Our new £2 trillion debt

So we know Covid-19 is not nice and has caused the UK Government and indeed the whole world a lot of problems and lives.

What is really shocking though is the economic cost. Throughout the pandemic economics has taken a back seat to protecting lives in most countries. Especially, the UK with its NHS worship and fast growing numbers of left-wing nutjobs, is particularly nervy - not that it saved us from being one of the worst affected places to date. 

But the economic numbers are brutal. Now we have £2 trillion in UK debt, albeit £745 billion is  QE debt which is owed by the Government to the Bank of England, which is sort of owns anyway. This equates to a 100% debt to GDP ratio last experienced in the aftermath of WW2 and economic catastrophe. 

Worse is that Government spending continues at £27 billion a month, already this year we have spent as much as we did in the whole of 2009 or 2010 - the height of the Financial Crisis and its costs. But is is only August and the furlough and money spending continues. 

All with an economy that is currently 20% smaller than it was, even if this bounces back in future months we will end up with an economy at least 5% smaller for the next few years. All those airlines and small retailers are not coming back quickly. 

There is no evidence that I can see that the Chancellor Rishi Sunak is going to apply the breaks, nor that the Prime Minister can awaken the country when all the talk is of second waves and a terrified populace. 

So by the end of next year, there is not way we won't have £2.2 trillion of debt - a 20% debt increase in the space of 18 months - unheralded outside of a major war. The only positives are thing slike furlough are easier to cut, but benefits for the unemployed will rush in to keep the Government spending. 

All that austerity and the political and personal costs of it has been wasted away by this new black swan event. the whole 2020's will repeat the 2010's in terms of economic exprience - little money for Governments to spend, creaking infrastructure and whining people asking for subsidies that don't exist.

There is a way to reduce this, which is to rapidly end government support that will force people and companies back to work - but there is no backbone in the government to do this and the ever present fear of a second wave stops this. 

I saw pictures of a huge gig in Wuhan this week, not much worry about a second wave there I note. 

Muddying the Waters in FB ... and Moscow

Today we read that Facebook intends to merge, in systems terms, various functions across various of the platforms it owns - FB, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, etc - in order to make it harder for regulators to split the company up, Standard-Oil style.  (Google, incidentally, spotted this wheeze a long time ago - and it cost them an astonishing amount of development $ to achieve.)

Reminds me of a similar but lower-tech story from my days in Moscow.  Gazprom, inevitably, was my main counterparty and I was in their fine new offices a lot.  My Russian staff used to get me to buy fresh bread rolls from the canteen there - the Moscow City bakery only baked twice a week, but Gazprom's operated every day! - and to make this easier, they procured for me (I never quite knew how) a Gazprom pass ...

I was professionally very keen to get an accurate company organisation chart for the sprawling giant.  I was supposed to conduct all my dealings through the Protocol department, but after I got a bit of a presence in the company, people would just invite me in for a chat (out of sheer curiosity, as much as anything: I didn't conduct my affairs in quite the same way as many expats).  I had several memorable (and quite candid) encounters that way, which may be posts for another day.

Anyhow, I asked for the org chart, and was given this bizarre diagram, several times more complicated than the tube map of London, with dotted lines criss-crossing everywhere.  It was of course designed to indicate that there was no such thing as a modular division within Gazprom, oh dear me no: nothing that could be identified as a candidate for breaking off and floating separately - a fate which Gazprom dreaded.  (It was complete bollocks, of course, there were loads of meaty corporate chunks that could easily have been autonomous.)

This wasn't getting me very far towards understanding the hierarchy (which, in Russia, is an extremely important thing to do - КТО КОГО - who does what, and to whom?, the first thing you need to establish in any dealings with a Russian set-up).  But having studied these matters in some detail in my soldiering days, I knew there'd be an answer; and I had my resourceful staff procure me a Gazprom internal telephone directory.  The numbering system set it all out clearly ...  

ND

Raedwald: You Can Just Picture Him Now ..!

Here's Raedwald!  Courtesy of Ilia, who kindly wrote to us BTL this morning, and also stars in this picture with her Uncle Mikey.

Many thanks indeed, Ilia.

ND

Raedwald RIP

Radders was a great friend to this blog, and I trust we were to him.  I never met him in person (he was due to attend one of our Xmas drinks but for some reason he didn't make it) - but we'd definitely have enjoyed a night over the beers.  His not having posted for three weeks caused disquiet - such a stalwart blogger - and it seems the worst has befallen.  If more details of his personal life now emerge, there's many of us who'll be interested to learn them.

From never having met the man, there is still much to be said from his consistent, colourful and extensive blogging.  He described himself as an irredeemable optimist but was also clearly a fine conservative, and the two traits don't always coincide.  A massive supporter of localism and the wisdom of Burke's Little Platoons, he was also a good European - warmly espousing catholic internationalism but despising globalism in general, and Berlaymont in particular.   As firm as he was in his views, he was also ready to acknowledge mistakes, and man enough to leave them up online for all to see (none of the nasty, furtive re-writing of a Redwood or a Cummings). 

Raedwald had principles, alright: and he was clearly also practical to the nth degree.  You just know he was a man you'd want on your side in a fight: the supremely handy sort who'd rebuild the world after an invasion of Triffids.  At the same time he was clearly of a philosophical bent, his abstractions coming from a solid and wide-ranging empiricism in the best English tradition - an empiricism based in turn on his quite remarkable range of richly-enjoyed experiences.  His tales of Human Reality came from rural East Anglia and the boatyard; from the tough world of quantity surveying and project management at the sharp end of the building trade; and from hardcore bohemian Soho!  Firmly grounded, widely experienced real-world thinkers like Radders give one all the more contempt for the malcontent bedsit lefties with brains the size of planets, who clearly couldn't change a three-pin plug, yet who cultivate gigantic Hegelian fantasy-systems on nothing more than instant coffee, envy and bile.  

We needed Radders for some important fights yet to come.  Much of the UK Left is currently in a slough of despond, having childlishly invested everything in Corbyn.  They seem to despair of pretty much everything just now: but another, less fragile part of the dark side is limbering up for a massive assault on free speech, hoping to subborn the universities, the television, and ultimately social media - one all can too easily imagine platforms trading off the freedoms of expression they currently facilitate for their own freedom to make money.  (They are businesses, after all.)  And then there are the supranationalists ...   

Radders, despite attracting some very odd BTL traffic, maintained a stout line in critical commentary that was extremely valuable to us all.  We'd already lost Anna Raccoon: and now there's one fewer voice to speak truly and plainly in the culture-wars ahead.

How I wish he'd joined us for those beers.

