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

UK nuclear madness

Always remember what we said here a very long time ago: the whole point of France's nuclear policy is to get other nations to underwrite their astronomical nuclear liabilities.

This is precisely à propos of Mr W's prompting BTL here (he'll kindly correct any details that need correcting) ...

*   *   *   *   *

The Hinkley Point C / Sizewell C story so far:

When EDF (together with Centrica & later still the Chinese) acquired the old British Energy in 2008, they were immediately set on building more of their EPR design of nukes in the UK: HPC was nominated to be the first.  Recall that until after the 2005 GE, Blair was set against a nuke revival which he'd believed to be electoral anathema: but various voices** persuaded him it was a Good Idea.   EnSec at the time was of course ... Ed Miliband.  EDF had the effrontery to announce an HPC start-up date of 2017, and that it wouldn't require a penny-piece of subsidy - the latter line being official government policy up to and including the awful Chris Huhne (remember him?)  

Next milestone event was Fukushima 2011 which, to be fair, was outright force majeure and caused significant mods to be made to the design of the structure in which the EPR reactor would be housed.  OK, so the costs went up as a consequence.  But that was the last externality that EDF can truly be excused of: covid might just also creep in to the reckoning, but not inflation, their other bleat.

During the regime of Ed Davey - to be fair, egged on by that git George Osborne - suddenly EDF was going to get subsidised.  We have written about the awful HPC CfD contract many times here.  It has only one saving grace, on paper at least: project cost overruns are solely for the account of EDF / the Chinese (who've now buggered off) / Centrica.  But given the outrageous one-way changes subsequently made to the CfD in EDF's favour, at EDF's demand, even this is of little comfort.  The project overruns are horrendous; and we know EDF will hold a gun to HMG's head for outright cash subventions at some point.  (Personally I suspect this has already happened, disguised as SZC payments, see below.)

To repeat: once the Fukushima design changes were made, everything subsequently is down to EDF's monstrous incompetence.  EDF hints that UK regulators have kept tinkering unreasonably with new design demands, but remember: the CfD states that unless a new regulation could have reasonably been foreseen by EDF, the latter is indemnified against extra costs arising.  So we can put 'costly regulatory tinkering' out of our minds.

Fast-forward to SZC

EDF, of course, realised even before the ink was on the CfD (which they only signed because they thought Brexit would scupper the project altogether) that they couldn't carry out SZC on the terms explicitly for SZC itself that are actually contained in the HPC contract (i.e. for SZC as a put-option for EDF).  So they carefully played a lobbying game resulting in Boris agreeing to finance SZC on a US-style 'rate base' footing (i.e. underwritten directly by taxpayers) - and then, got HMG to stump up hard cash: a billion here, a couple more there ...  now the cash commitment has hit £11 bn of taxpayer money, rather than the usual 'stick it all on the electricity bill'.  AND - amazingly - although EDF has yet to take FID on SZC, the new reactor is already under construction in France, paid for by us.  FFS !  Talk about "too big to fail" ...

*   *   *   *   *  

So now we loop back to the very first line of this post.  Also, we should stew in the details of how badly in trouble HPC is, and how cash-strapped and liability-riddled EDF is in general; how much HMG needs French cooperation on the Boats issue; and the perennial suspicion the whole civil nuclear programme is there to underpin the military nukes ... and you have a recipe for an ongoing haemorrhage of taxpayers' cash that starts to look seriously injurious.  And in the middle of this, Miliband thinks he can get electricity bills down!

An appalling tale - egregious even by the standards of HMG cockups and nuclear age skullduggery.  I have nothing against nukes in principle: but in practice they just never add up.  If we wanted an SZC, let it be remembered that by far our best-performing nuke has been SZB.  We should have 'simply' (hah!) built an updated SZB. 

ND  

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** including one G.Brown, brother of whom worked for, errrr, EDF

General - if you follow the tags, you'll find loads more C@W posts on these topics.

"Best prepared new govt ever" - what? UPDATED

So the story goes, that the Liz Truss meltdown at the back end of 2022 convinced the world and his dog that Labour was nailed on to be the next government.  At this point, the money and consultancy-resources started pouring in, the media suspended their critical faculties, foreign governments started paying attention to David Lammy, Sue Grey was hired to ensure the would-be ministers were knocked into shape, etc etc[1].  

In short, this was to be the best prepared, most seriously focussed incoming government in living memory.  No more Johnsons, no more Trusses - the grown-ups are in town, taking names and kicking butt!

Well.  In announcement after announcement it transpires they've been winging it all along, and continue to do so.  Just a tiny sample of nonsenses.  Energy: we're obviously covering this one in detail as it unravels, but suffice to note here that in the past few days there's been loose talk from the new energy policy establishment suggesting that when he walked into his new office Miliband had no serious plan whatever to achieve his fatuous 100%-decarb-by-2030 goal, not even a figleaf or some blotchy notes on a napkin: he's now commissioned work to establish whether it's feasible at all[2].

Housing:  any fool could have told Rayner that the Grenfell Inquiry would inevitably result in urgent works to remove and replace cladding up and down the land, absorbing a material chunk of the building industry's available pool of labour.  OK, Yvette Cooper will be told to issue a million more work visas, but it still means Labour's housing targets are as empty as their energy plans.

Tax:  we read today that plans to tighten up on non-doms might raise either nothing at all, or maybe even less than nothing, because walking away is such an easy option for the people in question  -gangway for Mrs Sunak there!  (Is this the most pronounced Laffer Curve known to man?)  But, oh dear, Reeves needed £1bn from non-doms for, err, something worthy!    

You can no doubt chip in with your favourite examples of industrial-scale non-preparedness in terms of detailed policy.  And as for the ethos of casual money-grubbing self-enrichment ...

