet, with their demeaning performative "tactical sycophancy", is there anyone left who can offer a defence of Trump and his bellicose, juvenile narcissism?

ND 

______________

**That's what 'BDA' traditionally stood for.  More recently, the 'B' is being rendered as 'battlefield'.

Advising Starmer on Iran & the legal stuff

An interesting challenge for the Attorney General, one Richard, Baron Hermer - a controversial figure, one-time mate of Starmer's, but rumoured to be for the chop in the first Cabinet reshuffle.  But maybe not just yet ...

UPDATE:  see this, from Guido today.  But you read it here first.

Poor Starmer: so desperate to remain in the kneeling position with Trump, but, oh, the legalities of supporting unilateral bunker-busting.  As we know, Kier is so-o wedded to the international rules-based order of things.  Him a lawyer and all.

And if Trump never really wanted to have his second term characterised by US involvement in Middle Eastern 'forever wars', well, Starmer can hardly be ecstatic about following Blair into the politico-historical dustbin of history by rash association with the wild man of the White House.

So what will Hermer advise, and how "flexible" will he turn out to be.  Remember Blair & Goldsmith?   And the Blairite legacy.  That Iraq thing, eh?   And the big inquiry afterwards.  Wow, that seems a long time ago.   But then again, history rhymes ... (with the usual apologies to G&S)

When I was a lad I made it big
As fixer-in-chief in an Attorney's wig
I cleaned up scandals and I swept up sleaze
And I pandered to the wishes of the Big Big Cheese
(He pandered to the wishes of the Big Big Cheese)
I pandered to the wishes of the Power in the Land
And now I’m sitting here with his balls in my hand

As Attorney General I made such a mark
That he asked me to change my advice on Iraq
I quickly saw the error of my ways
And gave him what he wanted without delay
(He changed his advice without delay)
I told him he could do whatever he planned
So now I’m sitting here with his balls in my hand

Now lackeys all, whoever you may be,
If you want to rise to the top of the tree,
If your conscience isn't fettered by scruple or qualm,
Be guided by this rule and you’ll meet no harm.
(He is guided by this rule and he’s met no harm)
Keep your own head down during Custer’s Last Stand
And you may come away with his balls in your hand

ND

Caption compo: Starmer abases himself

To preempt the official Private Eye front-cover pronouncement next week is obviously lèse-majesté and we should wait patiently - but, come on, this is begging for a caption gag,  just as Starmer is gagging for crumbs from Trump's table.

Have at it!

ND 

Casey & new statutory inquiry: a simple suggestion

Sensitive matters here, all too often treated crassly and/or simply ignored.  May we hope the new statutory commission will make serious inroads?

I'm going to make a simple suggestion for them, with a bit of intro logic first.  

It is widely stated that, among other legion institutional failures, "the authorities" are fearful of considering ethnic and cultural dimensions for fear of stirring things up (and of course getting serious, career-threatening trouble from the 'progressive' direction just for opening their mouths).  Casey documents large-scale non-reporting, and indeed non-collection of data under this heading.  Does anyone really doubt this is a factor?  (There must even be progressives who take pleasure in bringing about such self-censorship.)

Now we know, from a century of study and many centuries of literature, that the average Joe just wants an easy life and is always receptive to danger-signals that might suggest he's going against the grain, in order to get himself safely back within whatever seems to be the prevailing norm.  (Homer Simpson is a beautifully-rendered exemplar.)  Prevailing norm changes?  OK, just tell me what I have to do now, what is the new salute, what the new shibboleth.  It was ever thus, and we kid ourselves if we imagine that brave, resolute stand-outs against baleful prevailing norms are anything other than a minority (and half of them are, frankly, nutters, even if high personal integrity and courage are also occasionally to be found).  

So we can certainly imagine that the justifiable fearfulness of individuals within "the authorities" who have chosen the path of studiously ignoring, in this case, ethnic and cultural dimensions, has in most cases been not necessarily the result of direct formal instructions, but rather their own nervous judgement in the matter, reinforced by nods, nudges, and general institutional wokery pervading their workplace. 

