Weekend: Capitalising on BLM Catastrophe

The BLM situation, clearly febrile, is ripe for 'entrepreneurship':  watch out for -

•  a leadership vacuum if riots ensue
•  the 'XR solution' from Starmer - OR Boris 
•  frustration for Khan
•  the EU's Big Play ...

For every Zuckerberg and Gates and their homegrown empires, there's a Green, an Ecclestone and a Deripaska.  They spotted the distressed or undervalued asset, they capitalised on it, invested it, looted it.

The world of power-politics is full of entrepreneurs on the lookout, too.  And we've all been mulling over a distress scenario - BLM copycat riots, for want of a better term - which might be coming to the boil right now, and which must look like the plummest of plum opportunities for several people, particularly on the Left, if they can stop it degenerating into another 2011.  If they can get ahead of it at all, that is ...  


Now let's immediately acknowledge that sometimes these violent prospects evaporate.  A good example is Grenfell.  That seemed pretty febrile at the time: but to my surprise, it settled fairly quickly into a deep and luxuriant patch of traditional English long grass, its insurgency potential slipping away.   Nor did Les Gilets Jaunes ever really gained hardcore Political traction (we'll come to XR later, because it's important).  Yes, Britain's armchair revolutionaries - white, Oxbridge, dilettante - are indeed wedded to their equally luxuriant armchairs.  They still hanker after being the officer-class, though, directing the street-masses via social media from their châteaux HQs.  And there's no obvious sign of organic leadership within the demonstrators just yet. 

The anti-racism demonstrators, overwhelmingly aged under 30, have largely been part of a movement using the LDNBLM hashtag that has no identifiable leaders and whose events are publicised via word of mouth and social media

We'll start with the more lurid possibilities.  Let's consider at least the possibility that UK summer riots, if they occur, might allow for political initiative; and that several ambitious fellows have spotted a leadership vacancy.  If things develop into no more than 2011-style looting & arson, well, not many established politicians want their names to be blackened by association with inchoate anarchy.   But the Left is keenly looking for opportunities to Politicise (as Kev commented BTL here, "it's the Left's way of gaining back what they couldn't get through the ballot box"), eagerly abetted by the Beeb, as many have noted. 

The question, then, is: IF rioting starts here ... who's likely to attempt what?

The Players

In many such circumstances someone on the government side might try to make a name for themselves as the hard man.  It could be argued Cameron had a crack at this back in 2011, along with his DPP, one Kier Starmer ...  But - Priti Patel?  Doesn't look terribly plausible.  Boris?  Errr, no.

No, we're looking for Grabber to emerge from the other side.  If Corbyn's regime was still in place, I'd have expected it to be McDonnell, a genuine revolutionary on paper: but again, none of them really ran with Grenfell. 

Is there anyone who can front for the putative rioters, in the sense of declaring themselves to be the leader, particularly for "negotiating" purposes?  This would be quite difficult for any established politician when (innocent) people, including coppers and fire-fighters, start getting hurt.  It's possible one of the new intake of firebrand Labour MPs might give it a crack, (nothing to lose, see what happens).  Clearly enough there are some unpleasant people in those ranks, but personally I don't know enough about them to nominate any.  Of the established urban MPs: David 'Broadwater' Lammy?  No revolutionary, he: rather, in recent times a man of measured statements and nuanced views.  Diane Abbbottt?  Hmm.

I think we may also rule out Starmer.  For several reasons he doesn't look like fronting up for violence: it's categorically not in his makeup (respectable lawyer, not revolutionary; and a prosecutor to boot).  He'll want to capitalise alright - by staying exactly where he is, risking nothing, in order to have the plum fall in his lap all the more certainly in 2025.  He might be wrong about that, of course, but it'll be his strategy - statesmanlike mediator; distant and lofty proscriber of vague & worthy medicaments.  He just needs to watch his back for the serious impatience within the People's Party that has already been angrily directed his way on several occasions already. 

Outside Parliament (which is of course where the really fidgety Momentum types feel the action should be) ...  Stormzy?  Owen Jones?  Someone from rather more, errr, mainstream pop-culture - Gary Lineker?  Who can tell; the hour doth sometimes bringeth forward the man: but can anyone seriously spot a Martin Luther King or a Nelson Mandela out there in Park Lane?

Someone who can be absolutely guaranteed to be seen prominently flitting about with both the hare and the hounds is of course Sadiq Khan.  His ambition to be seen to be in command of the "BAME vote" is never far below the surface; but his desire for world-stage metro respectability is pretty enormous, too - him with his world-class police force and armoured Range Rover.  Plus, of course, he's ultra-transactional (and very pragmatic, as every mayor ends up being): everything's up for negotiation - and he's busting to get back at HMG for the recent TfL settlement he was forced to swallow.  Like Starmer though, what he really wants is a Good-War rep for future purposes, not a high-risk position in the streets.  (And if there's half a chance of a "responsible", Parliamentary outcome - see XR below - Khan, as so often, will be deeply frustrated at his own current lack of a Parliamentary platform, and will try hard to inveigle himself onto the platform.)

All in all, for want of obvious outright, authoritative leadership willing to get down and dirty, Gerry Adams style, the Left may encounter some challenges in re-purposing riots into something more tangibly Political.  It's tantalising for them, because (a) they don't get many opportunities and are currently smarting from GE2019; (b) in strictly Marxist terms a section of the urban BAME community might actually be in a technically revolutionary frame of mind:  nothing to lose, any change whatsoever must be beneficial to them.  But the same theory would also suggest that an ethnic minority doth not a revolution make - nor indeed anything short of the entire Working Class. 
 
What will be the demands?

All this is by way of ruminating on an age-old issue: in large-scale conflict, it suits both sides to know who speaks for - and can deliver - the other side.  Even calling for unconditional capitulation generally pre-supposes some effective leadership on the losing side that can present themselves for signing the instrument of surrender, and reliably thereafter give the dismal command to stand down.  If it's more balanced, then actual negotiations need to be conducted, for which an authoritative counterparty is required (e.g. Good Friday Agreement).

There's something else that in due course needs to be tied down.  What, concretely, will the Left be demanding?  If they don't know, it all descends into mere anarchy and they lose their moment.

Sometimes there is tactical merit in making ridiculous ("impossibilist") demands to ensure failure and dissatisfaction, a strategem often associated with Trotsky.  But in June 2020, as we've said, there is likely to be a strong desire on the Left to leverage the rare moment to obtain something immediately tangible on the political front (as well as, errr, electrical goods and fashionable clothing).   "A better deal for BAME people" or similar doesn't really advance their cause in quite the immediate ways they'd like.  Black History Month to be extended to a full year?  Compulsory diversity training for the entire population?  A special BAME minimum wage?  Immediate rehousing for everyone living in a tower block?

The problem is clear.  For a political demand to be successful, the gain it seeks must be tangibly, irreversably deliverable.  This is a real challenge for sudden uprisings, when the said gain must be promptly deliverable, too - before the rain starts and everyone packs up and goes home.  As British history amply illustrates, it ain't as easy it it might seem (Chartists, Pilgrimage of Grace, Peasants' Revolt etc etc).

