Another reality-check: Rayner approves data centre!

 ... against fierce local opposition - and in the teeth of, yes, housing as potentially being an alternative use for the site.  It's the controversial Brick Lane Data Centre which, in a delightfully pointed insult, offers 4 (four) units of social housing.

What makes it exquisitely amusing is that none other than Housing Secretary Angela 'Stamp-Duty' Rayner has been the one to put her name to the government order overriding lower-tier authorities that would have withheld approval.  One can just imagine the agonies she will have gone through; but, hey, that's the price you pay for the privilege of slipping back into the Cabinet room, eh?  Them's your orders, girl, and leave your scruples at the door.  Still, at least she was able to push a junior minister out in front to make the actual announcement (in her name).   Happily, Parliament is not sitting. 

What I find doubly amusing is the way puzzled progressives can't understand how a data centre can be needed simply to speed up City financial transactions by milliseconds (which is one of the justifications for a DC in the East End).  Surely, they, cry, this is some kind of capitalist joke?  - nobody needs to make even quicker financial transactions ... do they ..?   Well, I have a first-hand story about this for another occasion: bottom line, it's all a lot more real than the ignorant could ever imagine.

On the subject of Them's your orders, girl ... with the fatuous 'consultations' on the Jackdaw and Rosebank fields being about to close, we are all greatly looking forward to Miatta Fahnbulleh being forced to walk the same plank and approve one or perhaps both of them in the next few weeks (doubtless on one quiet Friday evening during the Recess, with another junior minister out in front).  It'll be fun to watch her squirm.

ND

Starmer is getting cocky

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

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

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

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

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

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

ND

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

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

[3]  E.g.

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

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

Trump, Russia, Tariffs, EU ... now Poland

BTL the previous post, anon regales us with this quote relating to a pronouncement from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent:

Donald Trump has reportedly asked the EU to levy tariffs of up to 100% on India and China, in order to increase pressure on Russia to end its war in Ukraine.

Well, the Polish situation demands some kind of response; else the next "unplanned" wave of Gerberas will be over Finland and Estonia.  And I doubt NATO feels able to do much more than throw an aerial defensive screen around, say, Lviv - based firmly in Poland.  Economic measures are all that Europe is really up to at the moment.  The "coalition of the willing" is only looking at what it might do in the event of a ceasefire.

There is no doubt Russia is suffering economically just now (not to mention a growing shortage of gasoline and indeed water (sic) in the Donbas): and it might be made to suffer more.  But it can suffer more!  It's increasingly a war economy; and Russians are like that anyway (see this blog on many occasions).

Tense times.  Who needs the feeble distractions of Rayner and Mandelson?

ND  

She's breached the Code (with apologies to Macca)

 Yes, the usual apologies to Paul McCartney ...

[four bars of plaintive harp music]

Friday morning at five o’clock as the day begins 
One final glance round the smart Whitehall flat  
Cursing the lawyers and kicking the cat 
She goes downstairs to the limo, clutching her handkerchief 
Now for the letter she knows she must write 
How did it all turn to shite? 

   She's   (I'm just a working class lass ) 
   breaching   (Just a poor working class lass) 
   the Code   (What can you do when you've no old school tie?) 
   Hitting the road after breaching the Code in so many ways 

Starmer snorts as he wanders round in his dressing gown 
Picks up the letter the courier brought 
Standing in triumph; another great snort 
He laughs loud, and cries to Victoria 
“Whoopee! - our Angie's gone! 
How did she think she could have my job? 
Always just shooting her gob!” 

   She   (I did it all for the kids) 
   was breaching   (Nice flat in Hove for my kids) 
   the Code   (I wanted everything money could buy) 
   Tried to upload the establishment Code for so many years 

Sunday morning at nine o’clock she is back in Hove 
Making a call to her old comrade Jez 
Join his new party? - let's see what he says ... 

   She's   (What did I do that was wrong?) 
   no judgement!   (I didn’t know it was wrong) 
   None!   (Judgement's the one thing that money can't buy) 
   Couldn't explode the establishment Code after all those tears 
   Crushed by the Code   (bye bye) 

ND

Angela Rayner: some observations

The Angela Rayner Stamp Duty thing is manna from Heaven for the floundering, ineffectual Badenoch; and great stuff for Kremlin-watchers as we see Starmer digging mantraps for himself, and Wes Streeting desperately trying to appear compassionately on Rayner's side, even as the whole world knows she's been set up by the Labour faction that is determined Streeting himself will succeed Starmer, possibly even quite soon.  