But.  Institutions and bureaucratic instincts being what they are, on at least some occasions somebody towards the top of some organisation or other will have put something in writing.  I view this as inevitable - just as we know someone else will rapidly have told them to delete and shred it.

The challenge for the new commission, then, is: proactively seek out genuinely authentic cases of written instructions on this issue.  Let it be known that you're in the market for whistleblowing, and tap into that other very widespread human aspect: resentment of such instructions, and the instinct to take a few copies or screenshots, and to wait for your moment to reveal the incriminating evidence.  

Now's the time.

ND

UPDATE: nice to see Casey at a select committee this morning, letting MPs have it.  She said - I paraphrase from memory - Nothing I've said is new, and other *colleagues* (looking around the room) could easily have found it out for themselves.  Hopefully the MPs realised she was politely calling them out for the cowardly, pusillanimous grand-standers they are.

"Zonal electricity pricing" - wonkish issue erupting!

This is an odd one: a public furore over obscure, technical matters that are hard for any layman to relate to.  The protagonists very much want you to, however - or to make the politicians believe you will.

There's an excellent theoretical argument - to which I heartily subscribe - for commodity markets to be as geographically localised as possible, so that the prices that arise from them are as meaningfully relatable to the underlying "fundamental" factors (supply, demand, transportation & a plethora of other costs) as possible.   But what's "possible"?  Because there's another critical factor that also needs to feature in any well-functioning market, namely liquidity, which is a massive Public Good (imagine not being able buy essential items, or sell a house).  Too small a market, and liquidity rapidly evaporates (or never develops in the first place) - and there's no hard-and-fast rules for what constitutes "too small".  

The story so far:  When the UK natural gas market first opened up and became actively traded, the precedent was the North American gas market (USA, Canada, Mexico) which we knew for certain was large enough to meet the tests for a viable open market.  But did the UK gas sector, a far smaller economic entity, and operating as an island at the time, have critical mass?  It transpired quite quickly that it did.  Then again, when eventually Continental Europe started actively trading gas, a Dutch hub - brilliantly situated in terms of logistics - turned out to be where the liquidity migrated to, with the UK market, along with every other regional European gas market, still trading actively but, for the most part, as a basis-spread to the Dutch hub.  That's how things go.  In this the Eu gas market ended up bearing a strong resemblance to N.America where around a dozen actively traded gas hubs operate, but with liquidity centered squarely on the Louisiana hub.

In Europe, the story in electricity has been broadly similar, but slightly more fragmented, notably in Scandinavia where countries have multiple "zonal" markets.  There's only one hub, and hence only one wholesale price, in the GB market (N.Ireland is part of the rather small and GB-dependent "all-island" Irish market).  And there isn't really a single, clear-cut main European hub, although the French-German border is often a near substitute.  A couple more preliminary comments:  (a) overall, electricity market liquidity is OK-ish, but often leaves something to be desired - a Bad Thing; and (b) Scandinavia is not really representative of the whole, because it is dominated by hydro-electricity that is usually (outside of prolonged droughts and Europe-wide shortages) extraordinarily flexible, such that certain market actions are readily possible there which are difficult or even impossible elsewhere.  (The same goes for New Zealand which often features in these discussions.)  

It may have come to your attention that a battle royal is raging - and rather publicly, too - over whether the GB market should be split into a set of multiple geographically-defined zonal markets.  In brief, the argument for, is theoretical: that more granular price signals will see better capital investment decisions, specifically, incentivising new power plants to be developed closer to where the demand is - as opposed to "in the North of Scotland" because that's where the wind is strongest and the land cheapest.  This, in turn, would reduce the need for (a) as much Grid infrastructure as must otherwise be developed; and (b) as much costly and inefficient "balancing" action by the Grid as will otherwise continue to be needed.  