This puts us in the realm of what I call politics with short lines of logistics.  Stuff that can effectively be done with the stroke of a pen.  (That's why "release of prisoners" or "returning troops to barracks" feature so often, for example.)  Foreign policy can more often be in this category - treaties, troop movements and the like.   But big domestic items - "general improvement in welfare" or "Green New Deal" can't be delivered on the spot.  Even legislation can't be promised in a useful timeframe for a riot situation

The XR Precedent

XR is interesting - and not, in truth, really a riot.  In many respects it's surprising XR was so easily fobbed off with can-kicking legislation, albeit notionally epic in scale.  If things get really bad, Boris will keenly wish to repeat this trick.  And I could well imagine some on the Left reckoning the XR type of outcome - virtue-signalling legislation for long term change, mutatis mutandis - is actually quite a good one, if less immediately dramatic than a coup.  If Starmer is as smart as some reckon, that's what he'll angle for:  it's Parliamentary (which he'll happily front for any day of the week); it can be packaged to look highly responsible; he can even attempt to get (some) all-party support - very PM-like.  In fact, if Cummings is really on the ball, he'll be planning how to get ahead of this one right now, as May more-or-less did last year. The upcoming "Great Recovery Bill" is the obvious vehicle; and if Boris doesn't propose the relevant clauses himself we may be sure Starmer will be quick with his own amendments.

But back to demands emerging from the more lurid extra-Parliamentary riot-scenario: what's it to be?  I mentioned release of prisoners with a purpose, because amnesty for looters might very well be on the list by the time we're finished.  Beyond that, I'm not keen to give anyone ideas.  Except ...

The EU Angle

As has been widely surmised, part of this imminent potential crisis is surely tied in with the looming deadline for Barnier to come off the pot.  A classic stroke-of-the-pen job would be to demand, say, that Frost be sent to grovel for an extension of the transition period.  Let's see how this is first floated in public - a C@W Extension Bingo prize for the first authentic sighting of this in the specific context of the putative riots.  (Note, however: a lot of the activist Left is for Lexit.)  With the Beeb's active connivance, ways can be found to insinuate this, then try to sell it as part of a package to appease the looters.  Far-fetched?  That's before you factor in the deviousness of a Mandelson or the brazen determination of a Gina Miller. 

Here's a prediction.  If the putative arson etc is on a scale that's material for the economy, the EU will swing in with an offer, along the lines of:  UK to get a pro rata share of an EU post-Covid economic stimulus package, plus immediate solidarity & cohesion fund payments targeted at inner city areas (to be distributed by city mayors) - in return for a 2-year transition-period extension, plus x, y and z ... 

Even Starmer might find it hard not to front for that.

ND

Self-Sufficiency: Good or Bad?

Our old friend Sackerson and I have periodically debated between ourselves what attitude one should take as regards national self-sufficiency.  On the one hand, to be dependent upon imports for any vital need is to offer a hostage to fortune in difficult times.  The very concept of the nation-state is often identified with this situation.  Only when man (or proto-man) existed in isolated and self-sufficient communities could reliance on trade be thought of as irrelevant.  On this analysis, nation-states exist when, and because of, the move to specialisation and trading, which requires the thus-extended and non-independent communities to organise in such a way as to (attempt to) make this a viable state of affairs.  Sometimes, typically in warfare or conditions of famine etc, such arrangements fail.  History is littered with case studies, Germany in WW2 being a fine example: suppose the Third Reich had been self-sufficient in raw materials ..?  Today, China is endlessly nervous about its own dependencies on imported raw materials - just as we are about their monopoly on rare earths.

On the other hand: given this potentially fatal outcome, why do people surrender their self-sufficiency in favour of specialise+trade at all?  Because it is a thousandfold more efficient to do so - in "normal" times!  Even George Monbiot rapidly tired of life as a subsistence farmer; and many on the green-left reject what is termed "deep adaptation" (= living in caves).  All capitalist instincts (and not just doctrinaire capitalism either) speak in favour of doing what we're good at, and buying those wonderful things someone else excels at.

So - how is the balance to be struck?  How does a government decide what percentage of, say, the country's electricity should be generated within its own borders, or (a similar problem) how many rarely-to-be-used snowploughs should litter one corner of Heathrow airport?  How much Risk Capital should a bank hold?  How high should the Dutch dykes be?  Or how big should be our armed forces, to rectify matters when "normal" affairs get out of hand?  In the abstract:  how much of our resources should be tied up, how much potential comfort should we forgo today, against adverse future contingencies?

Let's cut to the chase: we are on a continuum and there is no definitive socio-economic calculation to be done.  There is indeed a ton of maths and modelling we can do, with Nobel prizes on offer for advances in technical Risk Management analysis - but the basic inputs include critical and wholly subjective judgements**.  So nobody should get hung up over what can be portrayed as, or mistaken for, a science.  Only towards the very ends of the spectrum can anything strong be stated, e.g. (a) the Vatican isn't a viable state, and needs to be embedded in something a lot bigger;  (b) Canada is very fortunately placed, and very unusually so (and even Canada is somewhat parasitic on the USA for defence);  and (c) the dykes had better be higher than the average high-water mark.

Covid-19 makes this otherwise rather academic debate ultra-real; climate change ditto.  (For example: we may note that in some quarters it seems to count as wicked not to be self-sufficient in ventilators and virus testing chemicals; but just fine to depend on migrants to staff the NHS ...)  And when it comes to reordering the world in due course, some highly motivated parties will be competing for control over those "critical and wholly subjective judgements".  

We can at least be grateful they won't include Bernie Sanders^^ or John McDonnell.

ND
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**  Another post, maybe.  I can bore for England on this
^^ Definitely another post!  There are fascinating developments on the lefty front

Nervous Times for the Comrades

I think we know what's happening here.  A camp within the Labour manifesto-drafting team always wanted to include the WASPI pension giveaway.  McDonnell overruled it as being too costly.  The compromise was to keep it up their sleeves in case the other unicorn-promises weren't doing the trick.

Come Saturday's daily war committee, there's panic in all eyes: it ain't working!  Tories pulling ahead in the polls.  OK, says McDonnell, f**k it, we'll unleash the Big One.  So WASPI it is.

But given the disbelief with which the rest of the giveaways have been greeted, is doubling down going to work the trick?  Hard to tell.  WASPI gets some very heated middle-aged ladies very heated indeed.  I'm almost surprised every party didn't offer something on this, much like they all promised 'something' for Equitable Life victims (such as, errr, myself).

It all reminds me of an episode in Blair's 1997 successful campaign.  Curiously and needlessly, halfway through he got nervous: even John Major seemed to be doing OK.  Whadawe do now, Alastair?  Campbell handed him the doomsday script: Blair put on his ashen face for the cameras, drew himself up to his full height, gripped the lecturn with whitening knuckles, paused at length for maximum effect, set his lower lip a-trembling, and pronounced the Big Lie:  "The Tories ... are going to scrap the state pension!"  

We may see a replay of one like that in the next couple of weeks, if the polls don't look any better for Corbs.  Campbell will be preparing a choice of scripts even as I write.

ND

UPDATE:  I have just found this - a bullet-list of the entire Labour manifesto.  There (appox) 570 pledges.  Overcooked?  Looks like it.

Labour Makes Its Move

This isn't going to be a full analysis of today's Labour manifesto, just the bits that interest me most, and whether they tell us anything useful.  Let's start with the most revealing.

Defence

Notwithstanding we can all read between the lines, they've gone for maximum respectability vis-à-vis the casual reader hoping not to find a knock-dead reason for spurning Corbyn.  Support for renewing Trident (sic); 2%-of-GDP minimum expenditure; "The primary duty of government is to guarantee the security of people in the UK"; "We will maintain our commitment to NATO"; "The UK defence industry is world-leading"; etc etc.   

In short: if they've succeeded with their bribes elsewhere in the document, they're hoping this nose-peg job of their own is enough to avoid a million patriotic vetoes in marginal constituencies.

There's also a continuation here of the workerist strand that runs throughout: the defence industry is lauded for providing skilled jobs; to be encouraged as such.  There's many a Tory who'd salute that particular flag. 

You can bet there's an entire closed-session briefing for dyed-in-the-wool Generation-Wuss Trots that starts: "don't worry about the Defence section, it's for older-generation comrades who are suffering from false consciousness; we don't mean a word of it".  So far, so thoroughly, power-seekingly pragmatic.

