The Hydrogen thing - another polarised energy issue

No, nothing to do with anodes and cathodes: this is to do with vehement disagreements of a pseudo-scientific nature.  Recapping (on an issue we've touched on before, e.g. here and here):

The case for: (BTW, both sides of this "debate" accept future 'net zero' as a given)

1. Theoretical: electrification of some current uses of fossil fuels is well-nigh impossible to envisage; but conversion to hydrogen-burning looks feasible
2. Pragmatic / vested interests: this suits a lot of people very well - in particular the natural gas industries along the entire value chain, whose sunk costs are astronomical and whose risk of asset stranding looks quite real; and a load of engineers for whom the practicalities are well-understood, if a little challenging
3. It's not difficult to see (or at least hypothesize) a future world where periodically there will be large amounts of 'spare' electricity generating capacity, e.g. when the wind is blowing strongly and demand is low: conversion into hydrogen for later use (maybe back into electricity again) might be a whole lot easier than building batteries that are big enough.  Every green advocate whose pet project is inflexible, potentially surplus electricity (nuke, solar) or negative-flex (wind) resorts to "you can always make hydrogen with it" as a fall-back 

Mostly by dint of 2. above, there has been a heap of effort going into this, not least in Germany (some of it bizarre, see links above) and now in the USA.  Initially this was private money - always a good sign - although now the subsidy-farmers are pitching in, busily persuading governments they'd better throw public money in as well.

The case against:

1. The inefficiency of moving from electricity into hydrogen and back to electricity again is very great indeed (true)
2. Dreams of there being lots of spare electricity of zero marginal value (or even sometimes negative) to make this economic are just that - dreams: electricity will almost always command a higher price than that, particularly when (ex hypothesi) vast swathes of heating and transportation load has been electrified
3. Hydrogen is way too dangerous to be used in residential applications**
4. Pragmatic / vested interests: labour unions dream of untold unionised jobs installing heat pumps and the vast home-adaption paraphernalia that accompanies them  - really quite labour intensive, a decades-long programme, and not a service they can easily be substituted for by robots
5. Ideological:  we hate those old natural gas people, boo, hiss    

You can see how, what starts life as something of an ideology-free economic debate descends into left-vs-right mudslinging, the Left tending to view hydrogen as a wicked capitalist ramp.

Me?  As you've gathered, I'm always impressed when anyone forges ahead without waiting to garner subsidies: & that's exactly how the great hydrogen movement started.  But that moment has passed: the professional subsidy-farmers have taken over, just as A&R men move in on creative new talent in the pop industry.  And of course they are on both sides of the "debate", seeing as how there are subsidies available on both sides, too.  So now it's really difficult to tell what's good solid analysis and what's BS & hype.  

My guess is that:

1. hydrogen for domestic use doesn't make much sense
2. there will be specialised industrial applications where it does
3. there will be odd, localised, maybe temporary situations where electricity really will be 'almost free' (e.g. in the middle of a remote hot place where there's no grid, plentiful solar and a big mining industry that currently uses a lot of diesel)
4. it will be hard for hydrogen to compete as a means of strategic storage (via conversion) for electricity with other tools for balancing grids, even those with lots of wind capacity

But that's as far as I'd go.  Views?

ND
 
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** personally I wouldn't bet on that.  Electricity can be quite dangerous, too, and engineers are quite good at solving easily-defined physical problems.

Nicola Sturgeon runs into reality

I really hope Sturgeon lives long to regret her ridiculous foray into woke social engineering on the trans self-ID nonsense.  Who knows, it might have contributed to whatever was the final straw for her.

It's crazy enough that it deserves to be a final-straw kind of thing.  Even with fancy verbal footwork ("this individual is a rapist" etc etc), reality is always there to stub the toes of those who take an idle kick at it.  Facts are facts: and despite no end of purposeful Newspeak formulations, enforced silences, cancellings and shibboleths, they ain't going away.  

Was it ever going to stick in a place like Glasgow?  JK Rowling vs N Sturgeon: an interesting match-up - and 1-0 to the former.  There's an easy win now for Sturgeon's successor - if they've got their wits about them.

ND

Weekend thread: ChatGTP created C@W

OK, hands up: this blog has been written by ever more sophisticated Predictive Text software since around 2010, culminating triumphantly in its present ChatGTP mode!  Suckers!! 

We've also used plagiarism-detection software on the BTL contributions, and fully half of you people are bots.  Who ever believed "E-K" or "Elby The Berserk" were real people??  (Congrats to *Mr Bill Quango MP*, whose "Virtual Constituency Office ®"  software has been successfully submitting plausible House of Commons expenses claims for over a decade now.)

Here's a great explainer of what's been at work below the surface.  A bit of maths is used in the presentation - but not really required to get the gist.  One or two surprises in there for me, not least the first big point this chap makes - that ChatGTP proceeds only word-by-word.

What else on the www do you reckon must have been bot-generated?  Is Liz Truss a bot from the Ayn Rand Foundation?  And will ChatGTP get swept away by the serious tech giants' competitor products?

ND

Chess, and warfare on the steppes

One of the features of Russian military thinking is how much it is geared to fighting on broad, open plains, with water-obstacles but not much in the way of topographic relief.  This makes warfare like chess: both sides can see the disposition of the other's forces: everything starts with silently glaring across the table, wondering what's to be the first move**.  As in any military planning, surprise is helpful: but it can be quite difficult to engineer it.  Russia produces a lot of very good chess players.

[Contrast this with Western military thinking and practice, based as it is on the hilly, and highly-populated topographies of western Europe and the USA.  Forests, towns, and above all hills, are generally available to make the enemy's task of figuring out what you are up to, just a bit more difficult.  Reconnaissance is often thought of in terms of what's happening on the the other side of the hill.  Wellington made a career out of conjuring up nasty surprises for his opponent using high ground to mask his manoeuvres (see his masterpiece at Salamanca, and most famously at Waterloo).]

With the steppes-based Russian thinking we've just rehearsed in mind: what did Soviet doctrine dictate for mounting a large-scale offensive?  The answer (see the Battle of Kursk) included any amount of preparation, intelligence gathering, secrecy, deception, bluff and disinformation, plus (importantly) the use of depth, which Russia has in abundance.  In very concrete terms, the later flowering of Soviet doctrine brought this all together in the concept of the operational manoeuvre group ('OMG', indeed!), a powerful, mobile ad hoc formation assembled just behind the front echelon in great secrecy so that it would not feature (qua identified formation) in the enemy's assessment of the Russian order of battle, and would emerge, suddenly and "from nowhere", to wreak havoc on the battlefield.

What's this got to do with 3rd Feb 2023?  Most commentators have been saying for a month or so now that Russia is likely to make a big new offensive soon - and 'soon' might be in time for the anniversary of Putin's lunatic "come-as-you-are, all over in 3 days" foray last year.  Just yesterday, the Russian Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media ordered the switching-off of all mobile phone comms in the Donbas.  (We know that Russian forces have been dependent on mobiles from the very start, Putin's hasty attack not bothering with the traditional matter of ensuring secure comms as part of the package.)  Now, comms falling silent is the classic signifier of an OMG being formed: all those big NATO air-recce sweeps of the Ukrainian theatre (there are 4 concurrently airborne as I write) are looking all the time for a 'nothingness of comms', inter alia.  They've probably just found one.

Thing is, Ukraine knows all this stuff, too (and probably practices it); and it really is all a bit more difficult with modern recce techniques.  Not least, the 'surprises from the depth' aspect becomes less of an element.  We await the first chess-move with trepidation.

ND 

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** Negotiations in Russia are like this, too.  Long, long silences, punctuated by outbursts intended to disorient.

