The rise of the Populists.

There was once a right wing party that did rather well in the polls. Coming from nowhere, they managed to do very well in a series of local elections. So well, that the usual labor-conservative parties took real fright at this new upstart's influence. And both began pursuing an agenda to contain the new populist party. Rather than on tackling the causes of that populism.






The leader of this new right of centre party was a very charismatic leader. Good speaker. Good showman. He had taken over as leader from a very ineffective bunch who had been peddling their various grievances for years. Immigration. Foreign influences. Bankers. Bureaucrats. 
 The new guy turfed the old dullards out and went on a rabble rousing tour of the country. Drumming up support with just a few, simple messages. 

The nation had been through a massive financial crash. Some had lost much. Many had lost some. And austerity had been dragging on and on. Cuts to all manner of public services had made everyone poorer than they had been. And prospects were not looking good. 

The existing political parties were balanced against each other. A hard left communist party had taken hold on the left. Against a more central, one-nation, liberal-social-democratic-middle-grounders, on the other. The moderate left was losing to the far left. The moderate right, moved too far to the soggy-middle, and allowed a large area on its right flank for another party to develop.

No one side could gain a comprehensive majority large enough to enact any even vaguely controversial legislation.  Any that was tried was challenged through the courts by special interest groups and rich financiers. 

Protests were everywhere. All the time. About anything at all. Newspapers and media took sides and banged their supporters drums loudly. The European community looked on in bafflement, despair, and with more than a little fear. They had populists of their own to contend with. 
 When the leader of the country asked the Europeans for help and assistance, amending some binding laws, to see off the Our Country First group, they met with little sympathy and even less assistance.

 Inevitably, the centre grouping fell from power in yet another election that was as inconclusive as any that had gone on before. The far left made a lot of progress at some expense of the far right. The middle grouping had even less support than before. 

A sizeable number of Conservatives supported moving more to the right. Embracing some of the populists aims. At the same time there was a limited resurgence of Liberal parties. 
 Both far left and far right support was declining. People were becoming tired of constant protest and disruption,. Strikes and pickets and marches. The language of politics had become one of intolerance and aggression.

The weak centre party limped on, and for a time no one was really in charge. 

Parliament allowed a very dangerous precedent, by overruling convention and procedure, and issuing their own, enourmously powerful, unchangeable, undemocratic, decrees. 
 This gave a huge and unrepresentative amount of power, to just a very few key individuals.

 Eventually the leading industrialists, bankers and business leaders said they just wanted certainty. They had long been trying to keep the bad for business far right or far left out. Now they just wanted an end to it all. Their inability to make decisions, due to the volatile politics, was having real, and severe, economic impacts. They put aside differences and demanded some stability. From wherever it might come.

In a by-election, the populist party put on a massive show. It was an area they expected to do well. But recently they had been losing vote share. Falling quite rapidly in the polls, to the new, more right of centre, minority government. 
They were determined to throw everything into the effort in an attempt to show they were still a major player. Still a significant force, and actually rising in popularity.

They spent so much money, that their treasurer was beside himself. Almost suffering a breakdown with still weeks to go before voting. 
 The party was bankrupt, twice over. And yet it was still holding large arena events and had aircraft flying banners overhead. Full on rallies of enthusiastic supporters and lots of paid for media coverage. The treasurer and many senior party figures were seriously worried that this stunt, rather than propelling them into mainstream politics, would mean their extinction. They had gone from high percentage of votes to almost none, many times before.  

In the event, the party did only a bit better than they had done previously. It took skillful use of the media and a selective interpretation of the results to give the impression that they had done much better, than they actually had. This didn't help the nerves of the parties financial people.
 The leader tried to reassure them all would be well again. The election was very near. The gamble on the biggest prize of all, was only weeks away. 

They were unconvinced.

So in the end Hitler simply told all his team to keep spending. Not to let up. The illusion of wealth, strength and support was just as powerful as actual strength, wealth and support.

He told them the obvious truth of Do Or Die politics. Explained the one chance strategy in the simplest of terms.

"Keep spending. Spend even more! Because if we lose, then it won't matter. And if we win, then it won't matter."





 

* Hitler had an enourmous fight with his missus right before the 1932 election. Eva Braun attempted suicide. His dealings with women had led to suicides of his niece and would of Unity Mitford. The old dog had a women problem.

*The German Conservatives tried to deal with Gregor Strasser, a Nazi. He was to have taken over from Hitler. Strasser was a sort of Gove figure. He could be in either, or all camps, simultaneously.
Strasser  said of Johnson, Hitler, "He is a congenital liar."
He wrote of Hitler's chief strategist and spinner, Goebbels, as being a clubfoot. "And I tell you..he..is the worst of them all. This is Satan in human form." 

*Strasser was killed during the purge of 1934. Shot by the SA and left to bleed to death in a cell.

* The Nazis lost votes in November 1932, overall. 34 seats lost. The violence had become endemic. But the politicians were convinced that the Nazis had that much popular support that they must be included in any government. They hoped they could be controlled. In 1933 the Nazis gained a huge new number of seats. 192. But still a long way short of a majority. It was Corbyn type of win. And probably their high water mark, if events hadn't taken them further.
The 1933 elections were the last multi-party election in Germany. There would not be one again for 57 years.

*Why did you morph from Farage to Johnson in this narrative? I was going for a cabaret end scene vibe.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzBTqLy7gkY

* Am I saying Johnson/Farage have Nazi/Facist, tendencies and methods? NO. 

*Was the rise of the Nazis hugely accelerated and assisted by the infighting. Disunity. Weakness. Despair, uncompromising positions, and ineffectiveness of the existing politicians and structures of 1930s Germany? YES.

And the most dangerous long term development for Germany was the government giving emergency powers to itself, long before Hitler took over. These powers allowed the parliament to bypass itself. Rule by decree.

 Does Bercow realise, a hostile to the EU, Speaker, can just as easily bend the rules to deliver what a pro-EU parliament does not want?

One step forward, three back...but to where?

What an amazing week! I can honestly say the fireworks have exceeded my expectations of sheer insanity on the part of what passes for our political elite (and media).


No wonder they are afraid of an election, by any measure we should replace 100% of MP's at the next election. None deserve to keep their jobs, if it was a corporate business unit , the unit would be shut down and abandoned with a big of a write-off to the value of the group.


However, Boris has taken a bad turn after his initial success of the Prorogation, he of course would have known the parliament and rebels were going to beat him. But to me it seems he thought Corbyn would go for an election. Instead in a really bizarre move, the opposition are content to oppose when there is no Government.


For his own side, I am less convinced of the aggression against his own MP's. He expected to lose a few MP's but through cack-handed management has now lost over 20. meaning he can't win any votes in Parliament again - after all, they are not going to vote for an election knowing that it ends their careers as they can no longer be Conservative candidates.


For Remainia, things appear to be going well. I am not so sure here either. Nobody I speak to is happy with the can-kicking and far more people were up for Boris sorting it one way or t'other. Remainia would do well to revoke Article 50 pre any election as that would make people think about having to 're-start' Brexit rather than just continue it. The idea that somehow they are being noble in hobbling the Government, demanding and extension and refusing an election is errant.


