Polly Toynbee is 'optimistic' again. Won't end well ...

 ... it never does.

Over the years I've tracked the barometer, nay, the roller-coaster of Polly Toynbee's agonisingly optimistic takes on her successive political crushes.  Once the SDP was well and truly dead, she had the highest hopes for Blair - until he let her down.  Who can forget her swooning over fellow '70s soft-leftist, anti-nuke Patricia Hewitt when she became Sec of State at the DTI (whose brief then included Energy) and the ever naive Polly wrote: Get that: no new nuclear power stations!  Only to have Blair overrule her - and fire her - shortly thereafter.  Then Brown became even more of a hot fixation, an object of her wish-projection.  We know what happened there.  Then Miliband (in various incarnations).  Then John McDonnell !  (True.  I told you I follow these thing.)  Then Starmer.  And whenever a GE looms at a moment when her hopes for the incumbent leader have already waned, she always dusts off the 'nosepeg' formula for voting Labour anyway.  

And now, from today's Graun ...

We must believe!   Yes, it's heart-wrenchingly pathetic.  (When was that mugshot taken..?)  Anyhow, as a weekend Blast From The Past, back to those heady days of Gordon Brown and how he, in turn, dashed her hopes - one of my doggerel efforts, from from 2007.  Apologies to J.Milton Hayes and Mad Carew, and a good weekend to all.

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-hearted 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

He’d been stringing her along with his socialism strong
She’d swallowed all he put into her head
When she judged Blair’s time was short, she said Broon had her support
Provided he would prove himself True Red

He wrote to ask what promise she would like from Red McBroon
They met for lunch as many times before
And fervently she told him then that nothing else would do
But his vote against Blair’s mad Iraqi war

On the night of the debate, Red McBroon was in a state,
His followers could bring mad Tony down
But he’d never in his life had the balls to wield the knife
For he knew the wielder never wears the crown

When it came to the division, courage gave way to ambition
And his scruples failed as surely as his balls
When she heard them read the vote, fury welled up in her throat
And ‘betrayal!’ was her cry around the halls

Now Hell it hath no fury like a jilted Polly Toynbee
First Blair and now McBroon had sold his soul
As she stomped off in the night, for her op-ed piece to write
She vowed vengeance on the yellow Scots arsehole

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-hearted woman dreams of socialism true
And the yellow Scot forever lets her down.

ND

Starmer goes "with good grace"? We'll be the judges ...

And so it came to pass.  Suddenly, all the fight went out of him.

"I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party ... and I accept that answer with good grace."

Oh, really?  Let us be the judges of that.  If I were a gullible Labour leftie who'd had higher hopes back in 2020, I'd be fairly bitter.  Andy "novelty factor" Burnham will be having all those hopes projected on him now.  Good luck with that.  I guess he's at least got the advantage that hopes will be set rather lower now.  "Hope he doesn't accept too many freebies ...";  "Maybe he believes in something ...".

Spare a thought for Sadiq Khan, who "paid tribute to Sir Keir Starmer as 'a man of great integrity' ".  Well, it takes one to know one: pardon me while I mop up this pool of spilled tea.  Oh, tragedy: this moment should surely have been Sadiq's - how he's been trying to figure out how he could do a Burnham before Burnham himself pulled it off.  So now he'll have to wait for another mainstream Labour meltdown.  If the Tories are the model for modern British politics, that'll be along as soon as the latest lettuce wilts.  Early GE, anyone?

That said, I'm not sure Khan looks terribly well just now.  Let's charitably blame the new haircut.  Now, about that critical upcoming NATO summit next month ... what's your foreign policy, Andy?  And defence spending?  They are all looking at you.

ND

Events!

But then of course there's Events ... Mandy, Trump, who-knows-what.  Starmer already has a long list of self-serving one-liners to fend off the 'known unknowns' ...

That was C@W last week: and right on cue, Events have struck.  Was Healey's resignation really an unknown unknown?  No: for several weeks past, meejah political correspondents have been reporting that all was not well with the Defence Investment Plan and that the Cabinet was badly split on the issue.

Given that right now it looks for all the world big enough to be a Final Nail, letting it erupt like this is a capital strategic error on Team Starmer's part: it was foreseeable; they should have made sure it was covered[1].  I'm sure we've all met situations where someone, or some organisation, fatally loses sight of just how big some fairly obvious potential banana-skin really is[2] - and it's not pretty when they step on it.  Not quite the same phenomenon as Nicholas Taleb's "picking up pennies in front of the steamroller", but there are some family resemblences.

So now, we must assume that Burnham will campaign even more explicitly as the anti-Starmer insurgent, however implausible.  Farage, presumably, will campaign on "it's Labour that is the problem", to be reinforced in the days to come by lurid stories of toxic Cabinet proceedings that the press will be happy to furnish as they get extensively briefed by all the self-interested parties involved.  And let's see what 'line' TS comes up with to fend off this one - that'd earn someone his bonus.  Or is it just too late for yet another last-ditch defence?  

ND

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[1]  It seems they were preoccupied "wargaming Andy Burnham's next moves"

[2]  In my first commercial employment, I watched in horror as a really good manager I worked for came badly unstuck in that manner.  Fortunately, this life-lesson came very early in my career.  It was a great relief, two employers later, to work for a firm that operated on the maxim: the bigger the (potential) issue, the better the team we deploy and the more attention we give it.  It's truly crazy when a firm draw up a list of 10 issues, and commits one tenth of its resources to each with no thought to the relativities.  Or worse: when it gives 30% to the squeakiest wheel, irrespective. 

