Mandygate: rumbles on and on, getting louder

And there was Team Starmer getting cocky about how well their man was doing, seeing off Streeting and Rayner and Trump, basking in the glow of "wartime leader" etc - or whatever they thought was the case - and positioning himself confidently to see off the May elections fall-out.  

The 3-hour period of utter, and highly uncharacteristic radio silence, after the Guardian story broke[1] and before the barefaced denial was issued yesterday evening, must have been a great time to have a bug planted in the (Chinese) coffee machine in No.10.

They must have been lining up Olly Robbins as the fall-guy - and negotiating his deal.  That's not just some middle-management scapegoat, that's Very Big Indeed.  A serious human sacrifice to appease the gods of Starmerdoom.  Wonder what's in his "early retirement package"?  

And - will it be enough?

Interesting to see, in retrospect, just how craftily the earlier Starmer statement was drafted[2].  Did lawyer Starmer - who must, surely, have been told how crucial it was to stick precisely to the script - not know why it was worded the way it was?  Is that what we're to believe?  Well, flat denial is his only option; so flat denial it must be. 

And it's being reported he know about this on Tuesday.  48 hours is a very long time not to come clean: time enough for the leaker (see below) to get to the Guardian, and for the Graun itself to go through the very significant editorial operation that would be needed before dropping something like this.  The whole thing explains why No.10 was already said to be planning to prorogue Parliament early this session - no more PMQs this side of May.  And "it's understood Lammy didn't find out until Thursday" - hahah!  He's obviously (a) completely out of the loop; and (b) as disloyal as all Hell.  (OK, I suppose we all guessed that anyway.)

My immediate thought is: how does this play for La Romeo?[3]   Is it the making of her, because [perhaps] she wasn't involved when Fondlebum was set on - but now knows exactly where those bodies are buried?  You can just hear her opening words in that panicky all-hands meeting:

"Now listen: before we can figure a way out of this, you all need to tell me exactly what happened.   All of it.  Everything!"

ND

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[1]  Hats off to the Guardian, BTW: they've put themselves into the nuclear fallout zone.  Their source must be truly excellent - and still out there, hoho.

[2] “The vetting process was undertaken by UK Security Vetting on behalf of the FCDO and concluded with DV clearance being granted by the FCDO.”  

[3] I say this because she may well be the last person standing after this is finished.  Even then, she's not in the clear:  evidently there's that heavy-duty Deep Throat operator somewhere in Whitehall, for the Guardian to get this leak: and she has a shedload of enemies ... [BTL on that link]

Explanatory note to the previous post

Hi C@W readers - you'll may have tried to open the previous post and found a warning, courtesy of our kindly blog platform hosts.  It's safe to click through - we're not advertising anything lewd! 

But some bot, somewhere, has auto-identified the topic as worthy of, err, deflecting readership away from.  The warning came up about 60 seconds after I posted.

If I find from the stats that nobody is reading the post, I'll experiment with a defused version of the title, to see if that gets it past the censors for wider access.

And later I may post on this whole episode!

ND

UPDATE: have reposted under a different title, and trashed the original post which was getting no traffic.

Starmer is getting cocky

A while back I suggested Team Starmer had decided to tough it out: and I'm now utterly convinced of it.  Among several straws in the wind is a flying wooden beam: he's boasting about taking us back into the single market by stealth!  This is not a man who reckons he's done for at the end of May: quite the opposite, he visibly exudes the same kind of calm faux-authority over the heads of his pygmy-challengers that he did back in 2020, when he was obviously going to win the Labour leadership 'race'. [1] 

Given the fallout amongst the ranks of his former advisers, we must presumably look to Miliband for Team Starmer's current level of brazen confidence; some kind of bargain that runs: you do what I tell you, and if you're still here in June - which you will be - you'll make me Chancellor. [2]  Ominously, Miliband knows exactly what he'd like to do with the role.

It doesn't hurt that, even in the midst of endless and ongoing tactical miss-steps[3], Team Starmer have lighted upon a phrase to use in connection with Iran, which they clearly the believe to be highly felicitous:  I won't be dragged into this war!   

The bottom line is: he currently looks confident, which is 90% of the battle when it's just 330-odd fractious and frightened parliamentary sheep you need to get in line - with the Streetings and Rayners of this world left looking pretty sheep-ish themselves.  Yep, Team Starmer have convinced themselves they are going to see the post-May period out, and in some comfort.

And those May elections?  Is Reform really going to sweep the board, as sone thought inevitable not so many weeks ago?  Well, maybe, but I doubt it.  In my manor, they are a complete rabble, feuding like crazy amongst themselves.  If by some strange twist of the electoral arithmetic they were to get the mayoralty and/or the council, they'd not have a clue what to do with it: and in the meltdown-process of colourful infighting and manifest incompetence thereafter, they would lose any hope of a decent result come the next GE.  Is this representative of Reform across the country as a whole?  I'm guessing so.

