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