And then there's Sue Grey herself.  Exactly where is her genius for political management and administrative competence?  Can anyone point to a single manifestation?  The best anyone seems to have on offer - and these are Starmer-directed Cabinet stooges talking off the record in vain attempts to stem the tide of sewage coursing down Whitehall - is that she's really quite a good listener, and if they butter her up nicely they might get some airtime with Starmer just once in a while.

Someone will always say:  Thatcher looked pretty stupid in her early months.  I disagree.  She certainly suffered from Cabinet dissent - not something that Starmer seems likely to replicate - because she'd picked such a 'balanced' team, including some of the most independent-minded, initiative-replete heavyweights that UK politics has produced.  Well, dissent can certainly be a drag.  But she was a master of detail, knew her mind, and had the drive to bring everything with her.  (She also had some genuine capital-P Political strategists on the team: Morgan McSweeney is just a superior student politician of the Jack Straw / George Osborne variety.)  

Very late in the day, Starmer was fed the line that awkward decisions can be dodged if you simply Go For Growth, and that's about all he's got.  A slogan.  Oh, and it's his self-proclaimed responsibility to stop the embarrassing leaks.  Too late, mate, the media have un-suspended their critical faculties and scent blood - lots of it.

Where does improvement in this government's performance come from?  It's not obvious, is it?  

ND

UPDATE:  a BTL Anon has just reminded me of something.  Before the election someone, probably Guido, wrote that Labour high command had been tipped off that a Serious Personal Scandal (within their camp) was circulating in the meejah, and would probably be disclosed during the election campaign; and that they had hatched a strategy for dealing with it.  Then everything fell silent.

If we want to go Conspiracy on this, it's not difficult.  The thing about nuclear weapons is: nobody ever really reckons The Moment has arrived to deploy them - there will always be an even rainier day when you'll need it even more.  The Tories had obviously given up the ghost already - why waste a thermo-nuclear device when there's no hope anyway?  Plus, what has Labour got on, errr, any of us?  Better hold back this time.  That would explain the silence ... but some of those Angry Spads would know ...

Or, there isn't a scintilla of truth in it!

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[1] One can point to several other amusing symptoms, my favourite being the odious Dale Vince who switched from being a financier of the revolting green yoof, to becoming a highly partisan Labour activist, to the point of very ostentatiously attacking the Green Party in seats where they looked like (and indeed were) a serious threat to Labour.    

[2] I can save him the bother, and my fees are modest compared to those of PWC.  The answer is 'Nope'.

'Where is truth' in 2023?

'What is truth?' said jesting Pilate; and stayed not for an answer

A commonplace assertion is that we live in a 'post-truth' world, centuries after the Enlightenment supposedly (under the Whig theory of history) set mankind on an irrevocable path towards, at the very least, valuing and seeking after truth.  That's Truth as it would be understood by a philosophical Realist: existing objectively and independently of anyone's knowing it, or even having the capacity to know it.

Even within this worldview everyone has long resigned themselves to co-existing with all manner of deflections from the straight and narrow: the dogmas of religious fundamentalists (to be tolerated in a worldly manner, up until the point where they start to impinge on everyone else); an intelligent degree of relativism (provided Realism is not ultimately ditched); acceptance that politicians of all sorts are doomed to deal often in half-truths and evasions; knowledge that science only proceeds from one approximation to another, better approximation; that the capacity of most people for understanding and/or dealing with all the truths that are out there to be understood is distinctly limited, with various strategies being needed to accommodate this fact.  

At the end of the day, there's the smug intellectually comforting Realist consideration that a truth ignored or denied is still out there, and will potentially break your toe if you kick out against it.

All that said, the advent of Blair and Bush Jnr ushered in an era when even western politicians, supposedly 'better' than the Putins of this world, increasingly cared not a fig for truth, but merely and shamelessly called for Alastair Campbell to come up with one of his sophisticated utter-bullshit operations to suit the needs of the hour.

The Common Man has always had an interesting role to play in all this.  Firstly, he's not very concerned with the truth or otherwise of the dogmas swirling around (which he knows are well above his pay-grade); he just wants to know what he has to repeat solemnly in public, as and when required, in order for the (current) authorities not to be after him for unintended heresy.  If the dogma changes, he just wants to be told what are the new shibboleths.  In times of religious oppression this becomes an acute and worrying business, but fainter, less lethal manifestations are always in the air: as Homer Simpson says, the highest wisdom is - never be the only person in the room that's laughing.

Secondly, though, the Common Man does know some 'hard' truths very well indeed - most significantly, those that impinge on his making a living: these are the truths that will break your toe.  If he's a blacksmith, he's never going to 'believe' that you can hammer cold metal into a horseshoe, even if some idiot Inquisitioner forces him on pain of death to assert it in the middle of the town square.  Of course the average Inquisition, not wanting to be made mockery of, will stick to things that can confidently be asserted in the certainty that no hard-to-ignore practical disproof will ever be at hand (transubstantiation; virgins on offer for martyrs, etc etc).  Even so, Stalin's and Mao's dogmatic embrace of some outright lunacies in the scientific sphere forced any number of Soviet / Chinese engineers etc to endorse them publicly but ignore them without comment in their daily activity:  these ones require active doublethink.  (It has always seemed likely to me that the Stalins of this world don't much care about this phenomenon, just so long as everyone lines up for the 'loyalty test' of repeating faithfully the dogma of the day.  In fact, for loyalty-test purposes alone, the dafter it is, the better.  And the Common Man is generally OK with doublethink.)

*   *   *   *   *

What has caused me to muse on all this in May 2023?  The other day I watched Official Secrets, a rather good, fact-based movie (haha!) about the GCHQ whistle-blower who leaked a document in which the Bush operation sought the UK's assistance in blackmailing various UN delegations in order to swing a UN vote that would formally legitimise Gulf War 2 - not that neither Bush nor Blair ultimately much cared about that legitimation.  Whistle-blowers, of course, are just that small minority of people that can't bring themselves to do the doublethink.  It's a small minority indeed.