So I see both sides very badly holed at the moment, enter Farage perhaps? Predictions at the moment seem to age at lightspeed so are futile.

Is Anyone Surprised?

Yesterday evening's events must surely have been entirely predictable to those in the know - particularly since the vote wasn't even close.  So, the Plan is unfolding.

I trust ...  

ND

Scorecard

The EC assume Parliament can steer the Britannia back to Brussels, and they'll not lift a finger until this has been tried.  So today marks the end of the phoney war (UK theatre).  What has Team Boris achieved up until this point?

1.  Some rather obvious stuff:  boosting Tory morale; obtaining the (fairly usual) honeymoon bounce in the polls; and presumably carrying out more concrete no-deal prep than Hammond allowed to happen in the forgoing three years.  All quite useful as far as it goes, but none of it sufficient to carry the day**

2.  Taken control of the agenda to the maximum extent possible (given that Grieve et al will have their day, one way or the other); made all the running; herded the opposition parties onto ground of Cummings' choosing; depressed a lot of lefties, and reinforced people's generally bad impression of Corbyn

Now it gets interesting ...

3.  Signalled from Day 1 that there's confidence aplenty on the GE front, making Corbyn shifty on the subject as Labour MPs hum and haw.

4.  Substantially neutered Corbyn's "unicorns for everyone" GE strategy (which did rather better than the Tories imagined it would in 2017)

5.  Signalled that the Gloves are Off (proroguing Parliament, firing Spads, hint at de-selection) 

On 3, it's not precisely clear whom Brenda from Bristol will blame for a forthcoming GE.  But Bren is exactly the kind of voter Cummings excels in reading, so we may guess he's got that one covered.  Heaven alone knows where the unicorn bidding war will go (4): but Cummings is pretty shrewd on the headlines he wants (crime, NHS, schools) and has staked them out early.  However, I don't see a decisive move on / from Farage (yet): and the Celtic Fringe aspects don't seem at all under control.  Extremely interesting that an 'Irish Unity' march in Glasgow caused rioting ... the fish-woman may have more on her hands than she'd realised.

Finally ...

6.  Gone a long way to get the benefits of what is often termed the "Israeli Nuclear Strategy", i.e. - yeah, but they really are mad enough to do it.

Gets even more interesting from here.

ND
_____________________
** of course, Boris' definition of "carrying the day" is something that many Brexiteers are deeply suspicious about.

Monday Morning Quick views

None of us know what will happen this week, the kids have gone back to school but do the Blazers still fit? did we push it not buying them new shoes when they were a bit moaney about the size? whose turn is it to steal little Jonnie's lunch money?


However, finally I feel the can-kicking will end. Boris has rightly decided that he will die on the battlefield or win the Crown against the Pretender.


So what do we think...will he be Prime Minister by Friday - and by that I mean with a Government under him not hanging on avoiding seeing the Queen in a Brown-ian motion.




What are everybody's bets?

Brexit Aftermath: Printing Money, or Taxes?

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

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

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

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

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

ND

Boris-Cummings in tactical nuclear strike on Remainia

Well, that has set the cat amongst the proverbial pigeons.


This morning the UK Government has decided, as it is quite within it legal rights to, to arrange a Queen's Speech for early October. The remainer PM May could not afford one of these for fear of a Vote of No Confidence, so there is in fact a desperate need for one to announce the Government's strategy.


Too clever by half though, as this has sent the remainers into another meltdown. Only yesterday they were lining up to create an alternative Parliament full of only remainers so that they could all meet and vigorously agree with one another on how horrid leavers are. Today though this plan is already in tatters. The main outcome of yesterday had been to admit they were not very united and instead had to work on Parliamentary legislation to undermine Brexit and the Government negotiation strategy. This now has only a few days in early September to work.


Boris-Cummings has put paid to this idea, perhaps. Their plan will be to halt parliament so they can negotiate a better deal with the EU that they can then bring back at the last moment and force a Parliamentary vote affirming it.


Alternatively, if the anti-Brexit MP's can manage it, they might now conjour up a vote of no confidence and therefore a General Election prior to October 31st. However, as I wrote some weeks ago, the timetable for that is very challenging. 2 weeks before parliament is dissolved, a five week election - so seven weeks minimum and the Vote of No Confidence can't be tabled until early September. I am sure the Remainers and EU will bend any rules they have too - but anyway as of today I fully expect a Tory-Brexit party victory as the remainers will be seen to be the ones forcing an election (remember how well that worked out for May in 2017).


So, lots more heat and little light to be generated in the next couple of weeks.

Cummings: Strategist or Tactician?

Many years ago I worked for, and learned a huge amount from, a negotiator who was (and is) a legend in the energy business.  His achievements in bringing home the bacon against all odds and all predictions are legion: and his methods have always been ones I have sought to deploy wherever appropriate.  

However, as is often the case with anyone of extreme achievement, his MO was itself at an extreme end of the spectrum.  He was essentially 100% a tactician - strategy never came into it, it wasn't in his repertoire.

The typical story would go like this. Andy would be summoned at short notice to a meeting of deeply worried senior executives.  By hook or by crook, they would say, we must get a controlling interest in this new production licence that's become available.  It's critical to our operating plan, and our year-end targets.**  But OtherCo aren't budging.  We can afford $X million, and not a penny more, otherwise the reserves won't be earnings-accretive.  Andy, it looks to be impossible - but we need you to work your magic: and we need it by the end of next month.  We absolutely must have it!

So off Andy would go, make a few 'phonecalls, set up a few lunches.  (Lunch was a big feature of his tactical playbook.++)   After a couple of days he'd require one of the company's best lawyers to be at his beck & call, plus an economist and a couple of other select types.  He'd exude a well-practised air of terrible stress coupled with ultimate optimism; would always say "everything's OK", and mostly be left alone.

One month later, he'd reconvene the worried execs and the lawyer would drop a large bundle of draft contract papers on the table.  Have you got it, Andy?  - "Yep, 51% for X million.  Justin will go through the paperwork with you.  Sorry, I had to spend the whole lot, they wouldn't take anything less.  And best not ask me about my lunch bills, hoho!"  The mood in the room would rapidly become euphoric; there'd be a joky conversation about expense accounts and how he'd be fired for his lavish ways, hohoho! - and a queue would form to shake his hand.  Justin would be set on to convene them again at a later date to summarise the terms of the deal.

A few days later, the CEO would erupt into his room.  You never said you'd sold them the ABC exploration concession!  That was going to be the centrepiece of next year's drilling programme!!

"Ah well", Andy would say:  "don't worry, it's a side deal, not a consideration: it won't affect the earnings.  'By hook or by crook', remember?  'Absolutely must have it' -?"

See, Andy was a tactician.  He'd win you any particular battle, as instructed, against all odds, widely thought impossible: but with no view to what happened thereafter.  There were other tough commercial challenges that ultimately proved to be tractable using different approaches, but were quite beyond Andy to pull off.  Not A Strategist.

So here's the question.  Dominic Cummings is evidently thoughtful (see his copious writings^^), and seems to know how to win battles.  Maybe he's about to win another, and crown his career.  

But is he leaving 2020+ to look after itself? 

