Strategy, and a Mandelson 'Masterclass'

Being able to do strategy has something in common with being artistic, mathematical, sporty, philosophical or a natural leader.  Most people could be made a little more adept at the associated skills and practices - maybe by good schooling or training, maybe by growing up around people who genuinely have the attribute - but fundamentally, becoming really good at any of them is a no-hope matter for most people.

That said, being a natural at any of these things doesn't mean being naturally good at them.  It just means: being able to swim in that pool.  And many swimmers in the strategy pool turn out to be bad strategists.

Lots of situations and organisations need strategy: and there's a tendency to grab at anyone who seems to be a swimmer in that pool, and/or for people who can to thrust themselves forward.  But really good strategists are few and far between: so it's not infrequent for a mediocre, or even poor strategist to be directing things, and it not even be realised for quite a while.  What's needed is the leadership to say, decisively, "yes, we need a strategist - but not a crap one".  Obviously, Starmer is no such leader.

Among high-profile genuine, but deeply flawed UK political strategists of recent years I would number George Osborne (often lambasted hereabouts for being no more than mere student-politico grade); Dominic Cummings (whose only thought after the very successful 2019 election campaign was "turn government upside down" instead of "deliver actual results from Brexit", making him just a self-indulgent blue-sky obsessive); and of course Peter Mandelson.

Like many of this kind, Mandelson is really interesting.  Long-term C@W readers will oft have seen me praising his political creativity and deep understanding of how the levers of power can be used in imaginative ways.  I don't resile from any of that.  But throughout his well-documented career, he has made gigantic mis-steps galore, often rebounding directly and very personally upon himself, notwithstanding his ability sometimes to deliver superb strategic advice to those he is gazing up to at the time, from the, errr, grovelling position he adopts.  

His actions in advancing his own cause or defending his won position - often when seriously up against it - have frequently been purposeful and genuinely adroit, albeit pretty transparent to anyone paying close attention (and sometimes to the whole world).  I could list many examples; and particularly enjoyed his very clever handling of what he knew was going to be a ghastly series of revelations the moment the latest Epstein cache hit the media.  Getting ahead of it as best he could; lots of well-chosen exculpatory themes, remorse, blame upon others, "being too trusting", willing to be open & honest about it all, "bigger boys / nasty lawyers dropped me in it" etc etc.  Ultimately a doomed effort, of course, but a miniature masterclass.  (I might even come up with a fisk of his recent performances.)

So: Mandelson - good or bad strategist?   My summary would be: technically brilliant; genuinely creative; mostly succeeding when taking on a difficult task on behalf of / at the behest of someone else; oddly lazy in his own cause (a bit paradoxical, admittedly - but I could elaborate: and it's a trait I have noted in others).

It's a big topic.  Other first thoughts?  

ND   

Trump, Russia, Tariffs, EU ... now Poland

BTL the previous post, anon regales us with this quote relating to a pronouncement from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent:

Donald Trump has reportedly asked the EU to levy tariffs of up to 100% on India and China, in order to increase pressure on Russia to end its war in Ukraine.

Well, the Polish situation demands some kind of response; else the next "unplanned" wave of Gerberas will be over Finland and Estonia.  And I doubt NATO feels able to do much more than throw an aerial defensive screen around, say, Lviv - based firmly in Poland.  Economic measures are all that Europe is really up to at the moment.  The "coalition of the willing" is only looking at what it might do in the event of a ceasefire.

There is no doubt Russia is suffering economically just now (not to mention a growing shortage of gasoline and indeed water (sic) in the Donbas): and it might be made to suffer more.  But it can suffer more!  It's increasingly a war economy; and Russians are like that anyway (see this blog on many occasions).

Tense times.  Who needs the feeble distractions of Rayner and Mandelson?

ND  

She's breached the Code (with apologies to Macca)

 Yes, the usual apologies to Paul McCartney ...

[four bars of plaintive harp music]

Friday morning at five o’clock as the day begins 
One final glance round the smart Whitehall flat  
Cursing the lawyers and kicking the cat 
She goes downstairs to the limo, clutching her handkerchief 
Now for the letter she knows she must write 
How did it all turn to shite? 