ND 

Greta: Now Surplus to Greenie Requirements

The entire Greta childrens-crusade thing is a fascinating story: one day the whole thing will perhaps be truthfully told.  (Or not.  There appears to be some evidence - some would call it conspiracy theory - that she is 100% a carefully-contrived PR exercise, right from her first solo sit-in.  In this account her mother basically handed her over to shadowy "green" forces to do with as they pleased:  there's a word for that ... and a lengthy prison sentence.)

Anyhow, as you know, I reckon "she" contributed just a little to the great Story of 2019, the Year When Zero Carbon Went Mainstream.  It wasn't her doing; nor was it XR's: but they are all definitely part of the overall canvas (along with the panic-stricken Theresa May and whomever it was told her to rush that Net Zero Carbon 2050 Act through, who may yet get a lot of "credit" when the history books are written).

But now?  Greta's contribution to recent climate debate has been characteristically petulant, if not paid as much heed as last year; and it's interesting.

She is now drawing attention to the rather obvious fact that, notwithstanding 2050-style legislation around the whole western world, climate change is not being treated as an *Emergency* (as all those silly motions passed in debating chambers around the world would have it) - and we know this because we've just seen how people respond to a real emergency, Covid-19 being the case in point.  She was hoping that everyone by now would have voted for the complete lockdown and trashing of the world economy - for Climate reasons.   Much stamping of little foot and blinking-back of tears: but there it is.  She's nailed it.  We know it.  And nobody's really listening anymore.

So what is happening?  Back to my "2019" thesis.  The 2050 legislation across the western world is exactly the icing on the cake that confirms to the whole world's industrialists and bankers (and con artists, political parties, kleptocrats, organised criminals etc) what they'd already decided 12 months ago - that this is the only game in town, now given a sturdy touch on the accelerator by all the multi-trillion Keynsian "Green Deal / Covid recovery" schemes now being drawn up.  Helpfully, these include lots of basic infrastructure renewal for "adaptation" / "mitigation" / "resilience" - so even the big, traditional steel-n-concrete boys are invited to the party, much to their amazement & delight.

Coupled with this "mainstream capitalism" development - not quite what many greens had in mind, hahah! - the Left is developing a response of its own, which also isn't exactly what the greens hoped for.  To take the UK left as an example: as noted here before, the Labour Party's apparently rather comprehensive version of the Green New Deal is quite strong on the *Just Transition*, which in classic workerist fashion turns out to mean that (a) everything must be implemented by a unionised workforce, and (b) anyone currently in a dirty job must either be granted a shiny new clean job / apprenticeship / etc, OR left doing that job for as long as it takes to come up with a transition plan.  Lefties in other countries  take similar stances: and hard lefties take a very tough & uncompromising line on priorities.

Green New Deal advocates and the wider Left should factor into their plans the need for a just transition to a post-extractivist society ... This must be an absolute red line, even if it threatens decarbonisation targets [their emphasis]

Like I said, not quite the red-green alliance thing.  Indeed, XR itself is deeply out of favour on the hard left (all those middle-class white XR types being racists, dontchaknow?); and lefties now tend to identify + despise what many a rightist has long railed against - Ecofascism.  Doesn't have the correct marxist interpretation of exploitation, see?

And Greta?  Well, if you believe the conspiracy theory, she is fronting for a cabal of NGOs who plan to use the Climate impetus to institute a World Government thing that - wait for it - will take it upon itself to issue extraction licences on All The World's Natural Resources, for licence / royalty fees that they will (a) lay claim to for their nasty world-government plans; and (b) take a % on, for themselves (of course! - Gulbenkian on a scale hard to imagine; they are nothing if not ambitious). 

They may, of course, get trampled in the rush - because every industrialist, bank, con artist, political party, kleptocrat, organised criminal etc on the planet has similar designs ...

ND

Private Equity firms ask for UK bailout - a way to make this work

In news that is unsurprising, Private Equity firms have joined the rest of the UK economy in demanding some Government handouts of free cash. It is all the rage after well, even Football clubs like Wigan have been demanding free money to help them survive (in Germany, they have bailed out Schalke 04 and Werder Bremen already, incredibly). 

PE firms have a PR angle that says they employ a lot of people and the firms they maange will go to the wall if they don't get help, so costing a lot of jobs....but why might these firms go to the wall?

A - PE firms took big bets in recent years on retail, see the margins for turning around a struggling industry business could be more than 20%. Covid has ruined this position so now PE firms are saddled with bad investments. 

B - PE firms generally buy companies, load them with debt, pay it off and then sell of float them. OK, they claim to add some management pizzazz and to some extent it is true as occasionally they will invest in new IT or some such to improve operating margins to reduce debt, but not too often if they can help it. Now their investments are saddled with debt that will be hard to even service. A nice Government bail-out will save their equity position will help to keep the companies alive. 

However, the Government is in a bind, it has huge pressure on it not to bail-out companies based in tax havens, so many US PE firms with their Cayman or BVI structures will be challenged. Also, at some point the accountants who advice Mr Sunak are going to have to give him the bad news about running out of our grandchildren's money. 

But if the Government is going to be bribed into going down this route anyway, I can suggest a few tweaks to the investments that will enable them to work in the medium-term:

1 - Wipe out chunks of the PE equity in return for the bailouts, it is only fare the investors take the hit here. The PE firms should be allowed to remain in, but if a business is saved with state money, then it should turn any future profit back to the State relative to its investment level. 

2 - Insist with this debt for equity swap, that there are strong leverage limits for total debt. There is no point lending to companies saddled with so much debt that they are zombies and unlikely ever to be able to repay. Remember too, much of this debt is effectively profit in advance taken by the PE houses anyway.  We don't need more RBS type investments where decades will pass before breakeven. In the Covid era, 100% debt to turnover or more should be a no-no. 

3 - Be tough, change the above criteria dependent on industry sectors, bailing-out retail leisure is high risk and thus should be high reward, bailout of say a bank is less risky in this particular economic crash. 

4 - Size does not matter, just because PE have bought a big bet, does not make it better than a smaller company. Small companies are the bedrock of our economy, they should have access to bailout investments too.  

The trouble with Algo's

Algo's have been all the rage in the financial markets now for the best part of three decades. As far back as the Long-Term Capital debacle of the mid-1990's, through to the flash crashes and algo driven 2009 crashes and thence on to "flash boys", it has been all about the algo's. 

But in recent years, they have topped out a little - admittedly because in part they are the only show in town. Still, Hedge Fund launches have been tailing off for a few years and this year there is no real change. Perhaps some optimism that a recession will see an uptick, but nothing as yet. The main driver of this has been that a generally rising market has meant the much cheaper buy and hold strategies have paid better than expensive hedge fund algo trading - which is prone ot making racy bets and trying to corner markets against the trend. 