The arguments against are pragmatic, including: the threat to already-iffy liquidity of a fragmented and complex new system; the very tangible impact of uncertainty (will it work? and how?) on the cost of capital in a wildly capital-intensive industry; the multi-year time-delay between initiation of capital expenditures in this sector, and actual changes in the overall infrastructure to come into effect; the irredeemably non-economic basis of many decisions that impact on the issue (I ain't moving to the Hebrides however cheap the electricity there might become).  One might add that the Scandinavians have decided they've had enough of their more fragmented systems, too (a big topic).

There are, of course, huge vested interests in play: so we needn't expect a high level of debate.  As the lobbying gets more and more shrill, the arguments get more and more streamlined, down to demeaningly simplistic sloganeering that settles nothing.  It's now just a war for Miliband's Ear, and increasingly for Starmer's, too, as both sides are screaming that there are votes at stake.   

Great spectator sport!  With practical consequences too, down the line.  If anyone wants my view: ingenuity can solve many practical problems, so some of the pragmatic arguments might be resolved by clever market design: but liquidity mustn't be put at hazard - it's too precious.  And that's before you get to the politics of the dreaded Postcode Lottery (which in any case is an argument being deployed by sides!)  Oh, the eternal attraction of doing nothing ...

ND

Commiserations, Dan Cole. Dreadful decision

He deserved much better.  That's about it, really.  It is patently obvious that he was making a genuine attempt at a charge-down (the ref was satisfied with that, at least) and was already airborne,   If Russell wasn't going to take avoiding action (and he needn't), collision was inevitable.  And, as far as one can ever push a counterfactual, it made the difference between the two-point loss and a one-point victory.

Ho, hum, that's the sport.  But on his very last game ...

ND  

Sizewell: another win for French nuclear blackmail

Among the large numbers bandied around by Rachel Reeves was of course well over £10bn of UK money for Sizewell C: and FID is yet to be taken!  Exactly whether this dosh is envisaged as outright cash (as has been the case with the billions already gifted to EDF, even before FID), or dumped straight onto electricity bills, or a combination, I have not yet discerned.  

It's still outrageous - at best a humongous leap of faith, the beneficiary of which is a French concern (and indeed the French state) that has proven itself many, many times over to be unworthy of trust in such matters.  In return for what?  A plant that, even on the most ambitious and optimistic assumptions, could not be generating electricity before the next-Parliament-but-two, and in the meantime will have cost all of us a great deal of non-returnable money.  Who said politicians' horizons extend only as far as the next election at best, and the next headline at worst?

Well of course none of this is to be taken at face value.  They are already pitching for headlines reading "thousands of jobs", although as we know, the hi-tech jobs involved will without doubt be squarely located in France.  The sop of a bit of civil engineering for UK firms - and not even 100% of that, if Hinkley Point C is any guide, which of course it is explicitly meant to be!  If Keynesianism is the guiding theory, you could get a great deal more for your money on vastly more useful civil engineering projects that might actually make some kind of economic return decades sooner than SZC ever could.  Just keeping the money in the UK would be a start. 

And of course there are other short-term considerations, the giveaway being Mr Frog who, on the exact subject of demanding more money for both SZC and HPC (for which, contractually, EDF has sole responsibility) recently stated: "We [UK + France] need to stick together on many subjects - on Ukraine, on all dimensions of our relationship".  We may be sure he really means "cooperation on Small Boats", the carrot of which which the French continually dangle, and then promptly withdraw a couple of weeks later.  Oh, and we must pay for that "cooperation", too.  Such an easy game.

Why are successive UK PMs and Chancellors such soft touches?  Blair, Brown, Cameron, Osborne, May, Hammond, Johnson, Starmer, Reeves ... it's only been Sunak who has ever demurred, and then without any meaningful force.  The rest have all danced to EDF's protracted, staccato jig.  I despair.

ND

Government spraying big numbers up the wall

A range of vital skills and instincts are frequently found lacking in the populace at large, and often also in places where they are badly needed.  Numeracy is one: adequate skepticism concerning the Voice of Authority is another; and, the vital ability to conduct a two-second "do we believe this?" credibility check.

