Battle of Kursk (2024) Revisited: illuminated by flames

It is well over three weeks of Ukraine's incursion into Kursk.  If they so choose, they can easily extend this into next month, maybe longer: the word in Moscow is that Putin has set his birthday (in October) as the deadline[1] for expelling them.  

His policy is consistent with the 'Stalin 1941' approach he has generally taken when hit with an unexpected blow: lie low for a bit (doubtless squaring away various issues and people behind the scenes), then tough things out - the policy equivalent of trading space for time, always Russia's default reaction.  Would be deeply unsatisfactory from the standard western point of view as regards being seen to respond with urgency, but doesn't seem to bother most Russians very much ("wait till the Tsar finds out ...").  Meanwhile his Donbas advance continues - with faint signs that manoeuvre warfare might even be breaking out there too.  Oh, the rush to get things done before the US election!

Putin's policy of not troubling too much over Kursk may be assisted by a phenomenon noted in France during WW1.  Primitive opinion-surveys determined that the population in the south of France - many hundreds of miles from Verdun - didn't care very much at all about what was happening elsewhere: northern France's peril didn't seem to move them.  The French powers-that-be took this so amiss, they instituted (inter alia) the rigid, universal school curriculum that had every French kid taught exactly the same thing - i.e. whatever the government dictated - at exactly the same time, wherever they were.  Knowing first-hand how brutally racist Russians are towards Ukrainians, it seems possible (though personally I have no evidence) that Muscovites don't view deep-south Kursk residents in a particularly sympathetic way either.  In any event, that 'word from Moscow' also has it that Russia as a whole is not much troubled by the Kursk incursion, distinctly limited in geographical scope as it will always be, however long or short. 

While we await further developments on all these fronts, Ukraine's ultra-successful drone-strike campaign is having a genuine effect on Russian oil supplies, petro-facilities being nigh impossible to defend.  The standard official Russian line is usually that "a drone was shot down over the refinery / whatever, and fragments caused a fire that subsequently spread".  Everyone knows this means the attack was successful: and as one milblogger acidly wrote, shooting down a high-explosive drone directly over its target is likely to be "a posthumous achievement" - for both the shooter and the target itself.  Incidentally, the fact that one of these fires has raged for 12 days now (and counting) tells this old oilman that the Russians have failed to fit non-return valves in their oil infrastructure (i.e. the fire is being fed by oil still arriving unpreventably into the facility from the pipelines it is connected to) - which isn't even remotely surprising: their whole set-up is truly primitive by western standards.  They'll no more be able to retrofit valves in a hurry than land a cosmonaut on the moon[2] - indeed, they probably won't even be able to buy them.

Of course, they can and will source oil from elsewhere and truck it in.  The lines of logistics, though, start to get very stretched indeed[3].  

ND  

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[1] Of course, Putin's deadlines, like his 'red lines', are eminently flimsy, as has been proven so often it's a wonder he still sets them.

[2] Amazingly (by western standards), the Russians have even attempted to bring the blaze under control by holding a prayer meeting at the oil depot in question, complete with saintly relics.  Sadly for these pious folk, an oil tank took the opportunity to explode during the ceremony.  Still: always gotta admire piety.

[3] Also, there will be a lot of folk taking a cut in such an ad hoc operation.  The beauty of fixed delivery-infrastructure is that once built, it's relatively hard for the usual embezzlement to take place along the supply chain.  But an operation based on thousands upon thousands of trucks ...

Guardian Goings-on (1) Electric Vehicles

For a while now, it's been clear that the Grauniad isn't just broadly on the side of the greens (hardly surprising), but that it has a positive editorial policy of proselytising, not to mention smoking up the embarrassing facts.  For example, it ran a 'myth-busting' series on heat pumps, which was straining every sinew to say "heat pumps are wonderful, don't let anyone tell you otherwise", except that the last residues of journalistic integrity forced it to admit that the first half of that statement needs qualifying (heavily) in several dimensions, to the point where the second part looks pretty silly.  Likewise, it ran a series on how wonderful electric vehicles are, not to worry about recharging etc.

Except, actually, EV drivers seem to fall out of love with their costly acquisitions, subsidised or not (and notwithstanding the acceleration, hohoh, with which even J.Clarkson is supposed to be deeply in love).  This clearly manifests itself in something long suspected by skeptics, namely that the resale value of EVs is turning out to be pitiful.  This is, incidentally, for very good reasons.

Someone in the trade has decided the ideal place for an attempt to arrest this highly damaging phenomenon is, of course, the Graun.  Which has obligingly let fly with a lengthy, risible puff-piece trying to talk up second-hand EVs: ‘Spectacular bargains’: why now is a great time to buy a used electric car in the UK.  

What sort of journalist could take pride in being told to write such tosh?  I haven't heard quite so much disingenuous 'talking his own book' nonsense since the Beeb allowed a representative of the used car fraternity to announce that, during some pronounced downturn in new car sales a few years ago, it would mean that prices of second-hand cars would be going up!  (... 'because nobody wants a new car, so they'll be buying second-hand cars instead and demand will go up'.  FFS, man, if there's a recession in car buying it'll hit the entire sector!)

Well, I suppose Kath Viner feels it's all hands to the pump.  I look forward to the next in this series - perhaps "why doesn't your village volunteer to have a small nuke planted next door?  You could get up a petition ..."

More on this 'journalistic' behaviour to follow.

ND  

Bullsh*t Book Blurb Award: the outright winner is ...

I have genuinely never before met hyperbole in this league: someone is really pushing the boundaries here.  My attention was drawn to it when encountering somebody laughing out loud in a bookshop - at the back cover of a document entitled Everyday Hero.  Deep breath, clear the coffee cups ...

• orchestrate soaring lives
• materialize your sovereign genius
• a calibrated blueprint for making true masterwork ... illuminates coming generations
• neuroscience-based techniques to turn hurts of the past into daily heroism
• wisdom to upgrade your aliveness, incubate sublime serenity and dignify the spiritual liberty that creates a beautiful life

... and so on.  The author of this astonishing literary, errr, thing, is one Robin Sharma - "a globally respected humanitarian ... one of the most widely-read writers alive".

Actually, no, he isn't.  I'd ask for my money back, except I didn't buy it.

Got any favourites to share?

ND

Mandelson on manoeuvres

Mandy's at it again.  You can always tell a Mandelson-scripted briefing, not least when he's seeking personal advancement.