 

Regulations, Regulators & Grenfell: a disgraceful instance of misplaced laissez-faire

There's a utopian school of thought, perhaps most neatly summarised by Thoreau: "That government is best that governs not at all".  Well, he must obviously have dodged a fair few of the nastier contingencies of life, and had a *rather optimistic* view of the character of some of his fellow men.

Grenfell is in the news again, with Gove's latest statement that what he termed "faulty" government guidance was partly to blame for the disaster.  Well, indeed.  We daily depend for our lives on good regulations and good enforcement, whatever Thoreau thought from the comfort of his log cabin.  The leader of K&C Borough Council (whom I happen to know personally and he's a decent bloke) honorably felt the need to step down after Grenfell: but in the face of a lousy regulatory set-up, what more could he realistically done?  (Always assuming, of course, that it won't be discovered he presided over a council meeting where the officers said: "Members should be advised that out recommended cladding is crap, but it's cheap and we imagine you won't want to spend any more".)

I have fellow-feeling for him, not just from personal acquaintance but because during my time as Chair of Housing in a large London borough, we were pioneers in addressing condensation in tower blocks by the use of cladding.  We inevitably relied 100% on the officers - as an absolute matter of course - to ensure the materials under consideration were suitable, just as we relied on them to supervise the erection of scaffolding etc etc etc.  It worked, in every dimension, and our excellent cladding of many years ago is still there, working as intended.  But what could we have done if our officers were incompetent?  (Except hope to find this out on some innocuous matter, and get rid of them.) 

So:  good regs and good specs required.  But also, good and effective enforcement by competent and adequately-resourced regulators.  Hey, this is (sometimes) life and death; and we are surrounded - pace Thoreau - by crooks, idiots and lazy bastards on all sides.

The dreadful facts are - and George Osborne's laissez-faire regime as Chancellor ** bears huge responsibility for this, IMHO - that regulatory agencies everywhere are appallingly under-resourced.  In this I include incompetent staff, but also pure lack of staff and budget.  Almost every application procedure that I know of - and in my energy dealings I have frequent contact with Ofgem, the EA, the ONR etc etc - starts with self-declarations on almost everything; and when approval is granted, subsequent monitoring is almost always of the "mark your own homework" variety, with reporting by exception only.  

Perhaps the most visible consequences of this approach are in the shape of much-reported spillages of sewage, the EA being amongst the most resource-deprived agencies as well as sewage-spills being high profile events.  But let me also add that, far more disconcertingly, the regulatory framework around the nuclear industry is seriously creaking at the seams.   What EDF is getting away with on their intended new project at Sizewell (still in the planning stages) is pretty bad: and some of what happens at Sellafield is nobody's business, it seems.

Mark-your-own-homework suits a lot of people.  But some of them are crooks.  If Grenfell wasn't bad enough, some day there'll be something even worse.

ND

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** If someone can demonstrate that today's situation dates from pre-2010 I will retract that.  But I don't believe it was anything like as extreme back then. 

The C@W Probate Awards

I am just coming to the end of almost exactly a year's worth of resolving a family probate claim, which I tackled myself - seeing as how I reckon I can read & understand a form written in English  ...  and the solicitors candidly told us they'd inevitably be asking us to do almost all the legwork anyway.    

Forms?  Check the HMRC website!  Heaven help anyone who finds themselves dealing with some of the really complicated trust, and overseas-related, stuff.  Should these things take so long?  Well of course I know that a year isn't remotely unusual, so I can't and won't complain, trying though it is.  Inevitably these days, you find yourself dealing with a load of bots of greater or lesser "intelligence" - and sometimes real people too, ditto.  My dealings with various institutions (approx 20) have caused me to take names along the way; and so here are the top- and bottom-placing organisations on this sample of (let it be stressed) just one full process.

Bottom: Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, who were recipients of a legacy in the Will.  

I had read that this organisation has more money than it knows what to do with.  Well, it felt like that: and now it has more - and its delay between being asked for banking details and supplying them; & receiving the money and acknowledging receipt, were quite egregious.  Bear in mind that several other charities were also in the picture on exactly the same starting-timetable, so there's a comparison to be made.  (Quickest off the mark - which is entirely appropriate from every perspective - and very courteous with it, was British Red Cross, BTW).

Top: Barclays Bank.

Unfailingly prompt, competent, and in the early days actually quite ingenious in finding ways to make things go more smoothly, from a rather messy starting-point.  And pleasant, with it.  Thank you, Barclays.

These things are possible!

ND  

China on Russia / Ukraine: as expected

Why is Germany playing silly-buggers over tanks for Ukraine?  If the answer is "no", then say so.

Readers will know I have long maintained that Xi is the spectator with most interest in what transpires in Ukraine - and that he will have marked Putin's card in no uncertain terms.

Owen Matthews in the Speccie seems to have it nailed.  This, from November (I missed it at the time) is a short, but great read - and may still have salience on the tanks issue.  After all, Biden isn't exactly rushing forward with the Abrams, is he? 

 Beijing and Moscow pledged to come to each other’s aid militarily in the case of a foreign invasion of their territory and if special conditions were satisfied concerning the cause of such an invasion. That extremely canny and prescient proviso, inserted at Chinese insistence, would effectively exclude territories recently annexed during wartime, thus releasing Beijing from any commitment to respond to attacks on annexed territories in Ukraine.  

But everything points to a new Russian offensive in the offing.

ND

UPDATE:- seems I wrote just a few hours too soon.  And - it's Zelensky's birthday today !

Jacinda Ardern: not a record to be proud of

Let's assume Jacinda Ardern's drawing stumps is to be taken at face value: gotta admire a politico who resigns because they reckon they've had enough.  Most of them have never had enough - of power - and make spectacles of themselves (or worse) as they cling on.

That's just about as far as my charity towards her extends.  

So what has her 5-year rule encompassed?  Two truly shocking developments have worsened noticeably on her watch.

The first, and most strategic, is NZ's handing itself over to the Chinese.  You can readily research this for yourself.  Yeah yeah, we understand the geography: and plenty of others have taken the Chinese billion-shilling.  But NZ has completely sunk itself.  Is it recoverable?  I dunno: the revived combo of USA/UK/Oz might be able to offer an escape strategy, perhaps with Japan and a few other Asian countries that also don't enjoy Xi's ever-expanding colonial outreach.  I hope so.

The second is more subtle but, in its way, equally pernicious: the thoroughgoing intellectual surrender to government-enforced woke nonsense - possibly the worst in the western world (though somebody may have another candidate for that).  This includes the crazy business of insisting (and we do mean insisting, particularly in the education system) that "Maori science" is "true science", infecting even the NZ Royal Society.   In the spirit of open-minded curiosity, I'm all for obtaining the best available insights from traditional wisdom and holistic metaphorical world-views, which often give deeply worthwhile perspectives: but "true"?  In the context of science, only on the basis of successfully coming through the usual "western" intellectual scrutiny.  Not so many creation myths (etc) will pass that test.  Determined war needs to be waged on this rubbish.

Ardern herself may only have presided over these dreadful developments: maybe she bemoans them privately, I don't know.  But - it has still been on her watch.

An interesting insight comes from one of her responses to questions: 

Asked how she would like New Zealanders to remember her leadership, Ardern said “as someone who always tried to be kind”.

I often think that the only vaguely creditworthy sentiment associated with the mindless pandering to the more extreme demands of, e.g. "trans rights", is a well-meaning, if ill-considered desire to "be kind".  He thinks he's a girl - let's not upset him.  Well, kindness and consideration have their important place in human affairs.   Always worth revisiting Monty Python's Life of Brian on this: the way Reg's anti-Roman groupuscule tries to accommodate Stan's wish to be called Loretta - and have babies.  They're trying to be kind.  (And it's bloody funny.)