Energy

If anybody's paying attention, this is a real bugger's muddle.  On the one hand they are hoping to bask in the greenwash they've splattered over everything in sight (though they've realised committing to zero-carbon 2030 is ludicrous, much as that will disappoint some).  Then there's the crazy distraction they propose to bring upon themselves by nationalising not only the wires and pipes (which we've known about for months) but now also the energy supply business, but handing it over to local authorities.  This guarantees (a) a decade in the courts, and (b) power-failures and general chaos.  Or, more likely, (c) a big U-turn in due course.

But overhanging it all is that workerist theme. 

A thriving steel industry will be vital to the Green Industrial Revolution. Labour will support our steel through public procurement, taking action on industrial energy prices, exempting new capital from business rates, investing in R&D, building three new steel recycling plants and upgrading existing production sites. We will ensure that new technologies aren’t just invented here, but are engineered, manufactured and exported from here. We will put British innovation at the heart of our procurement to support local sourcing and reshoring, so that every investment we make strengthens our manufacturing and engineering sectors and supply chains and creates hundreds of thousands of good, unionised jobs here at home. We will use the power of public procurement to strengthen local jobs and supply chains and will require all companies bidding for public contracts to recognise trade unions, pay suppliers on time and demonstrate equalities best practice... we will ensure the UK’s automotive sector isn’t left behind ... by investing in three new gigafactories and four metal reprocessing plants. By supporting UK-made electrical steel we will ensure robust support for an end to end UK supply chain. We’ll also take on the global plastics crisis by investing in a new plastics remanufacturing industry creating thousands of jobs ...

Square that with yer zero-carbon future!  And I think we know which one would get priority, in the party that currently supports a new coal mine in Cumbria.  It has a name, by the way: the "Just Transition".  That'll be used to cover just about anything.

It'd take a bit of squaring with EU rules, as well.  And they wonder whether Corbyn & McDonnell want In or Out!

Overall

Received Wisdom solemnly reminds UK politicians of two sobering manifesto data-points.  First is Labour's very own Longest Suicide-Note in History of 1983; and more recently Mrs May's equally ill-judged 2017 version.  Both suffered from being unable to resist sticking down everything they'd ever dreamed of - and highly counterproductive they were.

Has Labour committed the same mistake again?  The franchise for immigrants and 16-year olds is being smuggled through with all the rest of the bribes, and an adroit Tory counter-campaign should be able to make that alone fatal to Corbyn's cause.  (I did say 'adroit'.)  Is this really the election for a compendium of everything the Left has ever dreamed of?   On the Beeb at 1 o'clock, Norman Smith's only point was, what makes them think this lot can be financed?  Not the reaction they were probably hoping for.

Do they really just want to see it all written down in black and white, so that they can go to their graves saying "if we'd won in 2019, it would have been great"?  And "no-one will ever accuse us of not thinking big: we emptied the tank".

We don't have long to wait.

ND

Climate Crisis: What Crisis?

While we wait for the Supreme Court to have its day in the sun, there's another big issue to air: the soi-disant Climate Crisis, which is supposed to trump all others.  How's that going?  I have a trivial observation to offer, and a rather more interesting conjecture to try on you.

The easy bit first:  it's pretty obvious that despite L'il Greta's best efforts (she's 16, incidentally, not eight) very few politicians on the planet prioritise the Climate at #1.  In Europe?  Nope, that'd be Brexit and a host of other stuff as the Drunckerd gives way to the German woman.  The USA?  Election - for many months to come.  Middle East?  Duh ...   And so it goes on. 

My conjecture is this.  Actually, 2019 has indeed been something of a turning-point.  Credit may be partly due to Greta and Extinction Rebellion et al (it sort of feels a bit that way in the UK, anyhow); but even more so due to some mega actual climate events this year**, I'd say a very high proportion of people are now pretty much on board with the idea that, yep, Climate Change / Global Warming is real, tangible-ish, and moderately likely to get more extreme in the coming years.  More completely on board than they were last year, for example.  Everyone had heard the word several years back: but now it's like, well, yeah, of course.  

Some greenies no doubt think that's marvellous, and now they can swing into action with their loony anti-industrial, anti-growth, anti-civilisation plans.  McDonnell of course thinks it's his cue, his smokescreen to reationalise everything under a new red-green regime of labourist micro-dirigisme.

But I suspect the whole thing has over-reached itself, overshot.  It seems to me it's now in the sphere of people looking round for the sensible solutions - the whole world of Adaptation being top of the list.  A lot of greenies really hate this, because it suggests nothing can be done to stop It; so nothing needs to be done to stop It - just build higher sea walls, use more sunblock, and invest in better water industry infrastructure.  But anti-growth?  - nah, mate.  Growth is where the money comes from, innit?

And, whisper it softly, I'd say the time will be coming soon where geo-engineering solutions will start to be discussed seriously.  They'll really really hate that.

Anyone get the same feeling about all this?

ND

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** I realise many people would ascribe this also to the relentless proselytising by the BBC etc: and I don't disagree - it's just that they've been doing that for years, and 2019 seems to be their 'breakthrough' year

UPDATE:  well here's a headline apparently undermining my thesis.  On closer inspection, though, it's a lobbying confection, and in that context (loaded questions etc) even contains the seeds of its own contradiction, at least as far as the UK is concerned. Let's see what nonsense unfolds on Friday

Brexit Aftermath: Printing Money, or Taxes?

I notice that recently (just before the tactical nuke went off) a bright spark amongst the Graun writers opined that there was not much for it than for Labour to "pivot to Revoke" (everyone has to 'pivot' these days - so much more delicate than U-turning or just plain changing your mind: and a lot more dignified than flip-flopping.)  This is in keeping with Polly Toynbee declaring 'civil war', as she has done in her bid to beat Owen Jones in the hyper-ventilation stakes. 

So, as the armies head off doggedly to Philippi, we are left to wonder about post-Brexit strategy - notwithstanding our musings earlier in the week as to whether Cummings/Johnson even has one, beyond a GE at any rate.

Aside from dealing with short term issues and civil commotion of various sorts (not so easily brushed aside in reality, I well realise) the question will surely arise: to print money, or to tax?  Nations have been perennially been confronted with this issue in times of War (Polly's coinage, not mine) and its aftermath.  It seems to me that (a) there is a very strong anti-tax camp within the Tories (rather like 18th & 19th century America, in fact - they always printed money); (b) Keynsian spending is getting a new lease of life in several quarters; and (c) even McDonnell hasn't sounded too bullish on tax, and the Corbyn-Left are toying with something called Modern Monetary Theory which seems to absolve them of the need to do anything so atavistic as smashing the rich with a supertax.

I freely admit to knowing nothing about macro-economc theory (even as I reckon to know quite a bit about practical micro-economics).  But I well recall how our good host Mr CU predicted Quantitative Easing last time around (and, for good measure, the £/$ collapse from 2.10).  

What do the highly knowledgeable, or even the more modest, C@W readers reckon (i) Boris / Javid; and (ii) McDonnell have up their sleeves for us, in the event they have their hands on the levers of power next year?

ND

Peak Corbyn

As you perhaps know I am an inveterate, nay veteran strategiser: I have done it for a living in the military and in commerce.  In the aftermath of the dreadful GE 2017, my thoughts inevitably turned to how the Tories might work their way out of the ridiculous hole May had dropped them in.  (Obviously someone had been given an inkling of the result beforehand, because at least the DUP deal was immediately ready to roll.)