That time, he wanted to be on the NEC.  Now he wants to be Chancellor of the university.  And here it is, spoon-fed to the simpering lapdogs of LabourList: 

... a Labour Chancellor could argue in favour of reform.  The combination of a Labour Oxford Chancellor and a Labour government could also change the tone of the wider debate around universities... A new Chancellor, alongside a new government, could promote higher education reform for the first time in 14 years.  

The lapdogs have helpfully provided links - twice! - for qualified electors to register for the vote.  Shamelessly blatant, or what?

The very thought of this makes me feel ill.  People went to some lengths to stop Harold Wilson getting this honour, and I suspect Mandy will also not be gratified. 

ND

"Battle of Kursk", 2024-style

Last week, a little OT exchange took place BTL here, thus:

Anon:  What I'm not so sure of is if this is a Stalingrad moment (in reverse), or if it's the Third Battle of Kharkov in reverse, where von Manstein recaptured a lot of the territory being fought over now.

ND:  Not sure everything needs to be mapped onto a historical precedent**; although when it can be done convincingly, it can offer useful insights.  What's interesting to me about this (apparently significant) Ukrainian incursion is:  (i) they - the Ukr side - are following Soviet doctrine! Many writers have suggested it was unwise (see 2023 offensive campaign) to attempt to school them in western military ways, when so many of their senior officers would already be very well educated in a different school. Or they may have found some kind of workable synthesis.  (ii) they seem to have managed Surprise: certainly tactical (generally possible if you put in enough care & attention) but maybe even strategic (unusual - but very desirable). Remember, this is a chess game where both sides can usually see all the opponent's pieces - the perennial Russian challenge out on the flatlands, and one which in the west (Eu, USA) we don't really have, the battlegrounds being characterised so much by extensive geographical relief features

A week on, things have developed a bit: we know it genuinely is a significant incursion, not merely a quick slash-and-burn raid.  But the full motivation and end-plan for what Ukraine thinks it's doing is still a matter of analysis & speculation.  Here's mine:

Backdrop:  for as long as the Russian army can maintain its brutal discipline (i.e. can keep throwing in the cannon-fodder remorselessly) there is nothing plausible that Ukraine can do, however resourced by the west, against eventual Russian "success" in fully capturing and occupying the four Ukranian oblasts it claims as its own, absent something game-changing.  (Just for the record, from the very beginning my line on this has been "and what's to stop them?")   One Russian milblogger has put this very neatly, describing the Russian operation as a tunnel-boring machine: it may sometimes need to slow down if it encounters something a bit flintier than usual, but basically it will "calmly" (his word) grind on relentlessly to wherever it wants to go.

Although in hindsight one can fault the 2023 Ukrainian counter-offensive (some of that fault lying squarely with western advisers), it proved beyond a doubt that Russian defensive preparations along the entire front as far as the Dnipro (though not necessarily south and west of that) are sound, and that without massive airpower that Ukraine will never enjoy, no sustained, strategically useful breakthrough on that very long front is achievable.

Therefore:  since nobody can foresee a Russian event "favourable" to breaking this iron deadlock - certainly not before the US election - more creativity is required from Ukraine.  Up until now, that's been represented by (a) a stunningly successful Black Sea operation; (b) an equally stunning drone campaign against the vast swathe of ultra-vulnerable targets across heartland western Russia, particularly oil facilities - and air bases,/ aviation ammo dumps which have taken some really serious blows.  (Note something else we've said from the start: Russia can replace absolutely anything except its airforce, which has caused Putin to husband it cautiously.)  But neither can be much more than a major, suppurating thorn in the bear's flesh, the pain and cost of which it can tolerate indefinitely. 

That being the July 2024 starting-point, Something Else had to be tried before November.  Well, this is it, and it looks entirely logical.  Apart from making the really obvious remark that the Russian ground currently dominated by Ukraine cannot remotely be held for more than a few weeks at the outside - and so Zelensky won't be intending to - I won't today be prognosticating on this ground offensive per se.  There are however a few more remarks we can make, in addition to the truly impressive 'surprise' mentioned above.

1. The Soviet-plus-western doctrinal synthesis being displayed by Ukraine is very 2024, and very nicely purposed to the precise conditions.  For a strategist, this is a fine thing to behold (and for Russia, absolutely appalling: think what could be done with this-plus-airpower ...)  A combined-arms assault, with depth, under cleverly assembled air-defence and electronic warfare cover, proving that such things are possible even from a sorely-stretched nation on the modern "transparent" battlefield.
2. The above point on Putin and his jealously protected airforce has been reinforced in spades.  The obvious immediate counter to a fast-moving assault deep(ish) into undefended open country is tactical aviation.  As for the past 30 months, it's conspicuous by its absence (not 100% absent, but not remotely committed to the task).
3. Very smart of Kyiv not to base this offensive around the newly-arriving F-16s.  As regards aviation, things can only get worse for Putin: his airfields, aircraft and ammunition being steadily depredated, with the F-16s still to arrive on the battlefield.
4. Just as the Donbass "tunnel-boring" represents its monstrous strengths, deep Russian weaknesses - in very many dimensions, military-technical and political - have been brutally been exposed over the last few days.  The embarrassments are set to continue for many days to come. 

I could bang on about these weaknesses for pages but will settle for now on four comments:

• Putin really, really hates what's happening.  He's swallowed a load of humiliation over the decades, but this is being dished out by Kyiv.  (I confidently await BTL comments that assert it's actually the US 9th Ranger division in Kursk.)  But as regards his response, of course that could go either way.
• Not only is he determined to husband his airforce, we see he's utterly determined to stay with the daft-but-significant rhetoric of "Special Military Operation" / "just a terrorist provocation" etc etc.  This is very telling.
• Even a fortnight of incursion has tremendous long-term consequences for Russia.
• To repeat: think what could be done with this-plus-airpower ...

ND

PS:  In capturing the main Russian natural gas crossing-point / transfer station, Ukraine has pocketed a splendid wildcard for future deployment ...  

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** Almost expected someone so say "Kursk 1943"!   Glad nobody did.  I was expecting "Battle of the Bulge" analogies right from the start, too, but personally I didn't run into one until yesterday! 