Toughing it out: Starmer, Putin, Trump

Toughing things out isn't quite the same as playing for time, although the latter (an intellectually very dull strategy, but often effective) can be part of it.  One reason it can work for the obdurate party is that an awful lot of opponents have read their Sun Tzu and are hoping to gain their victory by manoeuvre and psychology alone, i.e. without bloodshed - which involves the incumbent vacating the battlefield before any clash of main forces.

Well, the other side has a vote in these matters, which all parties need to remember.  We have three prominent examples in play right now.

Starmer.   We've long suggested that Team Starmer has every intention of toughing it out, and in the last couple of days he stated he would contest any leadership election that might be forced upon the Labour Party.  Quite obviously, yer Burnhams and yer Steetings are hoping he'll be driven away without a fight, perhaps out of sheer embarrassment.  Note that Burham said last week that IF there's a contest (and IF he's an MP), he'd stand.  That's a man waiting for a coronation, not one armed with a pre-drafted letter in 81 copies.  

And there's probably quite a few Labour MPs who don't want to be put on the spot, too, when the Whips come round with nomination papers and thumbscrews.  Well, who knows what a few more weeks and Mandy-scandals will bring for TS - but since 'shamelessness' is his second name, he can probably hold on until the last minute.  So there you go, boys: you're gonna have to winkle him out.

UPDATE:  this, from the Graun - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/10/keir-starmer-aides-war-gaming-over-leadership-contest-with-andy-burnham

Trump.   Obviously not in such imminent political peril; but he sure ain't enjoying where he finds himself vis-à-vis Iran and world opinion generally.  (WTF did they go ahead with that Beijing visit for - I mean, either of them, Trump or Xi?  Literally nothing achieved.  At least, though, it doesn't appear Trump gave away the farm this time, which was the danger.  What might he do to cajole Xi to go ahead with the planned Washington visit, though?) 

Anyhow, in what's clearly an orchestrated effort, there has been a splurge of "Trump really knows what he is doing" articles - a demeaning task for the poor writers involved because manifestly he hasn't a f*****g clue.  I'd spotted a few in UK media, and thought it was empty sycophancy: but US contacts tell me it's been a blizzard over there.  The joke is, one of the oft-repeated lines is that Trump is pursuing clearly-stated Original War Aims - and then they cite different ones!  Of course, there have been so many to choose from, sometimes all in the space of a single morning in Trumpworld.  Does it all make the Donald feel happier?  Who can tell.   

Putin.  Ah yes, Li'l Volodya again, with two more humiliations in the past few days: the Ukrainian bombing of St Petersburg, literally casting a dark cloud over the SPIEF-fest; and the Armenian elections, which he had convinced himself had been sufficiently 'influenced' as to give a pro-Moscow result.  (This comes after Victory Day, Hungary, Iran, Cuba, Syria, Azerbaijan, etc etc - and of course the Chinese gas sale debacle.   Not to mention the casualties ... we've done this all before.)

But no: he's refusing to engage with Zelenskyy's insolent letter, and maintaining that Russia is on the path to inevitable total victory & fulfillment of his Original War Aims - however fatuous that sounds to, err, absolutely everyone.  So as we order industrial quantities of popcorn for the months ahead, let's just poke a little more fun by recounting what happened during SPIEF under that dark, oily pall.

• the WiFi failed
• overseas visitors were provided with VPN and SIMs so that they could access WA, etc (banned and 'blocked' in Russia)
• the useless Max messenger (the mandatory replacement for soon-to-be-banned-altogether Telegram) received its official launch - and promptly disappeared from the AppStore
• journalists were asked not to take photos of the lavish parties 
• ditto of the hookers provided for delegates
• residents had their hot water switched back on for the week (in St Petersburg the hot water provided by municipal district heating schemes is switched off in summer), presumably so they could present a fragrant atmosphere in the street 

But still he's not for turning ...[1].  These world leaders, eh? - they're so ... tough.

UPDATE:  reporting within Russia has it that the cyber aspects of Putin's personal security regime have been switched off.  This makes protecting him in some aspects more difficult: but has been occasioned by acute fears stemming from the ease with which Israel was manifestly able to track Iranian and Hezbollah leaders.  As we know, Putin is a physical coward [2] who seriously hopes to live to be 150.  But just because he's paranoid - aspects of which are noted by the FT - that doesn't mean 'someone' isn't out to get him.  (But probably not Mr Z.)

ND

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[1]  Tellingly. however, in occupied Ukraine the Russians are seriously digging in - vast underground citadels being built.  They clearly envisage the need to defend what they now hold, rather than feeling confident of pushing ever further forward into the territory they assert is theirs for the taking, as Putin reckons is happening right now.  It's readily understandable, not least because Ukraine has rendered vulnerable every movement of vehicles and rolling stock, across the occupied territories and a significant swathe beyond, seriously incommoding Russian logistics.  Summer shortages of oil and even water in some of these areas will be acute.  It's truly hard to envisage how the much vaunted Russian "2026 Offensive" will materialize in any manner worthy of the name.