Sticking to aspects that are germane to the matter in hand right now, my strategy incorporated the following elements that had positive leverage potential:

1. The next (scheduled) GE would be five years ahead, a helluva long time
2. Corbyn was 68; McDonnell 66
3. In the ensuing years there were likely to be a number of truly loonie-left Local Authorities to provide public evidence of what these latter-day marxists do, given a sniff of power - 5 years being a mighty long time for them to hold their discipline
4. Da Yoof, whilst capable of surging onto the streets and into the polling booths in a fit of childrens-crusade enthusiasm, are nowadays notoriously fickle, flighty, of short attention-span, and low propensity to make commitments beyond the next Deliveroo pizza horizon  

Anyhow, their attention-span lasted long enough to grant Magic Grandad a full Triumph at Glastonbury 2017; and Momentum, buoyed up with all the confidence May had so culpably endowed them with (see recent posts), was gearing up to take over the world.

Then the long drawn-out Brexit stuff engulfed them, and Corbyn's resolute fence-sitting - almost indistinguishable from being fully impaled on a sharp bit at the top - has begun to annoy quite a number on the Left.  The tone of many a leftie article just now is:  too late, you old git, we've got your number now, and if you change your mind this late in the day, nobody will believe you.  Anyhow - remind me why we ever liked you in the first place?  And where's that pizza?  

Oh, how fickle is fortune, eh? (see item 4 above).   And then we come to item 2, and this week's "Corbyn has lost it" meme, so rapidly fanning out from the Murdoch press.  As with all good malicious rumours, per the Trump handbook (see Scott Adams passim) the key is to say something that immediately chimes, that was almost on everyone's lips anyway, that crystalises the already-present but non-articulated thought.  And, let's face it, this one falls on pretty fertile ground.  The timing was perfect.

Of course, Team Corbs (I believe they go by 'LOTO') have rushed into full Rapid Rebuttal mode - but this one would have been a challenge for Bad Al Campbell** lui-même in his formidable Excalibur prime.  Unfortunately, the best they can come up with is, Jezza is really quite fit.  For his age.  Ahem.  Sadly, as lots of people know all too poignantly, there is many a deep-dementia sufferer who is as fit as a fiddle ...  and that's even before we get into "Methinks / protest ..."  Just how smart is it to call for a full enquiry?  Who knows what else will come up?

People have periodically been calling 'Peak Corbyn' for at least 18 months, but thus far I haven't been convinced.  Today, there's a decent case to be made.  He seems to have a tight pretorian team that can face down even McDonnell, so they can probably keep him, El Cid-like, stuck on his fence for a good while longer.  (People did the same for Gordon Brown, as we frequently noted at the time.)  Trouble is, there may no longer be the adoring crowds gazing up at him from either side.  No Glastonbury for Corbs this year (according the Grauniad, he'd have been booed if he'd tried).  Could be quite a lonely place when the wind gets up.  Clambering down again may be painful in itself, and too late anyway.  Talk is already of handing the baton to Rebecca Long Bailey.

By the way, I hear McDonnell's health is not of the best ...

ND
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**Did he even start the rumour ..?

UPDATE:  this,  from today's Guardian

Rumours have been flying for months not only about Corbyn’s physical health ... but more broadly about his intellectual capacity; his ability to master an endless series of complex briefs and take timely decisions on difficult issues, while simultaneously managing a sometimes fractious party and dealing with whatever unexpected crisis blows up.

 AND MORE:   (also Graun)

Corbynism’s greatest liability is now Jeremy Corbyn himself ... He sounds tongue-tied and looks like a man hiding from battle, which undermines the image of a candid crusader. When the hero no longer embodies principles on which his movement was founded, the whole edifice wobbles. The attention of young idealists drifts; affection turns conditional; benefit of the doubt is withdrawn. It is getting notably harder, for example, to be loyal to Corbyn and determined to combat antisemitism at the same time ... He once exuded a gentleness that made allegations of fanaticism sound preposterous. Now his peevish side cuts through. He once animated feelings of belonging and purpose in people who had felt starved of inspiration by soulless New Labour. Now he refuses to quench the thirst of his party’s parched remainers ... Few Labour MPs, if any, relish the prospect of an election under their leader, although most pretend to want one. It is hard to present Corbyn as a man for the future, and May’s departure will date him even more. He will be a stale continuity figure from the time of stasis, irradiated through years of loitering ineffectually amid the referendum’s toxic fallout. His aura of specialness has dissipated, revealing the man in all his flawed mediocrity. The prospect of Britain having a radical Labour government is sliding into the gap that has opened up between an idea people once called “Jeremy Corbyn” and the actual Jeremy Corbyn.

Labour's Energy Nationalisation Plans: Interesting Stuff

Even if Extinction Rebellion didn't pull off its attempted election-night stunt, everybody has been much taken by their efforts - note how the annoying government Smart-Meter advertising campaign is trying to hitch its wagon to them; and there's even a Graun article here suggesting that if they seriously want to save the world, da green yoof should, errr, join a union!  (Actually they should clean up after themselves and curb their rampant plastic-oriented consumerism ...)

The Labour Party is fairly troubled by the electoral manifestation of this Green surge, and is rushing to outbid everyone else in its *promises*.  Noting the universal scorn for the ER's "zero carbon by 2020", they are toying with a 2030 target.  Ah well: as one of the ER demonstrators said to a TV interviewer: this is no time to be realistic.

Far more significantly, under this green smokescreen they are also planning to renationalise the gas and electricity transmission grids and distribution networks (DNOs).  For hardcore C@W readers, if you give even half a chance to there ever being a Labour government with McDonnell holding the reins this is a subject for serious study.

1. Choice of target.  Assuming (as we must) that McDonnell actually intends ultimately to nationalise far more than this, the Grid + DNOs is quite a shrewd starting point, politically speaking, for getting his ball rolling.  Not many people carry a torch for this lot.  They are natural monopolies.  They are still under public ownership in many EU countries, so it's hard to claim nationalisation will obviously be disastrous, or fundamentally contra to EU law.  They are asset-rich, really easy to finance (guaranteed, regulated revenues) and heavily unionised.  Many are owned by wicked foreigners.  (And, frankly, several of the DNOs have pig-shit thick management.)
2. Paying for it.  They are a bit vague on this, musing that perhaps they don't need to "pay compensation" (morally speaking, that is - because the wicked shareholders have been ripping us all off for decades); but then again, maybe (legally speaking) they do.  However this plays out, they'd be exchanging equity for government bonds.  They've obviously taken some fairly well-informed accounting advice and reckon it will be neutral as regards government borrowing.
3. Grand plans.   You need to read the stuff to get the full measure of this, because it's far from a simple change of ownership they have in mind.  Briefly, it is intended as a springboard for getting councils, unions and 'local communities' in on the action, with control of energy distribution being atomised into at very least several hundred local authority-based mini-regions, but ultimately down to thousands of micro-regions: cooperatives, housing estates, business parks etc etc.  (These must be sufficiently 'open and democratic': wealthy gated communities or fat-cat County-set windfarmers need not apply.)  All with 'maximal union involvement', natch.  Plus a bizarre edifice of regulation and governance - which will be much needed: this is gas & electricity we're talking about!
4. "Rationale".  The ostensible reasons for doing this are threefold.  (A) reduce costs to the consumer - because coupon for bondholders will be less than divi, and managament salaries will be slashed.  (B) Facilitate the Green Revolution - because the Grid and DNOs have been dragging their feet.  (C) Democratisation and local participation.  Curiously, they don't admit to outright doctrinaire bullshit, though it's not particularly disguised, either.