But kindness is sometimes not enough (and Reg's last word is still the last word).  Let's see if something better can follow at the hands of new leadership.

ND

For Dieselheads

 What do the bumper stickers say?

Gas is for cleaning parts, alcohol is for drinking, diesel is for POWER

Black smoke don't mean it's broke ...

Anyhow, if you've noticed an ever increasing price differential between diesel and petrol, it's about to get worse.  A Euro-ban on importing Russian diesel starts on 5 February; and Russia has for a long time been the major supplier, its oil industry being disproportionately geared to diesel production (having less cracking capacity than most modern fleets of refineries, natch).  All this has been obvious for ten months, since it became clear the EU was digging in on sanctions, so many enterprises will have bought forward: but it'll work its way into retail prices (and inflation) quite soon. 

The whole diesel thing is odd.  I've never heard an explanation as to why the UK government "encouraged diesel" some decades ago (does anyone know?) - but everyone knew it stank.  A very long time ago - the late '70's - I visited an advanced motor engineering research facility and was told they were pouring considerable effort into improving diesel engines, in order to make them acceptable for the ordinary motorist.  The bloke said then that it was a matter of historical accident that petrol engines were (at that time) so vastly superior for cars, since both petrol and diesel were alongside each other on the starting-line at the turn of the 19th century when ICE vehicles were in their infancy: but for some arbitrary reason over the following 70 years, all the effort had gone into petrol engines.   This alone (they said) accounted for why diesel engines were fit only for taxis at that time: because petrol had no intrinsic advantages, aside from the smell.  

Particulates didn't trouble people much in them days ...   Let's hear from you, dieselheads!

ND

So much easier, being a conservative

 ... as opposed to being a typical leftie, permanently bemused and worried about how the world is.  Here's the Grauniad's Zoe Williams - by no means the worst of her tendency, writing under a typically Graun click-bait headline, and it's almost as bad as the banner suggests.  It's on the subject of that old feminist worry - Fat.  Oppressive body images and the "body disgust that girls experience".  And the best she can come up with?  It's all the fault of capitalism. 

The over-riding message to young girls from the mainstream – advertising, agony aunts, teachers, parents, the acceptable face of their peers as represented in culture – is a set of platitudes about body positivity: come as you are, love your body, love yourself ... So you have this tripod effect: the explicit message to girls is “don’t try to be thin, try to be healthy”; the implicit message is “thin is actually better than beautiful, thin is beauty, femininity and discipline combined”; and finally the high-pitched screaming of our collective lizard brain: “Fat is disgusting and undignified.” ... I’ve thought about this for years, on my own account and now in relation to my teenagers, and I don’t think tackling our self-loathing is a matter for individual resilience or self-belief. It’s essentially a function of capitalism. At its most mechanistic, you create panic around cellulite, you sell more tights ... Anything innate to humans that you can make into a problem will create a market for the solution. More fundamentally, mass markets rely on homogeneity, the Fordist formula, any-shape-so-long-as-it’s-thin. You can’t really monetise desire unless everyone’s desires are the same, so you have to create quite a narrow physical ideal... It’s a mistake, made constantly, to characterise girls and young women as “vulnerable”. They don’t struggle with their body image and mental health because they’re fragile or weak. It’s an absolutely rational response to a world that hysterically, ceaselessly bombards them with contradictory demands. I don’t have a better answer to all this than “anarcho-feminism”. 

If we want to be generous to this cri de coeur, we should probably just note the "I've thought about this for years / I don't have a better answer", and leave her to her misery.  But hey, she's accused capitalism: so we are entitled to have a little think about it, too.

As a piece of analysis, Williams' is slipshod in the extreme; though she does at least start with something sensible: "blaming a timeless patriarchy is too general".  It's downhill from there, however.

1. She acknowledges from the start that mainstream advertising (inter alia) is woke nowadays - she even dates this back 20 years - and, along with "agony aunts, teachers, parents, the acceptable face of their peers as represented in culture" pushes a body-positive message:  "a worthy agenda endorsed by right-thinking people everywhere".  That's, errr, capitalism at work, no?  Following "right-thinking" trends. 
2. So the "implicit message" she identifies is clearly, therefore, coming from somewhere else nowadays.  Is she suggesting there's some extraordinary, devious-capitalist double-bluff going on: the body-positive ads are understood by everybody to be a hilarious spoof, or something?  Or is this "implicit message" coming from society as a whole?  Or indeed, from the "lizard brains" (which sometimes signal something worth paying attention to)?
3. The jump from subtle, "implicit message", to "creating a panic" is a complete non sequitur: she's a lot more work to do if she wants to establish anything about "created panic".
4. If the "Fordist" formula for business success is to deal with as few categories as possible whilst sweeping up as many customers as possible, to focus on something unattainable in practice would seem to be a really dumb idea - unless it corresponded with something "innately" there already in society.  Capitalist businessmen are nothing if not keen to follow the herd: it's pretty rare (Bill Gates, maybe Steve Jobs) that anyone attempts to educate the herd to want something entirely new.

Contradictory demands?  That would be: lefties versus human nature.  There are several strong hints that Williams really does blame human nature all along; human nature that exists quite independently of capitalism, as a little journey back into pre-capitalist history would reveal.  

It would also be interesting to hear Williams on, for example, the triumphant England women's soccer team: but it doesn't look like she wrote about it at the time of their great 2022 successes.  Only one body shape in evidence** at the women's Euros, though; and we are all supposed to get behind the Lionesses in no uncertain terms.  Aren't we, Zoe?  Or is sport once again problematic for lefties?

There are social problems aplenty that any person of good will can be keen to address.  But blaming them lamely on capitalism won't get us very far.  Lefties, being intrinsically at odds with human nature, aren't well placed to make progress here.  It is conservatives that recognise and attempt to understand the grain of human timber, and work with it.

ND  

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** As ever, Rugby Union is much more catholic on this score!  (So: which of RU and soccer is more, errr, populist, eh?  Oh, the ironies ...) 

How the media (still) works: princes and pressure groups

A report out today ...

How far back do we date the phenomenon of vested interests putting out spurious press releases masquerading as news?  It definitely pre-dates the 1980s because I can remember instances of it back then quite clearly.  Commercially, the 'launches' of books, films, new products etc have been doing it forever, to amplify their advertising efforts.  Pressure groups muscled in on the act, and made it their own: the ghastly phrase "a report out today ..." is always the giveaway.

Why are they indulged?  That's easy: the media are bone idle.  In the case of, for example, local newspapers, they are and always have been grotesquely understaffed, and rely to 95% on stuff being handed to them on a plate: sometimes you can tell they've barely read what they've been sent.  But ... shouldn't MSM which have the slightest pretensions to, errr, standards of reporting, be above that crap?

Here's a wonderful example from the Grauniad.  (Did I say pretensions ..?) 

Labour MPs to lobby Keir Starmer to put green policies at heart of manifesto

This lengthy piece is completely devoid of news and, for afficionados, is a gem of its kind.  The press release / briefing that the Graun has swallowed whole, is from a new groupuscule that hasn't even launched yet!  So everything is about what "they" (assuming anyone joins the group) might do in future.  Classic stuff.

Which brings us to poor Prince Harry.  As an old mate of mine (a Tory MP) used to say, you can always get on the front page if you're willing to take your trousers down in public.  Was there ever a neater illustration of this maxim?  Put it away, son, everyone's laughing at you.

ND

New Year Prediction Game 2023

 So last year the predictions were somewhat poor as we nearly all over-egged Boris. Under estimated Putin and thought covid was awful!

Everyone except Caesar Hemera - blimey he nailed it. Well done that man! 

This year let’s make it simple for us all? 5 yea or nea- 

Will the war in Ukraine end?

Will Oil average over $100 a barrel?