But ancient history be blowed: look at what we are faced with right now (- you can pitch in with your own favourites):

• Starmer systematically and merrily reneging on every one of his "10 pledges", with such pious outriders as David Lammy and Polly Toynbee all rushing to assert this doesn't matter a whit
• the complete absence of any reliable accounts on significant matters of the day such as the blowing-up of the Nord Stream pipeline
• the complete works of Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Megan Markle etc ad nauseam

A particular favourite of mine - the 'progressive' line on trans self-identification - is thrown nicely into relief by this story in today's Graun (a paper which is actually, and to its credit, trying to drag itself painfully away from the progressive line).  This piece is really worth reading - it is absolutely hilarious in its straight-faced delivery of utter nonsense. 

NHS treatment algorithms ‘not taking transgender patients into account’:   Medics say trans people being put at risk by lack of evidence on how to assess them by gender-based metrics

Or to put the matter more simply: as 99.9% of humanity knows very well, "Trans women are, errr, men"  Now that's the kind of truth that really breaks toes when kicked against - ask Nicola Sturgeon.  

So: God Save The King!  And don't press me (or the Common Man) too closely on that Holy Anointing Oil ...

ND

Reasons to be, errr, cheerful?

I must be joking, right?  Death of the Monarch; new PM with the most shocking lack of appropriate qualifications, or abilities, or 'ear'[1]; economic crisis; crazy energy plans issuing from every western orifice; war raging.

Well, yes.  But here's a list of the straws I'm clutching at this morning:

• As Kev noted BTL a propos the Harry/Meghan thing, Charles has been well advised - that speech of his last night was smart in all sorts of ways: "I'm not rowing back on the 'Queen Consort' thing; I'm not writing any more Green Ink letters; I know what the constitution means" etc etc
• Much as Starmer rushed to frame Truss as "nothing new"[2], with the passing of HMQ and the Winter Crisis about to break there's actually no possibility of thinking of Truss as continuity-anything.  If she's smart, (OK, sorry: if she has a team of half-way decent advisers) she'll hitch herself to the new Carolian age every way she can: a huge vicarious honeymoon period with goodwill and benefit-of-the-doubt swilling around everywhere - it's there for the taking.  Starmer?  he's that old Johnson-era bore.  See what we're doing here?
• BBC is on eggshells.  Troublemakers can't get a peep right now.  Bloody right, too.  That'll last for a while, also.
• Oh, and: Ukrainian counter-offensive is being conducted very adroitly.  Putin entering another round of screw-ups (to be continued ...)  

Go on trolls, you know you want to tell us Russia is winning hands-down. 

ND

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[1] in her statement she told us that the Queen was "the very spirit of Great Britain".  Does she have the slightest idea how hurtful that is to an Ulsterman?  How it convinces them they are completely forgotten in Westminster?  Anyone wanting to be PM has to be the instinctive master of this stuff (as well as needing staff who are even cleverer still).  Sheesh.  Maybe she is beyond redemption after all.

[2] you can always spot Framing - they can't help themselves saying it three times in a row and twenty times thereafter

Edging closer to winter 2022-23 in Europe

Neither Tory leadership candidate really wants to acknowledge what's coming down the line for Xmas.  They'd much prefer to trade upbeat, positive-sounding stuff.  Boris sure as Hell doesn't want it to be discussed: anything that goes tits-up will be the exclusive responsibility of Whomever Follows, because, hey, there was no delinquency on his watch.   The same reticence can be seen across Europe.  We mulled this over four weeks ago; but as I return from a short hol, evidently the prospects for winter still remain too scary for anyone to acknowledge in full detail.  I suppose we must credit Gordon Brown (not a man who ever got much credit from C@W, and who has much to atone for) for at least having a try.  Even he only talks about domestic energy bills, as if the energy itself is not at issue.  And what of the food?

At the time of writing, only Italy and Slovakia are receiving any Russian gas to speak of: supplies to Germany are down to a trickle.  The gas systems of Europe are so stressed and constipated as they try to replace this with 'reverse-flow' sources - LNG terminals to the west of Europe, pushing gas eastwards - that various technical limitations have been reached and there's even spare capacity at UK LNG terminals right now: the amount we can onward-export via cross-channel pipelines is maxxed out.  The UK, and even more so, Spain (which is similarly well-provided with LNG terminals, but really can't export much to France at all) are islands of 'low' (relatively low) wholesale gas prices.  Demand destruction looms across industrial Europe.  And it's a really hot summer!

(Speaking of which, hot weather sends electricity prices up, too ...)

Presumably, Putin is showing his hand, gas-wise, as early as this in order to give European politicians a low-impact (relatively low) demo of what's to come.   If, despite the inclinations of France / Italy / Hungary / many German businessmen towards an "accommodation", Europe actually has to wear this in winter 2022-23, the dynamics of world trade will be monumentally distorted.  To say nothing of the politics.  Ukraine may be planning a spectacular counter-offensive for the weeks to come, and China continues its firework display: but otherwise, all eyes are on Germany.  What will Scholz do?

ND 

The beast that is Boris

From Clive, BTL on yesterday's Boris post, expanding on a short comment he'd been picked up on:

Re: "The energy inputs for creating and sustaining media (and political) momentum are much higher here..." ... What I was getting at, tricky to explain, was it only took a Howe resignation speech, a leadership contest and some cabinet members talking Thatcher into resigning. All mundane stuff. The merest hint from a few, largely behind closed doors, and Thatcher resigned. There wasn't any inclination in her to keep fighting through the second round of the leadership contest. Contrast with what it took to get Johnson to go (not that he's actually gone yet, but we have to -- stifle a guffaw here please -- take him at his word he really will go, really he will), literally every, bar a few exceptions, cabinet minister to tell Johnson, in public he must go and/or resigning. Plus a great gaggle of PPSes and junior ministers. It was touch-and-go whether the 1922 Committee might have to blast him out of Downing St with heavy artillery. Both the parliamentary party and the mainstream media had to throw everything at him, 27x7, for weeks. Months, even     [my emphasis] 

Interesting.  Yes, Boris is unusually obdurate.  In fact, he's a pretty extreme case in many dimensions, a fact easily forgotten when he's in smiley, jokey-witty-banter, all-out charm mode.  That "really rather good" resignation speech with it's nicely crafted phrasing.  Lots of 'extreme' politicians can do that to people, particularly in the flesh ...  And what will it still take now, actually to get him out of the door?  Oh yes indeed - another big input of energy still needed, to drive the stake home.