What to think?   The electricity industry holds a particular fascination for leninists and stalinists like McDonnell - it is sometimes said that leninism was marxism plus electricity, and the whiff of the industrial soviet is easily detected here.  But personally I'm by no means horror-struck, if this to be as we are promised one of the first acts of a Corbyn government.

a)  it will quickly bog down in protracted legal challenges over (i) compo, and (ii) compatibility with some very complex EU regulations covering the fundamentally complex electricity sector.  (Of course, these are illustrations of why Corbyn et al want out of the EU.  But any forseeable 'deal' won't let them off these hooks at all quickly; and No Deal will leave them with No Time for ideological indulgences like this.)  

b)  even if they can get past a), the sheer practical difficulties involved in the fatuous Grand Plan aspects will ensure nothing much changes in substance for a long, long time.  People really do insist on a continuous electricity supply!   And mostly, they have not the faintest idea how difficult it is.

c)  rationales A and B are non-starters.  I just mention this for completeness, really.  Costs will of course go up, not least because staff numbers will go through the roof as soon as they try C, plus the 'maximal union involvement' thing.  And no amount of well-meaning 'local community' enthusiasm will kick-start the Green Revolution, which will need to be a tightly-managed, highly technical affair.


All in all, we should be entirely delighted if this crazy scheme, which has obvious superficial attractions for all manner of lefty-greens, were to absorb all their energies right from the start of a New Regime.  A bigger distraction from more damaging potential forms of political meddling could hardly be imagined.  And of all the many baleful things McDonnell is plotting, this lunacy is by far the easiest to throw into reverse.

Keep watching this one: it's interesting.

ND

Lenin Stirs

Not that I'm obsessed with Lenin - just making sure we keep a sensible eye out for relevant historical precedents.

The story so far: the Brexit vote convinced the semi-dormant UK Marxist-Leninist tendency that perhaps the Revolution was just around the corner.  This is because Marx teaches that the Big R comes when the masses intuitively understand that things are so bad for the 99% that Any Change Whatsoever in the political disposition must be for the better.  The referendum, they think, signalled just such a phenomenon.  (We must of course skate lightly over the complete absence of a whole slew of other preconditions stipulated by Marx.  But that's no problem: they've been doing that for 150 years now.)

By dint of the decay of the People's Party, and boosted by May's criminally crass GE campaign of 2017, it happens that a bunch of actual Marxists rule the roost in Labour.  Corbs himself is an idle bastard but there are several, McDonnell being the most prominent, who would seriously fancy their chances as Leninists, the energetic midwives of Revolution, Paul to Marx's Christ.

What signs are we looking for?  Lenin was a tactician of genius, with Wellington's eye for an accurate assessment of a situation, both overall and as things developed dynamically.  Fortune favours the prepared mind - most specifically, when that mind is allied to the ability to identify the moment, seize the moment and execute decisively.  

Lenin prescribed "the strictest loyalty to the ideas of communism [plus] an ability to make all the necessary practical compromises - to tack, make agreements, zigzags, retreats, and so on".  In the run-up to October 1917, he also insisted that the bolsheviks promise the masses everything they wanted - the big stuff: food, land, peace - however undeliverable.  At that very moment (April 1917) the mensheviks and the 'social revolutionaries' (the peasant party) were involving themselves with the first post-Tsar government and were accordingly much more concerned about the practicalities and responsibilities of actually delivering.  Their promises were modest.  Come October and the bolsheviks swept all before them.

We don't need to stretch the facts too much to draw the parallels.  In their first outing in the 2017 manifesto, the Corbynites tried a Big Promise - tuition fees - with evident success; and even bigger ones are presumably in the pipeline, doubtless including the fatuous "zero carbon by 2025".  No shortage of tacking and zigzagging either, with the government on a piece of string over the "Brexit deal negotiations".  (And what are the Tories doing?  Publishing Damian Green's earnest report on financing old-age care with an "old age tax"!)

If this thesis is correct we can expect some truly boggling broad-brush promises in Labour's euro-manifesto, plus of course what everyone has long predicted for the "negotiations" - i.e. complete bad faith.  There might also be some 'agreements' with various of the other greenish-reddish players, but only of the most limited, short-lived, expedient kind.  I'd also guess, though, that the real Leninists (Milne et al) will continue to fortify Corbyn's refusal to back R2, whether or not this does them any good in other respects.

That's the great thing about Leninists.  Once they lock in on whatever they consider really important, they are unwavering.  For all the zig and zag on the periperals and the trivia, there will be some things on which they won't be moved.  They love a good piece of devious treachery; but they also love a good bit of utter intransigence.  "Strictest loyalty."  For good or ill.  Can be a strength: but not always ... 

ND

Who Knows What's Going On?

First of all: if the headline reads like an open invitation to anyone who thinks they do, the BTL Comments section is truly at your disposal!  (And if, after you've survived a few challenges from the C@W readership, you still think you know - you should apply for a job as MSM leader-writer, because they haven't the faintest idea.  Even Guido is just dealing in trivia.) 

Here's how I'd stake out the landscape:

• everyone keeps having the excellent excuse of waiting for the Next Scheduled Event - after which, presumably, they'll understand everything and will doubtless let us know.  Right now that's the Euro Elections and maybe also the Locals.  Who bothers trying to call them?  The only game being played is to tell your own party: "if we don't do X [get rid of May, promise R2, commit to revoking A50, fill in your own heartfelt disideratum here] we'll be wiped out ..."
• there is no sign of leadership.  Anywhere, really.  OK, Starmer and Farage are being a bit more purposeful than most.  But that's about it
• there is no sign of coalition-building.  Around anything.  Every faction seems to think the best tactic is to retain its own purity of position.  (For Corbyn, of course, this means high-principled fence-sitting, which must eventually start to affect the flow of blood to those bollocks of his that the Momentumites so admire)
• rather against my own views on How Things Happen, there isn't much sign of the grown-ups seizing control.  Quite the reverse: the children are happily blocking the streets, metaphorically-speaking on quite a wide scale, as well as at Marble Arch  

Incidentally, for those of the Marxist disposition - or more specifically, Marxist-Leninist - none of this comes as a surprise.  As we've mentioned before, to many of them the current state of affairs closely resembles the backdrop they'd expect to presage the Revolution.  And, famously, Marx offered precious little guidance as to what to do in these circumstances, not least because (a) ultimately he was a library-bound tosser, and (b) he reckoned that the Hand of History would be doing its blind and baleful dialectical thing: no need to be too specific.  It was Lenin who started theorising - and, more importantly, doing something - about What Happens Next.  And, because what he faced in 1917 et seq bore scant relationship in detail to anything Marx had predicted, he was making it up as he ruthlessly went along.

Do we see any candidiates for the role of Lenin?  I am quite sure McDonnell dreams about this - but he doesn't look he part to me.

Have at it in the comments, chaps.

ND

The Swirling Realignment of British Politics

The 'Independent Group' - a small splinter of plywood, or the first jolt of tectonic shift?  The Brexit Party (Co Ltd) - a single-issue vanity project, or the model for parties of the 2020's?  The 'UK Youth Climate Coalition' - an NGO ramp, or a nascent force for change?  The only thing we may be sure of is that none of these new developments will go short of cash: that's the easy bit.

Yes, as we all knew, 2019 is going to be a year for the political connoisseur.  Which politician, and/or which organisation, will be both sharp and flexible enough to make anything from these swirling pieces of jigsaw?  Can bricks be made from the straws-in-the-wind?  Let's look at the existing organisations, all of which look leaden-footed right now, but all of which have resources and incentives to attempt to capitalise on the chaos.

1.  Celtic Fringe parties (primarily SNP, DUP, Sinn Fein).  All essentially single-issue and opportunistic.  Probably don't need to change in order to survive in their current state, even if that's a rather passive objective.  SNP will need to weather the Salmond storm (and hence will tend to wind their necks in a bit more than they otherwise would); but it's not clear that Labour are in any position to roll them back out of Westminster at the next GE.  One comes across suggestions of a 'unilateral inde-referendum', which couldn't be ruled out.  Mostly, though, with the Salmond of Damocles over their heads, it'll be watch-and-wait.**

For many months I have puzzled over Sinn Fein's quiescence; and it's nearly two years since I last got a proper political briefing in a Dublin pub.  My inclination is to assume that, as an organisation with a clear goal and the ability to play a long game, they are just waiting for the chance to pluck the juicy prize when the bough bends sufficiently for them to reach up and take it.  (To this end, BTW, they must surely be willing ultimately to take up those Westminster seats that everyone assumes they'll forswear forever.)