ND
______________
** meaning their bonuses, inter alia
++ a tactic I have gladly adopted in my own dealings ... well, I'm a good student
^^ upon analysis, many of them have the benefit of hindsight

You had one job: Friday Fun

So last week we took it upon ourselves to find the ultimate leader for the September Government of National Disunity.


(I know its just phase, but a Government of National Unity that replaces the elected Government is no such thing and  should be called out more frequently, harumpphh).


Now of course we know the only purpose of that Government will be to delay or cancel Brexit and in this phoney war phase of August lots of noise is being made about how this will be done and then an election called. Again, the mechanics of this are not very clear and indeed to me suggest there may not be a vote for an election (the Tory rump can vote against it, leaving PM Clarke or Junker swinging with the backing of communists etc - oh what japes!) that passes easily.


So, here YOU are, head of a Government of a rag tag bunch of anti-democrats, Scottish nationalists, Tory Quislings and an eco-loon.


What would you do, the power is there to coerce on policy through Parliament, what do you choose?

Send the Remainers and EU mental, then onto Victory?

This seems to be the strategy of the new UK Government. Just this morning it has announced the UK teams will stop attending EU meetings. In the round, with Brexit, this makes sense. To the large number of people never attuned to this idea of actually leaving this has caused a very negative reaction. Even MP's are on the airwaves decrying the move.


It comes hot on the heels of the signing of the law to leave the EU on Monday; again it is symbolic more than meaningful, but it lays out the truth that Parliament has already voted for a No Deal Brexit and as such has legislated its way into a big hole of its own making.


The ideas behind these moves are simple; cause Remainia in the UK to go into meltdown and encourage it to try to topple the Government in a couple of weeks time. At the same time, allow the EU enough time to dismiss all our activities out of hand now, but with enough time to reflect on what they may do before Halloween.


If the Remainers manage to topple the Government, then it seems to me we will end up with Prime Minister Farage in 2020, the sheer affront to democracy will be to great to bear and the Remainiacs will find their victory short-lived. But Boris is betting he can beat Farage to be leader of the populists if the Tories are defenestrated by a rainbow coalition.


If they fail in their bid then the EU itself will be forced to consider how to make the best of a poor situation - the hardball negotiating will have failed and some decisions will have to be made as to how to mitigate the UK exit which will now be inevitable. Of course, the EU may remain intransigent, but politically they will bear some responsibility for that.


So both plans may work well in the medium term which is why the Government is taking what appears at first to be such a risky and divisive strategy.

Corbyn Launches a Very Revealing Insult

Jezza's set-piece megaspeech yesterday contains a crazy phrase which, surely, proves one or both of two things.  (a) The drivel was cobbled together by, er, Seamus Milne - and not reviewed by anyone: and/or (b) it was aimed only at meejah political editors.

Boris, he claims, is ... a phoney outsider!  Yer what?

There can't be a man-in-the-street in the entire nation who can parse that: it's a 100%, copper-bottomed Westminster-Bubble accusation.

The labelling of a politician as being an outsider would ordinarily be pejorative, rather damning, in fact - like "unclubbable", "remote", "out of touch", "too clever by half", "John Redwood".  Understandably, these are felt to be Bad Things in a politician.  We'd be a bit uncomfortable being represented or led by someone who makes us feel, well, uncomfortable.  It's a rough-and-ready sort of guarantee against nutters.  People vote for people they feel comfortable with: not too radical, not too many sharp edges, knows how to work the room, to talk to people; kinda predictable, reliable, emollient, warm, easy to have a drink with, etc etc.  Small-c conservatism.  Who wants to see the boat rocked too much?  

But that's in normal times.

More recently, as times get ever more abnormal, "outsider" as a non-pejorative labelling originates as a diagnostic assessment of someone who's done well to come from "nowhere" in circumstances where, it is felt, all the insiders are somehow tarnished by being members of just that once-comforting, now condemned status-quo club.  Churchill coming in from the wilderness.  Trump from outside the Beltway.  That kind of thing.

But still as a diagnosis.  Just as nobody ever describes themselves as a wanker, no-one, unless they are being clumsily self-referential (rarely a good thing - too knowing, too much artifice), proudly describes themselves as an outsider.  Unless they are Sarah Palin - which is to make the same point.

Now.  The bubble-commentariat used to credit Corbyn with this hallowed status (him and Farage).  It's how he attracted da yoof in 2017, how he commands devotion in his loyal Momentum shock-troops.  He been told it's his crowning glory. 

Which brings us to his accusation against Boris.  You can't be the Outsider candidate in the next GE - that's me!  But who the hell follows this tortuous stuff?  You, dear reader, might geddit (or you might disagree, of course), but you ain't the man in the street.

In short, despite the notionally "open" forum it was delivered in, this speech of Corbyn's is no rallying cry to voters, in any way shape or form.  It's strictly for the, errr, insiders.  

ND

All Retail Property is Theft

Uncle Jez can almost touch the levers, {leavers?} of power.Tantalisingly close to his fingertips. The Socialist Utopia is  only weeks away. And so the benign mask slips.in the excitement. Revealing Karl or maybe even Josef, underneath.

The 'Retail Emergency' requires a five year plan. A collectivisation of commerce. A confiscation of the land of the Kulaks. The giving to the people of that bourgeoisie land that they can work. As a high street farm  Mechanisation, comrades, will free the serfs from the toil of profit obsessed industry.

JEREMY CORBYN has unveiled astonishing plans to nationalise the High Street by seizing control of empty shops.

The Labour leader said vacant properties would be given to community projects and fledgling firms to help revitalise town centres. But the staggering property grab was branded “crude and woolly” and experts warned it was more likely to fuel the problem than solve it. Mr Corbyn said he wanted to give local councils the power to hand over empty shops to start-ups, co-operative businesses and local groups.

Retail has lost 200,000 jobs in two years. It has lost over two million jobs since 2008. Something that has escaped the MSM, who rush down to a steel mill of a few thousand jobs to demand government intervention
 Retail jobs are disappearing faster than any other sector. And will continue to be lost at the same fast rate due to  falling demand. Over taxation. The domino effect of failure and automation.

Price isn't a big factor in occupancy numbers, at present. If you want the big,empty, former BHS store at your local town, the landlord will listen to any proposals you have. Will give you a low rent deal. probably, on those white elephant stores, a no rent deal.

Mr Korbyn,  the shops are not empty because greedy aristos are demanding too much for them. They are empty as they are not required.

The days of the greedy landlord, are over. The 1990s and millennium era retail boom is history.

Kobyn's plans are Zimbabwe or Venezuela economics. Hand over the land to people without the skills, knowledge, capital, drive, vision, work ethic,or desire to have them. It is a recipe for shortages, inflation and mass corruption. The next recession will be here long before any boom that could have supported a neophyte start-up.

As Mr Drew has pointed out many times, it doesn't take much for the Marxists to do immense damage, in even a short period of time. 
 Johnnie has already said he wants your garden for tax. And your inherited or second home, to be confiscated.

The gears of history are turning in the factories of the proletariat. The Great Revolution is at hand. And as a bonus, it will be an Oktober one too!

 

Friday Fun: Pick Your Own Prime Minister Day

Here we are the silly season in full swing and make your own Government being played out in the Media and, rather more bizarrely, by actual politicians too.