Here's a thesis.

Most people in societal contexts (and also many people even when they are cast adrift from company) are not much under the sway of any kind of inner primordial beast that knows only the urge for gratification, the Will to Power (Wille zur Macht), survival in all circumstances and against any odds; never say 'die', only 'attack': the cornered alpha predator, wounded but still fighting.  Most people recognise social constraints: the price we pay for the benefits of living in a society. 

Those who are thus possessed of the demon, but who still partake of society to some degree (and are 'successful' enough to be prominent), are generally to be found in the ranks of callous and bullying corporate warriors, big-swinging-dick traders, sportsmen in the fighting arts, ruthless lords of organised-crime, aggressive soldiers, manic artists, ambitious politicians.  With a few constraints still being observed - on a good day.  But if completely beyond the pale, they are Johnny-Byron wild men of the woods, pirates and bandit chiefs ... or the occasional politician leader who hacks his way into a position of outright dictatorship.  Not much social inhibition with William of Normandy, Peter the Great, or Kim Jong-un.

Boris Johnson famously knows almost no social restraints on his hedonistic and status-seeking pursuit of personal gratification.  Lying?  No problem.  Loyalty?  Never heard of it.  Family responsibilities?  None that he can think of.  Consistency?  Don't be daft.  Integrity?  No interest.  Shame?  You're kidding.  Respect for the rules?  They don't apply, he was given a permanent pass at birth.  Modesty in lifestyle?  Gimme gimme gimme.  Fellow feeling?  ... etc etc.  As he apparently told Cummings when musing that he ought to be his own chief of staff and head of communications: so I'll fuck it up - so what?  What's the point if I can't do whatever I want?

And then look at the face, whenever he's in any kind of sporting endeavour - even with children.

That's naked aggression, unabashed will to win.  'King of the World'.  Will to Power.

And now ask why it took what it did, to get him to resign; more even than Thatcher or Gordon Brown.  And consider that, if he isn't forcibly defenestrated right now, he'll still be plotting ways to hang on during whatever process the Tories will now go through to find a successor.

You might think what follows a little extreme; but if you want a graphic portrayal of the animality of the Will to Power in its rawest human form, read Robert Harris' Archangel.   The historical backdrop is Stalin's reign of terror but by the time of the action of the novel, that's at one remove; it's the past.  What's chilling, truly chilling, is the appearance in the book of Harris' most menacing creation** - the long-lost Son of Stalin, a beast of pure, undeflectable Will to Power.  It's through this device that Harris conjures up what it must have been like, even to think about dealing with Stalin, let alone opposing him.  Lenin knew he was too dangerous for power.  Probably everyone did.   Much good did it do them.

OK, 'personable' Boris also has the buffoon about him and is not (so far as we know) given to personal violence, even if he was famously willing to facilitate it.  But his will to win, to survive, to prevail in all circumstances and on his own terms, is not, errr, easily deflected.

Why are high inputs of energy needed to get him out, Clive?  That's why. 

ND

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** Even more chilling than his Cherie Booth in The Ghost 

Mr Putin's Gas is Heating Things Up

We've several times mused over Putin's gas weapon:  how he's carefully kept Germany supplied and, in turn, how careful Ukraine has been with the transit pipelines; how 'green' ignorance on the critical and frankly irreplaceable role of gas in European economies contributed to the remarkable willingness of European countries to approve swingeing sanctions; how Putin couldn't believe this degree of ignorance really existed; how on earth Germany might do without their continual fix of Russian gas.

Well now he's done it: not content with shutting off supplies to non-ruble-compliant buyers in half a dozen 'lesser' countries, Putin has now cut back Nord Stream 1, Germany's only direct import route from Russia, to 40% of capacity, at exactly the time new German laws require that much-depleted gas storage be steadily filled, in order to be full at the start of winter.  The Germans are running around like headless chickens, busily bringing old lignite burners, FFS, back into the powergen fleet.  There isn't a country in Europe with any coal capacity that isn't actively trying to maximise it, Greta or no Greta.

The MSM in this country hasn't really cottoned on yet: hey, it's a record June heatwave!  Barring some astonishing (and right now, quite unexpected) climbdown by somebody, this makes next winter a perilous time for us all: outright gas shortages in mainland Europe, and unheard-of prices everywhere.  Oil won't be far behind gas and electricity.

What is the UK government doing?  Tinkering with a couple of coal plants.  What it's NOT doing is preparing the populace for what's to come.  Ordinarily, this would be a rather obvious thing to do: at least there's a very genuine externality to blame, however you define it.  But I guess an 'optimist' like Johnson has absolutely no interest in looking forward further than, well, the next shag.  I can't even guess how this is going to play out, socially or politically.

ND

Only Psychopaths Need Apply ...

Here's a really telling piece of pop psycho-philosophy for our times. 

Who could she possibly mean?

It's Veronika Stepanova, a Russian online "psychologist" with a big youtube following, declaring that only a psychopath/sociopath (- ideally, a high-functioning one with a good IQ, natch -) is fitted to be a President.  Unfortunately I haven't got the direct link but you can view the relevant extract in this tweet.