2.  Libs.  Is it too glib to pass on without further comment?  In a world where genuine political novelty is in the air, they don't look like any sort of major beneficiary, even if someone might someday casually enquire as to the price of their rather small block-vote.  (We all know that answer: PR.)

3.  Greens.   Must rather like the look of the 'UK Youth Climate Coalition', in much the same way as a bunch of OAPs like the look of kids playing mixed-sex touch rugby in the park.  Everyone hopes to harness da yoof (particularly if they know how to set up a good website) but only Momentum shows any signs of weaponising it so far (see below).

4.  Labour.  Do any C@W readers have an insider's insight here?  My secondhand info is that the split within Labour between Corbyn-worshippers and the rest runs bitter and deep to a degree only lefties really understand.  Still, we must assume the Official Labour Party will keep it together enough to take the field at the next GE.  We must also assume that, buoyed by the (relative) success of the student-loan bribe in 2017, they will be offering free unicorns to every child; and, most specifcally, a voting age of 16 - perhaps arguing to 18-19-20's that they'll get much more of what they want if they vote for reinforcements from even younger teens next time.  (Monbiot shows here how they'll easily dress this up.)  

And, as noted before, Momentum (that's Momentum Co Ltd, actually and technically another middle-age corporate vehicle) have already gone a way down this youth road, with moderate success.  The key here is whether Disillusioned-with-Jeremy of Bedsit, England can keep the faith for another two whole years.  Maybe.  Maybe not.

Anyhow, the near term future for Labour looks to me like More Of The Same.  Making no headway in Scotland.  Worried about northern Brexit towns.  Quite deeply exhausted by internal warfare - too much so to mount any kind of genuine revival or metamorphosis.   (The summer of antisemitism really did take a toll, as far as I can tell.)  Corbyn, and particularly McDonnell, starting to look their age, whilst still kidding themselves they can play a waiting game.**  Starmer the only vestige of manifest leadership (or maybe Watson?), even if Cooper is keeping plenty of powder dry.  Which brings us to ...

5. The Wicked Tories.  I suppose we must reckon that the next few days might bring about a few desertions...  [OVERTAKEN BY EVENTS]   And it's hard to overlook the sheer number of C@W BTL comments that read "I'll never vote for those bastards ever again, ever".   And perhaps the new Farage vanity-vehicle is really attractive enough to adopt the mantle over the next two years.  (Though if that's the plan, they might have come up with a better party name.)

That said:  the Tories are UK history's great survivors.  Loyalty, inertia, lassitude; as you will.  But it's not called Conservative for nothing (and has there every been a bogeyman quite like Corbyn?)  Of course, it also speaks to More of The Same too, even more resoundingly than with Labour.  There can't be an accommodation with Farage, at least until after the next GE.  No mighty leaders-in-waiting have set up camp within the party, even if a romantic sort of Boris-camp has subsisted for years and we can all see the other petty displays of unlimited ambition in little side-booths all across Westminster.  

So - there are some jigsaw pieces to push mournfully around the table.  How many more substantive elements will complete the picture at the time of the next GE?

ND
____________________
** Sinn Fein might have some excuse for watch-and-wait; but in the case of both the SNP and Labour, I reckon they are kidding themselves as to the effectiveness of their would-be opportunism.  They all dream of being Wellington at Salamanca; but in reality it's more like idleness and inability to make the political weather. 
   

A Laboured Trap for May?

Corbyn's oh-so-helpful list of 5-points that are required for Labour to support May has the smell of the candle about it - a plan carefully hatched in the back office with the aim of clawing back some of the ground he has lost over the past two weeks.  It has limited objectives:  after days of total Parliamentary irrelevance, and negative vibes coming from even the Corbyn faithful - get onto the front pages in a broadly constructive light.  Tripping up May would be a bonus.

Tone is easy: a halfway decent speechwriter can do 'constructive'.  But when it comes to actual content, it can't help falling into the classic Corbyn dilemma:  he definitely wants out, but metro-Labour definitely doesn't.  So he ends up with the feeblest of BRINO which (a) pisses everyone off; and (b) is the most blatant Trotskyite 'impossibilism'.  And it faces the distinct possibility of lingering no more than 24 hours in the fast-moving news pages.

In that brief window, could it trip May, though?  Here's how one intelligent, ever-hopeful lefty parses it, as optimistically as she can.

The case in favour of the five demands sees Theresa May’s chances of either replacing the backstop or securing a time-limit/unilateral withdrawal ability as non-existent. Corbyn’s letter quashes the notion that Labour wants to “frustrate” Brexit and applies further pressure on the government to implement a soft exit. This is the choice that the Prime Minister has faced since the start: leave with no deal and be responsible for chaos, or pivot to Labour’s plan. Both options seem unbelievable. Either way, the Tories split. That seems like a win-win ...

As we've seen a hundred times, May can scarcely engage with anyone without trying to agree with them; so whenever she's been equipped with a nicely-crafted piece of 'constructive ambiguity', her next partisan interlocutor demands she clarify it in the direction they want it to be understood.  And, ever-obedient to whomever is looking sternly at her at a given point in time, she complies (see her trip to NI for just the latest example).   So for her strategy team, the whole 'Corbyn Plan' issue is simply to sound equally constructive for a day or so, and then let fresh weekend headlines take over.  She's hardly going to supplicate, on the back of this, for the Art.50 delay that would be needed to negotiate it.  (Is she ??)

So it shouldn't trouble the scorers at all, still less "split the Tories".  As our Labour pundit is forced to conclude:  

... but Corbyn’s proposal – which looks a lot like the unhappy compromise of ‘Norway Plus’ – does leave many on the left, from Lexiteers to People’s Vote campaigners, wondering ‘what’s the point?’.

Answer: it's the best he's got, to maintain a respectable profile whilst biding his time for the only real strategy he and McDonnell have ever had, viz letting chaos reign and have it squarely blamed on the wicked Tories.  Part 2 of this plan, of course, it for them both to survive long enough to win the next GE.  Can they hang around until 2022, though?

ND

Historical Analogies for UK 2019: Henry VIII Offers Two

It's fairly common to draw the parallels between Henry's Brexit from the Church of Rome; and why not?  A break-away resisted by many, both on doctrinal grounds and on the basis that it would be disastrous for the nation;  a furious reaction from the Brussels of its day;  emnity between the nations on either side of the resulting schism (that were to last decades if not longer still);  the losing faction in Britain continuing to fight the new order, to their deaths in many cases, wholly unreconciled to the new settlement;  Rome in no way slipping into terminal decline, but mounting a determined counter-reformation to consolidate its position among the nations and souls that it still commanded.   Yes, historical meat aplenty upon which to chew.

But I'd like to suggest another facet of Henry's times that might offer food for thought.  It is the dissolution of the monasteries, his ruthless and wanton appropriation to his own selfish ends of the resources of the monsatic system, thereby destroying the status quo, the extended socio-economic structures he had inherited from the Middle Ages.

Not, let us quickly add, that I am suggesting Mrs May or any of her potential Tory successors have anything resembling this in mind, or will somehow be forced into it by a shortfall in government funds down the road.   (Funnily enough, others might suggest exactly this - those who believe we will be so badly off post-Brexit that the welfare state will need to be dismantled.)