The nonsenses that are Drax - and police priorities

In amongst all the nonsense on the streets, somehow PC Plod managed to muster sufficient force outside Drax power station to arrest 22 protesters and disperse a would-be protest camp.  This was under the terms of a draconian court order obtained by Drax, the terms of which would make you think the Crown Jewels were contained therein.

As it happens, in winter months Drax is a pretty essential part of the UK power fleet, the biomass it burns being a significant source of despatchable power.  And the group organising the protest has in the past pulled off some fairly intrusive coups at power stations.  The reason for the protest is a good one, though: outrageously, Drax - the biggest emitter of CO2 in the UK by a country mile - is subsidised by the billion for being a zero emitter.  This is on the wholly fallacious, indeed laughable basis that somehow the trees it burns magically regrow instantaneously, sucking back all that CO2 from the atmosphere.  It's so crazy, it makes you blink with astonishment and yet, by an outright perversion of some arcane IPCC carbon accounting principles (which have nothing to do with the matter at hand, and indeed by the IPCC's own edict shouldn't be used in this way), Drax - and HMG - are allowed to get away with this fiction for the purposes of recording "decarbonisation".  And of course for justifying paying out those billions. 

Without this longstanding carbon-accounting trick, the UK would be even further away from "decarbonisation" than it already is.  And the Drax subsidies expire in 2027.  The shameless rent-seekers are of course demanding new subsidies to commence that year, until they are good and ready for their next shameless fraud, BECCS (= "biomass electricity with carbon capture & storage").  Because, of course, if you emit zero CO2 (on paper) and bury (some of) the actual CO2 you emit, tadah!, you have conjured up "negative emissions" - even more useful for the national CO2 account.

A shame this is all the merest bollocks.  And costly bollocks, too, in terms of both greatly reduced energy efficiency and cash subsidies - all for our electricity bills, naturally.  The decision as to whether this monstrous BECCS proposition will be allowed to fly (and of course the "bridging" subsidies for keeping Drax going between 2027 and, errr, "whenever") falls to Miliband.  He's really in a jam because, as every authority reporting on the matter has made clear, his crazy plans absolutely hinge on everyone believing the Drax story in all its blatant falsity.  AND it puts up electricity bills!

Whatever will little Mili do?

ND

Inchoate protests, inchoate framing

Social meejah doubtless play a role in getting the mob onto the streets; but essentially what's going on is spontaneous and barely organised.  We've seen variants of it before, with "summer riots" in Brixton and other areas over the years, and of course the 2011 "Tottenham" vintage.  On those earlier occasions it was the nastier end of the leftist spectrum that was kinda hoping it contained the seeds of the revolution; but no, just opportunistic hot-weather looting and anarchy.

Starmer (and many others) should be hoping that's what we're faced with now, though a lot of their own rhetoric - which we'll come on to - isn't helping.  One obvious scenario is that in a few weeks time it really is all over bar the backlog at the magistrates' courts, tempered by whatever scope the prison system has these days for exacting 2011-vintage Starmerite-DPP justice.

Otherwise, to be blunt, it carries on until someone gets killed: that's the horrible truth**.  What happens thereafter hinges entirely on the precise circumstances of that dread event: we could all come up with scenarios.

If - and it's not certain - it does carry on, how does it get framed by the London-liberal-progressive consensus?  The two tribes clash not just on the streets (with the Police in the role of King's Champion, maybe also with some lefty violence adding to the mix), but also in the ideo-conceptual space.

We know what the kneejerk left-liberal framing is, because it's all around us.  "Tiny thuggish minority" is the opening gambit, as it was (correctly) in 2011: but they couldn't help themselves moving directly on to "organised by the far right".  And this is where the utter stupidity of the left starts to become plain.

Yes, you'll be able to find some stuff in social meejah that can be labelled "organisation" if you're dumb enough to frame it that way; but what you won't find is a nationwide organising committee - because there isn't one (yet).  There isn't a political party involved, either.  The left cannot understand this - because their world is full of organising committees and micro-parties, and they assume that's how stuff gets started.  (Similarly, they always refer to 'capitalism' as if it is a political movement rather than what it actually is, namely is a feature of human behaviour.)  They really, truly don't want to consider the possibility of political spontaneity from the proletariat: they insist on, and believe in, having monopoly powers over that.  They are itching to have a proper little fascist party to demonise.  While they wait, it's just arm-waving at the notional "far right": they don't want it to be as difficult to deal with as would be Actual Proletarian Discontent.

To the extent any party is even vaguely in the frame, it's Reform (of course). But only peripherally so, because Farage is manifestly keen not to be outflanked by anything whatsoever to his right.  His recent performances scream this so loudly, it ought to be really obvious to anyone.  His strategy is to monopolise the right flank of British politics (whilst staying firmly on the polite side of outright violence), and roll up the Tories from right to left until he has a workable Parliamentary block: he desperately wants to avoid the irritant / potential stumbling-block of there being any genuine 'political' organisation to his right. 

The point is: there's no such thing - yet.  What if the left somehow goads one into being?  It wouldn't  be very good politics because if Reform gets outflanked in that way, eventually it gets subsumed by the Tories as happened with the Brexit Party in 2019: and the 2029 election looks rather different.

But long before 2029 is in view, what happens if a micro-party forms, that is more than just an instantly-outlawed EDL?  The answer is: it starts to have demands, and offers itself as the entity you need to negotiate with if you want the (ex hypothesi) continuing violence to stop!   Which leftist dickhead wants that to be the dynamics of the situation?  

But they just can't help themselves.  In their uncomprehending denial of genuinely widespread discontent that could lead to widespread non-organised action, their doctrine effectively insists on framing its way into having a concrete bogey - of no genuine substance, but possible actual existence in a formal sort of way.  An actual group of people with a name.  A British gilets jaunes, if you like: coherent enough to have an identity (of a rather amorphous and hard-to-treat-with kind).

One interesting potential outcome is that Starmer might act as though he is indeed responding to concrete demands from a putative political entity, and preemptively start trying to appease it with whatever he kind-of guesses its demands might be.  (He won't need to try very hard to figure that out.)  Funnily enough, the marxist left absolutely understands this situation: it never had any difficulty understanding the impetus behind Brexit. 

Right now, however, Starmer seems to be parlaying events into a belated attempt to re-gather the lost Muslim vote.  He has to be careful, because a parallel development is likely to be the formation of Muslim self-defence groups which he'd quickly need to distance himself from, and eventually to act against.