In summary:  to be a good President, it takes someone with a pathological drive for power who can follow the necessary path of listening only to himself, and not the law, without conscience or guilt.  It's hardly a novel thesis: indeed, it's Nietzsche 1.01, The Will To Power, albeit expressed more artistically there.  Only such a man can become a Beethoven, a Caesar, a Napoleon who were certainly all complete shits.  Nietzsche included Goethe but I'm not sure that's as clear an example.  You can add your own favourites to the rollcall: many people put both Gordon Brown and Boris Johnson on the list, which (if that's right) goes to show it's a necessary characteristic but not a sufficient one.

(Ironically, it was of course Stepanova's compatriot Dostoevsky who gave us a compelling of the "maybe necessary, but not sufficient" aspect, in Crime and Punishment.)

It's also a view commonly held by many of our BTLers, who often include the sentiment that it's why they despise all politicians.  OK: but that still leaves a couple of key points to consider:

• It ain't just politicians, is it?  It's great artists (per Nietzsche: consider Monet for example, another self-focused shit); business innovators (libel is libel and I'm sure we all have our nominees); scientists ... and so it goes on.
• So - despise them or not: do we, actually, need them nonetheless?  Nietzsche, of course, didn't care about what "we" need, it was all art-for-art's-sake with him.  But George Bernard Shaw certainly thought we needed them: the hungry man had best follow the fat man, because fattie knows where the food is.

We are stuck with them!  Lamentably, there are those who merely think they are Napoleons - Raskolnikov, Johnson - and we are stuck with them, too.

ND

Boris on the Rocks: Predict That Vote!

 ... and not before time.

I suppose everybody already knows what they think about the shameless oaf.  If not, have a read of this.

Open thread, with particular glory going to any BTL-er who calls the vote correctly during the course of the day.

ND

UPDATE  - This bloke wins the compo, hands down

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/07/professor-dubbed-mystic-meg-of-politics-says-boris-johnson-will-be-out-by-autumn

Now, if he'd like to email us & claim his free subscription to our own wonderous political sooth-saying ...  

Mandelson's 'Starmer' strategy looks like a winner

The bulk of the Left of the Labour Party, having thoroughly swallowed the mendacious soft-focus "I'm really a Corbynite" leadership pitch of Kier Starmer, rapidly became disillusioned (and in some cases, defenestrated) when he started purging the Peoples Party in a singularly calculating manner. 

And we know whose are the calculations: it's Mandelson, the preeminent British political strategist of the age. 

I feel we may now summarise his 2019 thinking, and estimate his chances of success.

1.  Corbyn has done a Thatcher**, potentially sterilising the Labour vote for years to come

2. The only chance of reversing that lies in someone who looks the part (besuited, established), grabs all the levers of power within the party  AND ...

3. ... methodically, gratuitously, ruthlessly and flamboyantly takes every opportunity to do Corbyn and his acolytes down (in ways that Hague, IDS and Howard could never do to Thatcher).  You don't want an excrescence of people who remind the electorate of Corbyn and, crucially, you don't need them; neither for their pitiful subscriptions NOR as election-time infantry  -  because elections are lost by sitting governments, and won by clever media strategies funded by big donations, not knocking on doors

And now we come to the reason why this all might come to fruition in less than a single political generation.

4. Johnson is always going to self-destruct: possibly sooner rather than later: the key is to be in position for when it happens

With any luck (thinks Peter) it'll be Johnson who, in turn, sterilises the Tory Party as did Thatcher, for another decade of Mandelsonian influence.

Looks like it's going to work.  Still: at least Mandelson is intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich, eh?

ND

_____________

** there's many a Thatcherite that has been in 30-year denial on this.  They have forgotten, or may never have tried, getting support for the Party during the leaderships of the aforesaid Hague, IDS and Howard.  Some things are never forgotten or forgiven by the electorate: Corbyn committed that kind of sin, and so IMHO has Johnson.  

Axing those 91,000 Civil Servants

We learn that Johnson has packed off all his ministers to come up with bright ideas for saving a bob or two, thereby to forestall the the current and fast-growing economic crisis.  I'm sure we've all suffered fatuous "initiatives" like this at work, and had cause to marvel at the inanity of it all.  If your Chancellor doesn't have advisers of the calibre of a Keynes to come up with the broad macro-strokes that will be required, there's just no point.   We gather this particular "idea" is attributable to the execrable Rees-Mogg.  If BJ imagines saving a couple of billions by axing 91,000 civil servants will contribute anything meaningful, he's as stupid as anyone ever imagined.

(a) None of us want a bloated civil service, nor a bunch of workshy WFHers on the payroll; but unless by some miracle he can identify exactly those 91,000 people who are collectively & personally responsible (haha) for the global crisis we now face it will have purely disruptive consequences - and broad-spectrum ones at that - at exactly the time he's enough on his plate;

(b) I'm no expert on how public finance accounting works, but I don't see how it will save money for a good few years; 

(c) If he wants a diversionary tactic against voters noticing his own crass behaviour and manifest unfitness for office, there are many better ones, at infinitely less cost, to be had.  The only diverting that will happen will be of governmental time and energies.

As we know from covid, when the shit really hits the fan, the government cheerfully moves the whole nation onto the public payroll anyway.  The shit that's almost certainly going to happen between now and the next election makes this an entirely spurious 'policy'.

Discuss!

ND

Croydon Goes Bankrupt: The Sequel

The story so far:  in a series of stunning scandals and maladministration, a curiously non-ideological one-man Labour dictatorship in Croydon reduced the largest London borough to bankruptcy.  Considerable opprobrium lighted upon this individual, his crazy schemes and disgraceful neglect of residents; but Croydon looks demographically fairly safe for Labour, not least because Tory voters are fairly widely spread across the vast borough, whereas Labour votes are nicely concentrated geographically, sufficient to hold the council and 2 of the 3 parliamentary constituencies.