What a shower we have been cast with, if only it was just the Weather.


But today, you can pick your own. The scenario is the losers and traitors coalition in Parliament manage to defenestrate Boris by a small margin on Sept 4th.


With no backing for Corbyn, the cry goes out, who can our Prime Minister be to cancel Brexit - in desperate times they could be from the House of Lords or even further afield - after all the losers coalition is literally making the rules up as it goes along with the Speaker Bercow's blessing.


For me, I think we need an experienced Politician who is used to playing and winning the long-game here. So I would go for Jean-Claude Junker?


Fun in the comments...

Corbyn Makes His Move

You have to feel a bit sorry for Paul Mason: an intelligent, thoughtful & imaginative chap, basically honest, a bit didactic & earnest, much taken with some of Karl Marx's insights, groping around for a 21st C application for them, would like to be consistent ... but the Real World somehow doesn't fall as neatly into his categories as he'd eagerly wish.

So now Corbyn's made his move - well, a move, he had to do something now or be condemned to utter, contemptible irrelevance - and Paul would like to think this immediately confirms everything he's analysed and was hoping for.  "Corbyn has taken a brave step. Now he must rule out any ‘Labour Brexit’".   Hmm.  Let's see how much Little Paul's enjoying it a fortnight from now.

So what to make of Corbyn's roll of the die?  It's clearly reactive, and no great stroke, that's for sure: comfortably within anything Cummings will have considered.  Team Boris is still drawing everyone else onto the battlefield of its own choosing.  (Which, incidentally, makes all the sillier Mason's opening contention that "Corbyn just got inside everyone else’s decision cycles" - a reference to the thinking of the great John Boyd that will be familiar to many readers.)

I think we may assume Team Corbyn, rattled by initiatives coming from elsewhere (Lucas, Kinnock, Hammond etc) felt the urgent need to slap something on the table.  With a couple of blatant attempts to shield their SNP flank as a preparatory step (but weakening their own Scottish legion in the process), their own effort looks very much like an attempt at a low-risk, win-win, no-regrets type of affair.  If it works, and Jezza is wafted into No.10 by this strange backdoor method, well, he's in!  No telling what he might do with executive authority whilst pretending to be arranging a GE and an A50 extension. 

If it fails, well, Boris gets to crash out (as the Leninist / Stalinist faction always wanted) with only his fingerprints on the deed; revolutionary purity is retained; and maybe it brings down Swinson in the process as an added bonus.  Indeed, you'd have to say on balance they are hoping for and expecting the latter, because by insisting on Corbyn being PM, they've actually blown it from the start, as well they know.

Now Swinson: there's an interesting thing.  The Corbyn outriders are busily saying this'll be the end of her, what with rejecting the saintly Jezza overtures out of hand like that.  Now I have no particular insight into the LibDems (does anyone here?): but I'd say her immediate reactions were spot-on, and that she'll be infinitely less discomfitted by this - maybe indeed, not bovvered at all - than Lucas was by her mighty BAME faux pas.  Why would Swinson wish to submerge her position as leader of the largest unequivocally Remain group of MPs in Parliament for a bit-part in a complex Milne-plot?  (The SNP - a group that really can see some win-win possibilities - are clearly banking on No Deal followed by IndyRef2.)  It'll be Lucas, Fish-woman and Grieve who'll be squirming at being told what to do by Labour.

Meanwhile, Team Boris will be barely distracted.  Nobody shows any sign of getting ahead of them, or turning their flanks - still less "getting inside their decision cycle".  The fact that Corbyn has given up his distant reverse-slope position for a brief foray in the open, well, it's no great stroke.  Let him spend a few weeks in the woke version of a smoke-filled room with Lucas et al, and see how clever he feels at the end of that.

CU said yesterday that Sept and Oct could be fun.  August still has some life in it yet!

ND

September and October could be fun

- Chinese Industrial output at 17 year low


- Germany therefore heading into recession (I don't think many realise just how tied to China the German economy has become)


- US Trade War still fun


- Brexit issues


- Hong Kong on edge of a crackdown


- Argentina defaulting


So overall, a right pretty face for the world economy. Markets as we often say find ways of tanking in September and October if they are going too. This yeas, how do they not find a way!


Equally, a recession with real interest rates at such low levels will be very strange indeed with hard to predict outcomes. For a domestic example, short supply of UK Houses coupled with huge mortgage availability and low rates will stop a very over-inflated market from falling very far. Which in terms means the mortgage supply won't be turned off - so a very limited impact.

Brexit Gallows Humour #47: The Cabinet of Women

When something quite as serious as Brexit begins to loom large, there's a strong temptation to look for solutions guided by one's basic prejudices, and/or use the crisis as a pretext for the same.   So Marxists will reach for the Revolution as both the solution to the woes that resulted in the Brexit vote, and/or what they can opportunistically promote during no-deal chaos; and Greens will say Europe needs to be reinvented as the *European Sustainable Union* (I'm not making that up).

Taking the biscuit, though, must surely be Caroline Lucas with her call for a *Cabinet of Women*.

Why women? Because I believe women have shown they can bring a different perspective to crises

She's the one who needs to have a bit of perspective here.  What do we know about Women In Charge?  Well, on the one hand we have Elizabeth I, Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir ... oh, not the examples you had in mind?  Well, how about Mary Tudor, Christine Lagarde, or Theresa May, or some of those chairs of health trusts that have overseen ghastly disasters befalling their patients?  Or Arlene Foster?  Maybe Diane Abbbottt?  Or Aung San Suu Kyi ..?

No - it turns out Lucas has in mind just ten carefully selected women of her own choosing.  With herself as PM, I'm guessing, in this ultra-democratic set-up.  (Hilariously, she's now having to back-pedal because ... she didn't include any BAME women!  So - not Diane Abbbottt after all...)

What we know about Women In Charge is that they are just as likely to be successes or failures, strong or weak, inspiring or disappointing, natural leaders or careerist hacks as anyone else.   No special guarantees of exceptional wisdom, superior humanity or a magic touch. 

It's always telling, when the Graun doesn't allow BTL comments on a piece like Lucas's.  And they don't.  We may imagine they knew what the response would have been.

ND

Too hot in the Energy kitchen

Interesting news from the Energy sector. My colleague Nick Drew has written extensively on the problems in the Retail Energy market where over-regulation of the supply-side and consumer pressure from the demand end has led to a game where it is very hard to make any money.


Domestic supply used to be a real money-spinner, people have to pay their electric bills and if they did not there was in the old days the threat of a meter you would have to put coins in! Long gone are those days, now Uswitch and other services make it very easy to switch between suppliers and so the margins are disappearing very fast from the retail supply end of the market. In many ways, a good example of the market at work, destroying the business models of the oligopolies just as it should.


Of course, we have yin and yang in business. There are plenty of new entrants, funded by Private Equity and City institutions. who think they can come in and clean up where the old school has left off.


The result of the above is a deal announced over the weekend. SSE (Scottish and Southern Electric in old terms) is selling its retail business to newcomer Ovo. SSE just can't see the point when they are churning customers so quickly at moment. Ovo think their superior brand and service will overcome this.