So it is not surprising that now Government's are following the lead and using Algo's - in the UK Dominic Cummings is a big fan. if it works for high finance, then surely it is a good idea for Big Government. So when a challenging situation appears like the A-Level results all needing to be modelled out of the blue, here is an Algo solution which has found its problem. 

Yet it has not worked out to the Government's advantage, overall the results are likely very fair, but individually there are thousands and thousands of errors. Each error is a person with hotline to social media and the wider world. Each one is aggreived and a victim, all have parents behind them saying little Jenny or Jack worked all the hours god sends, is very clever and deserves at least a place at Oxford and not Salford.

So basically today ends up being an Algo catastrophe, much like in the trading world, where getting 99% of your bets right but shipping all your profits on the 1% higher risk postion that cratered ruined your year. Here most results are likley fair, but the numerous injustices willl be impossible to justify. 

Here begin the opportunities and pitfalls of real technocratic governance. 

End-Game for Leftie Councils' Energy Adventures

Starting around 2015 or a little earlier, various local authorities started to get interested in becoming energy suppliers on a "social", Not-for-Profit basis: how hard could it be?  After all: cheap council capital; subsidised offices; no dividends to shell out; "no bonuses" to pay (well, no bonuses for the directors: you can't get experienced commercial energy staff without a bonus scheme) - we should be able to undercut the Wicked Big Six all the time!  Easy.

The bollocks it is.  And most of the local authorities that looked into it properly, and took proper advice, realised their error and quietly withdrew without spending too much to make it embarrassing.  These included Sadiq Khan's London, and Nicola Sturgeon's Scotland (amazingly enough).  Credit where credit's due.

But two councils wouldn't be stopped.  They were Nottingham, which set up Robin Hood Energy, and Bristol (the imaginatively named Bristol Energy).  Both were doomed from the start; though in zombie mode and each with access to council-taxpayers' money for a protracted series of bail-outs, they have both staved off the day of reckoning until now.  Yes, you can suspend the laws of gravity for just so long as you are willing to through cash at it.

Bristol at least tried to do it somewhat professionally and organically, with some basic financial disciplines in place, and a target of being profitable within 3 years.  The current mayor, an engaging moderate leftie (for whom I have some regard, actually) inherited it in 2016 and should have pulled the plug there & then.  But hubris plus taxpayers' money somehow carried it all through until the cash calls and the write-offs became just too big.  He called time a few weeks ago, and (as David Morris, one of our BTL regulars spotted) a buyer has just been found for the portfolio of business customers (for a pitifully small amount) - see comments under Monday's post.  Based on the ugly fate of Cooperative Energy last year, it's my guess Bristol will actually have to pay someone to take on the rest of the obligations and the residential portfolio.  Aside from the inevitable dissembling and secrecy from the mayor's office in the last few months of this doomed enterprise, Bristol wasn't conducted outrageously; just badly misconceived.  

By contrast, Robin Hood Energy is a shocker.  An outright leftie vanity project that boasted of having Corbyn as a customer, and of being the vanguard of a new wave of municipal socialism, Robin Hood was to be a NfP - a sure guarantor of being a stonking loss-maker, which it is.  The prime movers were doctrinaire Momentumites; and if I tell you the Chairman of the Board of Directors (a councillor) was also Chair of the Audit Committee charged with monitoring the company on behalf of the council, you won't be at all surprised.   Their USP was offering their services on a "white label" basis to a dozen other leftie councils (a ring of other pig-ignorant Momentumites - but at least with the nous to avoid becoming suppliers themselves, hahah!) the length and breadth of England.  With this rapidly expanding but massively loss-making buiness model, Robin Hood has been bleeding the council tax-payers of Nottingham white (robbing the, errrr, poor to pay the, errr...).  The statutory auditors have now called a halt, to much wailing and gnashing of teeth: it'll all get "sold off" quite soon (i.e., they'll pay someone to take it away).  It's pretty comical - if you don't live in Nottingham, that is.

In the meantime ... a truly bizarre thing happened late last year.  A very iffy, loss-making small Glaswegian supplier, Together Energy, somehow conned Warrington Council into paying the £18m for a half-stake in the company! (plus more millions in loans).  What they hoped to gain from this is anyone's guess: and their Due Diligence must have been utterly perfunctory and conducted by a rather dull form of invertebrate life.  It's so crazy, many would wonder if it was bent - except I think "crazy" is in fact the explanation.  Not only are the books very odd indeed; but by mid 2019 the writing was on the wall for Bristol and Nottingham in large bold characters and no uncertain terms.

Here's the thing.  Rebecca Long-Bailey, queen of the left, published a strategy still greatly lauded on the left, for nationalising all of energy and putting it into the hands of local authorities and indeed parish councils and 'local communities of at least 100 homes', all to be heavily unionised etc (we've written about this before).  With these stonking examples of municipal idiocy, secrecy, incompetence and gross failure in even the simpler side of energy (being a supplier is a lot easier than running a distribution network, with a lot less at stake), WTF is she thinking?  That's a serious question.  

It ought to be a sober lesson for all: but we know it won't be.

ND  

The Blackbaud Affair

A nasty little problem - you've maybe encountered it already - that's been creeping its way around the Not-For-Profits relates to the fact that, apparently, a high % of the sector uses Blackbaud CRM software.  I presume it's cheap.

And insecure.  For Blackbaud has been held to ransom by someone who's hacked it, and made off with its users' clients' details.  On a pretty large scale, it would seem.

A couple of interesting aspects.  Firstly, this has been known about for weeks.  But the speed with which Blackbaud's users have 'fessed up to their own clients has varied tremendously.  Very much a laggard in this regard is ... the Labour Party, who've only just acknowledged this to their members whose data had flown the nest.  Why so coy for so long, Mr Starmer?  What bad-news-management mode were you in when they first told you about it? 

Of wider import: Blackbaud gaily tell the world that "they have paid the ransom demanded by the cybercriminal and have received assurances that the data was destroyed as a result".  WTF?  Are those affected supposed to believe assurances from, errr, acknowledged criminals?  Why wouldn't said hackers not make multiple copies and sell to whomever will pay?

Or is there a binding international Ransom Protocol I've never heard of, with ISO standards for conduct, arbitration in the Hague, and certification by General de Chastelian?

ND

Deafening Silence as Left's Worst Nightmare Becomes Reality on the Streets of London

I've been away for a few days but, having seen the shocking photos of the "FF Force" paramilitary march, I assumed the www would be awash with commentary.  Well yes, there's the predictable Daily Mail / Guido type of comment: the law prohibits paramilitary displays, so what's Commissioner Dick gonna do about it?  That kind of thing.  (And quite right, too**.)