Will Elon Musk’s fabled moon trip happen?

Will Sam Bankman-Fried get Jail time?

Will the UK be in recession still in Q4 2024?

Bonus answer for tiebreak has to be a sport related prediction. Mine is for Emma Radacanu to win Wimbledon. 

Iran in 2023: Opportunity?

Predictable change is rarely on offer; and conversely, predicted change often doesn't happen.  (China becoming more liberal as a consequence of trade being perhaps the stand-out example of the latter in recent times.)  But something seems to be afoot in Iran, n'est-ce pas?  Is it too much to hope that 'western powers' are ready, willing and able to respond to it adroitly?

Iran / Persia is a deeply interesting case, in a fundamentally pivotal geo-political position.  Always resistant to foreign domination, since the 15th century it has been essentially independent, unlike many neighbouring states that have much less political continuity - the Arab states to its west and south, the 'stans north and east.  Of the foreign 'influences' over the years, Russian interests are a recurring theme - and never more so than today.  But only the British effort really stands out as clever and (by some lights) constructive.  When oil was discovered there in 1908, the Royal Navy was immediately interested.  How best to get British hands on it?  In an era where many people's first imperial thoughts would have been inclined towards something fairly expropriatory, wiser counsels prevailed, and a broadly commercial arrangement was struck instead.  Development of a huge oil industry followed, and the British connection was strong for more than 40 years.  It all ended in nationalisation, of course: and subsequent British, and then American efforts from the 1950s onwards can certainly be faulted.  Recent Iranian history begins, of course, with the revolution of 1979** and its near-complete severing of any normal relations with the west.

Iranians bridle at being grouped with Arabs in the ignorant western mind, and have a solid history of learning, education and native science, notwithstanding that dogmatic clerical rule is rarely consistent with reaping the full benefit of that learning.  Western influences have been very strong, certainly in the middle classes, many of whom traditionally sought further education in England or France.  (Indeed, for many years the French might have been thought to have had the greater cultural influence, with French being widely spoken: but they were slow off the mark back in 1908.  Nonetheless, Paris was always where the major Iranian exiles of all political stripes hung out - and were sometimes eventually buried, as a trip to the cemetery at Montparnasse will attest.)

And after 43 years, it seems the educated Iranian middle class has had enough of 'morality police' and the rest of the clerical excesses.

Is this a happy ending just waiting to happen?  Is Russia's new supplier of drones and potentially worse about to step back from its baleful role in the Near East?  Well, not necessarily.  Although you won't find this on Wikipedia the current Supreme Leader Khamenei is widely rumoured to have studied in Russia: there is a critical gap in his biography, and some years ago his name featured on the list of alumni claimed by the infamous Moscow "Peoples Friendship University", a.k.a. the Patrice Lumumba.   Being too closely associated, education-wise, with the godless Russians wouldn't suit him nowadays, of course: but it's noticeable how closely he tacks to Russia just now, to put it mildly.  (PS, these rumours started more than a decade ago, i.e. they are not to be laid at the door of some current disinformation campaign.)  There is a current rumour, however: that he has cancer and is not long for this world (like, errr, Putin, Xi, Kim etc etc etc: so maybe not worth entertaining too optimistically).

Suppose that 2023 is indeed the year that a counter-revolution breaks out in Iran.  Any new regime will want to restore prosperity in short order - that's the way Khomeni worked his trick in 1980-81.  So they'll want an early end to sanctions ... but will they also continue to want nukes as well?  

Seems to me there's an obvious role here for adroit and subtle western diplomacy.  What wouldn't we give for Iran stepping back from Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah etc etc - and from Russia?  Well, errr, maybe we wouldn't give nukes ...  But China ..?

I don't know what the solution is here.  But if we just let a revolutionary moment pass without making a creative & intelligent effort, the west will be regretting it as much, if not more, as other nations did when the Brits stepped smartly in to the oil opportunity.  We (UK) are no longer up to it.  Macron will probably throw Total into the frame, but he's no Apollo, whatever he thinks.  And I greatly fear that the USA doesn't see Iran at all clearly; but rather - how shall we put it? - through a very darkened and steamed-up glass. 

ND

(Unusually, in this case I may be forced to moderate BTL, so choose your words carefully.  If the anticipated trolling does indeed materialise, before deleting I will keep notes for readers' future edification)

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** This was not, as is widely supposed, initially a wholly clerical matter.  But Khomeini, recalled from his exile in Paris, was determined to make it so - and he succeeded in just a couple of years, with a strategy Lenin would have admired.

Happy New Year all!

 Hope you have a good one. More posts in the New Year!

Happy Xmas, all on C@W !

 ... and when CU gets back we'll try for a pub session, like we did from time to time in those pre covid days.  I owe a couple of folks a couple of beers.

Compo coming in the New Year.  And we'll take a look back at last January's, too.  (A few red faces, methinks.)

ND

Covid in China: inflexion point?

What's going on in China?  Nobody really knows.  One thing's for (almost) certain - you lift the covid restrictions on urban populations that have been locked down like wot they have for two years, with omega (and maybe other variants) in the breeze - and it's going to go through them like a dose of salts.

There are several aspects of major interest - Western self interest - of which here are a couple.

(1) Economic: the lid has only been kept on the seething global energy cauldron (what lid !? - I hear you say.  Oh yes, gas prices could have gone higher still) because the Chinese economy has been well and truly on hold whilst in lockdown.  With a property crash, and declining retail sales.  And that hasn't just "suppressed" (relative term) worldwide energy prices: it's the same for all the major raw materials.  You think you've seen price spikes?  Well, if the lifting of lockdown works out positively for China in GDP terms, you ain't seen nothing.

I know some large gas players who are making a massive bet on this.  Personally, whilst fully acknowledging what could happen, I'm not at all sure it will.  Sickness on a vast scale may not be so easily consistent with revitalising that monster economy. 

(2) Political:  what did it take for Xi to backtrack on a lockdown policy that had his name all over it in bold logograms?  With serious protest already building - and then the TV-watching public noticing that The Whole Of The Rest Of The Entire World (as represented in World Cup spectators) were mingling closely and happily with not a mask in sight.

Well, presumably the CPC still reckons it can command the information space, and will convert the screeching U-turn into a personal triumph.  Of sorts.  But maybe not.  Maybe everyone can now see he's for turning when the right combination of factors applies.  And maybe his U-turn has really awkward consequences ...

Hmm.  China-watching in '23 is going to be interesting.  And those gas prices.

ND 

Strikes: Government will stick - it has nowhere to go

The winter strikers have, inadvertently, made the Government's strategy for it.  There are so many strikes, all essentially pleading with ministers to intervene with the big public chequebook; and the government simply can't do that.

This problem (for the unions) presumably stems from (a) zero inter-union coordination: this ain't the Revolution; and (b) the relatively new phenomenon of 1-day strikes.  

Time was when strikes (of the non wildcat variety) were indefinite, all-out affairs that had to be planned months in advance, with a big fighting fund laid up to be able to foot the bill for Strike Pay.  In those days, unions couldn't do much else than coordinate these things, at least to some degree, in the manner of record labels of the same era who would keep "loosely in touch" to avoid big albums being launched competitively in the same window.  They needed mutual aid, not least on the picket lines, from people still drawing a wage.  One major front at a time.

How fragmented everything is these days.

Except, of course, the Government, which is (relatively) monolithic and, after years of nonsenses, quite well versed in messaging: yes we know it's shitty, but we all have to WFH / tighten belts / look after each other / etc etc, and just get on with things as best we can.  Blitz Spirit Lite (again).  The total inertia of Kier "shoo-in" Starmer, while he waits for everything to fall in his lap at the next GE, is quite helpful in this regard too.  Makes everything seem like some kind of unavoidable natural disaster.