   She's   (I'm just a working class lass ) 
   breaching   (Just a poor working class lass) 
   the Code   (What can you do when you've no old school tie?) 
   Hitting the road after breaching the Code in so many ways 

Starmer snorts as he wanders round in his dressing gown 
Picks up the letter the courier brought 
Standing in triumph; another great snort 
He laughs loud, and cries to Victoria 
“Whoopee! - our Angie's gone! 
How did she think she could have my job? 
Always just shooting her gob!” 

   She   (I did it all for the kids) 
   was breaching   (Nice flat in Hove for my kids) 
   the Code   (I wanted everything money could buy) 
   Tried to explode the establishment Code for so many years 

Sunday morning at nine o’clock she is back in Hove 
Making a call to her old comrade Jez 
Join his new party? - let's see what he says ... 

   She's   (What did I do that was wrong?) 
   no judgement!   (I didn’t know it was wrong) 
   None!   (Judgement's the one thing that money can't buy) 
   Couldn't explode the establishment Code after all those tears 
   Crushed by the Code   (bye bye) 

ND

Darren Jones: a different kettle of fish

In the right hands, the plumb job in Government is Chief Secretary to the Treasury.  Seat in Cabinet.  Just below the radar, but enormous power.  In charge of government spending - everybody needs to be your friend.   The best springboard imaginable: the partial list below is revealing[1].

And now, CSttT Darren Jones has sprung into another such job: CSttPM, no less, invented specifically for him, it seems (and to help dig the Starmermobile out of the rut in which its wheels are spinning idly as the engine races).  Yes - Darren, the sharp, confident, facetious smartarse, is in charge of more than just spending now.  Let's see what he does with it:  because such jobs and such people are in the type of pivotal position that can see significant results along several axes, personal as well as political and practical.

In business, the term once used was "troubleshooter" - a person appointed to get something Big & Awkward done, often away from the corporate centre.  Julius Caesar is perhaps the greatest example in history; there's Wellington and Slim in British military annals (and many other besides, of course).  Douglas MacArthur: the list could go on.  Right now, Putin has Sergei Kiriyenko[2].  It's happened to me three times in my career: being given plenipotentiary powers in the hope I could fix some unexpected, pressing difficulty.

The thing is: you're never sure how things will turn out - with the task itself, and what the Man does afterwards.  Caesar came back in triumph from Gaul - and immediately mounted a successful coup.  MacArthur had a coup in mind himself.  Wellington was a bit more constitutionally correct when he had the whole of Europe at his feet: he still became PM.  But Slim just quietly slipped away[3].

The troubleshooter appointment will always be given to someone believed to be capable - that's the whole point - but often also to someone viewed as maverick, which can give rise to the problematic aspect of what happens after the hoped-for success; the unwanted consequence of the Faustian pact.  And if he wasn't (identifiably) a maverick before the assignment, well, lots of power and a free hand, sometimes exercised way out over the horizon ... it can turn a man's head.  Capable, and hitherto reliable, doesn't always mean predictable.

We shall follow Mr Jones' progress with interest.

ND

____________________

[1] Past CSttT's include: James Callaghan, Geoffrey Howe, Michael Portillo, Alistair Darling, Danny Alexander, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak.  (Oh yes, and Chris Philp, whose ambitious little heart nearly exploded at the prospect he had it made, when he briefly held the job.)

[2]  If you haven't heard of him, well most people haven't.  Aye, there's the wonder of the thing - as Sherlock Holmes said in related circumstances

[3]  Zhukov, of course, was effectively banished to Siberia!  but the CP has always been paranoid about military leaders: when you need 'em, you really need 'em.  But afterwards ...  

Angela Rayner: some observations

The Angela Rayner Stamp Duty thing is manna from Heaven for the floundering, ineffectual Badenoch; and great stuff for Kremlin-watchers as we see Starmer digging mantraps for himself, and Wes Streeting desperately trying to appear compassionately on Rayner's side, even as the whole world knows she's been set up by the Labour faction that is determined Streeting himself will succeed Starmer, possibly even quite soon.  