[2]   Let's get ahead of the "how do you know this?" trolling, with (a) his obvious blind terror of covid  - back to SPIEF again, anyone allowed to attend his address & press conference in person had to go through rigorous covid testing, even in 2026 (and he wasn't going to kiss them anyway); and  (b) seemingly, a new-found terror of hantavirus (sic!).  It has seriously been floated in Russia that the Special Military Operation should be brought to a conclusion swiftly, because of ... wait for it ... the risk of hantavirus running riot among front-line troops.  WTF?  There's only one reason why that sort of arrant nonsense appears: it's because someone who wants a prompt end to the SMO knows which of Putin's buttons to press.

Burnham's by-election

Watching Burnham's by-election purely as a spectator, I have no feel whatever for what's happening on the ground (rarely do the pundits either, these days).  But one or two things stand out rather clearly: things that might not have been expected even just a month ago - which just goes to show.

>  Burnham makes a pretty unconvincing King Across the Water / saviour of the nation.  He comes across as an odd combination of entitled, nervous and petulant.  Is he simply going to win anyhow?  Who can judge?  Voters only make up their minds on vague feelings of what 'seems right'.  

>  Restore looks distinctly as though it could upset Reform pretty badly.  I wouldn't ordinarily cite Brendan O'Neill, and it's larded with phrases I wouldn't use, but this is a pertinent essay:  "the Your Party of the right" is spot on, as is "his bit-part role in the chronicles of our times will be an entirely inglorious one".

For me, both these thoughts have relegated another couple of potential talking-points, namely the embarrassment for the Greens over their initial nominee; and the chronic inability of Reform ever to find unexceptionable candidates (let alone exceptional) - even for high-profile set-pieces like this.  Think what it'll be like for both these arriviste parties at the GE!

If Restore does indeed trip up Reform on this outing, I suppose it might just be the urgent incentive Farage needs to square Lowe away in good time before the next GE.  Otherwise he will be spending a lot more time with that £5m nest-egg.

Burnham, if it is indeed to be him this time, must I suppose be hoping that, once elected, Streeting will pull the trigger as promised.   But maybe he won't!  And if not, can that obscure woman who threatened to do it a few weeks back really muster the numbers?  Would it look a bit off, if Burnham himself did it immediately following his victory?  What we may be 100% sure of is that Team Starmer will have been strenuously working over every single Labour backbencher with the usual unsavoury combination of menaces, promises and flattery.  It's amazing how many of a list of 81 can quietly slip away in such circumstances.  Time is well and truly on Starmer's side, given his clear determination to bluster on.

But then of course there's Events ... Mandy, Trump, who-knows-what.  Starmer already has a long list of self-serving one-liners to fend off both the 'known unknowns' on that little list; and we'll be hearing a lot of them soon.  

A run on popcorn seems like a safe bet.  Anyone updating their January predictions on Starmer's survival this year?

ND

Streeting will land us with Miliband

I'm off on a short hol, but I leave you with my view - a prediction that has been simmering for 18 months, as you know (check the Mili tag).

• It's clear enough why Streeting might feel his only chance (ever) is to move now
• He may get 80 signatures, but he won't get elected
• Not sure if Starmer will stand and fight - John Major did (and won), but that was different in material ways
• In any case, if Streeting moves, Miliband wins

Have fun.   If I can find some wifi in a few days time, I might join in.

ND

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PS: the lefties at Novara are often quite good on lefty stuff, but made a really ridiculous assessment on Tuesday evening.  They said Miliband doesn't fly "because he's been rejected by the electorate before".  FFS!

1. The electorate ain't being consulted
2. errr ... Harold Wilson 1974?
3. errr ... Donald Trump 2024?
4. - plus loads of French and Italian politicians who think nothing of going round for a second bite  

PPS:  Rayner's 11th-hour "exoneration" is pretty damn' convenient, eh???  For Starmer as well as for her.  Sounds to me like the story of McSweeney's 'phone: nobody's gonna believe it. 

Stonewall Starmer goes full 'Sierra'

Not as much fun as you thought?

Having long suggested that Team Starmer fully intends to tough it out - and they had plenty of advanced notice and planning time [1] for this crisis, at least - that's how it still seems, & strongly so, at the time of writing.  There's only one oven-ready candidate in the wings, with no "anyone but [Wes]" votes against him: our old pick Ed Miliband.  

Team S is pursuing what I call the Sierra Strategy when I'm strategising in business.  Recall the Ford jallopy of that name?  Having had many years of consummate success with its predecessor, the smart rust-bucket Cortina line[2], Marks 1-4, Ford went for a fairly 'bold' new look.  The 'jelly-mould' hatchback found immediate disfavour, and despite the usual launch promotions sales were not good.

Ford had a massive call to make:  re-skin and rebrand it fairly promptly with as much commercial dignity as possible, or double down.  They doubled down with massive corporate determination.  Advertising, deep discounts, promotions of all kinds, a smarter Ghia variant that was half-decent - everything in the marketing man's book of tricks.  For several years!  Dunno what this campaign cost, or how the counterfactual might have played out: but in terms of sheer brute force to get the Sierra into the top 3 or 4 UK best-sellers, they succeeded.  And that's Starmer now.