Personally, I think the lack of loyalty or any incentive to be loyal to your energy provider makes playing the game on superior brand a very dicey one - but it is not my money so good luck to Ovo!


In the meantime, it will be interesting to see what the other of the old Big Six energy suppliers do with their low margin retail businesses - my guess is there is more divestment to come. They can then focus on generation where there are plentiful Government subsidies still to be found.

UK Economy shrinks by 0.2% in Q2 2019

Quite a surprise today that the ONS has the UK economy shrinking by 0.2% in the second quarter.


Just a couple of days ago the services PMI read came out as 54.5, well above fifty and as the largest part of the economy, normally enough to carry the overall GDP numbers up.


However, a further drop in construction and also a drop in manufacturing (where stockpiling for a March Brexit boosted Q1) has been enough to see the economy slide into negative territory.


There is no much good news to be had here, with another Brexit shock due to hit in Q4 there won't be any recovery in Construction or much in Manufacturing - which is hugely hurt by the disaster of diesel car sales which disproportionately UK factories were set up to produce.


Services can help to keep the UK out of outright recession, but it will be touch and go as Politics is set to head into meltdown in September and that itself will temper optimism and business investment, as well we job hiring.


The UK really needs to go sign a Brexit deal and move on. Hard Brexit, on the back of what will already be an ailing economy now, will push us into a nasty recession. Not 2008 levels, but certainly early 90's pain.


The FTSE100 will hold up due to dollar earnings, the 250 and AIM are going to fare less well.

They are refusing to negotiate...with reality

So says Michael Gove yesterday. Boris's new team are really on a roll, sadly it is downhill to nowhere.


Apparently the EU wont negotiate  - but negotiate with what? They can hardly just drop the Backstop having died on a hill for it for 2 years. Politically, this will be very hard for them to do and I would guess prove impossible. It is the wrong choice of battlefield.


There are no other demands from the new UK Government, so there is indeed nothing to negotiate. How about a side discussion on moving to EFTA for a start as a part way move - something to give the EU their own political cover to make some moves?


Gove used to be smart, but Brexit Derangement Syndrome has claimed another victim.


But it is not just the Government who need to engage their brains a little more, the classic August summer story is that we are going to get a Government of National Unity led by Ken Clarke or Caroline Lucas. I have expected for a long time that the Remain majority in Parliament would find a way to revoke Article 50 but desperation grows strong now for the Remain MP's.


But this wont be the way, there are just not enough Tory and non-Corbynite Labour votes for a GNU to make this work - let alone the insane spectacle of Parliament over-ruling the Referendum and the commitments make by most Parties at the last 2 elections - much as it would be fun to watch there are too many dark downsides to this outcome.


In 2015, Margaret Beckett and others swiftly regretted allowing Corbyn to stand for Labour leader and thus destroying her own party. I wonder how many MP's are at home this summer regretting their cavalier attitude to May's deal?

Trump's alternative monetary policy

(Firstly, having been away for a couple of weeks my thanks to Nick and BQ for covering the blog, less thanks for putting up such good stuff that now I need to up my game!)


In the USA, much like the UK, the Federal Reserve is an independent body. They make decisions on their own balance sheet and set decisions on interest rates by dint of their reading of the market. The US President and rest of the Government are just bystanders.


Of course, it is not in the President's interest to endure this. After all, the Fed has no elections to win and the current President is very focused on winning one in October next year.


Now as we all know, economics and a good economy is not everything or else in the UK we would not have had Blair as Prime Minister in the late 1990's. However, there is a small correlation with plenty of jobs and a growing economy helping incumbent Governments.


As such, Mr Trump does not want the Fed to raise rates. In the Fed's view the US economy is at the end of a long-expansionary period. They have had very low rates and a huge amount of Quantitative Easing to juice the economy after the Financial Crash of 2008. Now the banking system is nearly recovered and the US is steadily creating plenty of jobs. House prices are rising and the stock market sits at all time highs.


So taking away the punch bowl would seems a logical thing to do. But raising rates may slow the economy and Trump does not want that with only 14 months to an election. Interest rate rises are delayed action too (though I doubt now the old mantra of taking 2 years to feed into the economy, modern tech and communications will have seriously reduced this).


What is Trump to do when all this is out of his control? Well, he could start a trade war with China. This is in his gift as President. Slapping Tariff's on China has the effect of slowing trade and taking the shine off the economy. As a result, it makes the Fed's predictions about the economy change and so with their change in viewpoint, comes a change in policy.


Last week, the Fed lowered interest rates, in due course this will come to be seen as a poor policy move, just as raising rates in early 2007/8 was the wrong thing to do (and as we wrote back then too!).


They lowered rates because a $300 billion trade war with China is not good for the US economy.


However, Trump can, and indeed has, fluctuated wildly with the trade war rhetoric and has the power to end the trade war tomorrow. He is far more flexible than the Fed and has fewer constraints (no monthly meetings or pesky Boards to convince).


Trump can game the system this way for domestic monetary policy. It is a very clever way to get change, albeit literally playing with the livelihoods of Americans in the process - but hey, what else is a President supposed to do?

The Desperate *Optimism* of the Left

Now this is getting funny.  The Left have taken another look at Boris, maybe run a few focus groups, and noticed that he engenders OPTIMISM.  How can this be, they say: we're as gloomy as all Hell, and so should everyone else be.  Crap leader; crap poll ratings; LibDems eating our lunch; nobody wants to talk about austerity or even, FFS, the 'climate emergency'.  Somehow, blokes in pubs who are our voters - Our Voters - are clinking their pint pots and toasting to - Boris.  Haven't they noticed??  He's a lying, womanising, ....

So they think they'd better rush around Engendering Optimism!  Take a look at these headlines, from the Graun:

• Jeremy Corbyn’s stance on Brexit could yet pay off, even for remainers. Here’s why
• Boris Johnson is the last person young Brits would vote for 
• Boris Johnson’s crew will repel voters – there’s no need to fear him
• Labour shouldn’t worry so much about the Lib Dems, they hurt the Tories more

(That last one from L'il Owen Jones, of course; and the one before was Polly.)

The trouble is, it's like a kiddie holding a book upside down and saying "Look, I can read!"; or the large proportion of people who tell surveys that they are upper middle class.  To claim it is to prove the opposite.  

Looks like we're still watching the Denial phase.  Anger could get messy.  Bargaining will be fun!

ND

Greenwich School of Management - All Very Sad

Greenwich School of Management went bust yesterday.  Ordinarily this probably wouldn't have caught my attention greatly.  If people have heard of privately-owned GSM, it's probably due to its featuring in a Panorama investigation a couple of years ago into purchased admissions, dodgy degrees and bent assignment-brokers - which most of the papers writing about GSM today are too polite to mention.

There's something else nobody is mentioning, though a couple of oblique euphemisms can be found if you look.  A while ago I did a bit of lecturing there on a pro bono basis and one couldn't help but notice that every single student encountered was not just BAME, but black.  Given the incessant messaging we're all bombarded with that 'diversity' is the most important possible criterion for, well, pretty much anything these days, you'd imagine that the students themselves might have noticed this, and figured something was going wrong.  Probably they did (and the dropout rate was more than 50%); but maybe they hadn't reckoned it would end this way.