Thus far, the matter has been discussed in rather pedestrian binary terms:

• she's a serial tax-avoider and residence-flipper - and a monstrous hypocrite to boot: or
• her personal affairs & backstory are sad, and legitimately complex (*takes out onion*), and this has led her into an understandable error: but look, she tried to get advice, she's been let down, and it's just all very human.

Personally, I suggest there's another strand to this: she's not particularly literate (lack of education, or brainpower, or both) and can't work through the HMRC guidance for herself.  

She wouldn't be alone in this.  Some of us are fortunate enough in the education and/or brainpower department to be able to make sense of relatively clear HMRC guidance (and a myriad other potentially overpowering bureaucratic verbiage one might meet in the course of a lifetime, e.g. the reams of forms on probate).  But that's just irrelevant for very many folks - however much effort HMRC et al put into wording stuff as clearly as possible - because increasingly few people have any worthwhile level of analytic verbal reasoning.  

Of course, the truly troubling bottom line is that this is evidently no bar to reaching some of the highest levels in the land.  And as noted before with the ignorant cretins at the top of Reform, this leads to one or both of two dire consequences: (a) very bad decisions by the politicians themselves, and (b) leaving them fully at the mercy of the Civil Service - another source of bad decisions - when their own limited analytic powers are overwhelmed.

In the next day or so we'll look at a politician to which none of the above applies: Darren Jones ...

ND

Who fares best against Trump?

The Donald is, by his own estimation, a legendary deal-maker and negotiator.  Well, he does get (some) things done, and indeed sometimes gets his own way.  But how much of this is deal-making?  And how good are his deals?  His reputation in the New York real estate sector sucks is, errr, equivocal.

He's been in action quite a bit this year!  So there's something to score: and we can form an early view on his performance as a negotiator up against several prominent counterparties.  

vs China:  Trump is losing, hands down.  The Chinese are playing him like a fiddle, and he's steadily backing down on the tariff war, step by step.  Yet surely, by every standard of US foreign policy as espoused in the past decade by both his and the Democrat party, this is the only game that truly matters.  Sheesh... this really matters!  - did he think he could simply swat Xi aside one spring afternoon while he was mostly busy, errr, earning his Nobel Peace prize, annexing the whole North American land mass, remodelling the White House, peddling his crap merchandise, running feuds against everyone he's ever had a grievance against etc etc etc?

vs Russia:  jury still out, perhaps, but Putin won't be particularly disconcerted by their exchanges to date.  Relative to the extraordinary prior claims made by Trump ("peace in Ukraine in one day!"), and his huffing and puffing about "consequences", the current state of play is pretty demeaning for him.

vs Mexico and Canada:  given how things looked at the start of the whole tariffs round, OK-ish for M & C.  They've mostly stood their ground, and the world hasn't fallen down around their ears by any means.  Makes Trump's early rhetoric look pretty silly - and that's just on trade.  As for annexing Canada ... (I think we can hear the laughter from here - and Greenland probably isn't too worried just now, either.)  

vs India:  jury definitely still out, because India has options.  Trump has dealt his blow - but will he get any pleasure from what happens over the next months and years?  Not at all clear.  How clever is it to send Modi scuttling to Beijing, hmm?

vs Starmer:  surely, 2-1 to Trump.  Starmer has chosen to grovel, in return for some relative 'gains' (negatively defined, which is the only thing we can say) when compared to the EC, see below.  But it has suited Trump to give a little pat on the head to the biggest arse-licker, just pour encourager les autres.

vs the EC:  a seriously bad result for the EU, courtesy of the unelected EC which holds much of Europe's fate in their hands.  Feeble stuff.  A bit of a surprise, given how comprehensively the EC wiped the floor with Cameron and May.  But from this distance, that probably tells us more about them than it does about the EC.

vs Iran:  personally, I can't call this one yet.  Need to keep it in view: could tell us quite a lot.

Crazy man, crazy times.

ND