So: WTF can it possibly mean when we read:

Rachel Reeves is set to unveil an £86bn package for science and technology in next week’s spending review 

??   This is "expected to be worth more than £22.5 billion-a-year by 2029".  We know she's recently decided that government capital expenditure needs have no upper limit, but what on earth does anyone imagine this "package" means?  For calibration: the entire UK defence budget is about £60 bn this year, and the government's existing R&D spending somewhat less than £20bn right now.  Government S&T money for the higher education sector is in low single-digit billions. 

OK, higher education isn't the only place where government S&T money is spent, but unless Reeves has just "unveiled" the existing £20bn R&D budget slightly re-classified, how is the balance of "22bn p.a. by 2029" going to be doled out, and to whom?  Either (a) we can ignore it because it's empty; (b) it's gonna be pretty inflationary in some sector or other; or (c) it'll be embezzled on a large scale for purposes not really encompassed by "science & technology": I can see the queues forming already.

I suppose some people ignore these things anyway: but all too many supposedly fact-checked media outlets print them uncritically, and one kinda supposes they are half-believed, in a vague sort of way.  Maybe Reeves thinks that all those Trump-fleeing US academics will read it, and jump on the next plane for Blighty.

But who, exactly, rushes to vote Labour on the back of all this?  I think they'll find there's a great deal more focus on their failure to deliver, e.g., 1.5m new houses and cheaper electricity, come 2029.  Because fail is what they are gonna do. 

ND

Pimping property: update - new agent on the job!

Recap: the estate agent's art has been on full display in the attempt to shift a pair of costly new-build white elephants down the road from Schloss Drew, replete with misleading CGI images and hilariously inventive euphemisms.  

Now, perhaps because there has been no obvious movement on selling these large, smart, luxurious but hopelessly impractical properties (seven bedrooms but no garage, very difficult vehicular access, built into the side of a hill on a busy main road), a new estate agent has joined the fray.  And - all credit to them - they present honest images!  Here's the photo they honourably display of the right-hand property as completed; and below, for comparison, the risible CGI we showed before.

In the flesh: steep, narrow front with retaining walls 

In the first agent's blurb: broad, gently sloping driveway

And here's the steep back garden, which didn't previously feature at all.

And where the first agent quoted a steep price but artificially lowered the front aspect, the second agent accurately shows the steep front ... and quotes a lowered price.  (see what I did there, hahah).  Yes, the price has been dropped!  Well, well.   At £1.65m, though, still pricey - relative to what else that money can get you in the same neighbourhood (i.e. level plot, quiet road, big garden, expansive drive, big garage etc etc, and still very large & fine accommodation).

It must be said, some of the rooms look splendid indeed, and new-build is new-build, all mod cons and warranties too.  Maybe somewhere there really is a very large family of wealthy, hill-climbing hermits who ride only bicycles and public buses, don't need anything delivered to the front door, and very much want to live in spacious luxury on a main road.  In Croydon.

Maybe.  I'll keep you posted.

ND

 

Even Russians find North Korea weird

... though these days, such is the sheer strength of Putin's international positioning, they must be very, very nice to them.  And send them lots of tourists, in gratitude for all the, errr, fraternal bullets and artillery rounds.  And cannon fodder.

So let's see if the Russian magazine piece at this link gets fraternally taken down in the coming days.  (If so, it's archived already: https://archive.ph/k8ULv)  Nothing you wouldn't expect, but revealing nonetheless. 

During the tours, the guides allowed tourists to approach and communicate with supposedly ordinary residents, but Valentina was alerted that they all spoke good English...  And they spoke in the same memorized phrases - that they have everything thanks to their leaders and these are not just leaders, but their fathers, whom they worship. "One of our guides once said that they are like little children holding the leader's hand and do not ask where to go. Because their father always knows everything - what needs to happen, where their direction is, where the country is heading. I thought, this is an interesting comparison with small children. It really seemed to me that they perceive everything as little children," the girl said.  