So it looks like that's what it'll be: a piecemeal mess with minimal government movement, despite endless careful, ultra-reasonable-sounding union counter-messaging on the lines "all that needs to happen is the government to step in with a bit of compromise: we don't really mean 19%"**.  Which is gonna continue to fall on deaf ears: because where on earth does that lead the government?  They just ain't gonna pay out 10% to everyone on the active payroll - even if, perversely, they have done just that for the pension / social security roster.

ND

___________

** There's another emollient union line being peddled of late: It's not really about wages, it's about conditions - just scrap those provocative "reforms" & that'll do the trick ...

Europeans Don't Understand Markets, Part 37

Not a new theme around here, but the examples keep rolling in.  Now it's the protracted attempt to enforce a "European gas price cap".  Even the ECB knows this one is crazy: and for once, the Germans (the usual butt of my scorn on this issue) are more-or-less on the side of the angels.

The idea is this.  Almost all the economic ills of Europe are the fault of high wholesale gas prices.  (Never mind that this ain't true: French electricity prices are even higher, caused by the chronic state of their ailing nuclear fleet.)  So: if we simply legislate to cap wholesale gas prices ... all our troubles are over - right?

Most of the wrangling is over what the magic number should be.  Too high, and "it has no effect".  Too low, and, errr, well hang on, what does "too low" mean?  We want it to be low!

This fighting over exact numbers is an entirely fatuous fracas because the whole idea is structurally bonkers, whatever the level of the "price cap".  How is it supposed to work?  Unlike its predecessor, the "electricity price cap" (which was in effect to be paid for by governments, via a cash subsidy whenever prices actually rose above the cap - like the UK's present "energy price guarantee"), this one is an outright ban on gas dealings above the capped level.  Dealing, that is, on the leading exchange platforms handling spot trade at the main European gas trading hub, the Dutch TTF.  On an automated basis, no deals would be accepted at prices above the cap.

So, errr, no gas for Europe then, if the TTF price goes too high?   That's the German worry; but actually, nope - trade would simply migrate to other forums: bilateral dealing or, whisper it softly, platforms not coming under the EC's jurisdiction (London, NY and Chicago come to mind).  Any problems with that?  Well, there's the question of clearing and credit support: but bear in mind that in the days of yore, almost all gas trades were bilateral - and there are viable (if clunky) means of instituting bilateral credit support.  They'll just need to dust off those old ISDA Master Swaps.

In their deep ignorance, Euro-politicians work themselves into fine frenzies over this stuff - and burn a great deal of precious midnight oil.  Presumably they're all on double-time, free meals and 5* hotels when they work after 4pm or something.  And when it goes predictably tits-up, they all look around in wonderment and call for an enquiry.  What is the point of these people?  

ND 

Bankman-Fried & FTX: an entertaining indictment

Well, the criminal indictment per se is actually rather dry.  As ever in the USA, the first several charges are for Wire Fraud, that handy all-purpose offence that makes things Federal.   Then just plain Fraud, and Money Laundering, and Conspiracy etc etc.

The appealingly racy wording of the Civil Complaint livens things up considerably, and makes it clear what is alleged to have been going on. 

Unbeknownst to investors and to FTX’s trading customers, Bankman-Fried was orchestrating a massive, years-long fraud, diverting billions of dollars of the trading platform’s customer funds for his own personal benefit and to help grow his crypto empire ... Customers around the world believed his lies, and sent billions of dollars to FTX, believing their assets were secure on the FTX trading platform. But from the start, Bankman-Fried improperly diverted customer assets to his privately-held crypto hedge fund, Alameda, and then used those customer funds to make undisclosed venture investments, lavish real estate purchases, and large political donations ... While he spent lavishly on office space and condominiums in The Bahamas, and sank billions of dollars of customer funds into speculative venture investments, Bankman-Fried’s house of cards began to crumble... Even in November 2022, faced with billions of dollars in customer withdrawal demands that FTX could not fulfill, Bankman-Fried misled investors from whom he needed money to plug a multi-billion-dollar hole. His brazen, multi-year scheme finally came to an end when FTX, Alameda, and their tangled web of affiliated entities filed for bankruptcy on November 11, 2022.

Massive frauds; lies; lavish spending; crumbling house of cards; plugging multi-billion-dollar holes; brazen schemes; tangled webs - I like this writing style.  And there's more: the Complaint wants an order to be issued upon SB-F "to disgorge his ill-gotten gains".  That's while the prosecutors try to get him banged up, of course.

As I've often said, provided you're not a senior banker of the 2008-9 cohort enjoying some kind of 'Obama indemnity', the Americans know how to throw the book at business wrongdoers.  Strange thing is, though:  there never seems to be much to stop these massive ponzi schemes getting started, does there?

ND  

At last, nuclear fusion! With one bound, we are free!

When my eldest was at school he was set on to write a story about being marooned on a desert island.  His tale read well for a couple of pages but it ended abruptly:  "And then they were saved."  I had the unkind feeling he was going to get docked a couple of marks for narrative failings.

With this unfairly critical eye of mine, I now read in the Grauniad that a

Breakthrough in nuclear fusion could mean ‘near-limitless energy’ 

Oh dear.  Are we back into the lands of "electricity-too-cheap-to-meter" and "do-we-believe-this" again?  I kind-of assume we'll be there on fusion by, maybe, 2050 ...   

I say "we", but I'll be dead and gone.  Unless, that is, the same lab has also come up with the Elixir of Life.   Well why not?  Elon Musk surely isn't too busy to turn his attention to that one?  

Often looks to me as though he's been trying a few of the early experimental potions on himself ...

ND

Next Year's Trip To The Moon - do we believe this?

When my kids were growing up I suggested to them that sometimes, when something quite surprising is asserted, it's a good idea to pause & say ... do we believe this?

I know it's awfully unfestive to be so skeptical: but when I see multi-media coverage of Rhiannon Adam's story that she's going to the moon next year, courtesy of Elon Musk and, errr, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa who'd like her to have a ticket ... well, I feel we may be deep into do-we-believe-this? territory. 

Mission chiefs said Ms Adam, from Ireland, will be the first openly queer woman to go to space ... She added: “I spend a lot of my life working with a lot of remote communities and it felt like a natural thing to do, to apply to go to space and explore the most remote community ever, which would be us in space.”

I'd so like to be proven wrong on this.  Call me a cynic, but I can't help feeling the lady will get another call in a few months.  Hi Rhiannon?  It's Yusaka!  No no, it's not about your space-flight training, that'll be a bit nearer the day.  No, not the medical check-up either - you don't need one!  No, what I wanted to do was help you get started on your crowdfunding.  What's that?  Yes, you know, crowdfunding!  It's easy!  Listen, you're bound to know any number of suckers.  Well, I mean, surely you have a lot of, errr, like-minded friends ..?

Perhaps in our 2023 Predictions compo we should include a binary yes/no item on this one.

ND

The wisdom of crowds ... and mobs?

For a while now I have been of the view that some on the 'left' (which I take to embrace the more radical 'greens') are gingerly feeling their way towards trying to legitimise violence in favour of their causes.  They are a bit nervous about this, of course, not least because they are all nice middle- and upper-middle class people who personally rather shrink from violence, much as some of them drool over those rougher types like the Sinn Fein leadership and radical Islamists who couldn't give a monkeys. 

A couple of days ago, this curious piece appeared in the Grauniad, by one Stephen Reicher, professor of psychology at the University of St Andrews:  

China’s Covid policy didn’t have to end in riot and protest. This is why it did

It concludes with this odd remark. 