The Tories?  They can sit this one out because of course they have already been outflanked on the right.  Their task is to devise a mirror-image of Farage's strategy: a plan for rolling up Reform from left to right.

Genuine pragmatism from Starmer would be to drop the 'far right' rhetoric (and tell the Beeb to follow suit); give the Police a pay rise; and carry through with the other line we've heard from ministers, which is to draw parallels with football hooliganism - and act accordingly.  Then go gangbusters - literally - on the small boats issue (it's in the Manifesto!).  Get some money into the hands of responsible metro mayors, with significant strings attached.  Oh, and drop all ideas of votes for 16 year-olds.  

ND  

UPDATE:  see the last section of this lefty broadcast for a manifestation the left-tactical debate I'm talking about here.

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** when I was a local councillor I sat for a while on the Road Safety Committee.  Residents were forever coming forward with their demands for additional safety measures, always under the banner "Does Somebody Have To Get Killed Before You Do Anything About This?"  Basically, sadly, the answer is "Yes". 

Labour whips MPs harshly & with good reason

There was quite a lot of surprise when Labour withdrew the whip summarily from seven MPs after the child benefit cap vote.  Simple outrage from the Left, of course; but even some of the more measured commentary was along the lines of "these minor revolts have happened under many a previous government without such draconian reactions" - and the suggestion that Starmer's was a gratuitous & rather undignified piece of macho posturing.  Hey (*beats chest*), it wasn't in the Manifesto so that really means we ain't rushing to do it!  And we are really gonna have some discipline around here, you better believe it!

OK, everyone knows the perils of a big majority buts surely, there's more to it than chest-beating.  Starting from the trivial: who in Starmer's position wouldn't want to take an early opportunity to suspend, ideally to expel, Corbynite throwbacks the like of Rebecca Long-Bailey, John McDonnell, Richard Burgon & Ian Byrne?  This is a man who fully ejected the saintly Corbyn himself.  And Apsana Begum, Imran Hussain and Zarah Sultana can confidently be recognised as part of the 'independent' tendency Starmer has every electoral wish to suppress.  Let 'em all defect formally to a new Parliamentary grouping: the sooner the better.

Next up, just look at how few there were of them!  Without a merciless whipping operation, might we not have expected dozens of protest-voters?  A quick look down the list of back-bench Labour abstainers gives an indication.  Obviously, the likes of Dianne Abbott have been shaken into sullen compliance.  When they want to lull themselves to sleep at night, they can all tell themselves the Polly Toynbee story: don't worry, the two-child cap will be removed in the autumn for sure.

Well, but will it?  Toynbee is perennially hyper-ventilating her characteristic brand of premature wishful thinking: served up confidently as fact, but so often to be so sadly disappointed.  More realistic (and these days quite panicky) leftist commentators seem extremely fearful that the autumn will bring measures that in their terms means a fully-fledged re-run of Osborne Austerity, even if it will be sprinkled with a few tax measures they'll applaud.  The winter fuel announcement serves only to heighten their fears.  The child benefit whipping operation was couched in terms of "you all signed up just six weeks ago for the Manifesto": and that very document is exactly the flag under which Reeves claims to be sailing.  Cite her 'Keynesian' Mais Lecture all you like: that's not what the Manifesto says. 

IMHO, this bears every sign of (a) prudent attention to Machiavelli's dictum that the new Prince should set the tone by getting his punitive first strikes in at the earliest opportunity; and (b) a leadership that expects to be whipping hard and frequently on many an uncomfortable Parliamentary occasion in the months to come.  Cow those waverers good and early: their political will needs to be broken right from the off.  

Many of them must be trembling at the thought of what they're going to be told to vote for.  The Smack of Firm Government, eh?  And a summer of riots still to come ...  Kier "I banged them all up in 2011" Starmer will be in his element.

ND

Frontline 'phone ban: a parody of Russian law-making

Long before Russia's Feb 2022 invasion of Ukraine, stories had filtered out from the low-level conflict in the Donbas that Russian forces relied on mobile 'phones for their field communications.  They had - and still have - pitifully scant military means: the budget for radios etc was (by universal acknowledgement) long since looted in the great Russian tradition of wholesale embezzlement.  Use of private mobiles is certainly convenient (everybody has one, and smart 'phones can do all sorts of useful things) but it comes with a dreadful drawback: they are not at all secure, and have been the cause of numerous successful Ukrainian artillery strikes, often of high precision.

More than two years on, the Duma has passed a new law making any use of "domestic gadgets" (specifically including mobiles and tablets) at the front subject not only to punishment but - uniquely in Russia - summary imprisonment without any form of hearing.  This, I believe, is unconstitutional, FWIIW.

Reaction from the legion of Russian milbloggers has built over the days.  The first line of hostility ran thus:  we absolutely can't do without these gadgets; so the law will essentially be ignored, as per usual in Russia; but since literally every soldier has at least a mobile 'phone, it gives local commanders a means of simply banging up anyone they don't like.  This was not the end of the matter, but let's pause for some context.

When I arrived in Moscow in the mid '90s to set up an office there, I was warned by my local (American) lawyer that like everyone else I would be vulnerable to arbitrary arrest / fines etc at any time, because in Russia there is a complex web of laws (not least financial regulations), many of them mutually inconsistent such that everyone is always in breach of something.  It's just a kind of reserve power the authorities keep for themselves.  The 'phone ban fits this model precisely.

Then, the milblogger objections gathered force.  Firstly, they noted that most of the very many complaints raised by Russian soldiers about their dreadful conditions, reach the public domain via clips recorded on ... mobile 'phones!  How convenient to see this choked off.  Then, it occurred to them that the new law could be used to fill the ranks of the penal battalions that are thrown into the front line in what are known as "meat attacks", for many months now the primary tactic of the grinding Russian.  There is nothing but grass roots hostility to this new law.

This isn't just a case of "how typically Russian" - it's like Russia to the nth power: a parody, a complete reductio ad absurdum.  You might say they've been doing things this way for centuries, and it's true.  But it doesn't sow the seeds of an ultimately sustainable way of carrying on.  Only the enforcement troops positioned to shoot waverers, coupled with deep Russian fatalism, makes this thing work at all.

ND

UK no longer a top 10 manufacturer

Bugger the Olympics, here's an international competition that really matters.  And now we don't even qualify for the knock-out stages: the UK has slipped below the Top 10 for manufacturing.