Meanwhile in Croydon South, the only constituency held by the Tories, the hyperactive and "creative" MP Chris Philp came up with a wizard wheeze to solve his perennial local problem.  The Labour council was forever approving planning applications his core voters hate.  So, reckoning that a borough-wide elected-mayoral system would be a lot less wasteful of Tory votes, and might conceivably come up with a Tory majority, he organised a campaign + referendum to switch to the executive mayoral system (the same system just cancelled by Bristol voters: these enthusiasms come and go).   Philp's Croydon referendum campaign, bitterly opposed by Labour - despite official Labour policy being in favour of elected mayors -  succeeded by a huge majority.  Hardly surprising: the Borough was by then bankrupt and the scandals had achieved unusually wide currency, local and national.

However.

The Tories then selected their current leader - i.e. leader of the Minority on the council - as Mayoral candidate, simply on Buggin's Turn.  He's a nice enough chap (always the most damning thing you can say about a person) but has the charisma of a potato, and no more than the usual local profile enjoyed by a councillor, i.e. virtually zero outside his own patch.

Labour, having recovered their wits after the crushing referendum result, suddenly discovered they were, after all, in favour of elected mayors, and pulled a serious stroke by selecting a genuinely well-known and genuinely local candidate: career politician Valerie Shawcross.  She'd been Leader of the Council many years ago; a Deputy Mayor in the GLA for many subsequent years; has a superb grasp of London politics; is fairly moderate and well liked, as these things go; and has completely clean hands as regards the recent Croydon Labour scandals.  Her campaign (notable for a complete absence of the colour red!) was excellent and of course Boris is a gigantic ball-and-chain just now.  What made her prospects even better was that Mr Potato and the Tories ran a very poor campaign, with truly lame leaflets etc.

But she lost!  In an election-night count that went on for 36 hours(!), with recounts, the Tory won by less than 2%.  As they say around here, inability to count is what got Croydon in this mess in the first place ...

Philp's gamble, which must have seemed like a slam-dunk only a year ago, will have cost him some sleep over the past three weeks.  But it's come off.  Couldn't happen to a nicer chancer.

(Sorry, that's, errrr, chap )

ND 

Might Starmer gets his Man after all?

 So last week I wrote about how Boris would survive, undeservedly, due to Ukraine and Labour being so weak. However, today he came to Parliament to apologise and was defenestrated by Keir Starmer. 

Not that in the long term this should matter, but the way the whole partygate story is unfolding may well end up doing for Boris. Firstly, on his own terms, he has lied and been fined. For me this is a very confected story for now, but still. he was guilty as charged. 

The bigger issue is that Priti Patel was also woeful before in defending the Rwanda policy; a policy which needed much better communications than it has had. it would always be controversial but the way it was announced does seem like a dead cat to distract from partygate. Which is a shame, as doing something about illegal immigration should be very popular and is needed after generations of politicians ignoring it as too difficult. 

The real mess will be if Boris gets more fines. Keir has laid the marker now that he is a convicted liar. Apparently Boris is under investigation by the Met Police for six more potential breaches. I can see him hanging on for one more, but after that the litany of abuse will be to  much and he will resign or be forced to face an internal election at best. 

So the odds on the Survivor appear to have come in shorter during the week!

When Do The Bread Riots Start?

A more than usually speculative post ...

Last week, the price of petrol went up noticeably (~3%), but for me even more significant were increases in the prices of milk at Tesco (5.5%), and - highly symbolic - the brown bread we favour (12.5%). 

Historically, British bread riots were when the price of a loaf went up from, like, 4d to 5d.  So we're halfway to that kind of increase.  In France, received wisdom is that Les Gilets Jaunes kicked off as fuel-price rioters.  There's nothing I can see that will do anything to reverse the current inflationary trend - in fact, quite the opposite.

When does modern British man/woman hit the streets over the cost-of-living?  And - will it be before or after the 'personal' costs of Net Zero Carbon hit home in a really visible way?

I put it that way because this week saw the launch of the fat government document purporting to be its Net Zero Strategy (alongside a distinctly, nay frostily skeptical Treasury document on the same theme).  Ordinarily, as part of our service to readers I undertake to review these things systematically; but this time there's no point.  The main strategy doc is so full of numerical nonsense and indeed internally contradictory numbers, it's an outright embarrassment - are there any Civil Servants left with an ounce of pride? - and can only be taken as something for Boris to wave at COP26.  (He'd have done better to stay with the highly complimentary assessment of the UK in a review from "Climate Transparency"  [one of those proliferating green NGOs] which has us as by far the best performer of the G20 nations - out on our own in a category of one.)  However, one thing is really clear: big costs are on their way.

In one very obvious scenario, COP26 could be a PR disaster.  It took a lot of effort to prevent the same outcome at Paris '21, when host-nation France was putting in 120% diplomatic effort and had a lot of other big nations onside anyway.  Doesn't look particularly auspicious for Boris right now, although Kerry, the EC (if not all euro-nations) and the UN apparatus will be more than a little helpful to his cause.  Crazy promises of cash might be forthcoming to work the trick.  On the other hand, stay-away Xi might put in a dramatic appearance and engineer himself into the position of being 100% pivotal: "either acknowledge me as the saviour of the world, or I pull the plug".  Who could be surprised if COP26 ends in fiasco, with the 'developing' nations stomping out due to their pockets not being adequately lined with gold; then Xi summons the developing world leaders to Beijing for an early Xmas present?

Anyhow, unless Boris engineers a half-triumph for himself, I reckon he's gone before Easter.  Then Rishi can announce the resumption of fracking, etc etc ...  Oh, and deal with those bread riots.  What a good job there's currently no Leader of the Opposition.

Have a great weekend!

ND

Energy Crisis Rumbles On

This could get interesting.  Thus far, nothing fundamental has happened that should cause deep alarm, and the (UK) government has actually responded quite intelligently.  But there's an obvious risk that nerves are lost and mad policies get enacted in a hurry, which later become hard to unravel (see several of Sunak's little wheezes over Covid).