China’s protests show us that, far from being mindless, crowds and collective protest are highly sophisticated and give us insight into the underlying society. Particularly from those who do not normally have voice, “riots are the voice of the unheard”

Now we can certainly agree that some Chinese protestors are quite creative in how they articulate anti-government sentiments via things like holding blank sheets of paper, or inventing instantly evocative pop-up memes and shibboleths that temporarily evade the sluggish but overpowering CPC censors.  Can be sophisticated enough, for sure.

But "crowds ... far from being mindless ... are highly sophisticated" ?  Well, we've probably all enjoyed being part of a good-humoured crowd at a sporting fixture.  But it's not very comfortable to look into the "mind" of many a crowd outside the soccer stadium afterwards, still less that of many a mob.  We don't even need to cite lynch mobs.  Earlier in the article, Prof Reicher wants us to reject David Cameron's view of the 2011 "riots" as being mere criminality.  Well, matey, the opportunistic looting sprees of the day after Tottenham most certainly were just that, much as some lefties hoped they heralded the Revolution.

I really wonder where this dalliance with violence is going.  Wherever it is, I very much doubt it will be to the long-term political gratification of the radical left-green - even if personally they get their rocks off on it as a nasty form of catharsis and juvenile spite.

ND

Eddie Jones: it was indeed time to go.

Sport's a tough business, and nobody has the right to stay at the top forever.  Despite his many achievements, with England and elsewhere, it was clearly time for Eddie Jones to go.  The autumn test series was indeed a test, and he failed.

Jones worked wonders with the disorganised and demoralised 2015 side (even if one suspects almost any new broom would have dusted them down).  The immediate Grand Slam, followed by an epic tour of Australia - I have never watched a defensive effort like England's in the Second Test - suggested he was doing more than just making a handful of much-needed changes.   His choice of captain, the 'mongrel' Dylan Hartley, seemed inspired.

So where did it go wrong, for such a thoughtful and successful coach?  

1. Seems to me he's a tactician and not a strategist.  He plans carefully and successfully for particular games - for Australia, the semi final over New Zealand in 2003; for Japan, the extraordinary victory over South Africa; and for England the exceptional win over NZ in the 2019 semi final - a game he must have been working on from the moment the pools were announced several years before.  And then ... it was absolutely clear he had no equivalent gameplan for the final - a contingency just as foreseeable.  In fact, just like 2003 when Woodward's England beat him in the final.  (Clive Woodward: now there's a strategist.)
2. Stubbornly 'keeping faith' with the wrong players, admirable though 'loyalty' may be.  Two examples (out of several I could list):  Farrell and Tuilagi.  I don't care what "warrior" attributes he possesses, Farrell is a liability at international level - directly and predictably responsible for England going out in the Pool stage in 2015.  He shouldn't have been in the squad, let alone the post-Hartley captain.  And Tuilagi's physical frailty (sounds like a crazy thing to say, but rugby aficionados will know what I mean) makes his formidable performances of ten years ago an irrelevance.

If England can get Borthwick to step in - and I presume this is primarily a matter of money - the squad is strong enough to mount a turnaround in time for the RWC.  And he's just the man to do it.  Thanks, Eddie, and farewell.

ND

Wealth tax proposals: target 'those other guys'

 Gotta laugh at this earnest Grauniad article: 

One of us is a millionaire, the other a care worker. The cruel divide between rich and poor disgusts us both ...  Britain’s cost of living crisis is disastrous for one of us and will barely touch the other. The best answer is a wealth tax

The two ladies in question are Julia Davies and Winsome Hill.  In case you are wondering, it's Julia that is a member of "Patriotic Millionaires" (sic), and Ms Hill who is the care worker.  Entertainingly but somehow inevitably, the article includes the words "the two of us have never met" !   No, really? -  you surprise me.  "... but we both felt the inequality in this country couldn’t continue ... and decided to write this piece together."

So what have they, errr, spontaneously agreed as a solution for inequality?  Even though they've never met. 

Let’s start with taxing the seriously wealthy – people with wealth of more than £10m. A wealth tax of just 1% or 2% on their stocks of wealth over £10m ...    [my emphasis]

I think we know what this means.  It means - I'm just guessing here - that Ms Davies' "stock of wealth" is somewhere in the band £1m to £5m.  Because that's the very definition of people who think that "seriously wealthy" means north of 10.  Left on her own with the pen, Ms Hill might, I suspect, have written "people with wealth over £1m" - or even £500k, given that the average UK house price is £256k and the median personal pension pot is only in the tens of thousands (though the data is hard to summarise simply).  But that wouldn't do, Ms Davies - would it?   No no no!

Yup, it's human nature to reckon that "serious wealthy" is always someone else.  You got a yacht?  Yeah, but he's got his own island.

ND

"Oil Price Cap" - what do they think it means?

The EU has been at it today, and the G7 will follow, we're told.  We can easily state what they think it means.  Shippers of oil will not qualify for "western insurance and maritime services" if they are buying Russian oil at more than $60/bbl.  

Well, some folks say the Russians can only get ~$50 for their oil on world markets anyway.  But aside from that: since nobody running Russian oil at, say, $65 will feel obliged to, errr, tell this to the authorities - dear me no, guv'nor: $59.95 and not a cent more, look at my paperwork! - the most they'll suffer is presumably that the cargo will only be insured for that lesser amount.  OK, so they'll screw Russia down another dollar for their pains, but no big deal.  Or the Chinese will insure them.   (Good luck making a contested claim on that policy, though.)

All this "capping wholesale prices" in liquid global markets is crazy.  The EU is at it again with gas prices, though that's even less meaningful - they will only be "capped" by governments stumping up the difference between actual import prices and whatever cap they come up with.  And the UK may end up getting subsidised EU electricity, as a delightful quirk of the rules, haha. 

Incidentally, several EU nations are beginning to get fed up with Germany using the power grids of neighbouring countries to keep itself in imported electricity, and are limbering up to take steps to stop them.  Most serious of all is public sentiment in Norway, which hitherto thought it would be great to sell even more of its cheap hydro power into Germany (and other countries, but mostly DE).  Well, the hydro producers and the Norwegian grid (which coins transmission fees) still think that: and the taxman, too.  But Norwegian consumers have noticed that the export of a load of electricity means the import of German power prices!  And on this particular export, they aren't trussed up by EU rules.  Watch this space.

ND

Winter blackouts: more likely now than for years

October was quite exceptionally warm in N.Europe.  November has also been warm, but in the UK also extremely wet; so the heating season really started this month.  And already we've had two 'capacity mechanism' warnings from the National Grid.  I realise many of you won't know exactly what that means: it certainly doesn't mean "blackouts imminent" - the whole point is that it puts providers of standby power on notice - but equally, it's very rare, and there's never been a November with two such warnings.  

Both came about for the same reason: wind generation subsided fairly suddenly, and to a great extent than forecast.  This week's was quite spectacular, in that the wind output fairly collapsed - to zero in the afternoon and for the rest of the day.  We'd been exporting electricity at the start of the day but that switched to importing for a bit of top-up: needless to say, gas-fired generators carried by far the greatest part of the load, with some nuke and biomass, and a tiny amount of shortly-to-be extinct coal. 

And it's not even cold yet.  Granted, Europe as a whole is better placed as regards availability of gas than might have been foreseen back in June.  But we're all in trouble if a serious cold snap comes along, both in terms of wholesale energy prices and absolute energy availability.  Prices are already surging.  Industry will be switched off in many countries, with the UK being better placed than most (FWIW).  

Yet we still find people airily saying we don't need gas.  Possibly the highest profile example, and the most irresponsible, is Ed Miliband, who announced at his Party Conference that we could dispense with gas for all but 0.3% of the time, by 2030.  He's lying through his teeth, his slim defence being that he'd commissioned some "modelling" which told him this was possible.  Well, in the real world, it ain't.