Strikes me this is the single failing of the governments 2010-2024, and of course earlier ones, too - but one sort of hopes Conservative governments will do better.  Actually, having said that, Labour with its Union roots should be less prone to thinking a nation can busk it with service industries alone, however lucrative.

It's been noticed in the MSM that the entire thrust of Miliband's energy policy has been couched in terms of reducing energy bills and security of supply, and that CO2 targets feature nowhere in the roll-out rhetoric.  Labour knows what plays with voters, and what they're willing to see there money spent on.   Well; as discussed here at length the "reducing bills" aspects is utter hogwash.  But there's at least an argument that some forms of renewable energy can contribute to security of supply (once they've been built from Chinese components, that is).  So - if security of supply is a Labour issue, as well as "good jobs" - may we expect an intelligent revival of at least some of the more critically strategic manufacturing sectors?   High-grade steel-making comes rapidly to mind and I'm sure readers will all have their own favourite candidates.

ND

Harold Wilson: rogues I have known (cont**)

Well, sat next to him several times.  He wasn't very communicative.  The crazy affair of Biden's Brain, plus a random news story brought him to mind this week.

For me as a lad reaching some kind of juvenile political awareness in the late 1960's, Harold Wilson was omnipresent in current affairs, a masterful politician in difficult circumstances, atop a restless and quarrelsome Labour Party.  By the time I was at the university he was PM (for the second time) and a veritable local legend for his 'congratulatory First' as an undergraduate, his adroit SCR politicking as a don, smart analytic capabilities as a wartime civil servant, and, above all, his astonishing memory[1].

Then, abruptly at the age of 60, in 1976 he stepped down as PM and almost directly into obscurity.  WTF?  There were all manner of conspiracy theories but the truth was, the previous year he realised he was fast losing his marbles; and full dementia set in shortly thereafter.  Without his memory he was nothing, and he knew it - not for him the pathetic Biden conceit.

Wilson off duty:  ciggies for him

A bit later I often found myself in the Victoria district, SW1, where Wilson had a flat overlooking Westminster Cathedral.  One could lunch handsomely at eye-poppingly low prices in a number of modest eateries outside Victoria Station - cheap, but totally respectable (in case you were thinking of Kings Cross in the same era), and heavily populated by office workers brandishing Luncheon Vouchers - remember them?[2].  Ultra-cheap + guaranteed high turnover was the formula.  Two of the favourites were known as the Old Maple, a tiny dive, 100% formica everywhere; and - no relation - the New Maple, on two floors, the upper of which even ran to some imitation wood panelling.[3]

Anyhow, if you weren't in so much of a hurry you could join Harold Wilson and his detective, who frequently lunched there too in the upstairs section.  You knew immediately something was very badly wrong: he wasn't any kind of physical wreck, but what in Heaven's name was a man who only a couple of years beforehand was PM, doing there silently nursing a plate of steak and kidney and his habitual ciggy?  (Occasionally a cigar - but the pipe was only ever for show.)

All very sad.  And it now turns out he quickly ran out of money as his care requirements escalated.  Thatcher's people arranged for the Bodleian to buy his personal papers, rather than have them go abroad, for a decent sum to keep him going.  He lasted until 1995.

ND

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** see also Jeff Skilling and Keith Best

[1] A really tremendous memory can cover for a range of what otherwise would be mediocrity in other intellectual attributes.  Whenever you meet someone highly regarded for intellectual attainment, it's worth considering whether memory is their actual superpower. 

[2] LVs, that is - though I could have meant office workers ...

[3] 'Known as' because IIRC those had been their historical names and that by the 1970s they were actually trading as something completely different.

Miliband under the cosh already

We've already noted that Miliband's energy policy will come to no good - and there'll be a lot of disappointment for those who set store by either or both of a 100%-decarbonised electricity system and/or "lower bills for everyone, for good", both to be delivered by 2030.

The number of reports telling him this can't be done, in aspect after aspect, is becoming a deluge.  The latest and possibly the most damning is from the redoubtable National Audit Office which declares that his plans are critically dependent upon delivery of carbon capture & storage (CCS); but that he has no Plan B, and that Plan A is most unlikely to deliver CCS in the relevant timeframe without some highly implausible assumptions being made.  (Personally I'd go further and say, there is no possible plan and no amount of money that could deliver CCS on the scale and timeframe "required".)

Since the election, other bodies have variously told him that 

• he needs to find another £48bn if his wind and solar plans are to be realised (Cornwall Insight);
• he's on track only to achieve one third of the "necessary" emissions reductions by 2030 (Climate Change Committee - although to be fair, they are deeply compromised by their own inanities over the years)
• he'll need to commission new gas-fired power stations for his "reserve fleet", not just rely on existing ones (National Engineering Policy Centre, whoever they are)
• smash the gangs NIMBYs up and down the land (Resolution Foundation)  

Etc.  That's on top of dealing with the dreadful EDF on Hinkley Point and Sizewell, and fending off a load of legal actions that will be gleefully pursued down several avenues, notwithstanding Starmer's intention to see off all opposition summarily in whatever planning forum he meets it.

Obviously, we understand that every Tom Dick & Harriet is busily projecting his/her wish-list onto the government right now in every area of policy, along with urgent financial pleading; and most will be sorely disappointed.  Starmer/Reeves took care to limit their measurable commitments to as few as they thought they could get away with.  But not in energy. "Clean power by 2030:  families and businesses will have lower bills for good, from a cheaper, zero carbon electricity system by 2030" was the commitment.  Oh yes, and 650,000 good new British jobs delivering it all, also by 2030.  It ain't gonna happen.

And Miliband himself must be set to be a very early casualty.  Will he see out the New Year?  The first reshuffle?  Party conference? 

ND 

Britain's total defencelessness from air attack

Weapons development goes in cycles: and right now, defence against air attack is the big puzzle.  Against missiles, to be precise, which these days come in an every-increasing range of types - and numbers.

Ireland is often rightly criticised for hiding behind the whole of the rest of Europe when it comes to every aspect of defence, upon which it spends two fifths of bugger all.  As far as air defences go, we're effectively doing the same.  Any rabble that can get its hands on Iranian drones, UAVs and the like can inflict serious damage on even countries with advanced air defences.  Here in Britain, effectively speaking we have none worthy of the name.  Were we to be at imminent risk of salvos of drones, cruise missiles and hypersonics of the kind several hostile nations can muster these days, the best we could do would be to line up such of the Daring class destroyers as are seaworthy at any point in time (two? three if we're lucky): and (even assuming they aren't themselves eliminated in the first wave) when their limited magazines are empty, that's us done for.  A further handful of frigates with Sea Ceptors and machineguns, and men ashore with small arms left to tackle such of the slower-moving drones that they can see with the naked eye. 