First of all, what does anyone expect when the whole world (a) is trying to stop using coal (yes, even China and India, though not trying very hard); (b) has installed epic quantities of wind power; and (c) is recovering strongly from the pandemic, including running big schemes for massive infrastructure development?  Oh, and the world's biggest producer (little Volodya, this means you) is willfully holding back supplies for political reasons?  

Commodity price spikes, that's what.

Although every country will have its special circumstances, the basic phenomenon is hitting everyone.  So - the market (and it's only relatively recently that the gas market has become global, thanks to LNG and the gradual cessation of mad oil-linked pricing in the Far East) is functioning correctly!    

One of the first things that will happen is that US shale producers (those still standing, that is) will be dusting off their drilling plans, having experienced an awful 18 months of rock-bottom gas prices.  That'll help.  (Wonder whether Boris will take another look at fracking, too ... but not this side of COP26!)   And not just gas production: the economics of a whole range of energy-related items will change, too: grid-scale batteries - the major beneficiaries of electricity price volatility, which is what we're seeing - are making absolute fortunes right now.  Some will benefit hugely, some will not:  the list is endless.

But what might policy makers stumble into at a time like this?  Actually, Kwasi Kwarteng gave a very good defence of the free market when he spoke over the weekend (as did Boris in his incoherent bumbling fashion): hopefully this means they aren't inclined to intervene in stupid ways.  The principles they've given for NOT bailing out the tiny suppliers (who shouldn't even exist - a real indictment of Ofgem that they ever got supply licences: many of them are outright scammers), but ensuring the smooth functioning of the "supplier of last resort" mechanism, seem prudent enough.  But the need to intervene in the chemicals industry (which I think is fair, given we are in uncharted territory) might result in mission-creep on other fronts.  The special-pleaders are forming a long queue ...    

What else?

Russia:  the Euro-wallahs are pretty angry with Putin's naked ransom-holding over Nord Stream 2.  What will they do?  Germany has an election coming up ...

Europe:  expect plans to shut down coal & lignite plants to be thrown into reverse (but not this side of COP26 ..!)  Even the Graun has noticed that Europe is fundamentally hooked on natural gas, whatever the greens might like to wish for.

Nukes:  EDF will be salivating at the prospect of a large-scale failure of nerve by HMG on a new public finance mechanism for more new nukes.  Rolls Royce won't be far behind with their odd "mini-nukes" plans (they aren't so "mini" at all).

Lefty-greens:  these types never miss an opportunity to set up their demented wails ("if only we had gone over to 100% wind five years ago, none of this would have happened ... oh, wait a minute ...";  "this shows the need for 100% nationalisation and a New Green Deal which involves everything we've ever wished for including Trans Rights, all bundled up together in green string") etc etc.  I think we may safely ignore them, just as Kier Starmer wisely does.

COP26:  The entertaining prospect emerges that November's COP26 might take place against a background of power cuts, if not to the conference hall then to industry.  (Actually I think that's more likely in Feb-March, but we'll see).  In any event, the whole thing has become more problematic for Boris and his longed-for global "king of the world" PR triumph, because even though most countries will politely defer big "retrograde" measures until after November, few of them will nowadays have quite as much stomach for "wind power solves all problems", or "you rich nations can easily afford $100bn p.a. for us developing nations" - in private, anyway. 

There are loads of other potential ramifications but I'll stop there for now.

Will the lights go out?  Regular readers will know I endlessly back National Grid to prevent this.  But this year, the cost of doing so will be very high indeed.  And you know what?  If we get a serious cold spell, they might actually fail this time.

ND

Dominic Cummings: The Silly Season

Sorry about the lack of posting: in my case, two deals to close before 31 July.  And hols soon!  

Anyhow, in the meantime one of our regular anons offered us this BTL yesterday, on the subject of Dom  - Dom Cummings, that is!

"Dom is a tragic case, very bright and driven guy, could have been a real asset to the UK, who gets shafted (like pretty much everyone who works long enough alongside Boris, he's not special), takes it personally and proceeds to make himself unemployable by not just spilling beans but pouring them on the floor and rolling round in them naked. Even I'd think twice about employing him. Real waste of talent. 'Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide' "

(We like the cultured stuff so thanks for that, anon.)

So: by way of a silly-season potboiler  -   would DC have survived at all in former ages, or suffered the fate of Savaranola?  Have his revelations already been priced into Boris' reputation?  Does he have anything more to offer, or is he beyond polite society's pale, a broken reed?   Discuss!

But do remember - the laws of libel apply online ...

ND

The Ambitions of Mayors

We all know that every soldier has a field marshal's baton in his knapsack, and that every MP wants to be PM.  Theoretically.  If it were to be handed to them on a plate.

But there are degrees of ambition; and not every MP has the kind of relentless Julius-Caesar ambition that stops at nothing.  Those that do, while they do, think of little else, every waking moment.  Asleep, they dream about it.  To the extent you can identify those ones (steam issuing from the ears is usually a sign), whenever something big goes down it's always fun to watch and to speculate how they see it; how the event impacts on them; how they try to turn it to their advantage.  

It's pretty clear that the advent of elected mayors in the UK provided a form of outdoor relief for the Truly Ambitious to essay the Caesar-in-Gaul trick.  First out of the blocks was Ken Livingstone, a man of boundless self-confidence and chutzpah - but the timing didn't work for him: he never stood a chance of nipping in ahead of Gordon Brown.  By the time of the 2010 Labour leadership vacancy, he was pretty vacant himself, a busted flush shouting at people in the street.

Boris, by contrast, worked it all to his advantage and a couple of lucky breaks later, here we all are.

Which brings us to the current difficulties of Sir K.Starmer.  Who'll be figuring out the next phase of their strategies now?  