No, I have in mind John McDonnell, who clearly enough had hoped - and probably still does, in his happier dreams - that Brexit might signal the start of The Revolution.  Because his plans for post-Brexit Britain most definitely include full-scale appropriation of the resources of the system he's working to take over.   And he'd only too happily preside over the ruination that would result.  

Wander through any number of those old edifices, from Fountains Abbey to the smaller piles of rubble still to be found in long grass around Britain, and think on't.

ND

The Government is still The Government

Oh yes, a pretty lousy one, under an extremely limited PM: but it's the only one we've got.  And that's the point.

I had planned to do a week-ender on historical precedents, but then the Graun came up with these two pieces: by Raphael Behr (rarely much good but interesting here) and Jonathan Freedland (usually rather better, balanced and perceptive).  Ignore the clickbait titles, that's just the subs trying to earn their keep.

First Behr.  The useful bit is this:

the race is on to form some cross-party coalition that can agree on some kind of plan: any plan that is not May’s one, and doesn’t involve flying off the no-deal cliff edge. As one cabinet minister put it to me recently: once that coalition is found, “it is then effectively the government”

... and he goes on to describe how difficult this is.  Varying the metaphor, Freedland addresses a similar question:  "For pro-Europeans, the moment of truth is coming. To avoid no deal, they have to choose ... standing on the deck shouting at the [iceberg] will not help. MPs have to agree a plan to get out of the way – and they have to do it very soon."  He also then explains how problematic this is - with some interesting notes on McDonnell's evolving position.   And although he concludes ...

rarely for an opposition, [Labour MPs] can shape events. They can steer the country to safety.

... he doesn't tell us how this could practically be done. 

As regards the possibility of such a coalition: way back in 2016 I expressed surprise that a disciplined block of Remain MPs hadn't formed during that summer, probably with a parliamentary majority, albeit of a single-issue nature.  Evidently, they were all sitting on their hands.  Fair enough - who knew what was going to happen with enough certainty to glue such a bunch together?  But for this to happen right now, in a maelstrom of unpredictable developments, seems to me even less plausible.  Dominic Grieve (who, BTW, was known as Pushy Fresher of the Year at University, and was equally insufferable then) can command a majority - this week - for his clever-clever, not-too-partisan procedural gambits, which Jezza and John don't mind encouraging for their disruptive effect.

But for something that constitutes a concrete, deliverable course of national action?  See messrs Behr and Freedland for just how difficult that could be, not least because all the components of the coalition have other, different loyalties (see Behr's neat Rubik Cube analogy).  The difficulties would be particularly acute when any efforts to frame a concrete resolution were to bump up against Corbyn's world class intractability and/or McDonnell's old-Marxist-in-a-hurry desperation to bring about (*fanfare*) The Revolution.    

Which leaves us with the only army in the field - HMG.  Yes, asymmetric warfare is all fine and dandy, but who gets to talk daily to Merkel et al?  Who wields the Civil Service / Police / etc etc?  Who administers the benefits system?  Who has plans, however culpably half-baked, for the ports and trucks and medecines and air traffic and electricity for NI (and gas for the Republic) ...

In short, however effective a squad of snipers may be on their own terms, they don't constitute an army of occupation.  There are a couple of outlandish examples in history of individuals bluffing whole battalions to surrender on a misunderstanding - but it doesn't constitute a reliable strategy.

I can't see what the outcome will be in any detail.  But I do believe it will be, well, whatever the government decides.  

ND

No Lunch for Labour

Labour's Brexit strategy?  ... actually, they haven't got one.

At best, it's just a glorified vulture-tactic: circle aimlessly, high above the ground, in the hope that something keels over and dies under your nose.

Reading a range of leftist contributions aroud the www, the only sub-group with a clear slogan are the ones who want R2.  But Labour commentators who see just a few tiny problems with R2 - as anything that might benefit Labour specifically, or even as just a genuinely practical proposition - see things in a much more problematic light.  Try this, from Little Owen Jones, for example.  OJ's pieces of late have become highly structured masterpieces of equivocation.  Each time he writes, he has to go through the ritual of praising Corbyn to the skies - his punishment for having dared to doubt the master for just a very few weeks last year - and mapping out just how awkward everything is.  But, whisper it softly, he is gradually becoming less sycophantic in substance, his regular and well-argued conclusion being: there might not be much here for us.  It's not greatly different from a host of other writers on the left, who are all enjoying the spectacle of the Tory and DUP lions and hyenas scrapping; but are otherwise pretty much reduced to wringing their hands.  Oh, it's all so difficult to know what to do.

Yes, the vulture doesn't actually have to do anything as dynamic and skilful as hunting something down and despatching it.  You could see why that counsel of idleness suits a perennially work-shy git like Corbyn.  Less obviously, even the hard-driving McDonnell is also given to waiting and watching - because he's a marxist, whose belief-system is that it is all going to turn out right on the night, courtesy of the Hand of History.  He's sure he'll eventually find something dead on the veldt - the bloated body of capitalism, to be precise - on which the proletariat can gorge.

The lions and hyenas have to do something pretty stupid for this to be the outcome.  Some of them have fairly few brain cells, it's true.  But they operate in prides and packs, the collective wisdom of which is probably adequate for the task of ensuring no lunch for the vulture.

ND

May's Machine and the Doctrine of Frontal Attack

Ten days ago I wrote, under the heading Powering Brexit Through The Grid:

Some things in life are decided by the better-prepared and more pig-headed

Droid Army:  quite a spectacle

As a spectator sport, watching May's machine grind into action is quite a sight - like the deployment of a droid army in a Star Wars episode.  Predictably, the Beeb falls immediately in to line; and the MSM lap it up - see the Grauniad's summary of how Project Hysteria plays in the press. This is quite a preliminary bombardment we are watching.

Now many of us, myself included, much prefer the inventive flanking maneouvre, the pulling of a bold stroke, the deployment of a knock-down argument to score a point; but the fact remains that some great enterprises are won by just grinding away, frontal assault, wave upon wave, trench by trench, 'defeating in detail' the opposition, one at a time if necessary.  "Hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle" as they say in the US Marine Corps.

It's OK, perhaps, when you have the numbers.  The 'Indirect Approach' (© B Liddell Hart), by contrast, has particular appeal to those who can't take the casualties, who've sickened of attritional warfare, who like the sound of Sun Tzu's prescriptions for defeating the enemy even before battle has been joined.  But if you have a preponderance of resources, there's always that siren argument: we can slog this out.  And some people are born sloggers.

(A case-study I use when explaining different strategic approaches is the Ford Sierra: when first launched, as the successor to the all-conquering Cortina, it was greeted with universal derision - the "jelly-mould" would surely never sell.  But did Ford change tack?  Nope: they ploughed on, with redoubled commitment, ever more advertising, ever more dealer incentives, ever more fleet deals, ever more special offers & 0% finance packages - slogging it out until the Sierra was as ubiquitous as its predecessor.) 

And thus we come to May's winter offensive.  She's made the maximum use of tactical surprise (quite effectively, it must be said) but that's over now and she is carpet-bombing her way towards the Commons vote.  No strokes, no subtlety.  It's not difficult to predict abject failure and many do: it's a scenario we have entertained here.  

Salamanca:  No slogger, Wellington.  No Wellington, McDonnell

But.  As also noted here before, no-one else shows any sign of having another plan.  God alone knows what the ERG thinks it is up to, or the SNP.  McDonnell, though, is a bit easier to read.  He is clearly hoping he'll be sufficiently nimble and decisive to spot an opportunity to pull a stroke, in the manner of Wellesley at Salamanca.   I have to say, though, this seems unlikely:  McDonnell's *army* doesn't obey orders in quite the same way as the Iron Duke's.  Nor does McD look like a tactical genius to me.    