Thus far, the matter has been discussed in rather pedestrian binary terms:

• she's a serial tax-avoider and residence-flipper - and a monstrous hypocrite to boot: or
• her personal affairs & backstory are sad, and legitimately complex (*takes out onion*), and this has led her into an understandable error: but look, she tried to get advice, she's been let down, and it's just all very human.

Personally, I suggest there's another strand to this: she's not particularly literate (lack of education, or brainpower, or both) and can't work through the HMRC guidance for herself.  

She wouldn't be alone in this.  Some of us are fortunate enough in the education and/or brainpower department to be able to make sense of relatively clear HMRC guidance (and a myriad other potentially overpowering bureaucratic verbiage one might meet in the course of a lifetime, e.g. the reams of forms on probate).  But that's just irrelevant for very many folks - however much effort HMRC et al put into wording stuff as clearly as possible - because increasingly few people have any worthwhile level of analytic verbal reasoning.  

Of course, the truly troubling bottom line is that this is evidently no bar to reaching some of the highest levels in the land.  And as noted before with the ignorant cretins at the top of Reform, this leads to one or both of two dire consequences: (a) very bad decisions by the politicians themselves, and (b) leaving them fully at the mercy of the Civil Service - another source of bad decisions - when their own limited analytic powers are overwhelmed.

In the next day or so we'll look at a politician to which none of the above applies: Darren Jones ...

ND

Miliband's perfect positioning

By way of elaboration on my assertion last week that Miliband can't remotely be discounted should Starmer topple in the near future, look at this telling chart from the loyalist LabourList platform and its Survation polling:

Survation / LabourList:     click link above for full-size

Every Cabinet member has seen their ratings fall after Reeve's efforts of last week: but L'il Ed's fell the least by far; and with Rayner heading west with all the rest, he's now miles out in front with Labour supporters.

He'll be making very careful decisions in the event his damn-fool energy policy dreams come under even more pressure from Reeves and her Growth-At-Any-Cost strategies.  Would yet another serious slap in the face be the ideal time to quit?  Or exactly the moment not to rise to the bait, and to hang on grimly instead, making the usual offstage noises and pointed absences that ensure everyone knows his true feelings?  The almost-iron rule of UK leadership elections is that Leaders of the two main parties only ever come from the ranks of the Cabinet / Shadow Cab.  And whilst in government, when the Chosen One becomes PM immediately?  That really is an iron rule.**

ND

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** The Corbyn Exception relates, of course, to a period of opposition - and even that needs qualifying for special circumstances, because there was only a 'shadow-shadow' cabinet in being during the short inter regnum of Harriet Harman, following the resignation of, errrr, one Ed Miliband.

Labour leadership stakes: rats-in-sack update

It's two months ago since we last looked at the jockeying for position going on in the Cabinet.  At that time we cast our eyes over Reeves (nobody's idea of the next leader, then or now); Streeting (obviously positioning himself actively); Lammy (radiating ambition); and Rayner (also ambitious but actually a joke).  For completeness, we mentioned Khan (permanently on the lookout for the Main Chance); Miliband (radiating competence); and Mandelson (devious and unpredictable as ever).

How do things look now?  The Grauniad has a telling, tearful piece, avowedly briefed by the wimmin: and it's worth quoting a couple of chunks. 

... a female minister spoke directly to the prime minister to complain about the leaks and briefings she saw directed against other women ... including Bridget Phillipson, Liz Kendall, and Yvette Cooper .,. “Cabinet really no longer feels like a safe space for genuine debate,” one minister said ... after weeks of tension felt by some women in the cabinet... Almost a dozen female Labour MPs who spoke to the Guardian said they were unnerved at how female cabinet ministers appeared to be getting the brunt of the blame for issues in government – though there is less sympathy for the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, because of anger over the Treasury’s handling of spending cuts and welfare. Among some of the new intake of MPs, there is a strong feeling that any ultimate successor to Starmer should be a woman – and a resentment of what they see as a campaign to anoint Wes Streeting.

Hahah!  More popcorn supplies, please.  It goes on: 

At the moment [Streeting] has no obvious female rival as the heir apparent. Senior cabinet ministers who did not want to see Streeting win had previously coalesced around Reeves, but her unpopular decisions as chancellor have meant that is no longer the case. Other ministers would back Rayner, but she would face a brutal press onslaught. Among Labour members there is no doubt, however. Rayner is streets ahead of her rivals in terms of popularity with the grassroots ... There is only one cabinet minister ahead of her, who is probably the least likely of anyone around the table to have another shot at the top job – Ed Miliband.