PS, Miliband is sitting there trying to figure his optimum positioning for picking up the crown when it falls.  And a coronation is what he wants: no knife-job.  My guess?  At the critical moment, he offers Starmer Foreign Secretary and a big Euro-push mandate.  Kier, we can both make history together ...     

PPS  If you think Starmer is stonewalling impressively, just watch Trump between now and the mid-terms.  He'll be looking at everything from conjuring a genuine crisis in order to call them off, to calling the results void - and calling out the National Guard in every state that returns a Dem.    

ND  

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[1]  E.g. the timing of the King's Speech

[2]  The Mk 1 started life as just the plain 'Consul'.  Didn't play ideally, so they changed it to 'Consul Cortina' (as opposed to its predecessor the 'Consul Classic'.  See, these Ford guys were always sharp with marketing-based solutions. 

Election: while we wait for full results ...

 ... here's what happened in my manor (Croydon) in the Elected Mayor stakes:

Yup, at first glance it appears Reform dented the Tories a lot less than the Greens dented Labour.

It was an interesting campaign.  The Tory Mayor (whose majority last time was even slimmer) is a solid, worthy and honourable guy, who was dealt a dreadful hand by the outgoing Labour regime that had bankrupted the borough to what I believe to be the deepest degree in the annals of UK local government failures.  The least one could say is, he stabilised things: more positively, he made the best of a bad hand, broke some crazy impasses and has made some visible improvements.  But he has been subject of a relentless and dishonest sniping campaign (hey, it's politics), not by the official Labour opposition leadership - who publicly paid due regard to the fact it was their predecessors that brought the town low - but by a rather by the young woman councillor who eventually became Labour's (losing) mayoral candidate.

She's a bit of an object lesson.  She thoroughly suborned the widely-read local website, Inside Croydon, which started life as a fairly even-handed platform but latterly became her mouthpiece - presumably by her giving it a great deal of her attention including, allegedly (let her sue if she dares), leaking a lot of Council stuff to them.  She also ran a fairly adroit social meejah campaign; and put herself about the town bigly wearing bright red coats, to the extent her personal recognition factor was quite astonishingly high for a local politician.  She promised all things to all people (naturally) and there were no surprises whatsoever when Labour adopted her as their candidate.  Based on all this, very many people - and most certainly Inside Croydon (noticeably reticent this morning, haha) - bruited it about that she'd win easily, in spite of Starmer.  After all, the demographics of this "diverse" London borough seem strongly to favour Labour anyway, and we have no history of third parties whatsoever since the last of the "Residents and Ratepayers" candidates were elected more than 40 years ago. 

But here we are.  How so?  

(a) the Tories waged a fairly adroit campaign themselves.  (Running as "Local Conservatives" was a good start.)  Somehow, on our canvass returns, some bright spark took it upon themselves to classify electors into "anyone but Reform" or "anyone but Labour" - I'm not sure how - and voters got personalised letters accordingly.  The "abL" letter was signed by the single most well-known and admired woman in the borough, a long-time Labour stalwart and councillor of 36 years who has for decades been an omnipresent and ultra-personable networker at civic and civic-related occasions, and a tireless, nay saintly, and highly entrepreneurial charity worker.  She has long been vocally disgusted at the behaviour of said Labour mayoral candidate-woman, and gave the Tory her glowing endorsement.  In a 1,000-vote majority, I'm guessing her backing alone made the 500-voter difference.

(b) as reported earlier, Reform here are, in the immortal words of Father Jack, a shower of bastards, and certainly not sufficiently organised to take a fatal bite out of the Tories.  (Farage even cancelled a campaign visit when the infighting made it look to o risky for him.)  A better-run Reform effort could have made serious inroads into the vast traditional white working-class estate of New Addington (meriting 5 councillors - that's big) where even the Tories often have success.  At the time of writing, we haven't had the councillor results through, so maybe they did; we'll see.  But whatever, it wasn't enough to impact the mayoral outcome.

(c) as also written here before (in the context of the 2011 riots) the population of Croydon is quite exceptionally diverse and, unusually, no single ethnic group predominates.  If anything, it's black and Tamil, with Hindu and Moslem in the mix: but the latter not in remotely such numbers as make it a Green prospect (there aren't lots of "young unemployed graduates" either) - just enough to take a fair bite out of Labour in a close race.  Also, the Tories have long had very decent representation among all these groups (and the Poles) excepting possibly the Moslems - though we did have a very prominent Tory Moslem Deputy Mayor; and the blacks are very split between progressives and deeply, deeply socially conservative (= hostile to LGBTIQX+Y). 

So there we have it.  A story of just one specific local situation.  But it could very well be that local situations will be more of a factor in English politics going forward, than ever before. 

More on the overall results when we have them, no doubt.

ND

UPDATE - Croydon remains 'no overall control' - but that's a misnomer in this borough as the executive remains in the hands of the (Tory) elected mayor.  Though given that the Commissioners are in, because of the bankruptcy, even he lacks genuine control.  Other aspects:

• Minimal impact by Reform is confirmed but they did get 2 of the 5 New Addington seats (see above) 
• Kier Starmer's 20-something niece, parachuted in from absolutely nowhere with the ink still wet on her membership card, secured a seat (involving the deselection of a pretty reasonable Labour incumbent councillor and no selection process at all, needless to say) 
• Mark Adderley, husband of Nadia Sawalha, is returned as a Green despite being suspended for allegedly antisemitic remarks (and not just a few).