But on the Left?  Nothing.   This is a genuine question: can anyone point me to even a story about this incident / phenomenon in the Graun?  Or a comment on it, from any "mainstream" leftie type on social meeja or elsewhere?  Because I can't find one.

Why?  Obvious.  This is the "academic" Left's worst nightmare.  Much as they tend to swoon at the feet of a Gerry Adams++, or a militant Islamic preacher, or indeed anyone who's actually willing to use violence for political ends (which they kinda wish they were, too), in today's "culture-war" context, they know this one is the finishing of them.

For just as Kier Starmer knows that if Labour becomes clearly identified as the party of Trans Rights he is doomed to lose even more RedWall-type votes, so equally if it becomes identified as the political wing of FF, it's all over for 2024.   The basic consensus on the left is that the Labour Party's bedrock has ceased to be the traditional "working class" of Everytown across the whole UK, and has become the multi-culti "new worker" yoof-oriented populations of the Big English Cities (- which, they think, isn't even a vote Labour can take for granted, any more than the RedWall voters were locked in).  

What's more, it's nowhere near a parliamentary majority for them - they need an alliance with other "progressive" demographics - county town greens and libs, or even not-so progressive C1C2D's - the sort they felt they already had.  The prospect of such an alliance evaporates the moment they are even loosely, (even unfairly) associated with FF.  Incidentally, what genius came up with that??  Nothing could more clearly signal it's an outright fascist venture - probably even a deliberate provocation as such.  Support us!  Even though we do this!

Nope: as a self-proclaimed anti-fascist movement, Labour must now categorically distance itself from FF.  There's no wiggle-room for a Sinn Fein style nod-and-wink; and we see that Starmer slams down heavily on nods-and-winks on the antisemitism side of the house, so I think we can guess his policy on this new one. 

And the Graun.  And Sadiq Khan.  And yes, Owen Jones, you too will need to make some clear pro forma statement on the matter (unless it all evaporates on Monday morning, as you'll be passionately hoping).  But ... what then for the multi-culti-"new-worker"-yoof-oriented-populations-of-the-Big-Cities vote?

This is Cummings' Culture War writ large and lurid.  (Did I say "unfairly" ..?)  It can't go well for any of us: but it bids fair to be the end of Labour.  Starmer knows it all too clearly - so he'll have some sort of a plan - though it may not be one the multi-culti Left will be too happy about.  Watch and wait.  Meantime, it'll be interesting to see this gradually break cover in leftie www circles.

ND

____________________________
** Knowing the way the security establishment works, BTW, I'd say they have a plan to handle this.  But sending PC Plod to invite a street demo to disperse peacefully, oh, and please hand over your uniforms on the way out, isn't any part of it.

++As Marina Hyde put it: You only have to look at the little faces of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell in the photos with Gerry Adams to conclude that they’d have been almost erotically impressed by the whiff of cordite.

Apple, Trump and Tik Tok/Wechat

The importance of Apple to US markets is huge. As one of the FAANGS which are 70% of the US market any large impact on its performance will create a downtrend the major US equities market. 

So the Trump administration's latest move to ban TikTok (owned by Chinese company Bytedance) and WeChat (owned by Chinese tech firm Tencent 0700 HK) has some serious issues in the current form. The executive order prohibits US entities from doing any business with TikTok and WeChat or their Chinese owners. 

Now virtually all consumer facing US businesses in China rely on Tencent for advertising and payments....and none is more exposed than Apple.

Approximately 70% of China's retail transactions are done through digital payments in China and of this ~50-60% is through WeChat. Furthermore the contact tracing app (required for entry in most buildings in China) also runs through wechat. So not having wechat in China literally means you cannot go anywhere, you cannot buy anything, cannot chat with anyone, cannot see all your friends social media.

China is Apple's largest market, the country generates ~17% of iPhone sales and probably a higher percentage in Appstore sales. The problem for Apple, as highlighted above, in China an iPhone without wechat is virtually useless.Therefore, in current form, and if Trump follows through and Apple abides by the law, this will literally destroy Apple's business in China and consequently have considerable impact on the markets. 

The Troughers Never Go Away

We had decades of being stuffed by nationalised energy companies; then another decade when Ofgem was awarding subsidies to renewable energy projects on a non competitive basis.  The moment developers were made to compete for limited funds, the "costs" plummeted!   A miracle.  Glory Be!

But now the great green "economic revovery" bandwagon is REALLY gaining momentum, and lo! - here's Scottish Power.

In previous auctions the government has capped the amount of renewable energy that can win a subsidy contract, which is paid for through energy bills, to encourage developers to lower their costs. Keith Anderson, Scottish Power’s chief executive, said there was “minimal risk” to household energy bills [if the cap were to be removed] because the cost of sea-based turbines is so low the projects may even help to make Britain’s energy cheaper. “At this stage you are guaranteed fantastic value for money. And what do you gain? A huge wave of investment into the UK supply chain companies and a major boost to the economy,” he said ... “Why constrain investment when we could be making the most of what we’ve got to grow the renewables sector?” Anderson said. “We know that we need more renewables, let’s just get the hell on with it.”

Yeah, yeah.  Suddenly it would turn out that those low bids for subsidies last time around were before a big surge in demand for turbines took place; oh, and all the good sites ahve already been taken.  So, sadly, Minister, I'm afraid it's all a bit more "costly" this time.

Bloody troughers.  If the government gives them an inch I shall be sore displeased.  But not, I fear, surprised.  Has Boris ever turned down a building proposal put before him, as Mayor or PM?  It's not his style.  Some truly epic "waste" is about to be perpetrated and I am simply glad that the utterly ridiculous Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon has, at least for now, been resolutely seen off by several ministers in a row.  The trougher behind that one hasn't give up, however - so let's see.

ND

Looks Like China Has Blown It

In the long run, not much can stop China becoming thoroughly pre-eminent  - if not necessarily the unchallenged global hegemon with complete freedom of action it aspires to be.  But in the short- to medium-term its progress could become a lot bumpier than the exceptionally smooth and untroubled run it has managed over the past two decades: and things might even go binary on China in a way it won't much enjoy.  

The acid test for Xi in my mind, and probably in his too, is Taiwan.  It's abundantly clear Xi wants his crowning glory to include the "re-integration" of Taiwan during his own regime, and has probably vowed to do this by whatever means.  But he'd doubtless consider the need to resort to violent re-annexation as very much second prize.  There must be many more examples of things he'd much rather didn't go wrong, along the way to the Chinese Dream being fulfilled.