The same is essentially true, mutatis mutandis, as regards the air defence of any "expeditionary force" we might send into the fray - see this sobering piece from the excellent Sergio Miller (an old comrade of mine) at the Wavell Room.  (On the subject of "projecting power", I won't even bother to mention the vulnerability of Gordon Brown's aircraft carriers, we've been over that many times before.)

Pathetic.

At least, someone has noticed: a fancy initiative (review?  committee?) has been launched by the MoD to address the higher-tech end of this threat spectrum - Science and Technology Oriented Research and Development in Missile Defence - 'STORM', haha.  Neat acronym, but it has a paltry budget, and I can't see Starmer really promoting anything 'defence' to the top of the list except a bit of rhetoric. 

To put in perspective the breadth of the challenge, consider how Russia is addressing the problem, which they feel pretty acutely, too, with their huge land mass and multiplicity of large, soft targets of high value (airfields, oil refineries, strategically important factories and the like).  They are trying to throw everything anyone can think of at the problem:  passive measures (camouflage and shelters for aircraft, laying tyres on aircraft wings [sic], installing 'barbecues' (metal frames) above the hatches of tanks, erecting wire screens around oil facilities) and active steps (licensing oil refinery firms to acquire small arms [sic], experimenting with anti-drone ammo for existing guns, issuing shotguns to infantry units, stepping up electronic warfare measures, considering a huge fleet of very light aircraft armed, WW2-style, with machine guns against slow-moving long-distance drones) etc etc etc.  But they've been at war now for nearly 30 months and they are still taking huge casualties and damage from the air (and inflicting the same, of course).

We haven't even mentioned the threat from seaborne drones etc ...

Who in the West is taking any of this seriously?  Our reliance on nuclear deterrence is now complete.  Under its umbrella, fingers need to be pulled out, and rapidly.

ND

Weekend humour: Vaughan Gething - comedy gold

He'd already given us the "takes out onion" routine in the Senned.  Then this gem ... (lowers voice, moves into Disappointed Headmaster mode):  you've let me down, you've the school down, but most importantly you've let yourselves down. 

"I had hoped ...  period of reflection ... I now hope ... I know our country can be better ...

Oh yes, and 

"... people who look like me ... feel personally bruised and worried by this moment ..." 

What, you mean that a blatant grifter who took £200k for his own personal ends from a highly dubious source, who was caught red-handed organising the deletion of messages specifically for the reason of dodging FOI requests, and then lashed out at someone he wrongly suspected of grassing him up - such a person should somehow be entitled to get away with it because of his colour?  

As political contributions go, £200k in Wales is an astronomical sum.  For pity's sake, £50k gets you a peerage in Westminster!  And this is Wales - famous butt of Robert Bolt's excellent joke. 

These devolved political leaders, eh?  Phff - Toytown stuff.

ND

Great times for the Great Man Theory of History

We should define our terms here, and personally I don't choose to go the whole hog with Carlyle, who claims that the whole of history can be written in terms of the stories of Great Men.  But that overlooks important 'materialistic' or 'economic' insights - such as those of Marx (someone else we won't be going the whole distance with, either ...).  I shall stick to something far more difficult to shoot down, and go with: at certain key points the course of human history is (sometimes) fundamentally determined by the purposeful actions of individuals.

In 2024, what more do we need to say?!  Whether Biden steps down is a decision he seems to have reserved to himself: I see no "economic" factors at work, just a painful case of very human personal vanity.  Whether Trump survived was a matter of chance (it seems), but a Trump presidency will - I think we might agree - set the USA and most probably the world** on a different course than any plausible Democrat victory this year.  (American isolationism has always been there, for more than 200 years, and its triumph over pragmatic internationalism has often been possible but never guaranteed.)  Neither is it a given that Russia would be in the hands of a dictatorial, brooding, fretful revanchist at this hour: nor that China would be in the hands of an all-powerful monomaniac nationalist. 

It seems to me that if one wants to argue against any of this, one has to have a thesis that requires stepping back to so distant a perspective (1,000 years?  5,000 years?) that all meaningful granularity is lost for any but anthropological, almost biological purposes.

ND

_____________________

** Some, though not I, hold that a Trump presidency will result in the US being withdrawn from global cooperation on actions related to climate change - with globally damaging consequences.  Interestingly, those folks are often highly materialistic lefty-greens.  If they couple their theoretical materialism with their fear of Trump, it must give them some uncomfortable ideological pangs.  (Of course, the whole of Reality ought to be fairly painful for them at frequent intervals ... ) 

Conspiracy theories run amok: and a nice Russian turn of phrase

Oh dear oh dear.  Perusing current US social meejah material - of both left and right this time, strongly suggests we need some kind of gullibility text to qualify for the franchise.  Sure as Hell, there's a heap of unanswered & genuine questions out there - but that doesn't stop people rushing in with Man-from-Mars theories of a pretty scary kind.

In the middle of all of this, there are plenty of Russian spectators online too, wondering with the rest of us what to make of it all.  Here's one with nicely-chosen phrasing - typical sardonic Russian stuff, always ready with a colourful idiom: 

In our opinion, hitting exactly the top of the ear with a bullet from an assault rifle from a distance of 130 meters, killing and wounding civilians, and then going to the next world yourself is top-notch aerobatics.

It's not funny: but it is.  If you see what I mean.

ND

Trump, political violence & the Green/Left

We've written about this before: I really do think some on the Left (red and green, with a big overlap these days) are toying with outright violence in a way not seen in the 'democracies' since the 60s and 70s, IRA and one or two other nationalist cults aside.  For present purposes, I'm also minded to park the years of Islamist terrorism, terrible though they were, because they are not the phenomenon I want to focus on.

In the UK & Europe, normalising for the periodic outbursts the French have been indulging in for centuries, the modern flirtation with the political hard stuff has mostly been on the 'green' side of things, Andreas Malm and Roger Hallam being the best known promoters.  (For the record, I've not read that either has actually advocated or specifically perpetrated anything more than vandalism to date).  In both cases their logic goes: if we really think climate change is globally life-threatening on that scale, well, ...  - and they are not-so-subtly hinting at a lot worse than vandalism.