This is not intelligent commentary.  First, selecting the next leader when there's no vacancy is well-known to be an absolute mug's game.  Genuine, nailed-on heirs-apparent are few and far between in British politics (in the past century or more, only Anthony Eden and Gordon Brown).  

Second, Miliband is not at all the least likely to have another shot.  In countries like France and Italy he would be the number one contender in everyone's books: competent (at politics, that is), confident, popular, experienced, sure-footed, intelligent, and comfortably dynamic enough.  And he has the green-left eating out of his hand - potentially deemed a vital constituency when the Green Party is snapping around Labour's heels in such politically volatile circumstances.  That's how he'd be marketed, anyhow. 

A couple more comments.  (a)  You just can't rule out Khan or Burnham.  These guys' ambition and political capital is so great.  Safe seats aren't so hard to find in a hurry: Boris always found one at the drop of a hat.

(b) Having mentioned the Prince of Darkness last time and just out of interest, I have it on good authority Mandelson has already f****d up royally in Washington.  Of course, he's made comebacks in the past from many an appalling situation of his own making, so who knows?  But right now, his political capital is deep in the red.

Oh, and Lammy?  Speaking of in-the-red, he's so far out of the money right now, I almost forgot him.

ND  

Labour headed for serious internal strife

The Starmer government has been trying the patience of Labour members from MPs downwards, ever since the 2-chid allowance and winter fuel payment things, not to mention the freebies.  Their mealy-mouthed stance on Gaza enrages further tranches of their base.  Kow-towing to Trump - and who knows what that might entail - won't go down at all well in many quarters.  But now Rachel Reeves seems to have cut loose altogether, and must surely be moving onto a whole new patch of extremely thin ice.

Growth as a panacea for, well, everything, has a moderately respectable economic pedigree (even if achieving it has seemed to be beyond UK politicians - and there are respectable theories about that, too).  Months ago we noted that the Starmer regime seemed to have come to it fairly late, and there's no doubt it's the only thing that matters now - to Reeves, at least.  It's also top of Starmer's rhetoric just now, but soon he may find he has a few competing priorities to juggle.  And ahead of any ultimate, actual growth-derived economic benefits arriving - a long-term prospect, at best - manic growth-stimulating policies come with a lot of near-term political downsides.

This all comes to a head when, last week, Reeves explicitly said growth takes priority over Net Zero etc.  Well, in that case, we can suggest several cost-saving measures right away!  That's after weeks of "the Cuts are Coming!", which is hardly music to the ears of the rest of the Cabinet - and the Party.  Then, to cap it off, LHR3 seems likely to be given the thumbs-up.  

Apparently, Miliband says he won't resign over LHR - and we know how exceptionally "loyal" he is.   OK, LHR might not technically be within his brief, so he might feel able to let it go.  But, seriously, if NZ is to be downgraded as a priority, there really are several material savings to be made there: Sizewell C is a current cash drain for no immediate gain[1], and numerous other smaller, stupid projects too (hydrogen for heating, this includes you - and many more besides).  Reeves' axe must surely swing in his direction as well as every other.  These cuts and blunt Go-for-Growth bulldozer measures will be pissing off Labour swing voters and NIMBYs everywhere on a big scale - and there's one helluva big, restive, worried labour backbench cohort.

Now I may be getting ahead of myself here, but I feel we see some of the bigger players starting to position themselves for genuine internecine strife.  Streeting is the one who caught my attention last week with his big, heavily-trailed "battle of ideas" speech - a sure sign; and of course Khan is always on the lookout for cues to work his passage back into Parliament and the leadership he fondly imagines is his by right.  They say Lammy is boundlessly ambitious.  Rayner is a joke, of course, but for completeness I feel it must be noted that Miliband is seriously radiating dynamic confidence & competence (that's "radiating", not "actually delivering"), and looks like leadership material [2] if anyone was in the market for it.  In a country like France, he'd have no difficulty in being a candidate to go round again.  Mandelson, of course, is always on expert manoeuvres and his favours are fairly fickle. 

Popcorn time, then.  And sooner than we might have expected.

ND

____________

[1] Not in energy terms, anyhow.  Of course, many say the underlying purpose of the whole civil nuclear programme is to subsidise the military nukes.  And I persist in viewing it as part of the overall craven France-mollifying strategy which of course involves the Small Boats issue.

[2] If you want to judge for yourself, view his performance at the ESNZ committee in Parliament two weeks ago - masterful stuff.

"Best prepared new govt ever" - what? UPDATED

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ND

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

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

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

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

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