Up until very recently, from the outset of the Chinese march towards their Authoritarian Capitalist successes, the Chinese have proceded emolliently, if not actually by stealth.  If Hong Kong had remained placid, one might have imagined this course would have been continued - just look at the gains they've made!  By all accounts they've pretty much annexed New Zealand as a mere commercial dependency, with Australia firmly in their sights and already well under the thumb.  In lockstep with the commercial hooks, the political grappling irons have also been steadily applied, along with bribery, corruption, and flooding with fee-paying students - little trojan horses by the tens of thousands.  There are any number of chilling accounts to be found, not least the way in which Chinese citizens abroad are monitored (and indeed directed) for their every action.  China does what it fancies with the Uighurs and narry a Moslem leader mutters a word.  We haven't even mentioned espionage, massive attempts to corner markets in raw materials, building artificial islands in the South China Sea, and implanting high-tech trojan horses in the UK's telecomms and electricity infrastructure.  But, for the most part, this has been achieved with only modest push-back, resistance, or even friction; and mostly (to be honest) grovelling, money-grubbing acquiescence.  (What an epic shit Osborne is.)

The sheer power amassed by Xi in every dimension is formidable indeed.  And with it, inevitably, grows the temptation to call a halt to the disciplined habit of swallowing pride, and turning the other cheek, when setbacks and annoyances occur, as China has chosen to do many, many times in the past**.  (Cultural obsession with maintaining "face" doesn't help much, either.)  So now Athens can no longer forbear from lording it over Sparta, and from forcing every other nation choose between the two++.

And look what's happening today.  The kow-towing era of Osborne / Cameron / May has come and gone.  The fates of Hong Kong and the Uighurs are a now serious issues around the (western) world, largely impotent even as we are.  Australia - yes, Australia, dependent as it is on exporting raw materials, is stirring against recent developments.  And there's talk in the air of Japan joining the Five-Eyes community.  That's of gigantic significance - Japan is as good an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" as the UK was vis-à-vis Russia, with a very desirable set of special capabilities.  Altogether a rather different turn of events in that neck of the woods than one might have anticipated a year ago, when much more likely seemed the expulsion of NZ for having been thoroughly subborned by China and no longer trustworthy (with Australia very much on notice).

What does China have to fear?  In the grand scheme of things: not much.  Trump could press the Red Button tomorrow: but the man holding the briefcase would smile and say, sorry Mr President, it doesn't seem to be working today.  Ain't nobody going down that path unless Xi does something unimagineably crass.  A few minor economic hiccups arising from unforced errors, perhaps (as opposed to the ones they are inevitably going to suffer along the way in any case). 

Most importantly, if Trump thinks the power of US sanctions will hurt China as fundamentally as they've hurt Iran, to the point where maybe he might dream of precipitating domestic unrest; well, I'd guess the CCP's web-enabled 100% Big Brother regime is more than capable of 'defusing' the social consequences even of some otherwise serious short-term economic setbacks.  Not many nations spontaneously combust during recessions anyway; and few have the kind of omnipresent, omnipotent fire brigade that Xi has at his disposal.

No: mostly it'll be delays to Xi's grand plans; infuriation as Taiwan shrinks ever further from contemplating a voluntary reunion;  plus, of course, Loss of Face as some of the global prestige Xi fondly hoped to deliver over the coming years evaporates.

That could be pretty bad for Xi personally - if only for his private equanimity: but he's just one man among a billion.  Objectively, the worst case for China is that the world polarises into camps, Cold-War style, for 50 years - instead of more-or-less peacefully slipping into his Belt-and-Road vision of China as Top Nation with Xi beaming benignly as every nation hastens to do his bidding, and China resumes its destiny as Centre of the World, and undisputed Greatest Culture On The Planet. 

So: today, I'd say that particular rosy-for-Xi outcome looks rather less likely than it might have done just 12 months ago.  Polarisation it is.  Tough titty, Xi - but you had it coming. 

ND

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** I always think of Libya 2011 and the casual overthrow by the western powers of Gaddafi, essentially a Chinese client at that stage 
++ And we know what happened then ...

Weekend: NCO Pilots in the RAF

The other day, somewhat en passant, a BTL comment was made on the surprise expressed by a senior America officer during WW2 that NCOs could be pilots in the RAF.  & I said I would post on the subject.

Well, it's a fact.  Most unusually for western airforces, the RAF - and Commonwealth airforces also - had sergeant-pilots up until the early '50s.   They were always in the minority, right from the start in the RFC in WW1.  However, such was the attrition in that earlier conflict that the initial requirement, of being a jolly good chap, on horseback and with tennis raquet, had to be waived.  (The same was true for Observers: initially the RFC used only expert Artillery spotters, all officers - but that supply-line ran dry quite quickly.  Another subject for a future post ...)  

There were "flying sergeants" in the USAAF into the 1930s, and just a few into the years beyond the war - that US officer wasn't exactly correct that there were no NCO pilots in his own service.  But by WW2 in the USAAF, and later, the USAF, almost all pilots were either commissioned officers or a special grade of warrant officer.  But the RAF sergeant-pilot survived in relatively large numbers, if not in proportion, into WW2 and beyond.

The legend we're invited to accept is that all ranks mucked in together as equals in those Battle-of-Britain Nissen huts.  Certainly, there's a strong strand of informality in the RAF which amazes brown jobs like myself (the Navy will never have anything to do with the RAF, but they'd be pretty shocked, too) - officers and NCOs being on first-name terms.  (I have encountered this right up to 1-star level, and all I can say is:  it's a different culture.  At Sandhurst we were taught: being 'one of the lads' is only a short step away from being 'just one of the lads'.) 

That's the legend.  In practise you can find evidence of things being rather different.  A couple of years ago I ran into an old boy who'd been a Spitfire pilot from around 1942, initially as a sergeant.  Although he was commissioned a couple of years later, and ended the war a Flight Lieutenant, his bitterness at what he considered unfair treatment of the NCO pilots was undiminished by the passage of 75 years.  He cited in detail the case of an officer who'd been awarded a DSO for a daring mission that was no more meritorious than several missions of his own - and he hadn't even been given the DFM ...   

To hear him tell it, although everyone shared the same crew-room before missions, and slap-up tea with extra jam on return, then it was the bus to the Sergeants' Mess, and no fraternising at weekends or off-duty in the pub.  (There's plenty of anecdotal evidence, BTW, that this last bit wasn't universally the case at all.)  Oh, he is a bitter man - even though he did get commissioned.  