You can only feel sorry for the many enthusiastic and eager learners.  The false promises fed to students, all dating back to bloody John Major and his vision of 50% of school leavers going on to "university" (by hook or, as in some cases, by crook) routinely lead to massive disappointment, not to mention gratuitous debt.  Whether it's the fault of schools, or just human nature, the facts are that a good deal fewer than 50% of school leavers are truly ready for, or are going to benefit from, a university education.

Yet tens of thousands of kids in the other category are frogmarched into former polys (and debt) to keep the numbers up, with predictable results.

There's another post to be written about private universities, and markets in education generally.  For now, the point is that those preying on young people unsuited to tertiary study include the politicians with 'visions' and dumb numerical targets as well as the bent bastards offering to get students' assignments done for £500 a pop.

ND

People Are Starting to Think Straight

Well that's comprehensively seen off my weekend worry that Boris might catch his predecessor's Airport Fever.  Good instinct or good advice; it doesn't matter.  Just stay away from those euro-capitals.

Yes, people are starting to take the whole enterprise seriously.  Not Polly Toynbee, of course: "Boris Johnson’s crew will repel voters – there’s no need to fear him".  But elsewhere in the Graun: "Labour risks total wipeout if it fails to take Boris Johnson seriously".

The Irish are worried, too - and well might they be.  Keeping Varadkar waiting for a call was cheeky but good tactics; and the pained hand-wringing isn't slow to follow, as the Graun relates:

An Irish government spokesman said Varadkar had also invited Johnson to Dublin for further talks on Brexit. [I'll bet he did - see Airport Fever above] “The taoiseach restated the need for both governments to be fully committed to the Good Friday agreement" ... the spokesman said. “He recalled that the agreement requires the sovereign government to exercise power with rigorous impartiality on behalf of all the people in full respect for their rights, equality, parity of esteem and just and equal treatment for the identity, ethos and aspirations of both communities.” [Presumably a quotation from the preamble.  Ooh, that's telling him!]  A No 10 spokesman said both leaders committed themselves to maintaining a warm and deep relationship between Ireland and the UK... Johnson had been accused of snubbing his Irish counterpart by leaving it so long to speak to him ...

Faced with all this new reality, others too are inevitably starting to strategise.  Back to the Irish again: here's a sign of someone getting their brains into gear:

Brexit: mess with Good Friday and we’ll block UK trade deal, US politicians warn. Hostile Congress could hold up trade deal

A decent Remainer attempt to open up a new front: and a bit more imaginative than dropping the IRA into the conversation.  And I suggest there's another scare we shall be hearing a great deal more about, too, as faithfully disseminated by the Beeb:

No-deal Brexit 'would cause civil unrest' in rural Wales

Yes, the threat of civil unrest on a much larger scale than Welsh sheep-farmers will doubtless be bruited about in the coming weeks:  and can a General Strike be far behind?  Or pupils staying away from school, spearheaded by the saintly Greta?  I have a suspicion Stormzy will be musing over the possibilities, too.  And Miller.  And Soros.

If you want an entertaining read from someone who clearly does a lot of thinking, follow Montanatorice, a CiF commenter.  He or she writes quite a lot, and repeats stuff over several comments, but the one you are looking for is what appeared BTL under the "Take Boris Seriously" article linked to above.  I think this link should take you straight in (it takes a second or two to resolve to the comment).  It's even been given the accolade of a 'Guardian Pick'; and a Golden Cleric award can't be far behind.

ND

Centrica's Woes and What They Betoken

From time to time we pass comment on Centrica - partly because energy is one of our themes; and partly because from inception as an Enron-wannabe spin-off out of the old monopoly British Gas, it's been an interesting company on an interesting 'journey' (as we're obliged to say these days).  

You can click on the link below to see our sporadic past comments.  Not all of them have been favourable, because Centrica went through a misguided phase of loud special-pleading for subsidies, which didn't endear them to us - or indeed to the government.  They've taken a few outright false steps over the years, notable among which were the move into "we-can-do-everything" banking & telecomms; and the big stake they took in British Energy nukes alongside EDF.  But they've done clever stuff too: intelligent re-calibration of commercial policy when things weren't working out as intended (these days we must call this 'pivoting'); and a series of adroit asset acquisitions (most notably gas-fired power stations and long-term electricity supply contracts) when prices were rock-bottom.  Their technical skills in the marketplace have always been pretty fair.

All in all, to have stayed independent for nearly 25 years is no mean achievement.

But today they have serious problems to address.  Mrs May's inane price cap has weakened the entire industry, as was widely foreseen; and for a couple of years now insider commentary has not been kind about Centrica's strategic decsion-making, once so laudable.  Share price has reflected these things. They are 're-basing the dividend' and the top man is quitting. 

There doesn't need to be any sentiment in this: but I feel uneasy when good companies can't find a way through.  The residential gas & electricity supply business is of course going through a shocking phase.  May's cap; the plethora of minnows that should never have been given licences (Ofgem's grievous fault) and have been going under at a rate; big players like RWE (Innogy/NPower) and SSE trying to exit ... this is a mess.  And against a backdrop for the entire energy sector of trying to get to grips with whatever the 'decarbonised' future will bring.

Civilisation is energy-intensive, as the great James Lovelock reminds us (he's just turned 100) - and society needs capable energy companies.  In civilised countries, energy should be like water and food: so well managed that the miracle of abundance goes almost unnoticed.  Darwinian processes are fine: but there's no pleasure in seeing a big healthy beast fall sick.  Yes; things can go very wrong if the energy market isn't working well.

ND  

Fortnite

A US teenager has won a record-breaking $3m (£2.4m) to become world champion of the computer game Fortnite. Fortnite is the largest prize pool in the history of e-sports, with $30m shared amongst the winners.

This story has allowed the media to run a few hours of debate and phone ins on some of their favourite subjects. 

Concerned parenting. 
Children being less active than their parents 
The horror that is video gaming
and
Being Judgemental.  


There is nothing very new here. Something is always blamed for moody teenagers and aggressive pre-teen boys.
In my day it was Heavy Metal. The satanic music of AC/DC was turning children into killers.

Before that it was long hair that was to blame. Or jeans. 

Way back at the dawn of teenagers, born from the discovery of independent wealth that was paying more than a paper round, Rock Around The Clock was a terribly bad influence on the morals and attitudes of the nation.

Fortnite, for those that don't game, and never have, is a multiplayer battle royale, in high cartoon form. Not terribly dissimilar to a Star Wars shooting game, of which there are legion, that go completely unremarked.
 One player, and their digital persona, arrive on an island and must hunt down all the other players and eliminate them. So they emerge victorious.Weapons are found lying around. Forts can be constructed.  and so on.

The game is entirely free. Which was the genius of it. It had a few million player base on its launch as it costs nothing, and never costs anything to play. No player need spend a penny if they don't wish.
The creators make money from players buying new suits, or 'skins' for their character. Dance moves. Special gun flashes. And from being a 'brand' with its own merchandise, so is a licensing success. Much like Angry Birds was.

The difference with Fortnite to Angry Birds or Subway surf endless runner games, is that once a player begins the game, as it is real time, against real opponents, if a player has to leave the console/tablet/phone for a minute, they will be eliminated. I'm sure this is where the angry calls of parents for supper and to go to bed right this minute, break out.