In truth, his and all of the other opposing forces hope - at best- to defeat May's droid hordes in a ten-second miracle per the Star Wars script, by suddenly blowing up the communications satellite.  With one neatly-placed missile they will triumph at a stroke, and the reins of government will fall into their hands.  Deus ex machina.

Yeah, right.  This is lazy-man strategy - a million miles from Wellington's perennial practice of "taking trouble".

May can lose: but can McDonnell win?  Meanwhile the grid-script grinds on - with the Daily Mail onside! - and some of those scare stories really are commendably lurid ...

ND

Back to the Negotiating Table

Drew's 8th Law of Politics runs thus:  a narrow victory is more significant than a landslide, which betokens little more than that everyone knew what the result was going to be and piled in behind the obvious winner.

The Noes to the Left - and to the Right, and the Centre

She's playing the 'only plan in town' card for all it's worth: but the way things are going, May's deal might get the landslide treatment in Parliament, if every MP decides it's going to fail anyway.  They've all got perfectly good (if wildly different) reasons for opposing at least some aspect, and eventually they may just all stream in to the Noes.  And the more they pile in, the less it means.

In particular, as stated here before I don't see it necessarily results in a GE.  It could force May out, of course, but it's a truly anarchistic Tory MP who wants a GE.  Far more likely is that everyone leaves the chamber chorusing Back to the Negotiating Table! 

And who knows what they'll find there?  An angry Spaniard?  No Irishman at all, his having been bound and gagged by Merkel and placed in a darkened room?  An entirely empty room with a rude hand-written message on a post-it note and no coffee?  Or the proper negotiating forum that Cameron strove to convene in 2015, and failed so utterly and ignominiously to achieve?  

I certainly don't know.

I do know it is the latter that Brexiteers of all stripes, most specifically including John McDonnell, are pinning their hopes on.  So let's look at Labour's official position, as maintained by Corbyn & McDonnell (not Starmer) throughout.  They want two things.  They want them very badly, and one makes no sense to them without the other.  

They want Power; and, since what they mean to do with that power would be endlessly challenged under EU law, they want out of the EU and the ECJ.  This very week, McDonnell has summarised their position as being: they want to stay permanently in "a" customs union, and (he means 'but') no ECJ jurisdiction.  Hah!  Has anyone bothered to explain to him that not a single word issuing from Brussels over the past two and a half years gives an iota of comfort that such a deal could be achieved?   

They'd take Power, of course, as a down-payment on their dual desiderata.  No GE in prospect?  That's why McDonnell is talking up the 'constitutional' argument that if May's deal falls in Parliament, the next step must be 'give the other lot a go'. 

Which is where we come back to the size of the prospective Parliamentary no-vote.  If it's overwhelming (e.g. with most Tories agin it or abstaining), it is May that has to go, not the Tory government.  

So, right now, pending a Spanish veto or a Merkel no-show tomorrow, I reckon a reasonable scenario is this:

• everyone 'signs the deal' tomorrow (for whatever that's worth)
• Parliament rejects the deal next month
• May resigns
• Labour tables a vote of No Confidence which is defeated
• Happy Xmas Mrs Merkel, because it's Back to the Negotiating Table!

But, like I said - who knows what you find when you get there?  

There's a lot more brinkmanship to come.  Stockpile food and meds in Jan and Feb, I'd say.

ND

What Does the Budget Betoken?

In some idle moments over the weekend I perused a few leftish websites and discovered a distinct strand of opinion on t'other side is that Hammond's effort of last week is a pre-election Budget.

Which might be wishful thinking on their part, I guess.  But perhaps it's worth a moment's reflection?  My impression, FWIW, had been that the Budget was a signal to those Brexiteer Tory MPs who care most of all about tax-cutting that it'll be worth their while to support whatever half-baked deal May finally comes up with.  

Which isn't incompatible with the pre-election thesis, of course.  And it's done double duty, because the tax cuts seem to have thrown Labour into a bit of a tactical dilemma, with suggestions that their private polling has lead McDonnell to be wary on the subject, and consequent awkwardness on the Labour benches.

How do C@W readers interpret last week?

ND  

Polly Toynbee's Fallen In Love Again

...  and this time it's ... John McDonnell !

A highly entertaining compendium could be published of all her simpering articles in this vein over the decades.  Gordon Brown would feature several times of course; though she lost interest in that one years ago and now merely refers to him wistfully - in the McDonnell piece - as 'hapless'. **

These pieces are generally written after she's been flattered with a private lunch - you can easily tell.  I remember with fondness the fawning piece she wrote about Patricia Hewitt when the latter was Secretary of State at the DTI and had assured Polly-Wolly there'd be no more nukes.  "No new nuclear power plants!" gushed Toynbee.  That was just before the 2005 election of course.  The day after polling, Blair replaced her with Alan Johnson and told him to get right on with a new nuclear programme.

Polly, when will you ever learn?  They are all playing you for a sucker!  

ND

**  But does she know what 'hapless' means?  Most Gruaniad writers do not.

Postscript - blast from the past: here's what happened when Polly first fell out with Gordon ...

There’s a one-eyed yellow Scotsman of a dour and sullen hue
There’s a stench of pious bullshit all around
There’s a broken-heated woman dreams of socialism true
And the yellow Scot forever lets her down

He was known as Red McBroon, and he made the Party swoon
Though his cowardice had long begun to smell
But for all he was a wanker he was feted by the bankers
And Polly Toynbee smiled on him as well ...

Read on here ...

Polly Toynbee is (Sometimes) Right

... about once a decade, I suppose.  She's an odd mix.  On the one hand she has a dreadful propensity to write up in the ever-gullible Grauniad whatever rubbish she's been told over a congenial lunch one-to-one with someone she's girlishly in awe of.  Her cavalier attitude towards easily-checked facts once spawned a small industry under the banner of Fact-Checking Pollyanna.  

On the other, she is capable of painstaking (if not actually painful) feats of empirical research, e.g. taking on menial jobs for months at a time to find out what's really happening somewhere, in order to write a book with some serious underpinnings.  She's an interesting contradiction; and the psychology of all this is a real puzzle.

Anyhow: she's had one of those once-a-decade moments (as usual, in the Graun). 

Squalid prisons are just the start. The entire justice system is in meltdown ... From the police to legal aid to the courts, savage cuts mean a nightmare is unfolding largely out of public view 

You scarcely need to read the article.  She's right, of course.  My own vantage-point on this is a friend in the CPS, whose stories from the front are frequently quite appalling.  Plus, of course, we all have the reports of our own eyes. 

And we know who's at least partly to blame: yes, the woman who was Home Secretary for six long years.  It's plain that (in her manifest cowardice, by now so transparent she is the laughing stock of Europe) she bowed all too readily to the budget constraints demanded by Osborne, and concluded the only priorities to be maintained were (a) counter-terrorism and (b) various crazy social policies inflicted upon the police.  Both she and Osborne richly deserve to languish in one of our choice prisons, doing some Toynbee-style first-hand research for themselves.

Recall the 2011 riots:  does anyone imagine they could be handled again today?  Even then it was wholly unsatisfactory for the first few days: but at least, on Cameron's insistence, a mighty and unrelenting effort was mounted to run to ground as many of the miscreants as possible over the following months.  Today?  Well, we may find out.  As one of our perceptive BTL commenters wrote in 2011, on that occasion there was no officer-class of motivated malcontents in evidence to coordinate the street-scum: but what if there was?   

Seven years later and it's not just in existence, it has a positive virtual Sandhurst of its own.  We may be grateful its titular leader is the utter plonker he is; that his No.2 holds no popular attraction whatever for the voters at large; and that Diane Abbbottt is a national joke.  That said, imagine her as Home Secretary ...  well, we may find out.

ND