One might imagine that Greens, equally full of chancers and losers, are just that little bit less likely to blow things completely by way of fratricide in any council where they get power in May.  We haven't had Peak Green yet; though I'll hazard a guess we've had Peak Reform.  Meanwhile, Starmer struts confidently around his confected B-list gigs here and around the world, and the media portray him in exactly the way Team Starmer have scripted for them.  His nerve, his brazen shamelessness, is holding. 

ND

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[1] Who remembers Long-Bailey or Nandy now?

[2] Though I still maintain that, the longer he hangs in there, Miliband stands a chance of the leadership for himself

[3]  E.g.

• "You can't use our bases ...
• ... oh, actually, yes you can"
• Chagos
• HMS Dragon
• RFA Lyme Bay
• "I need to talk to my team"

... etc etc - and that's just the last few weeks.  Then there was Mandelson, the by-election, ...

Asymmetric warfare: another mighty US fail

In keeping with our readiness to slate pathetic Russian military & strategic performance in Ukraine, once again we must even-handedly slate the current US debacle.

Which started (as is widely commented) with a complete absence of anything that could honestly be described as a strategy - just large-scale deployment of powerful forces that may fairly be described as tactically accomplished.  But (as, again, we all know) tactics without strategy is just empty waste of effort - and life.

And materiel!   I'm not going to open a laundry list here, but take it from me, US losses of important kit have been very significant, betraying a complete and utter failure of US doctrinal development for the drone era.

By stark contrast, Iran has clearly been developing - and executing - very appropriate plans for making the very best of its conventionally much, much weaker hand.  It's as impressive in its own way as Ukraine's efforts (- with equivalent lack of guarantees of ultimate success).

We may only hope that the risible, contemptuous (and contemptible) triumphalism of Hegseth & Trump doesn't prevent the US military & strategic community from quietly learning lessons seriously, thinking very hard, and doing the right things, urgently and in depth.  Sadly, we know from the ridiculous UK aircraft carrier debacle (thanks, Gordon), when you've been set on to spend all your money on crazy WW2-type projects like that, and the new 'Trump Class Battleships", such mega-distractions seriously weigh on the ability to do anything else.

On the plus side: we do know that Ukraine has comprehensively figured out this very traditional asymmetric warfare problem, both in theory and in deeply impressive practice: Taiwan may yet have time (though not much) to do likewise: and even the UK + Europe might be positioned to do something intelligent.

But will we?  One unhappy perspective on this might be that Miliband's (and other nations') NZ obsession is the new national distraction that hinders our efforts.  Not a lot of time for this to be set on track.  As Russian subs patrol our cables, pipelines and offshore energy facilities, the analogy with 1938 is very uncomfortable.

ND

The subliminal impact of $4 gasoline

As is well known, the USA as a nation is addicted to motoring.  The "summer driving season" is a major phenomenon in the oil industry, when many Americans think nothing of driving thousands of vacation road-miles.

And various points along the price curve have mythical status.  It used to be considered that "3 dollar gas" was something no President's reputation could survive: a simple metric for consumer inflation as it is felt in the pocketbook.  More recently, "3 dollar gas" has become a semi-ironic [1] nostalgic look into the rear-view mirror: hey Bud, remember when we used to worry about $3?!   [2]

But $4 is now a reality.  I suspect that simple number alone could be a subliminal factor in dishing Trump amongst his regular base of support.

ND

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[1]  To the extent Americans do irony 

[2] To be fair, it was known to hit $6 - in California.  But that state, like NYC, is often thought of as not really America.

AI: crashing and burning foreseen, in plain view

Munching our popcorn (while we still have fuel to heat it up) & waiting for Trump to crash and burn ...

We've discussed before the AI bubble, its seemingly inevitable forthcoming bursting, and the system-crashing potential it might hold.  Well here's something to give anyone pause:

Source:  CHARTR / date from Bloomberg

It's pretty remarkable to me that Uber needed such a long runway - surely its only major assets are software?  Tesla looks pretty outstanding value & commercial discipline[1] by comparison - and Musk was shooting for the moon, with serious hardware involved, as well as software.  

But why am I gazing at the foothills?  Because then we step back and look at the mammoth on the mountain, and  - wow!  What type of revenues do they "forecast" - and persuade investors of - to make that even vaguely sane?  And OpenAI isn't alone out there.  What kind of economy can afford their products on the necessary scale?

Sometimes you have to look at something - a bullion price spike, a US president - and just tell yourself the obvious conclusion is the correct one.  That Is Insane.

And the US economy[2] has been wagered on this?  Hello China - the rest of the century belongs to you.

ND

PS: for something more edifying on AI, try this:

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[1] One would need to interrogate that tapering-off of the black bars: was it Tesla that bought X?  Had greenie car buyers lost faith in Musk even before 2025 and his rogue DOGE behaviour?  

[2] And I'm the one that has said, many times: in the long run, never bet against the US economy ...