All good Toytown fun.

FINAL UPDATE:  here's the map.  Geo-explanation (see also above):

• the wedge on the eastern side is the mighty New Addington estate: when I was on the council, donkeys years ago, it was Labour's last and final bastion when the 'Falklands Factor' reduced them to a tiny rump.  Since then, Labour have retreated to the northern end of the estate - terraces of '60s houses & flats, 'diverse' occupants.  The Tories have worked hard on the trad white / mostly houses / right-to-buy southern end: we finally took it a few years ago but now Reform have taken over.  The only surprise is, that's about all they managed.
• The stripy top north-east sector is Crystal Palace and its lower slopes: it's gentrifying fast, with the result you see.  Labour being squeezed out accordingly, into ...
• ... the western wilds of 'Fort Neaf' (Thornton Heath) and Norbury, where I grew up.  NOT gentrified - yet - but look at Brixton!
• the rest: essentially aspirational of whatever colour or creed; plenty of successful first-generation wealth and easily recruited for the Tory cause, as can be seen from the colouring.  The odd LibDem occasionally sneaks in.

In sum: if the Tories can weather the multi-decade 'urbanisation' of the north of the borough while the gentrification spreads west and south from the top corner, there's no reason to give up on being politically competitive here; and the ghastly 8 years 2014-2022 when Labour had total control and bankrupted the place, could seem like an aberration.  Demographics, eh?

And something of a lesson with wider application?

Today's elections: a small prediction

A subject we've touched on before is the stupidity of Starmer thinking that giving votes to 16- and 17-year olds will boost Labour's prospects.  Must have seemed a good idea when Team Starmer were plotting back in 2021-2, but the rise of Green and Turquoise tik-tok populism must surely have given them pause, even before we mention Andrew Tate and 'Amelia'.

But of course in Scotland and Wales, teens do indeed get the vote.

I'm betting Team Starmer will be analysing the demographics of today's voting patterns very, very carefully before proceeding with this particular manifesto promise. 

(And indeed Team Successor, if Starmer really is for the chop.  Though it it's to be the gurning Miliband, he really fancies himself on titk-tok.  For some reason.) 

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, ...

Iran, and two men's revealing speeches

First, the utterly unspeakable Hesgeth, who should by rights be languishing in a gaol somewhere for his outrageous breach of security in running that insecure and actually compromised Signal chat last summer.  There he is, mouthing off in ways scarcely befitting an unrestrained junior under-boss of a New York crime family, just before the capo decided he's heard enough ill-judged, unseemly braggadocio.  (The Mafia idiom comes readily to mind in so many of Team Trump's doings.)   And the empty boasting about the "effectively unlimited" magazine depth of US forces - it's clearly untrue, and who thinks it's clever?  Xi will be at risk of splitting his sides. 

Then, there's Starmer's performance when announcing that Trump may use UK bases "for strictly defensive strikes".  Just look at the body language, from a man who, like a real political pro, can normally hold it together quite well when he's delivering absolute, calculating lies.  His voice was shaky; he looked ill with worry; he wouldn't take questions.  A shockingly unconvincing performance, in logic and delivery.  

The sequence of events for this hollow man is obvious:

1. Lose by-election due to Moslem vote going Green
2. Half a dozen Cabinet ministers see their futures dwindling 
3. Hasty strategy meeting (i): must start heavy-duty pandering to 'the community'
4. Trump off on another rogue mission of Netanyahu's devising, wants to rope in the UK: no!  Channel Harold Wilson / Vietnam!  Make it clear we're on the side of (peaceful) Moslems!
5. Trump lets it be known bigly that this is the Wrong Answer: reminds Starmer the RAF is already heavily engaged in the region; and that he'll do whatever he pleases anyway; but that "disloyal optics" are not permitted
6. Hasty strategy meeting (ii): "jolly helpful" that an itty bitty Shahed has landed somewhere in the Akrotiri region, and that RAF is been providing top-cover for Jordan (& Turkey?) anyway. Defensive defensive defensive!  New statement.  Grip podium.  Square circle.  Pander to both sides - & try to be convincing.  Come on man, you can do it!

Then, hasty strategy meeting (iii).  Ramp up on those other pandering-plans.  Where are we with the new Blasphemy law?  Hurry that up.  And are we doing enough "blend and extend" to ensure the Grooming Gangs inquiry focuses on London, and child abuse in general?  We need to do more: get Khan on the phone again, and those Anti Social Media campaigners.

Gah.  It's so transparent.  But, I tell you - he intends to tough it all out.

ND

A great weekend for this p***k to resign quietly

On any other news day, this would have been another nail in Starmer's coffin.  That Special Relationship, eh?

By their friends shall ye know them

All in all, Starmer will be pretty pleased not to have been the wall-to-wall weekend headlines.  Heavy price for the Middle East to pay, though, just to spare these b******s blushes.

ND

By-election BS: open thread

The 'first draft of history' on this one is quite difficult to essay: the number of variables in play has been quite remarkable, and continues in the same manner.  4-D chess?  Try 5 or 6.  The consequences for Labour, in particular, are complex and highly contingent on many things.  (Could have been even more amusing if Your Party had been at the races - and in future it might just be.)