Will this all come to some dramatic, sticky end - if not this year, then shortly thereafter?  I doubt it.  Rather, it'll be years of messy, pragmatic muddling through - which, as it happens, the UK is quite good at.  Targets of all kind will be missed, but it won't have to matter.  Timetables will simply slip, and kit will be refurbished for yet another season.  How much egg will end up on politicians' faces?  Not much.  Greta will be very upset, of course; but most people just want to stay warm.  

ND

Weekend reading: informative essay on Sturgeon's SNP

 Further to our brief Scottish foray after the Supreme Court ruling ... here. Extracts: 

Where [Salmond] imposed his chaotic ego on issues foreign and domestic, [Sturgeon] had more strategic nous, crystallizing the party’s Europhile credentials in the wake of Brexit and consolidating its standing among Scotland’s middle-class Remainer majority ... Sturgeon engineered the destruction of Scottish Labour, lifting support for independence to record-breaking highs. Recently, however ... the semi-biblical belief in Sturgeon’s power has started to fade. [She] saw the 2016 Brexit referendum as an opportunity to de-risk, or de-radicalize, Scottish nationalism. From then on, the SNP moved to the centre in pursuit of liberal Remainers; the Yes campaign began to splinter and dissipate (thanks in part to a controversy over trans rights); and the prospect of a second independence vote receded.

... she will leave behind a threadbare political legacy ... pledges to scrap Council Tax and abolish student loan debt were ditched. In their place came a botched green industrial strategy, record drugs deaths and, potentially ... tens of thousands of public sector job cuts. In 2015, Sturgeon ostentatiously invited the Scottish media to ‘judge’ her on her record of eliminating the class attainment gap in Scottish schools. Nearly a decade later, that gap remains as vast as ever. 

... In 2018, the SNP appeared to concede that the era of petro-nationalism was over was by removing North Sea revenues from its fiscal projections for an independent state. But in her speech to the SNP’s annual conference on 10 October, Sturgeon abruptly repositioned oil at the centre of her vision for Scottish self-government. Tax receipts from remaining North Sea fields would be paid into an investment fund, she said, which would help kickstart Scotland’s economy during the early years of independence. The announcement eradicated what was left of Sturgeon’s meagre environmental credibility and reflected a ‘business-as-usual’ vision for independence.      

ND

Gieves & Hawkes: a subaltern's memories

Today I read that Fraser Group (Sports Direct) has taken over Gieves & Hawkes, the "historic Savile Row tailor".  Whatever next?  (or should that be 'Next ..?')

Ah, the memories.  As a newly-minted Second Lieutenant I was told to present myself at G&H - or "Thieves and Sharks", as they were called, for my first dress uniform - and to "Herby J's" for my hat.  These were the regimental tailors.  Well, when you're new, you have to do what you're told.  

The officers' uniform allowance didn't go very far in Savile Row.  Mercifully, when I was properly ensconced with my unit, I was told of a jobbing tailor who could run up whatever was needed for around half the price - and better tailored, too.  (This all sounds like something out of Evelyn Waugh, n'est-ce pas?)   So it was to him that I went for my Mess Kit - which needed to be well made and of the best material, because it was subjected to some, ahem, stress and strain in the closing stages of the average mess dinner night.

I quickly learned to tie a proper bow-tie knot, too.  Anyone caught wearing a pre-tied knot (by the simple expedient of tugging upon it) had to stand a round of drinks.  And since the number of these challenges would rise as the evening wore on, you needed to be able to re-tie it drunk, and without the aid of a mirror.

See, if the Russian army was properly trained, they wouldn't be utterly up shit creek in the humiliating fashion they now find themselves.

ND

Nicola Sturgeon is Mightily Relieved ...

 ... despite what the Beeb says, for the sake of form:

But she's a player.  She knows full well that an IndyRef2 run tomorrow would be a nightmare for her.  

If she "wins", WTF does she do then?  I can't see the EU rolling out the red carpet for her: it'd be cap-in-hand, multi-year negotiations - and with London, too, in parallel, haha! - with adopting the EUR as a red line requirement on the part of Brussels.  And who knows what else besides, with one eye on the Catalans.  Not as if they don't have any other distractions just now.

If she "loses" she's a gonner in Scotland, and the issue really does take a mighty setback.

Nope, she's only too happy to be throwing indignant strops and stomping around righteously demanding consolation prizes.

ND

Musk: the limitations of raw intelligence

Until the ridiculous Thailand cave rescue incident I hadn't given much thought to Musk.  Mostly positive.  Serious achievements; obviously, brain the size of a planet; vision; and a remarkable ability, not only to think & do hard sums, but to be creative (if not original), and - above all - to implement & execute.

That, though, is a dangerous combination if not leavened with some worthwhile character.  Why introduce that negative perspective?  Well, because of the Thailand thing ... and then there's his extraordinary public statements on the subject of Tesla shares.  Writing as someone who's twice been an officer of a publicly listed US company, with all the blood-curdling warnings - plus accompanying training - one gets from corporate lawyers on the subject of Public Utterances in Matters Affecting the Share Price, I can tell you that one rapidly develops great sensitivity on the subject.  Well, mere mortals do, anyhow.  How Musk got away with it, who can say?  Too big to fall? - like US bankers (though not like Enron's Skilling and Lay).

So now he lays hands on Twitter, and what a dog's breakfast he's making of it.  Mass resignations of exactly the people a tech company relies on (leaving with what juicy insider info in their laptops and craniums?); really funny insults being projected onto his offices; obvious prospect of utter meltdown.  Note to CEO: you don't insist on people working ultra-long hours etc etc as a precondition of employment: serious hard work happens naturally enough when you (a) inspire them and (b) send them on a mission that captures their imagination.  (Flogging works as well - but not when they have serious employability credentials and an unimpeded passage to the door.) 

Musk has climbed several mountains in his remarkable career.  This one is entirely of his own making.  Let's see what happens with Twitter.

ND

SUNDAY UPDATE:  an apposite supporting article in today's Observer. 

Compo: wither sterling?

While we await our fiscal fate ... it seems that placating international markets is the major desideratum of Hunt's upcoming Statement.  Writing as a self-confessed know-nothing about macroeconomics, Sterling must surely be a proxy for international sentiment?  

So:  as of this moment in time (08.23) the pound buys:

• $ 1.1944
• € 1.1494

Compo:  where will it be at 09:00 tomorrow?  

In my ignorance I shall take a punt at slightly lower.   See - I don't even have a serious view on up / down / sideways.  Any better takes on the outlook than this feeble effort?  A small liquid prize for the winner, adjudicated by a complex algorithm that takes into account numerical accuracy, and time of day the prediction is posted (the earlier, the better).  BBC market data used.

ND

*  *  *  *  *  *

So the outturn was 1.1895 (0.4% down); 1.1488 (0.05% down). 

AND THE WINNER:  

... is Jeremy Hunt!  (only kidding).  

The winner is Andrew - correct in both direction, and that it would only be small in magnitude.  Not very prompt off the mark, though: so ...

... Hon mention for Shiney (who got in very fast, and in the correct direction, but a bit too far).  Anon was quite fast, and small in magnitude, but wrong direction.

Prizes:  I will stand both Andrew and Shiney a drink, if & when we have our next blog pub session.  It has to be said that we haven't had one since Covid struck, but here's hoping.  In the meantime, enjoy a free subscription to C@W.  

PS - anon is welcome too, but sadly we need to know what you go by before you get a prize ...

The adult bullying thing (again)

While we await Hunt's Thursday offering, it seems the whole "bullying of adults" thing is a live issue again, be it (allegedly) Raab, Patel, Williamson, Braverman etc etc.  We've discussed it here several times before, and for me there's still some mystery involved.