Some impressive weaponry in the arsenal, for all that. 

ND

"Military Keynsianism" - Starmer's defence pitch

Starmer is an odd bloke: rarely willing to promote a policy on its own merits**, preferring to invoke (or invent) some supposed side-benefits and focus on them.  "Net zero" and renewables?  No mention of zero-what these days; it's all "growth & jobs", "cheaper energy" (yeah, right), "home-grown / less threat from Putin" and "energy security" (always the last refuge of a scoundrel) instead.

Now we have his Defence *aspirations* (or whatever 3% of GDP at some unspecified future date should be termed), and we're to think of them as Military Keynsianism: "a defence dividend for the British people, using this moment to drive jobs and investment throughout the country, providing local opportunities, skilled work, community pride".

It is, I suppose, just possible that a round of additional defence contracts - if such can be conjured out of Reeves' Treasury plans - will result in some of those things.  But if, as so often, it all descends into pork-barrel politics - e.g. Gordon Brown's risible aircraft carriers, oft discussed here - does anything worthwhile come out from the defence point of view?  Much as I'd like to think it would, I have me doubts as they say.

PS: what's a "10-times more lethal army", pray? 

ND 

UPDATE:  quite a good Graun / Martin Kettle piece today, here:  Why is defence such a hard sell for Starmer?  (Did he, or the headline writer, read my post before posing that question??)

_______________

** By contrast, his recent immigration policy statement was promoted on the back of it being "right - because it is fair, and because it is what I believe in", Boris Johnson's opening of the immigration floodgates being a "squalid chapter".  Heady stuff.  Farage concentrates the mind wonderfully. 

UK Defence Review?? Check Ukraine's deep drone coup

What else do we need to say?

OK, I'll say a couple of things, plus a little anecdote BTL.  

• Whatever defence money we can spare, it must at least stretch to keeping all military aircraft under cover ... but then again, the list of potential targets is Just So Great
• Asymmetric warfare with a vengeance: which nation on earth has the greatest capacity to replicate Ukraine's Big Idea on a massive strategic scale?  And which nation is possibly the most difficult on the planet to infiltrate with a load of foreign trucks ..?
• As with the Dambusters' raid, now Ukraine needs to think how it defends against Russia retaliating exactly in kind.  (In 1943, but only after the raid, it suddenly occurred to some bright spark in the War Office that we'd better mount serious protective measures against British reservoirs being hit in the same way.) 
• Submarine-borne nuclear deterrence never looked more useful.  (If you can figure out who's launched the attack ...)

What else should we be thinking about?  But, to our alarmist brethren: please don't say "Putin will now nuke Kharkiv" - because he won't.

ND

_________________________

As a teenager, I was an avid aircraft spotter.  (Hard to believe, I know)  With three mates: and we were seriously organised.  At 6:00 a.m. we would cram into an old Ford Prefect or Austin 1100, and make elaborate, intricately-planned circuits of the south of England, OS maps carefully marked up, stopping off at vantage points overlooking RAF airfields, telescopes in hand.  Rarely were we chased off; frequently we were just a mere wire fence or even hedge away from costly aircraft.  (We once ducked through a hedge to photo a Victor bomber at a range of 100m at most.)

This was in the days of IRA outrages up and down the land and it occurred to us (though not, it would seem, the genius that was Martin McGuiness) that nothing could be easier than to strike at a couple of dozen RAF bases simultaneously, not of course with drones but with hand-carried semtex.  The IRA was replete with desperadoes who'd think nothing of it. 

The effects would have been considerable: hit the British establishment where it really hurt (prestige and prowess); minimise casualties, esp. civilian (if the IRA cared about such things); cause the deployment of tens of thousands of troops etc to guard vulnerable UK premises.  Tens?  Make that hundreds of thousands.

And that's where we are today, I suggest:  i.e., nuclear deterrence is the only way.