But we'll all have some early thoughts.  Here are a couple of mine:

• WTF was Reform doing, fielding a prize prat like Goodwin?  Just about the worst candidate imaginable for fighting a working-class / Muslim seat.  And Farage a man with his finger on the pulse?  I have heard only two 'excuses': (1) this was always a big stretch for Reform - something like no. 440 on their list of potential targets, IIRC;  (2) "Farage wanted to slap down a potential leadership rival" (yes, I've seen that surmised on the airwaves - but possibly a hypothesis born of the same bewilderment as my own).
• Obviously this is a Big Test for them / him, but right now I'd say Team Starmer is determined to tough it out.  (No guarantee of success, of course.)
• Polanski will now be striving to get his lovable piss-artist act together properly - which may in turn piss off some of his "support" as he seeks to ditch the "our policy is dictated by Conference and the leadership is only allowed to parrot it" doctrine of the Greens: which can't possibly survive if he's to capitalise on this.

I could go on ... but I said I wouldn't - so over to t'readership.

ND

Does. Starmer. Never. Learn. Anything?

How would anyone summarise Starmer's most recent month's worth of self-inflicted misery?  Easy: he is accused of severe, sustained failure of judgement on personnel matters - in the face of prior knowledge and warnings.   Oh, and of course disowning responsibility afterwards.  No internalised ethics adviser inside that Max Headroom skull; and no internalised HR adviser either. 

So, when needing a new Cabinet Secretary (and how did that requirement come about, pray ..?) what does he do but pick someone with a track record of bullying accusations[1].  FFS, why?  OK, the Labour wimmin have been braying about the need to break up his "boys' club", but (a) so what?  (b) Sue Gray, anyone? 

Meanwhile, someone on Team Starmer is continuing the "good work"[2] with daily injections of supposedly ultra-pop, and/or left-pleasing "initiatives" - i.e. belligerent statements of empty intent - for Starmer to deliver as a mighty smokescreen for the non-stop string of genuinely damaging cock-ups.  It's not a prime-ministerial look: and it ain't working.

Here's a simple prediction: the meejah has got it in for him to the extent that an editorial edict of "find a story that brings him down" has replaced "stay onside with Team Starmer no matter what" as a standing headline of the newsroom's Orders of the Day.   They'll be doing whatever it takes to find stuff on the Romeo woman, too - given that there are evidently skeletons in her closet.  There'll always be a disgruntled / slighted / insulted / sidelined / bitter ex-colleague out there.  

A race, then, between which of them is turfed out first.  Popcorn supplies are running low.

ND

_______________

[1] Let nobody fall for "there was one complaint (a long time ago in a galaxy far away) ... but no case to answer".

[2] Of course, it may be that McSweeney is still having his instructions chanelled into TS from wherever he's skulking.  Mandy's too - even if from one of Deripaska's yachts.  Well, why not?  They are trusted advisers, no?

When does the AI bubble burst - and what then?

That AI is currently inflating a mighty economic bubble is a commonplace observation.  A vast proportion of US economic growth (as conventionally measured) and stock market value is related to AI.  Every damned company on the planet is trying to portray itself as somehow AI-contributing or AI-powered - and they are frequently getting a gratifying share-price kicker from it[1].  Presumably, the pension industry is pretty addicted by now.

In the real world, the vast and (we are told) exponentially-growing demand for electricity - 100% secure baseload electricity to boot - made by data centres is seriously distorting electric power-system planning for many a nation.  Coming atop the average grid's already torturing itself - and its hapless bill-payers - to accommodate the diametrically opposed demands of a decentralised renewables-based future, this is a serious spanner in the works.  And of course governments everywhere are anxious to play host to new data centres, Starmer's as much as any; and are making this a policy priority.   But the (would-be) data centre builders have twigged that these contortions on the part of conventional grid operators may very probably not prove successful - and thus are talking about joint ventures with nuclear generators and ... sponsoring nuclear fusion development! [2]  Yup, it's a completely irrational bubble.     

But what does that tell us about AI itself?   Not much, beyond the obvious fact that it has gripped the universal imagination to the extent that dollar signs rotate in every businessman's eyeballs.  

Well.  Railways had a mania, and many a railway company went bust.  The technology and much of the infrastructure they built is still evolving and very much in use.  We had a dotcom bubble.  It burst, alright, but it didn't mean the internet was a phantasm.  Enron was a bubble: but it didn't mean the Enron vision for how energy markets should be configured was wrong.  (Even China is trying to figure out how to bring that revolution into its own constipated energy sector.)  Etc etc - these techie-based phenomena are not like Dutch tulip mania: nobody needs tulips, but everyone needs railways / electricity / the www / .... and, probably, we'll continue to want and need the advances that are made under the banner of 'AI'.

So: if history is any guide, it'll be a painful financial collapse; a reshuffle of the runners and riders in the "AI industry" (for those who don't break a leg & are not shot by the vet); and the underlying new tech rumbles on to find a more stable way to become a permanent fixture in all our economies and our ways of life. 

Views?  Predictions?  Timing ..?

ND

UPDATE: a bucket of cold water over certain claims for AI:

________________

[1]  Even Drax, FFS - a floundering, downsizing biomass-burning power company.  