Maybe it was just him?  Except ... a short while ago I was assisting with research into the case of an RAF WW2 Typhoon pilot - another sergeant pilot - whose grave, unusually, was at the roadside in a village in northern France, instead of on a CWGC site as would normally be the case.  The story was, he died after being shot down on the outskirts of the village: the mayor pleaded with the Germans for his body (and, interestingly, the propeller, which forms a headstone!) and the Germans agreed.  So there he lies.  

Looking into this most unusual arrangement, I came across a similar case of a Canadian pilot, likewise interred sur seul in France, near to where he fell.  This chap was also an NCO (a Flight Sergeant); and the paperwork showed that he was commissioned posthumously.  Initially I though that maybe his promotion had already been in the works; but it turned out that it was the habit (perhaps as an outright matter of policy, though I never established as much as that) of Commonwealth air forces - Canadian, Australian, NZ - to do this for their fallen NCO pilots.  Not least, their widows got a much better pension.  And in their scheme of things, all NCO pilots got commissioned eventually anyway.

This was a matter of bitter controversy, since the RAF had no such intention - but of course RAF NCOs inevitably knew all about what happened elsewhere.  The RAF's line was: we award commissions, not only for being able to do the job, but for displaying Leadership as well.   Many NCOs, however, were convinced it was a class thing.

So there you have it.  Maybe someone's written a book or a doctoral thesis on all this: but if so, I never found it.  By way of a postscript:  the RAF has for many years now been officer-only as regards pilots (and I'm guessing most other airforces too); and airforce-wise, there's an end to the matter.  However, in the more stiffly formal, but in some ways more meritocratic British Army, 'even' corporals can be helicopter pilots!

ND

Happy Eid!

As they say from their locked-up homes in Manchester!

It is a rum situation this Covid -19. This virus is racist and also picks on the stupid and also the obese. It really is Darwinian  (as in, the Darwen awards, correct spelling for the grammar hawks). 

No wonder the Government, assaulted by the crazed BLM middle class girl guides, can’t figure out a way to present the situation factually without getting in a right twist.

Poor Boris I saw got a right going over for suggesting we tackle obesity. It is really quite a logical thing when we are assailed by a virus that targets the obese. Anecdotally I have heard London wards were basically BMI 30+ zones and over 80’s - often both.

I really hope our clever doctors can find a vaccine because there appears no chance of UK society overcoming it with common sense or joint action.  

Blogger Warning

Today, Blogger implemented the long-trailed "new version" and like a trusting eejit, I didn't insist on reverting to the old version (which one can for a short while).  This evening, by way of reward, it butchered the post I put up this morning!

I have reconstructed it as best I can.  But just to get my retaliation in first:  if posts go haywire in the next few days, nothing to do with me, mate ...

And if anyone in Blogger is monitoring these things:  fix the bloody bugs, pal

ND

Erratic Wind Power: the Great Grid Balancing Act

Some years ago on another blog I wrote several posts noting how problematic was the rise in erratic forms of electricity generation (especially wind power) which presents the operators of grid systems with challenges that sometimes call upon extreme (and inefficient) (and costly) solutions.  Germany is the worst. 

The underlying physical facts have not much changed; and the amout of wind power has increased considerably.  But the operators are good engineers - and regulators let them spend whatever they need to (and send us all the bill) - just keep the bloody lights on! So, by and large, the lights have been kept on, albeit at the cost of ever more of those extreme, inefficient and expensive solutions.

However, new solutions are hoving ever closer into view as practical propositions.  Most of what I summarise below is not red-hot news in the industry; but a lot of MSM types are suddenly catching up with it.

1. Storage:  it has long been the quip in physics labs around the world that "if you can invent a truly economic means of storing electricity, you can name your university after yourself".   I'm hoping it's obvious how cheap storage would contribute to the erratic windpower problem.  Well, a bit like The Cure For Cancer (see BTL comments here), there hasn't been a single mighty breakthrough; rather, a lot of impressive incremental improvements, not least in batteries - and we're getting there.  So, there are people building solar + battery combos, and massive grid-scale batteries at cunning points on the system, without subsidies: always the acid test.  It's early days: but we're getting there.  (It's not just batteries, either.)
2. Hydrogen:  I've written about this quite recently (and subsequently so, inter alia, has the DTel).  I know there are loads of sceptical views out there: but believe me, the amount of private money and effort going into this is truly immense.  How does it contribute to the erratic windpower problem?  Easy: storing hydrogen is much easier than storing electricity, and negative-price electricity (offpeak windpower at times of big surplus: solar power in many, errr, sunny parts of the world) can generate quite cheap hydrogen, via electrolysis.  And hydrogen can be used for lots of applications - including generating electricity again!   (I'm summarising heavily because it's a very big picture that's rapidly developing.)
3. Demand-side response & aggregator systems: when the price of electricity goes negative, you can pay people to take it off your hands.  Likewise, when it goes through the roof at times of peak usage, you can pay people to stop using it.  Who are "people"?  Well, just about anyone and any firm or organisation that can, with a bit of thought (and maybe a bit of investment), vary their demand in response to sufficiently juicy price incentives.  To make this work on a big scale requires a lot of software sitting in some aggregator's systems, crunching the most epic quantities of data real-time and transacting millions of times in small quantities.  There are more people with this vision than are making much money out of it - yet.   

On this last category of tool: the sole reason those recent, and thus far quite successful electricity-market insurgents Ovo and Octopus are in the market as suppliers (an otherwise rather unrewarding business) is to play this game using the ever-expanding fleet of electric vehicle batteries, as soon as this can become a reality. They expect to clean up. As noted in the linked article, "It requires dedicated two-way charging equipment that can also communicate with the vehicles, as well high-level aggregator control systems. However all of this technology exists". Yes - and right now Elon Musk (Tesla) refuses to make batteries that will do 2-way charging! To be fair, it can shorten battery life significantly, and will require all sorts of potential hazards (and consequent insurance issues) to be resolved. Also warranty issues: if (e.g.) Ovo is offering a stonking real-time pricing deal that incentivises car owners to cane their batteries for £££, they will destroy them quite quickly.

It's all part of the vast, mostly-untapped world of demand-side response potential.  We are going to need it all, eventually: and storage, and hydrogen.  The good news is, this (like hydrogen replacing natural gas) is the kind of phenomenon that can grow slowly (at first), in small but steady degrees.  Contrast with the unicorn of carbon-capture-and-storage - everyone can describe it, some people believe in it, but it doesn't exist - which can only be done by hitting critical mass immediately.  That's hard.  That takes public money.

The other beauty of DSR is, early adopters will love it (£££ + prestige) and then, at both the individual and the corporate level, it will become fashionable - always the best form of promo.

