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

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

The wisdom of crowds ... and mobs?

For a while now I have been of the view that some on the 'left' (which I take to embrace the more radical 'greens') are gingerly feeling their way towards trying to legitimise violence in favour of their causes.  They are a bit nervous about this, of course, not least because they are all nice middle- and upper-middle class people who personally rather shrink from violence, much as some of them drool over those rougher types like the Sinn Fein leadership and radical Islamists who couldn't give a monkeys. 

A couple of days ago, this curious piece appeared in the Grauniad, by one Stephen Reicher, professor of psychology at the University of St Andrews:  

China’s Covid policy didn’t have to end in riot and protest. This is why it did

It concludes with this odd remark. 

China’s protests show us that, far from being mindless, crowds and collective protest are highly sophisticated and give us insight into the underlying society. Particularly from those who do not normally have voice, “riots are the voice of the unheard”

Now we can certainly agree that some Chinese protestors are quite creative in how they articulate anti-government sentiments via things like holding blank sheets of paper, or inventing instantly evocative pop-up memes and shibboleths that temporarily evade the sluggish but overpowering CPC censors.  Can be sophisticated enough, for sure.

But "crowds ... far from being mindless ... are highly sophisticated" ?  Well, we've probably all enjoyed being part of a good-humoured crowd at a sporting fixture.  But it's not very comfortable to look into the "mind" of many a crowd outside the soccer stadium afterwards, still less that of many a mob.  We don't even need to cite lynch mobs.  Earlier in the article, Prof Reicher wants us to reject David Cameron's view of the 2011 "riots" as being mere criminality.  Well, matey, the opportunistic looting sprees of the day after Tottenham most certainly were just that, much as some lefties hoped they heralded the Revolution.

I really wonder where this dalliance with violence is going.  Wherever it is, I very much doubt it will be to the long-term political gratification of the radical left-green - even if personally they get their rocks off on it as a nasty form of catharsis and juvenile spite.

ND

The Eton Lobbying Song

Jolly scapegoating weather
Lobbying is a breeze!
My Greensill chums are clever
I’m raking in serious fees
And I’ll do whatever -
Just whatever I jolly-well please!
You can call me whatever
But don’t call my lobbying ‘sleaze’ ...

I can accept without rancour
That Boris is PM (- how?!)
But I’m a tremendous banker
Kiss my arse and bow!
And I know you all secretly hanker
For the job I am doing now
So go and sling your anchor
If you're looking to stir up a row

Everyone fills their faces
As soon as they leave Whitehall  
Kicking over the traces
Revolving doors and all
With our contacts in high places
(I’m just giving Rishi a call)
Yes, Downing Street clout is a basis
For having an absolute ball!

Twenty years on, whoever
Writes up the history books
Will sully our names forever
As shameless, insatiable crooks
Yes our names are blackened forever
And they’re calling us merchants of sleaze
And we’ll all swing together
From the lamp-posts and from the trees !

ND

Greensill - and Other Goings-On in the City

It is much to be regretted that CU finds himself unable to write more about Greensill** because it is a story rather up our street.  The DTel has a fairly good piece here, offering the common-sense approach to risk management in circumstances where some newcomer seems to be claiming to have discovered the philosopher's stone in a basic area like supply-chain finance.  Is this likely?  No, it isn't - even if he is fronted by Call-Me-Dave.  (Blair doesn't have the monopoly on ex-PM avarice: and let's see how the financial exploits of Boy Genius stack up ten years from now.)   Not rocket-science at all.

Just once in a while, something new(ish) really does crop up.  Securitisation was one helluva smart innovation in its time, and those quickest onboard the train (Guy Hands / Nomura / Terra Firma and, errrr, Enron) did some very good, sound business in the early days.  By the time we get to sub-prime mortgages however, the whole thing has spiralled right out of control, all rigour and discipline gone.

Which bring me to the next puzzle: the remarkable rise of the brothers Issa and their petrol forecourt 'revolution'.  I understand clearly enough how high-throughput, well-located petrol stations might have an eminently financeable profile - better even than Guy Hands' pubs, maybe.  (I say "maybe" because the margins are notoriously tight, too.) 

What I don't understand is how this rather obvious attraction could have been missed by the pretty sharp operators of big supermarkets, oil companies etc.  "Retail is detail", and they don't miss much.  So if these assets were already sitting on the balance sheets of big, smart players, (a) they would (surely?) already have been effectively leveraged to the full already, even if as part of overall corporate finance; and (b) couldn't be prised away into new ownership at anything other than a full price. 

So who've been the suckers here?  All insights gladly received.