Listening and watching the panels a few things are quite obvious. Women, in the main, have no concept of something like Fortnite. Like they didn't with the whole, GTA similar backlash a while ago. As they didn't with FIFA or Racing games. 
 They don't play them particularly, as they don't appeal in the same way. 
 GTA is deliberately, a very masculine product. And shooters and horror products appeal much more to the men and boys.

The Sims is probably the bestselling, more female focused video game  worldwide. It is really just a far, far, far more advanced version of Dolls House. As Fortnite is just a more advanced version of Action Man. Parents and presenters really need to grasp this, to understand the digital phenomenon.

One of the common complaints is that children have phones at the diner table. Have games and are on social media and this interrupts family life. And that they aren't out with their friends.

Though they are with their friends. That's why kids like these games. They are social.

In my day, as an avid gamer before the Internet, we'd play games at each others houses. Board games too. But more and more video games.
With the Play Station and Xbox, so this continued for another generation. 
Now, they can play in the same room , or not. But still the same group.

Parents should be aware that they are suspicious of this technology, only because it is new.
They need to recall that they have little fear of television or video.  While their own parents were very suspicious. TV appeared in their lives in the 1970s. While they were still being brought up in their own parents world of no TV. So all the diner table rules applied. 
 No TV at the diner table, because there had been no TV BEFORE. 

The schedulers, knowing the set time for supper and lunch and such, made sure their shows fitted to these times. As Television became more a part of life, people's lives fitted around the television. 9pm Friday was always new show launch. Saturday night was family TV night, and people adapted to TV rather than the other way around.

TV no longer has much hold on the public. None at all on the youth. Who are used to on demand everything. So they have a different approach to their parents, who, although they have adapted, are still, in upbringing, from the pre-digital era.

The provable cases of a video game causing, or encouraging, psychotic rage leading to murder, is two.That's two, World wide. Since the rise of the Home Computer in the early 1980s.

That's two cases from the billions each day of kids playing these games. Every study shows no link. As children are aware as adults are of fantasy and reality. Captain Scarlet is indestructible. YOU are not. I knew that. I knew that at five. I knew at five that he was a puppet.

This argument comes around again and again. Jo Swinson was avery keen believer that video games make people violent. Yet for this to be true, the entire spectrum of gaming would have to be true. Kids that played NBA would be terrific basketball players. Kids that played Mario Karts would be manic drivers in later life. 
Kids that watched Twilight teen-horror would grow up and fall in love with an Emo-Vampire. 
Kids, like me,who played Third Reich, the WW2 strategy game for 2-6 players, would end up invading Poland.
It's all obvious nonsense. The same as it was for rock music. The same as it was for watching Kung-Fu films in the 1970s. Or reading Gothic horror novels in the 1870s.

Parents lamenting the lack of model building and Lego making {which is actually selling in ecord numbers} should see what their offspring are creating on Minecraft. 


So don't worry about the kids. They are just fine. They won't turn out anti-social losers, if they weren't already going to be. 

And it was probably far more dangerous in our day writing in to Jim'll Fix It.

Airport Fever: Here We Go Again

Brussels is making it clear he should go to capital cities first so he can be disarmed of his irrational exuberance.  (Jonathan Powell, Graun)

I thought we'd learned what happens when a PM with airport fever flits in and out of personal meetings with euro-leaders.

... Clause by clause, one by one 
'Til you shout, “Enough, I'm done” 
But there’ll be no ducking out, or break for rest 
Only after you’ve been beat up 
Will we let you put your feet up 
Don’t protest - be my guest, be my guest!

And there must be no "you wait outside the door - and we've arranged for you to be photographed looking lonely - while we all decide what's going to happen to you", either.

ND

Boris as Maoist: It's Been Misunderstood

Search on Boris / Maoist and there are plenty of results over several years.  You eventually discover it stems from a David Cameron aside, accusing Gove of being an adherent to the great Chinese variant of Leninism.  Somehow Boris has been swept up in the opprobrium (which is retailed by the Toynbees and Cohens of the Graun-world) and of course now he qualifies as Maoist-in-chief.

It's taken to signify a love of permanent revolution and creative destruction; and maybe that's what Cameron intended, as a colourful label for Gove.  But that's entirely the wrong way to understand Boris-as-Maoist.

Mao was a passable amateur philosopher.  As a Marxist he was in the materialist / naturalist tradition (recognisably Western, by the way) and he was clear that our conceptual, abstract thinking (which he calls 'the subjective') had better correspond with objective reality - a correspondence to be tested in the school of hard knocks - or we are in trouble: liable to bang our heads against brick walls, and (worse) to embrace political heresy.  

This eminently practical (not to say mundane) insistence notwithstanding, he also embraced what some have called 'revolutionary romanticism', a key feature of which is the idea that the subjective can become the objective.  In other words, a conceptual notion (maybe a 'vision') that is compelling enough, and embraced enthusiastically by the masses who then put their shoulders wholeheartedly to the wheel, can thereby alter the conditions of objective reality**. 

Further theorising need not detain us, because my point will be immediately obvious:  Boris pretty much holds the same view.  He's trying it out on us right now! - and in this regard I'd say it's entirely fair to label him a Maoist.

With what chances of success?  The Sino-precedents are mixed.  Beyond a doubt, some of Mao's strategic ventures fall into the category of near-miracles of material transformation being achieved by force of vision, will and large-scale commitment.  The defeat of Chiang Kai-Shek's tanks and aircraft with "rifles and millet" alone; the elimination of endemic starvation across the whole of China; the advance from poor peasant economy to hydrogen bomb-equipped superpower in a very few year spring to mind.  Unfortunately, he also essayed some crackpot notions with equal fervour and mass application, with catastrophic consequences for his own people - innocent deaths numbered in millions.

Perhaps we'd best not dwell on that ...  Go Chairman Boris!

ND

______________
**There are passages in Lenin which prefigure this: and of course Marx himself said that the point of history was not to understand the world, but to change it.

May finally leaves number 10. Two years after she should have.

This - From Bill Quango
27/6/2017

I'm usually last man standing, backing our people.

I was the one saying 'Sven-Göran Eriksson was the best England manager we have had for years.' He lost only 5 competitive games.
 His popularity had declined when England inexplicably failed to win the world cup in 2002.
 But not for me. I still backed him. 

With Dave Cameron, I was happy. Long after it became apparent he wasn't going to win us the world cup either, I was personally still suggesting he was better than whoever else was available.   He may have had only an extra time win against the Brown Team
And only a 1-0 against the Miliband, but it was still better than expected. 
And the performances overall were solid enough.
 When Cameron went, he went with 'good riddance' from the many ringing in his ears.

 With May, 10 months after her rise to the top, I already think she should be gone as soon as it is practically possible. 

No replacement could do as badly as she has done. She hasn't got the benefit of the doubt.
 
Neither Johnson nor Gove would have lost a majority. Not Davis. Not even the, for some unfathomable reason, hotly tipped Rudd. 
 Not Hammond and not even lightweight Leadsom would have lost the majority. Not even 'Chancer' Fox.