So:  balancing a grid which supports a large amount of windpower and solar will never be cost-free - there has to be some flipside to sources of energy with almost zero direct variable cost (i.e. no fuel) - but it is going to get ever more efficient.

ND

Birmingham Post

A week or so ago we had some BTL exchanges on the relative, errr, merits & demerits of Liverpool and Manchester.  It so happened my attention was being drawn at that time to an interesting short account by one Ina Taylor** of how an individual poled up and subsequently thrived in Birmingham in the mid 19th C - at that time, not at all the Second City it was to become - his ability to succeed being attributed to the conducive conditions of Brum's dynamic nature at the time.  Her thesis is as follows:  

• Brum was wholly a product of the Industrial Revolution; a 'new town', already a centre of manufacturing of many kinds:  as such, it was "free from the grip of the guilds and their rigid apprenticeships; success was open to anyone, irrespective of background, who had energy, foresight and capital"
• at the time there were strict laws against Nonconformists (unitarians, quakers etc) from attending the universities; and so smart people from such backgrounds directed their talents towards industry and commerce
• there was also legislation against Nonconformist clergymen from living within 5 miles of a Corporate Town: but Birmingham was not (yet) a Corporate Town!  It was thus a haven for dissenting clergy and their congregations; and there flourished such firms as Cadburys, Lloyds and GKN founded by such folk

That's the sort of social history that policy-makers need to know.  How do we encourage centres for dynamic new industries?  What are the 2020 parallels to guilds and dissenters; and what rules do we need to waive, in order to get the right people motoring?  (Is it freeports?)

Anyone got other good stories along these lines?  The best UK example of a genuinely deliberate attempt in such a direction was Canary Wharf and the London docklands in general.  I happened to know Geoffrey Howe quite well, and he had told me of his vision for Docklands even before the 1979 GE.  In many respects it was his greatest achievement.  These things can be done.

Surely, Australia ought to be carving out a prime chunk of its (immensely long) coastline for HongKong2 ...

ND 

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** Introduction to The Edwardian Lady, by Ina Taylor

Weekend: American Lament - Darwin Awaits ...

If we don't much bang on about the USA so much on this blog, it's not for lack of regard; far from it.  Personally, I have worked for more than one US company and, whilst never resident, I have done a huge amount of business in the States (indeed, made most of my money there).  It's such a big country with so many traditions, and generalisation is often foolish: but in commercial terms most Americans are a delight to do business with: open-minded, and always ready to deal if you show there's something in it for them, without being overly concerned about what's in it for you.  They put most Europeans to shame.  (I exempt the London financial sector which happily shares this same characteristic.)

No: if we don't bang on about the USA so much, it's more out of a sense of not wishing to intrude upon the private grief of friends.  Because they have fallen into the hands of utter lunatics.

1.  There has always been a bonkers strand on the US fundamentalist Right.  I have worked with good professional geologists who claim to believe the Lord made the world in literally seven days some 4,000 years ago - and yet their entire technical discipline is based on, errr, a rather different account  - one that they must also maintain in their heads Monday to Saturday, so to speak.  But in the past it's not generally been too hard to leave them to their Sunday eccentricities**.

2.  The American sense of libertarianism is also somewhat hard to rationalise.  Yes, there are indeed some out-and-out cave dwellers maintaining a genuinely self-sufficient lifestyle in their Montana fastnesses.  (Well, they probably don't manufacture their own automatic firearms ...)  But for so many others, their professed enthusiam for individualism and personal liberty somehow doesn't apply during working hours, because the average American corporate is a tightly-run dictatorship. (Benign? -ish.)  Employee involvement most definitely not wanted: but blind, unquestioning loyalty most categorically required (and forthcoming).

3.  Finally there's the aggressive-woke-snowflake tendency in their universities (and increasingly their corporate HR departments), but we'll let that abomination pass just for now, because ...

It's the fundamentalist/libertarians that are my immediate worry, them and their commander-in-chief.  Their attitude to Covid-19 is likely to see Darwin swinging into action in a big way: a whole year of Darwin awards being issued.  And although we could just about make a pro forma evolutionary argument for how American society is going to emerge all the stronger for a good clean-out of the weak, somehow it doesn't ring very true.  "What doesn't kill me, makes me stronger!"  Yeah, maybe.  But you might want to check on the physical and mental condition of some Covid "survivors".

There are of course those on the Left who'd say Boris Johnson's Britain bears more than a passing resemblance to Trump's America.  It's not a wholly empty comparison.  But it's not a quarter as much perturbing (not to me, anyway, even if it's clear Boris has made a very bad fist of being king-of-the-world).  

Yes, the USA has colossal strength in depth, as the Japanese learned to their surprise and detriment.  And mighty empires don't crumble overnight.  But what Americans face today, on several fronts (Covid, China, identity politics ...), and the shape in which they face it, is frightening.  There's a long LRB piece here that addresses primarily the China apsect of this, concluding:

The US is currently preoccupied by the legacy of racial hierarchy and the last half-century of widening inequality.  But as it attends to the challenge of domestic reconstruction, its political class faces another question.  Can it fashion a domestic political bargain to enable the US to become what it currently is not: a competent and co-operative partner in the management of the collective risks of the Anthropocene?  After the shock of Covid-19 it is more urgent than ever.  

Sorry, my Trans-Atlantic friends, but under any probable political leadership over the next four years, I don't quite see how you come out of this, except materially diminished - relative to China at the very least.  Which is depressing indeed.

ND

____________________
** I realise of course that many would attribute much worse things to some fundamentalists than just quirky ideas on evolution etc  

Victory for Ambulance-Chaser vs Labour Party

A few months ago we reported on the gleeful pronouncements of lawyer Mark Lewis as he contemplated an orgy of litigation within the Labour Party over the ramifications of the anti-semitism row, the Panorama programme thereupon, and the famous "leaked report". 

“There are lots and lots of claims.  There are claims under the Data Protection Act, there are claims for breach of confidence or invasion of privacy and there are claims for libel.  It is a very lengthy report that mentions a lot of people.  I’ve been contacted by 15 people.  Each one of them could well have several claims.  What is going on is phenomenal ...  There are actions against the party, actions against individuals, actions against commentators.  People need to be careful about statements that have been made.  If this bankrupts the Labour party or individuals, so be it ...”

Well, his ship has come in and now he's started to coin it - reportedly taking the lion's share of the Labour Party's large pay-out.  And not just 15 people: he now reckons to be in touch with more than 30 potential litigants!  Further lawsuits are already flying, from several different directions, in a mighty Mexican stand-off.  Mr Lewis doubtless claims royalties on every aspect: he's seemingly cornered the market, Don King-style.