ND

__________

** "I can't write at length about Greensill unfortunately, too much real life conflict. Suffice to say, he is a right twat who has met a fair ending. How people decided such an arrogant bore was worth backing to the tune of billions is beyond me"  - CU, here (BTL)

Victory Parade

We’ll all remember where we were. I’d been hors de combat all night (at a hospital bedside), but at 3 am found myself on a night bus, where a fellow night rider was calling the results off his phone. Nothing conclusive by that stage but when I went to bed at 4 am there was the first hint of dawn over the horizon from the north east - literally as well as figuratively. 

So now, a triumphal parade of the victors and the captives-in-chains 

• Cameron 

Nothing became him in office quite like the leaving of it. He obviously came to his senses big-time in the early hours: and you gotta take your hat off. The delay in invoking Article 50 is a minor masterstroke (see Eurocrats below), echoing Michael Howard in 2005.  So much time, for so many Events to happen, for so much initiative to be deployed.  The weapon has been forged: no need to use it for a single, ill-thought-out stroke.  If Cameron continues to play the game with that degree of clarity over the summer, he’ll be well regarded for it. 

• That old C@W favourite, ‘Strategic’ Osborne 

Manoeuvred himself right up his own fundament. The fatuous ‘punishment budget’ stunt suggests a conversation that probably took place 14 days ago ...
 
DC: You told me Fear would work, but it bloody doesn’t. We’re even having to wheel Brown out now! If this goes pear-shaped, you’re toast. Pull your finger out, matey! 
 GO: Errr, yes, OK, I’ll get cracking 

Now he’s not even among the Runners & Riders. Will have to play a Treasury blinder over the summer if he’s not to appear in history as the lowest form of political life. Or maybe leave it all to Carney … All those years of kowtowing to the Chinese, to underpin his 2020 government. All that promotion of Hinkley Point (EDF must be a screaming short trade). All those pathetic Tory backbenchers who grovelled to him. Toast?  Dust. 

• Sadiq 

Clearly a bit of an operator. While the Benns and McDonnells and Hodges and Abbbottts and (eventually) Watsons are jerking off in various Westminster committee rooms and recording studios, Sadiq is actually angling to play serious power politics in a sphere of his own. Creativity-plus-initiative is everything at times like this. King over the water? It worked for Boris, and Julius Caesar. (But not for Ken. Or General McArthur.) 

PS, I did say that Sadiq was the price of Brexit … 

• Momentum 

The McDonnell strategy is playing out. (1) protest undying loyalty to the Sainted Jeremy and his mega-mandate … (2) … in the certain knowledge this is a doomed cause; no need to be seen with a knife when every other bugger is wielding one (3) rouse the Momentum hordes into a frenzy of ‘keep-the-2015-flame-alive’ passion (4) watch Jeremy expire in revolutionary martyrdom with several blades between his shoulders (5) ride to glory at the head of the Momentum Massive (6) win the snap election of October 2016. Easy.  Actually, he must know that scenario isn’t remotely a shoe-in: but hey, what better chance does an old fully paid-up Stalinist have? 

PS what’s Watson up to? Sorry, I have no intelligence on that: but it is obviously designed to thwart (5) above. 

• Boris 

Clever old Boris.  (Unless he offers Osborne a deal.)

• MPs 

On one theory, there is a clear all-party majority of Remainder MPs. Parliament works by formed factions that command working majorities. If they were all as pro-EU as (say) Damian Green, one might imagine a functional Parliamentary Remain Party being created that could do, well, whatever it wanted in that cause (even appoint a PM and government of its own). If they were all really pro-EU. And if there was any serious natural leadership in evidence. 

There’s the flaw: because I reckon the majority of MPs are careerist tossers to whom the above strategy isn’t worth the candle. They’ve all got battles to fight within conventional existing-party frameworks, not least including de-selection (or being KIPpered) at the next election if they don’t get with the Brexit programme. 

Leadership? Heseltine fumes from the wings but, errr … But I suppose there may be some MP out there we’ve never really noticed. Could be interesting. Probably not.

• Eurocrats 

Behaving as badly as ever, they learn nothing, they can’t help themselves. And, if we are correctly informed, they are about to open the sluice-gates on a pent-up flood of ‘sensitive’ measures they were holding back until, errrr, now. Good luck with making us feel buyers’ remorse when we watch you opening your doors to Turkey and banning our toasters.

Hint: there is no more BAU. If you haven’t spotted that, Merkel will be taking you by the elbow some day soon. Or the goolies. She’ll get the point across somehow. 

• Sturgeon 

Thrashing around a bit, actually, in her proactive and articulate way. She really doesn’t want to negotiate separation terms with a confident new Tory PM, or to row off in her little boat into a world of $50 oil. And the Eurocrats may not offer her anything tasty on a plate: their instincts are not to trade with cessationists; just like the taxman won’t trade with you in hypotheticals. They’ll still be busily admitting Turkey and banning toasters. One other thought: if the Scotties are really pissed off, I’d say the prospect of copping the Euro will NOT be a major deterrent next time around. 