[2]  On the eve of the 2007-09 financial crisis, a high-end energy-specialist VC firm of my acquaintance was looking for opportunities to invest in unsubsidised nuclear powerplant development.  When money is aimlessly sloshing about on that scale, that's when you really know a financial crash is coming soon.

Mandelson, document-release ... and Polly Toynbee

So what to make of the latest state of play over Mandy?

I'd say it's really clear: Team Starmer is utterly determined to tough this out, and they reckon they can do it: their man is no conscience-stricken wimp, likely to flake on them one fine morning.   Grim determination is no guarantee of success, of course: but (a) it is at least a necessary condition of success; and (b) these are scheming, desperate people with a lot of levers available to them.

> the way things developed in Parliament on Wednesday shows that Team S's going-in point was to resist document disclosure, period.  They were thwarted procedurally by the unholy alliance of Badenoch + Rayner, but we know what is plainly their aim: not to release docs. 

> they are 'framing' like crazy to the media, and it still largely gets swallowed whole.  As well as "It's all about Mandelson's lies - to my staff (not me, of course)" and "I wanted to release the docs yesterday" (see previous post), we read: 

• "There will be no leadership challenge, because ... [Rayner = tax dodger, still under investigation // Burnham = disqualified // Streeting = Mandelson-best-buddy // etc]." 

• "PC Plod has a serious point about not prejudicing their investigation / potential charges being brought."   

• "So-oo many docs - this is going to take months and months."   

Etc etc.  Yup, they are going for that oldest, most intellectually dismal, most sordidly shameless  tactic of all: playing for time - and it's often successful.  Let me give you a recent parallel: a case I have been reading up lately from my own patch (energy).  A big corporate - Drax plc - had a run-in with an employee-whistleblower whom Drax fired, and who brought an employment case, early in March last year.  Halfway through the unusually lengthy Employment Tribunal, they settled: by all accounts it amounted to a capitulation by Drax.  Meejah organisations sought release of the court documents - which, had the case continued, they'd have had access to, it was a public hearing.  Drax has stonewalled for nearly eleven months, only finally releasing the docs under a court order at the end of Jan.  And even now, the docs are (a) not the complete set, and (b) in some cases, heavily redacted (on the usual grounds: "commercial sensitivity / privacy / yadder yadder").  In which time Drax has managed to secure 4 more years of juicy new subsidy, and a 40% increase in its share price, from which many execs will benefit materially, in cash.

If a corporation can behave like that, how much more easily can HMG, with all the resources of the State and the added killer pretext of "national security" (see below)?  My prediction: we ain't gonna get anything much before those May elections - and we'll never get anything they truly don't want us to see.  

Which brings us to La Toynbee, whose general run of risible Guardian offerings is occasionally but reliably punctuated with something half-worthwhile.  Here's her latest.  You need to look past the usual fatuous fawning - the idea that Starmer is "a decent PM" (she once idolised Gordon Brown, too - and Tony Blair before him) to get to the blunt & forthright expression of utter disgust at the "send-him-to-the-Tower treachery and treason".  And here's a little nugget (my emphasis): 

... he gave a wretched display of it in the Commons with a fatal attempt to hold back some vital documents on Mandelson’s vetting and appointment. Never mind that it was for sincere security reasons – mainly fear of what abuse of the US president the papers might contain – Starmer failed to measure the ferocity of the storm on his own benches

That Trump angle  -  another subtle bit of Team Starmer framing?  Well, maybe: but it's a neat idea I hadn't seen aired elsewhere.

My prediction stands: many months of Strategic Starmer Stonewalling to come.  Don't change your New Year predictions for 'name of PM on 24.12.2026' just yet awhile.  Meantime - more popcorn!

ND

UPDATE: her Gruaniad colleague Aditya Chakrabortty slaps down La Toynbee's characterisation of Starmer as a 'decent PM'. 

The refrain that Starmer is a “decent” man does not fit his record of deceiving his way to the top of the Labour party, sitting on his hands during the massacre in Gaza or clamping down on protest against it.  

Oh, those feuding Graun writers !

We know the Mandelson "vetting" was a stitch-up

As ever, Starmer had a carefully crafted speech for deployment on Thursday.  He vehemently - very vehemently - wants us to believe that whatever Parliament thought it had secured the day before, it's really all about a catalogue of "Mandelson's lies" which Starmer "had wanted to hand over yesterday" (if PC Plod hadn't told him not to hand them over; yeah, right).  Nice try, Kier; but what your MPs actually want - and won't easily be deflected from - is what McSweeney's role in all this was, blow by, errr, blow.

And what McSweeney was up to is clear enough - orchestrating a sham of a vetting process.  How do I know this?  Because on top of outright secret sources (and who knows what they knew?), within the security services is an OSINT desk - open-source intelligence gathering.  People whose job is to trawl everything available from open sources.  And in this day and age of Bellingcat and the extraordinary online resources they've tapped into and made public, and when you have the resources of HMG, GCHQ etc at your disposal, OS is one helluva resource, properly marshalled.  Be it immediately added that imposing QA on what is found online etc is a very significant analytic task, when all the OS stuff is assembled, tinfoil-hat dross / disinformation / Маскировка and all.  But that's not the point in this case.  What can be said for certain is that whatever was available in OS, worldwide, on Mandelson - and everybody knows that includes, e.g., the Deripaska affair - it was ready to hand within Whitehall.  And cumulatively, it was all anybody needed to know to conclude he was a non-starter for Ambassador by any rational criteria.