So now someone in the Land of the Free and the Readily-Available Firearms has taken a real pop at Trump.  More detail to follow in due course, no doubt; but a round from a rifle that clips an ear is an astonishingly close shave.  (Mercifully, most people don't have much idea what a rifle-bullet wound looks like.)  

What's the next stage in this slow-motion escalation?  Of course, many on the Left would adduce ASBO-level racist behaviour on the Right as being a long-running form of political violence: "you started it".  The pro-Gaza crowd contains some whose behaviour is increasingly of the same kind - as many a Labour MP knows to their cost.  (Again, I'm parking the outright Islamist terror wave.)  Left/greens are inclined to say that globalisation etc (in the manner they'd frame it in their own doctrinal terms) is a form of violence against the masses: "you started it" again.  There have been outbreaks of "communal tension" in Leicester which are echoes, albeit faint, of the Subcontinent where that phrase originates from.  And in an extraordinary, chilling, but apparently fleeting episode, a column of drilled and uniformed black folk took to the streets of Brixton a few summers ago.   Political football?  Here's a quick-off-the-mark piece from the Graun this afternoon.

That 2020 Brixton episode, and how it was evidently quashed quietly but effectively & with great dispatch, might be a signifier that peaceful politics may be expected to prevail hereabouts, even in these fraught times.  Ditto the non-followup to the 2011 riots that seemed to have some political pregnancy at the time; and the significant lack of traction for XR / JSO / IB et al.  But it's simmering, with a certain type of "desperate", would-be planet-saving green evidently harkening to the likes of Malms and Hallams.  Is the USA sui generis in its gun-based lunacy?   We can only wait with a high degree of trepidation.  

ND

Ed Miliband, Starmer & energy policy: a curious political tale

15 years ago now: could do with updating

We've recently looked at the fairly extensive list of energy policies Labour brings into office: deeply implausible at best, outright impossible at worst.  We know it's Ed Miliband's doing, Starmer having invited him to pick up where he left off in 2010 when his fairly pivotal Energy Act 2008 didn't save Labour at the polls.  Mili is of course an ex leader of the Labour Party, losing fairly ignominiously in 2015 (- though it's hard to see who could have done much better).

It's somewhat unusual, but by no means unprecedented, for former party leaders to row in behind a successor with sufficient humility and unthreatening purpose that they are invited to bring their experience to the table & take up office again at a subordinate level.  Of course, other ex leaders are not wanted at all, and variously just piss off to make money and/or snipe from the sidelines.  (We may need to write about Tony Blair in this context quite soon.) 

To get the obvious out of the way: overall, I have little time for his politics and in particular his lazy, slapdash energy policy.  But over the past 2 years I have been very impressed with his loyalty, which is the point of this post. 

Mili put together his fairly detailed energy strategy for release at Conference in '22, at which time the numbers presented were at least arguable, even if they're now hopelessly wrong.  The plan came complete with a costing: he needed £28bn a year.  This number, too, could be defended, given that it didn't mean "total cost of plan" (which would be much more), it meant "incremental Treasury cash", a very different thing.  The balance would be made up mostly by subsidies levied on all our energy bills, and private capital.

Labour ran with this for more than a year, to some acclaim from Green quarters (and Red) - which is far from being any kind of ratification but it is germane for what followed.  Reeves then abruptly pulled the rug out, leaving him with perhaps £7bn, perhaps £10bn - barely enough even for the Warm Homes bit of the plan.   Cue outrage on the Green/Red flank: and many people would say Mili had every reason to chuck in the towel (& maybe even become a heavyweight totem for that wing of politics, which is his natural positioning anyway).  But he didn't, and has loyally stuck with Team Starmer, not breathing a word of dismay; indeed, making a very brave and positive face of it all.

I am strongly inclined to find this admirable.  There are too many egos in politics who stomp off in disgust in such circumstances, disloyally briefing to any journo they can nobble on the outrage they've just suffered and the stupidity of the decision.  The temptations are great: & what has Mili got to lose?  But that's not how he's behaved.  

But surely, he can't be expected to front for a policy when he's not going to get the resources he knows are required?   I don't see it that way.  I'm a soldier at heart, and the rule is:  loyalty downwards before a decision; loyalty upwards after a decision.  Show me the commander who went in to battle having been granted all the resources he believed necessary.  Not unheard of, but very rare.  That's life: soldier on & make the best of it.

Only "inclined" to find this admirable?  Well, there are one or two other factors in play.  I'm told by Labour insiders that Mili is not at all in the Starmer inner circle, and stands the risk of being axed at any time.  (We've just seen what happened to Thornberry.)  Right now, for choice, anyone in Labour would want to retain a seat nearish to the top table - with the chance of being a hero to the Green/Reds if he just hangs in there (they know he's not to blame for Reeves' strictures).   The 2008 Act is unfinished business for him.  He must now surely see Net Zero as his life's work & legacy - nobody would want to be remembered in terms of the Graun piece Anon gave us the link for, or ignominious bacon-buttie embarrassment - and really, really wants to be on board in what he must imagine to be the crucial years.  So there's a degree of self-interest at work, albeit measured in prestige rather than career considerations per se.

Overall, an interesting little political drama.  I shall unfailing strive to illuminate the nonsenses in his plans, at the same time as holding him in at least some degree of regard.

ND

Cut-out-and-keep: Labour's fantasy energy programme

As much for my own future reference as anything, here is the list of nonsense in Labour's energy plan.  Since they intend to deliver the bulk of it by 2030, DV we shall be able to tick off the items as they do not come to pass.

>  "By 2030, the UK will be the first major country in the world to run on 100 per cent clean and cheap power".   Can't be done.  Not clear anyone really thinks it can be, incidentally, even though Miliband pretends to.  Not even the '100% clean' bit is possible, since (as is admitted elsewhere in the manifesto) gas will continue to be needed - so by inference, they really are depending on the carbon capture & storage they also commit to - another very long shot indeed; assumption upon assumption).  As for "cheap" ... 