By some accounts, none other than Angela Rayner (41) works permanently and purposefully to advance her own cause.  She certainly showed infinitely more fight in her own crisis than Rebecca Long Bailey in either of hers (x divided by 0 being infinity), with a gaggle of outriders in the field to cover her flanks with the meeja.  (RLB had an army ready to do her bidding: but she never blew on the horn.)

But Exhibit A is Sadiq Khan.  I probably don't need to convince you that he is firmly set on the Top Job.  Those mayoral roles, of course, come with the perils of fixed-term schedules, but Boris finessed that by re-entering the Commons a year before his London term ended.  We may confidently assume Khan expected to do the same, probably in 2023.  But will he now feel that's too late?   Starmer looks like he might implode before that; and in any event, Boris may pull the GE trigger before then, too.  Can Khan be sure Starmer's successor will be equally short-lived in post?  He's 50 now; how strong a challenge could he mount at 60, say?   Logically, he has to be in Parliament no later than at the time of the next GE.

I don't think we should be surprised if he seeks a "dual mandate" (as it's known) at the first opportunity: a nice, diverse Zone 2 parliamentary seat.  He's sufficiently transactional, he might even force that opportunity by getting someone to resign for him; though I'm not sure Labour Party rules would give him any certainty of being put on a by-election ballot paper, whatever the locals might want, if the Starmer machine retains executive power ...  Decisions, decisions.  One thing's certain: he'll be on manoeuvres at all times, and (for anyone even vaguely amused by this stuff) his public utterances should be monitored with interest.  As a minimum, watch him claim titular championship of the supposed new Labour bedrock of metro-bedsits and diversities.

This all tends to make us look in the direction of Manchester to that other mayoral paragon, lovable little Andy Burnham (51).  In principle, all the same structural considerations apply to him.  But ... does he strike us as in the same league, ambition-wise?  My best guess is that he wouldn't force the pace proactively, and is more in the "if it fell in my lap ..." category.

Any other foaming-at-the-mouth candidates we can spot in the ranks of the People's Party?  And what will they be up to next?

ND

The Green Industrial Revolution re-launch

I have a flashback to 2010, then we had a Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who was trying to overcome the huge challenges of the Financial Crash, whilst watching his popularity decline. 

Today it is Boris, struggling with the Covid pandemic, trying to maintain his now tarnished popularity.

Let's have a re-launch the advisers say, something fun and that appeals to everyone, with a suitably long enough time frame that we don't have to do anything now, but will win some Brownie (see what i did there?) points for vision and strategy etc.

And lo, we are presented with the Green industrial revolution. An idea stolen from Rebecca Long-Bailey of the Labour party no less. The benefit to this is there is hardly any meat here to worry about or initiatives that will cost too much when they meet reality. A downfall meme on this is surely only hours away. 

The idea of greening the economy itself is a good one, just ill-suited for 4 year parliaments to really implement. 

However, I am going to defend one stand-out idea. That of phasing out sale of petrol and diesel in ten years. This to me is exactly how Government should regulate. A simple goal to understand and the technology already exists to make this possible. The private sector is left to steer the ship the right way. 

This way is way more efficient than say setting up our own green car company or legislating like the Green party want for everyone to have a free bus service. 

As for the rest of it, tomorrow's chip paper. 

Tories' Persistent Poll Lead: Two Theses

 There must be many a leftie tearing their hair at this:

It's rather bigger than some recent Tory poll leads, but by no means an outlier.

WTF?  Boris has screwed up the Covid / national economy challenge almost as badly as Trump (albeit with none of the FlatEarth numbskullery, so it's pure incompetence and bad judgement), putting the UK right up there with the worst performers.  It would be laughably easy to compile a list of colossal and very public mis-steps, ranging from the catastrophic, through the corrupt, to the comical.  Johnson hasn't put a foot right since the long-distant Greenwich speech.  How come polling like the above is even vaguely possible?

I think we may rule out any supposition that the populace is being swayed by some purposeful 'subliminal influence' media campaign of breathtaking subtlety and genius being mounted by Cummings who, original as he may be, is also plainly what my father's generation would have called a four-letter man.  Conversely, the Labour Party has not advocated a policy of Covid house arrest for obese BAME diabetes sufferers, nor otherwise lately perpetrated anything universally repugnant.  So - WTF?

I offer two broad theses and, being fairly puzzled meself, invite the C@W faithful to pitch in with others.

1.  Natural Loyalty In Time Of War

This one barely needs elaboration.  You stick together when the chips are down and, as in 1945, if you have reservations about the mob you've thereby lent support to, you can always heave them out.  When Starmer wants to sleep at night he'll be comforting himself with this one: let's face it, the evidence is, it's all he's got.  So pure is his strategy, he won't even risk tapping the ball occasionally into any of the gaping open goals Boris specialises in.  Hey - this is Strong Human Instinct we're talking about: let's not mess with that.  (Pipe down at the back there, Burnham.)

2.  The Labour Brand Is Utterly Trashed

All through the Blair years in power, long after the Bambi-fresh appeal of Blair had evaporated, the more innocent of my Tory friends were continually perplexed.  Whatever outrages the Blair/Brown regime came up with, and however well successive Hagues / Duncan Smiths / Howards / Camerons spoke to wrongness of what was being done, Blair sailed on regardless to electoral victory.  And I used to say to them:  that's a measure of how much people truly despise the memory of the Major and the later Thatcher years.  

So here's the polar-opposite Thesis #2.  In the 30 months following GE 2017, Corbyn so trashed not only his own reputation but the entire Labour brand, that the electorate will spurn the People's Party for a decade.

Yes; judging by what happened 1997-2015 (or indeed 1951-1964) it could be argued that the wasteland wilderness period could even be longer.  I suspect some of the more reflective lefties fear as much.

 We must all have been pondering on this one: what do we think?

 ND