You have to believe Starmer saw this coming and is playing the game as cleanly as he knows (and not cheaply, either, with other people's money) so that at least he's guaranteed to be among the last men standing, and with no shit on his shoes either.  Guaranteed?  There are some on the left who fulminate furiously at his actions in settling what we must think of as the "Phase One action".  Can he personally be sued for that?  These lefties' writ no longer runs much beyond the tweets they twitter: but a canny lawyer might think of something ...

What riches for Lewis!  What sport! 

ND

Relief in Retail

At the beginning of the Covid crisis you may remember I wrote a few times on the need to switch away from upwards-only rents to a more nuanced approach for retail based on turnover. Fair to say I did not get universal support for this and a few people pointed out that some shopping centres had tried this already.

However, I am still pleased to see the Crown Estate is to pursue this strategy in Regent Street (where I work, so will be able to give regular updates as to how it is working out) - see here.

This approach shoudl work for the low income restaurants and shops that are not going to bounce back for a few months yet to anything like pre-Covid normal.

It will be interesting to see if this strategy works, or whether business is just too bad to continue for many of the independent retailers.

Russia in Britain

Once upon a time the headlines would have spoken of "Red Faces" at such revelations on Russian activities, but the doctrinaire aspect is missing in these days of pure venality.  By way of some background thoughts, here are a couple of observations.

1.  For the best part of a decade, Western politicians forced a fixation on Iraq and Afghanistan that was so totally all-encompassing for the security services and armed forces that attention to, and expertise on Russia was allowed to dwindle to almost zero** (and not just in the UK).  The scrabbling around to rectify this began a few years ago, but there was an immense, gaping window of opportunity for Russians to exploit - and they did.

2.  Of course, it's handy that Corbyn was a blatant, card-carrying Useful Idiot, operating in plain sight on RT and on his feet in the Commons.  (Suggesting that the Russians be given our Salisbury Novichok evidence for their review and considered response ... - for pity's sake.  It might even - justifiably - have cost him the 2019 GE: not many voters have any truck with that kind of crap.)

But.  There are some truly masssive scandals for the Conservative Party lurking out there.  It'll be curtains for some.  (Should be, anyway.)

ND 

** Belated update for the record,  from the Graun:

... the agencies’ post-cold war workload ... was dominated by counter-terrorism, especially in the wake of 9/11, as well as ongoing issues related to Northern Ireland, and the mounting threat from far-right violent extremism.  By 2008-09, according to the Russia report, just 3% of MI5’s effort was allocated to work against “hostile state activity”.  By 2006, just 4% of GCHQ’s work was focused on the former Soviet bloc, for similar reasons.  These proportions have risen again recently, although the precise figures have been redacted from the report.  Nevertheless, they mean that Putin’s Russia was largely faced with an open goal.

BBC: the Bad and the Very, Very Good

This isn't a wokewatch blog, there isn't time in the day;   though sometimes we can't contain ourselves.  The importance of free speech and truth-telling is central to the type of liberal capitalism we espouse.

And the Beeb is so very often at fault: so when it lives gloriously up to its Charter the trumpets should be sounded.  But before that, a reminder of its venality.  They are re-running David Olusoga's A House Through Time, and I must have missed the relevant episode of the Liverpool House, or I'd have mentioned it then.  Olusoga is of course a revisionist historian with an impressively "rational" demeanour - oh, he knows so many facts - and needless to say the Bristol House was that of a slave-trader etc etc ad nauseam.  The Liverpool example was near the docks, and in the episode that covers WW2 he delivers the following line.  Thanks to the untiring efforts of the two heroic dock workers he's lauding,

"the Port of Liverpool remained operational throughout the War, ensuring that Britain was fed, equipped and armed"

Except, of course, when it wasn't.  The Liverpool dockers have always been notorious for their propensity for striking, and WW2 was no exception.  As well as a load of small strikes in the period before Hitler invaded Russia (i.e. when Russia was Hitler's ally and the Communist Party opposed the war), there was what even trade unionists accept was a "major" dock strike in Liverpool in 1943; and a big seaman's strike there in 1942.  Londoners of my father's generation would bitterly recall the Liverpool dockers being out at the height of the Blitz.  Time to revise the revisionist account, then.

BUT  (*fanfare*)  the Beeb has redeemed itself, and all is not lost.  For they have seen fit to publish a no-holds-barred account of how the Atlantic slave trade had its origins in a pre-existing, and utterly unrepentent native African slave trade.  We all knew this, but I wasn't expecting to see it aired quite so fully as it is here. 

'My Nigerian great-grandfather sold slaves' - Nigerian journalist and novelist Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani writes that one of her ancestors sold slaves, but argues that he should not be judged by today's standards or values.  

My great-grandfather, Nwaubani Ogogo Oriaku, was what I prefer to call a businessman, from the Igbo ethnic group of south-eastern Nigeria. He dealt in a number of goods, including tobacco and palm produce. He also sold human beings. "He had agents who captured slaves from different places and brought them to him," my father told me...

It further contains some highly relevant cultural commentary by this bravely outspoken lady.

The successful sale of adults was considered an exploit for which a man was hailed by praise singers, akin to exploits in wrestling, war, or in hunting animals like the lion. Slavery was so ingrained in the culture that a number of popular Igbo proverbs make reference to it: [e.g.] Anyone who has no slave is his own slave ... The concept of "all men are created equal" was completely alien to traditional religion and law in his society. It would be unfair to judge a 19th Century man by 21st Century principles.  Assessing the people of Africa's past by today's standards would compel us to cast the majority of our heroes as villains  [my emphasis].

Can this article survive for long in the Beeb's website before being taken down?  I've recommended elsewhere that we all cache it as a gem of accurate, thorough historical reporting and intelligent commentary.  It deserves to go viral - and if it did, the resultant woke-wailing would be wondrous to behold.

ND

Weekend: More Authoritative Covid Stuff

A couple of months I posted some knowledgeable Covid material from an Oxford prof I'd heard speak.  It's had the most hits of anything on C@W over the past three months.

Here's the perspective from another Oxford prof - this time more conveniently available on www.  It's only 18 minutes, and entirely accessible.   The speaker is Naj Rahman, Professor of Respiratory Medicine and Director of the Oxford Respiratory Trials Unit, who is absolutely in the front line on several key aspects (Oxford being way out front in real-time research & response on Covid, and Rahman being a practitioner as well as a researcher).

His talk is at once sobering, encouraging, and in its account of the noble efforts of some medical students, uplifting.  BTW, I'm not sure he agrees with the previous prof that Covid-19 might be the last coronavirus pandemic we face.

So - only 18 mins and well worth a viewing.

ND