Ready to hand - but seemingly not deployed.  In other words - and let's charitably dump this all on the convenient fall-guy - McS ran a sham exercise in which Mandelson was invited to tell whatever lies he liked; and he was then taken at his word, without the security services being tasked to give it the old red-ink marginal annotation routine.  Because if Mandelson had simply given them a big assemblage of lies, they could have demolished it, line by line. 

The alternative explanations - that all his lies were indeed fisked, or even that he simply didn't lie at all - and still Starmer made the appointment, well, that would be even worse for Starmer.  But since PC Plod is conveniently withholding the list of lies, we can only speculate...

ND

Starmer's China Triumph: errr ... visa-free travel!

The scene: a small, bare office on an industrial estate near Beijing Capital International airport.  Sitting nervously on a metal chair, nursing a plastic beaker of water and facing a plain table adorned with two small pennants, one a Union Jack and the other the Chinese flag, is The Most Important Man In Government Jonathan Powell, legendary Xi-whisperer (self-styled) and Starmer's right-hand man on all foreign matters. 

A loud voice off, shouting into room:   You bow low!

Powell leaps to his feet, turns to face the figure walking in through the door and doubles over at the waist with as much gravitas as he can muster.

Enter Yu Bau-Lo, 3rd Deputy Under Secretary at the Chinese Ministry of Protocol.  

Yu:  Mr Powell, get up.  Very busy.  Have many executions of Ming gang to supervise.  What you want?

Powell:   Err, Mr Yu, greetings ... I, err, we, err, came good with the approval for your new London embassy, just like we discussed.

Yu:  Yes.  So what?

Powell:   Err,  we were, err, hoping there might be something in return?  Something big, that Sir Kier could announce?  

Yu:  He could say "I got to meet President Xi.  In person.  Camera present, photo taken."  This is great honour.  Everyone in world deeply impressed.

Powell:  Err, we were hoping for something, like, err, tangible? 

Yu:  We will send copy of photograph meeting with President Xi.  Can have framed.

Powell:   But, but ... we need a deal - everyone needs a deal these days!

Yu:  OK, (looks through notebook entitled "Sops") - we give you visa-free travel!  Big concession - only Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, EU, Canada, Turkey etc etc etc get visa-free travel.  North Korea desperate for visa-free travel!

Powell, crestfallen:   Surely there must be something more than that?  The embassy ...

Yu:  Don' push luck Mr Powell.  OK, final word: half-rate tariff on Scotch whisky.  

Powell, utterly crushed:  Thanks ... we're very grateful.

Yu, turning to leave as shots ring out offstage:  OK.  You go now.  (With back turned)  Anyhow, Chinese people don' drink Scotch any more - Indian whisky really good these days**.

As overheard by ND

__________________

** It's true!

Would he, wouldn't he? Yes, "Burnham Would"

Sorry, but the Macbeth idiom is irresistible.  Presumably, after a full week of letting it be understood that any move by Burnham would be stopped dead in its tracks by the NEC, the Mcsweeney coven was hoping that he is

... not without ambition, but without / The illness should attend it

But no: whichever witches our Andy encountered on Newton Heath knew their man better: 

When you durst do it, then you were a man

The Mcsweeney bluff was in truth a really easy one to call.  So they block Burnham tomorrow: what chance then, for whatever hapless stooge Labour puts up in the by-election?  "I know you all really wanted Andy ... but I'm hoping you'll support me now ..."  A great rallying cry indeed, with only the thin chance of a haphazard but possibly lucky 3-way split to save Gorton & Denton for Labour.  

Shakespeare again: let's imagine Mcsweeney's day-dream.  The scene is some darkened Labour office in Manchester: Mcsweeney has Burnham marched in, sits him down, offers him a cup of instant coffee and says

Yeah, right, in his dreams.  For, (at dearieme's suggestion BTL) Burnham replies:

                      That's all you've got?  Thou knave, thou dunce inane

                      Starmer will rue the day he gave you rein! 

Great spectator sport.  Amusing, too, to see Miliband's response for the cameras yesterday, impishly saying Burnham would be "a massive asset" in Parliament and that he hoped Gorton and Denton party members would have "the option" of selecting him as a candidate.   He also hopes, of course, that Burnham would make him Chancellor.

More popcorn!

ND

© Nick Drew 2026

Mayor Burnham! - may I deign to call you Andy?

We all do have the high'st regard for you 

Miliband & the perpetual belief in perpetual motion

There's something very deep in human psychology that encourages people to believe in magic swords, universal elixirs, price forecasts, perpetual motion machines etc etc.  It's out there - and it just needs that little bit more human ingenuity to bring it to reality.

Ed Miliband is (we are told) a human, and clearly suffers from this syndrome.  Here are some of the things he believes in:

• a "net zero electricity grid" by 2030
• nuclear fusion as a practical source of power
• "negative CO2 emissions" from burning trees for power and burying the CO2
• hydrogen as a wonder-fuel of very wide practical application
• himself as a dominant force in a post-Starmer UK government

A man can dream: but he's spending our money on the first four of these (and indirectly, one might say, on the fifth).  In a harder-headed world, they would disqualify him from the fifth.  

Sadly, I don't think they do.    

ND