 A party split. A team line-up that baffled everyone. Star players left on the bench. No understanding of the opponents strengths and weaknesses. No tactical sense of how to beat the opposition. 
No plan B, when plan A started to go wrong. Just a hope that somehow  she would win.

And a very worrying feeling, that though the Corbyn Team might be weak and inferior opposition,  they have turned up to win. And we hadn't.

I stand by it all.

A disaster that should have been told to clear off the moment she lost her majority. Saved by panic in the party and the fear of a civil war. The Tory party MP's fear of Johnson, has only given them Johnson, with a very, very unstable govrnment.

The lesson was learned long ago in the Tory Party. 

There is no excuse for failure.

http://www.cityunslicker.co.uk/2017/06/tresemme-professional-and-affordable.html

She's Leaving Home

With apologies to Paul McCartney ...

[four bars of plaintive harp music]

Wednesday morning at twelve o’clock, PMQs begin 
Goes through the motions, feels weak at the knees 
Then to the Palace to hand in her keys … 
She goes downstairs to the limo, clutching her handkerchief 
Dabbing her eyes like old Thatcher’s ghost 
Stepping outside, she is toast 

   She (I gave it most of my life) 
   Is leaving (sacrificed most of my life) 
   Town (I tried so hard to look smart all the time) 
   She’s leaving town after dicking around for so many years 

Boris snorts as he wanders round in his dressing gown 
Picks up the letter the courier brought 
Standing in triumph; another great snort 
He laughs loud, and cries to his mistress 
“Carrie, Phil Hammond’s gone! 
Why did he stymie May’s No-Deal plan? 
What can be done with the man?” 

   She (I had no thoughts of my own) 
   Is leaving (never a thought of my own) 
   Town (I struggled hard to learn all of my lines) 
   She’s leaving town after dicking around for so many years 

Friday morning at nine o’clock she is history 
Hawking some diaries excusing her crimes 
Meeting a man from the Sunday Times 

   She (what did I do that was wrong?) 
   Is hist’ry (I didn’t know it was wrong) 
   Now (nothing achieved to remember me by!) 
   Somehow her stuff, it was never enough in so many ways 
   She’s hist’ry now (bye bye) 

ND

Singing & Dancing in Downing Street

Yes, it's that time of the political cycle. Bring on the dancing girls! With apologies to Warren & Dublin & 42nd Street 

     In the heart of old Westminster, you’ll find a Georgian mall 
     It’s the part of old Westminster that runs into Whitehall 
     A crazy pad that’s full of spads; if you’ve got a little time to spare, 
     I want to take you there ... 

See them tweet, “May’s in retreat!” 
Down the avenue I’m taking you to - 
Quitting Downing Street 

In defeat, she’s luncheon meat 
It’s the old No Deal that’s making ‘em squeal! 
In old Downing Street 

      Hunts and BoJos, and whips and journos, trading in deceit 
    DUP-ers and ERG-ers, plotting trick-or-treat 

Fratricide!   Undignified! 
Yes, the mad and bad are now the elite 
Circling Downing Street 

See her tears, it’s kinda sweet 
It’s a cul de sac, you gotta turn back 
That's old Downing Street!

ND

Weekend Open Thread: Theresa May in History

So: counting down in hours now.  Mrs May is currently pouring out the initiatives & money etc at such a rate, it's hard to be definitive on what her legacy may be.  But it's always fun to take a stab at the First Draft of History.

How will May be remembered 50 years hence?  

Answers BTL, please.  If anyone can come up with a non-facetious positive, I'll be interested to read it.  Offhand, I can think of only one.

We'll check back in 2069 and award prizes then.  'Cause I'm quite sure the NHS will keep me alive that long ...

ND

Labour Turns Against Social Mobility: Significant

Recently the People's Party (Corbyn incarnation) caused a minor frisson by declaring its intention to ditch Social Mobility as a policy goal. 

Corbyn to drop social mobility as Labour goal in favour of opportunity for all  - Party leader says idea has failed and calls instead for social justice commission ... In a shift being billed by Labour strategists as the rejection of 40 years of political consensus, Corbyn said pursuing social mobility “has failed, even on its own terms”... the party leader vowed to replace the idea that the brightest, most talented young people must have the opportunity to succeed, with a demand that all children be allowed to flourish. “The idea that only a few talented or lucky people deserve to escape the disadvantage they were born into, leaving in place a social hierarchy in which millions are consigned to the scrap heap, results in the talents of millions of children being squandered.”   Labour would replace the social mobility commission with a social justice commission.

Well, he's right about it being consensus.  Search on 'social mobility' in the Graun, and you'll find it's been reiterated explicitly as a policy goal by many a Labour writer ever since Jezza formally signalled its demise.   He never had much traction with the senior figures in his party, after all.

Mention of 'social justice' should cause a shudder.  (I once heard Enoch Powell say that from the Left one will often hear about "Social Security - which is no security; Social Justice - which is no justice; and Social Workers - about which I shall say nothing ...")   But, atavistic reactions aside, something philosophically interesting is going on here, in theory at least - which IMHO should have caused more than just a frisson.  Because in essence he's declaring war on some high-profile sections of the left.

The great bane of our age is 'identitarianism' coupled with 'intersectionality'; the idea that we are all (except solvent straight white males, of course) elements of various minorities (e.g. impoverished / gay / woman of color), and that as minorities we are all oppressed; and that if we could just see this, and proudly define ourselves by our being jointly the victims of oppression - particularly when we may belong to two or more minorities that may be, whisper it softly, in conflict - then we will all rise as one against the straight, solvent ... etc.  

But serious socialist scholars identify this determination to revel in the atomism of mutiple minority personae as no better than rampant, politicised individualism (*spits*).  They, of course, are extremely wedded to a much more sweeping and far less granular taxonomy: the Working Class (good); the Ruling Class (wicked); and the lumpen proletariat (irrelevant).  (Peasants are variously categorised in the second or third classes, or possibly as a kind of working-class lite.)  To dwell on membership of any other category is to miss the point.

They go on to identify the actual workings of identitarianism as this: various self-appointed 'minority voices' push themselves into the public gaze and demand that they be elevated to some position, generally salaried, of their choosing or indeed of their own devising.  There, they press loudly for (e.g.) more black women to get Oscars; and success in this lobbying is greatly feted.  

The upshot of all this is that de facto they take their satisfaction from - and invite everyone else to be satisfied by - the elevation of 1% of their own minority into the "Great Big 1% That Rules the World".  So - provided the G.B.1% is comprised pro rata of the same mix of categories as the populace at large, well, that's OK then.  Job done.

This, for the 'true socialists' is just a new, if colourful, twist on individualistic neoliberalism: effectively, a kind of political show-biz, the 'circuses' bit of 'bread & circuses'.  Multi-ethnic Oscar awards as the new opiate of the masses.  And it completely obscures and distracts from the real task at hand, which is to elevate the entire Working Class / 99%.  

And it rather seems Jezza thinks so too.  (More accurately: one of his trusted advisers with a brain.)

It's going to be interesting to see how far he pushes forward with this one.  A lot of the high-profile minority-voices-on-the-make aren't really interested in the Masses, or subordinating their own causes to the big Workerist cause.  And they do have a lot of profile.

ND