>  "Cut energy bills for good ... cheap power for all ... not just in the short term, but for good ... Labour’s plan for a cheaper, zero carbon electricity system by 2030 will lower bills because renewables are far cheaper than gas. Last summer the price of gas was nine times higher than that of renewables and it remains significantly higher. Based on gas futures price projections, our mission has been estimated as saving UK households £93 billion over the rest of this decade ... take £1,400 off the annual household bill."  Outright rubbish from beginning to end.  (The consultancy that crunched the numbers for them - 18 months ago! - has quietly disowned them.)  Most renewables are more expensive than gas, some of them much more.  And all the other system costs arising from use of renewables are then piled on top (see 'infrastructure' below, and a host of other things).  The period of "gas nine times higher" was the height of the Putin spike; it was only the spot price; and it lasted for all of a couple of days.

>  "By 2030 ... quadruple offshore wind with an ambition of 55 GW by 2030 / More than triple solar power to 50 GW / More than double our onshore wind capacity to 35 GW".    The only question is how far short of this 'ambition' they will fall.  Incidentally, with knowledge of the German practice of building renewables (and getting paid) but not connecting them to the grid, we'd better hold them to a definition of 'GW' that means, not just capacity but 'connected and functioning capacity'.

>  "Double the government's target on green hydrogen, with 10 GW of production".  An interesting one, this.  What, pray, will be the load factor on this 10 GW of capacity?  Very, very low, I'd guess.  And why would anyone build that?  Unless, of course, it'll be paid for (via subsidy) irrespective of LF - which I suppose we can't rule out.

>  "Unleash marine and tidal power".  Sounds exciting!  No details, however, so hard to comment further, save to say that the extensive track record of tidal power experimentation is very unencouraging indeed.

>  "Four times as much grid infrastructure to be built in the next seven years as has been built in the last 30 ... We are confident the transmission operators can do it."  Really?  What in the recent history of UK civil engineering leads to this conclusion?  Oh yeah, the A14 upgrade came in on budget and under schedule.  Anything else we can point to?  HS2?  Hinkley Point?

>  "De-link the price of renewables from gas, to ensure their low prices are passed on to households and businesses".  There are some potential subtleties here, but I doubt this was written by someone who actually understands how markets work.  (Incidentally, the same is true about some rather convoluted stuff they've got on local community energy schemes, but space does not permit.) 

>  "Mandating UK-regulated financial institutions – including banks, asset managers, pension funds, and insurers – and FTSE 100 companies to develop and implement credible transition plans that align with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement across their portfolios".  Too late!  We've already passed the 1.5 point of no return.  Even more seriously: what the Hell does this 'mandating' mean?  This could spell Big Trouble.

In fact, all of it could!  Finally ...

>  "Our plan will create 650,000 jobs across the country by 2030".  Some would say: cost 650,000 jobs, more like!  Well, job-creation schemes are job-creation schemes.  If even half of the above plans were to be embarked upon seriously, it probably would require hundreds of thousands of new jobs.  But where ya gonna find the Brits to fill them, eh?

So: a watching brief on all this guff.  Five or six years of popcorn is a lot of popcorn ...

ND

AI evolves - powerfully - in predictable directions

When Chat GPT burst onto an unsuspecting world last year there was a rush of activity in several spaces: wannabe AI rivals hastened to proclaim MeeeeTooooo; doomsayers proclaimed that AI / LLM on this scale marked the end for the professional classes and white collar employment in general; and a certain class of populist (or would-be populist) 'thinkers' proclaimed that machines could never match good ol' Human Beans, that there was no 'machine intellect' at work, move-along-nothing-to-see-here etc.  Meanwhile, Joe Public amused himself by getting some truly extraordinary results (well, staggering results, actually) from these free tools, as well as tricking them into hilarious bishes, seized upon eagerly by the 'thinkers' as grist to their mill.

Over the following months, a number of significant things have happened in this fast-moving sphere.

1.  Scale - and energy use!

The MeToo contingent is large (Amazon, MS, Meta, Alphabet etc, and without doubt several Chinese concerns), well-funded, and very very keen not to get left behind.  They are truly piling in.  From my perspective, the interesting feature of this is the sheer amount of energy these systems consume - and we've only just started.  All these behemoths (the Western ones, that is) claim to want to use only 'green' electricity but they've already hoovered up any of that on the market, plus as much dedicated nuke capacity as they can negotiate for - and it's not remotely enough: they'll remain FF-powered for many a long moon. 

Some indications of the scale.  The current definition of a 'worldscale' data centre represents 1 GW of electricity demand.  You just know that's a number that will be eclipsed as soon as possible.  Secondly, the last generation (i.e. 2023!) of LLNs cost about $3-400m  to 'train'.  The next generation (2024) will take over $1bn to 'train'.  A high proportion of that dosh is spent on high-intensity energy consumption.  And that's just for now.  Ongoing energy demand won't be negligible; and newer, yet larger LLMs will be leapfrogging each other for a long while to come.  (I wonder what the practical limiting factor will turn out to be?  And how long it will take to debottleneck it?)  One thing's for sure: they ain't gonna be constrained by sticking with green electricity.

2.  Correction of early failings

One of the things early 'critics' of LLM out put gleefully seized upon was that written answer to carefully posed 'prompts', whilst being fairly good in their own right, had the amusing habit of including footnotes that were to entirely fictitious, made-up, non-existent references.  It's a simple and readily understandable function of how LLMs work.

This never impressed me as a serious or definitive failing.  OK, these early pubic LLMs "knew" that footnotes were expected, and made up some plausible-looking ones accordingly.  One might imagine a bright primary-school kid doing something similar when trying to imitate the style of a realistic-looking journal article for some reason; and being thought of as quite imaginative for so doing!  Ooh, and you've even put in some footnotes and www-links!   But the next version of that kid, a few years later, would know what a real footnote-link was all about.  What, conceptually, could be easier for a putative next-generation LLM than to "remember" where it learned its text-predictive stuff from, and list it appropriately in the footnotes? 

Except, this is a fast-moving space!  And that next-gen LLM already exists: it's a new one called Perplexity.  Kerching.  Next problem?

3.  Never as good as humans ..?   The Turing Test

Folks, without much fanfare the Turing Test has now been passed.  A set-piece, properly-controlled experiment was run at the University of Reading (a cunning plot by one department conning another!) in which undetected fake students - actually bots - got higher average exam marks than real thicko human students.  And there's the Turing Test delivered, haha!  This is so earth-shattering, the worrying classes haven't even responded to it yet!

So now I think we need a creative round of updated worries, to keep up with these exciting developments.

ND