• UKIP 

Interesting. Is their work done, do they go home now? The new PM had better hope not, because if the Tories get their act together, while the ex Tory Kippers will be drifting back, the Labour Party will still be haemorrhaging in that direction. Making that October election all the easier. 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Yes, quite a dawn. One that cheered up the hospital patient no end. 

ND

Mr Cameron Goes to Europe

I try to keep abreast of all the euro-referendum theology via the diligent Dr North, that arch scholastic feuder and splitter of hairs.  But it's a full time job (where does he get his time?) so I may easily have missed a chapter or two of the tangled tale.

Anyhow, it all helps with the background when it comes to contextualising a piece like Polly's this morning: David Cameron’s cabinet saboteurs are pushing him to Brexit. 

The other 27 members have life-and-death matters to discuss: an unstoppable flow of migrants, terrorists crossing borders and Schengen crumbling, while the euro still trembles unsteadily. Patience with the frivolity of Britain’s pointless negotiation has worn thin. For the first time observers are reporting that Brussels and Berlin regard a British exit as a serious possibility. They don’t want us to go, but Cameron’s cavalier approach pushes them towards indifference. Some report that he himself seems to care less about leaving than he once did, as UK polls sway closer to exit – and he hits a brick wall through his own ineptitude. Why did he make the emotive but empty issue of abolishing working benefits for EU migrants the centre-piece of his renegotiation? His officials and government lawyers warned this was an impossible demand. Other leaders will not, and cannot, in law agree: free movement of labour without discrimination is a founding EU principle. 

Not such an empty issue then, eh?  (This is before we register schoolman North's view that Cameron has made no such demand.)  I could think of several explanations for its appearance on the List, including 'the hand of Osborne' whose student-politics expertise is well up to knowing full well the import of the benefits issue. 

Yes, the 27 would much prefer to be discussing something else, but that's a strong card for Cameron who, as North identifies, is the only one in the game with a strategy.  Single-minded David can often beat Goliath because the latter is preoccupied.  (I once took on, and prevailed against, a former employer - a very large corporation - and was widely thought to be crazy: 'they have infinitely more resources' said well-meaning friends.  Yes: but of those resources they were deploying perhaps one man-hour a day in the persons of one bored lawyer and one less-than enthusiastic HR-wallah.  I was working my side of the issue 16 hours a day, with unwavering commitment.)

And just look at what Polly highlights in her first sentence above.  (She's never been an identikit leftie when it comes to immigration, BTW.)  If as a europhile she's panicking a bit, well, she has every reason to, on several fronts.  I'd say both other corners of the public-opinion triangle - the 'leavers' and the 'let's see what he comes back with-ers' can take a lot of heart from the story so far.  And hey, there's 18 months to go!

ND

Change is Coming to the UK, in comedy form

I don't know about everyone else but this Scottish referendum malarkey is quite the most enjoyable political event to watch from a far as I can remember.

As a distraction for the rather sad and uncertain wide world it is great, here are the highlights for me thus far:

1 - It's all about Hate; hate of the English and the Tories. Scotland already has its own parliament, its own NHS, its own tax raising powers (never used), it own currency notes, its own national football and other international teams, its own culture, its own legal code. It's a Country, it just does not like having remote Tory Government in Europe, although it also has a right wing led Government in Europe and does not complain about that. The undercurrent of anti-English hate and justification for it is hilarious.

2 - Yes or No, its the end of the Union. With more powers to Scotland surely even our pathetic set of Westminster politicians are going to struggle not to sort out the West Lothian question. This means split Government for the UK and an end to Labour being able to pass legislation in England with no majority in the Country. That will be fun, if the Politicians dodge this, then UKIP will make great hay.

3 - All of Cameron, Milliband and Clegg are immensely unpopular in their different ways. Normally one party manages to lead with a duffer, but at the moment we have three duff leaders all in their Prime. The Peter principle of professional politicians has evolved to fulfil its destiny.

4 - One small poll this way or that has moved markets, I even make £20 betting just on the moves to Yes after a single poll. To see the media and politicians gripped like this is hysterical.

Really, it will be sad next Thursday when it is all over No have won (keep going Yes Scotland, my heart is with you, but my head says No will do it 55%-45%).

5 - But it won't be over will it. Anti-English Salmond will still be First Minister or his equally shouty deputy Sturgeon, the vote will be close and there will be demands for a re-count and re-run etc. So maybe that will provide us with some enjoyment for the Winter months.