It's plain enough that workplace bullying by those with genuine career-breaking authority is (a) a real thing; (b) dreadful; and (c) quite difficult to deal with.  If, as seems to be the case (and indeed, seems quite likely) there are bullying politicians who make life intolerable for Civil Servants - particularly junior ones - then that is, in turn, intolerable.  (The obvious fix is only to expose juniors that are of a robust disposition, and never in 1-1 situations.  Needless to say, politicians are hardly unique in such matters.)

What I don't understand is how the average MP ever gets to be brow-beaten by a shit like Gavin Williamson - though it seems they do.  This extends to other whips who didn't like his conduct but seemingly didn't rein him in at the time.   Now if you are, not an average MP, but one who's deeply in debt and other kinds of trouble and who has already thrown themselves on the mercy of Williamson (when he was Chief Whip) - well, that I understand.  But the average MP of my acquaintance, male or female, is pretty self-confident & thick-skinned.  And Williamson is transparently, errr, what he is.

So how come, the very first time he tried this stuff on, he didn't get an immediate f***-off, accompanied by a metaphorical slap round the chops and an explanation of what might follow if he tried to take matters further (in this day and age of easy recording and publication), such that he was disinclined to try it again?

Ambition?  You swallow that stuff because you're a junior MP and he's tacitly threatening to kill your career in its infancy?  I see the argument, but I don't buy it.  If you are a really junior MP - say, first term - but you win a carefully-chosen battle with someone like that, there's nothing but long-term kudos coming your way.  Nobody was going to make you a cabinet minister next week anyway.  We're back in Sadiq-Khan-bullies-Cressida-Dick territory: how's it possible? 

Any thoughts on this distressing facet of human existence?

ND

COP27: Contradictions Foretold

The other day I was looking back at the C@W "predictions 2022" compo.  En passant, it seems that back in January, none of us could believe Putin would actually invade ...

Anyhow, I offered "it's not a prediction, it's a cert; 2022 will be a year when the contradictions in energy policy will truly make themselves felt" - and now, as then, I claim no credit because it was already obvious for all to see.  You could argue - certainly in the case of Germany - it had been obvious for years.

Anyhow, fast-forward to COP27, and much blathering about the wicked oil and gas producers limbering up to produce ... more gas!  And - shock, horror - 

The push is coming from the host Egypt and its gas-producing allies amid a global energy crisis compounded by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Well yes.   And of course benighted Germany is well to the fore in stimulating the producers' revived development activity.  As the Grauniad callously puts it: 

Panic over keeping people warm in winters to come, and keeping the lights on from gas-fired power generation, has led governments in Europe that previously relied on gas from Russia to push for new supplies from a range of other sources.

Well, errr, yes again!  'Panic', of course, is a loaded term in progressive circles, generally coupled as "moral panic", which is always a thing to be derided.  That really is a nasty little insinuation.

Yup, gas it is.  Nature's most all-round effective off-the-shelf fuel offering, certainly in the context of today's technology - while we patiently await practicable nuclear fusion, and/or serious electricity storage capability.  What wailing and gnashing of teeth there will be if Egypt engineers a COP27 resolution which labels gas as "sustainable" ...

ND

Voting at 16: unintended consequences?

It's been a bit of a thing on the left to militate for the voting age to be reduced to 16.  It was in Corbyn's ill-fated 2019 manifesto.  Without doubt, they assume the 16-18 cohort would be a big boost to their vote.

Really?  There's a thoughtful essay here by Aaron Bastani  - the epitome of a thoughtful leftie, though some of his many thoughts are daft - in which he notes that this is by no means a given. 

No, Younger People Aren’t Always More Progressive - just look at Brazil and Israel ... There is no reason reactionary politics can’t flourish this century given the multitude of challenges humanity faces.   

His thesis is indeed firmly centered on Brazil and Israel, which is convenient for someone whose readership probably prefers to think of UK youth as inherently progressive.  But he could have found evidence for what he's saying in many a European country, including hereabouts. 

In fact, surely what's most likely is that 16-18 votes will go to whatever demagogue comes up with a catchy viral theme, be that "Oh, Jeremy Corbyn!" or something confected on behalf of the likes of a media-savvy Trump etc etc.   And timing will be everything: it'll be whatever sweeps the www at just the right moment.  There's no telling what you'll get, and whether it would be Right or Left (by classical taxonomy) - but it could be ghastly.

As it happens, I can't see ultra-cautious Starmer including this in his next manifesto - though he'll most probably have coalition issues to think about, and you know the Greens and LibDems will want it.  They should be careful what they wish for.

ND 

Seneca is better than Truss' lame quote might suggest

What have the Romans ever done for us ..?

Predictably, Liz Truss made a spectacle of herself spluttering out an attempted quotation from Seneca (or was that Sennapod?) as she bad farewell to the cruel world of Downing Street with a neat encapsulation of her brainless approach to political decision-making.  Seneca did however write some really interesting stuff - more interesting than the low-grade self-help platitude that Truss seems to like: the T-shirt slogan material that counts as worldly wisdom amongst people like George Osborne who think that Nudge is a work of philosophy.

We turn, then, to Seneca's blood-soaked Medea - probably most famous for its prediction of the discovery of the New World: 

... in later years a time will come when Oceanus shall relax his bars and a vast territory shall appear, and Tiphys shall discover new worlds, and Thule shall be no longer the remotest spot on earth.

Seneca also had something critical to say about the opening up of the world for commerce and multi-culti exchange - an issue we often find being discussed around here, and indeed which exercises a lot of modern political thought: the benefits, or otherwise, of globalism, free trade (and dependency thereon), supra-national government and more-or-less compulsory cultural fusion.  The Loeb translation runs thus

Our forefathers saw bright eras with crime and deceit far distant.  Homely, touching no shores but their own, they grew to old age on their fathers' land, and, rich with little, beyond what their native soil had yielded they knew no wealth. The covenants of this well-separated world were dragged together by Thessaly's pinewood boat, which ... bade the sea, once alien, become part of our fears.

In other words:  our [very distant!] forefathers knew nothing beyond their own shores, but they were happy, and lived well enough on what they had.  All these happily separate nations, each with its own customs, were forcibly wrenched into a single 'unity' when the first merchant-adventurers started stirring things up: and the seas, which nobody ventured upon before, became a source of troubles.  (Apologies if I'm insulting you by offering a precis.)

Now of course ancient Roman imperialists (Seneca's target here) were very much in favour of globalism.  They had every intention of taking their ships everywhere, with no limits as to whom they were willing and indeed eager to embrace in their world-system: all you had to do was subordinate your culture - and of course pay your taxes.  In return, you got, well, whatever it was the Romans did for us.  And, as John Cleese's Reg ruefully acknowledges, that was, errr, quite a lot.

We have more recent versions of globalist imperialism to think about.  We Brits had a good crack at it, spouting the Roman precedent explicitly at every opportunity.  The French would have loved to (and the Spanish).  The Americans are still in that mode, though less confidently than in earlier decades.  The Chinese are itching to have a go.  Somewhat more regionally, Russia thinks everyone across a pretty broad expanse of the planet should offer fealty to Moscow.  And of course the EC is pretty keen on having everyone in (and indeed adjacent to) Europe subordinate their cultures and pay their taxes, with compulsory multi-culti all round.  Which a majority of us Brits are now quite resistant to.

I don't recall Nigel Farage ever quoting Seneca.  But the golden image of a "well-separated world" of yore, everyone happy with their lot, might sometimes be rather attractive - on both right and left of politics; and for Greens, too.

Still, that list of "what the Romans did" is quite impressive ...

ND

Heat Pumps Ahoy

Green Blob, personified

As we all probably know in the back of our minds, the Green Blob** plans to make us scrap our gas-based home heating rigs in favour of heat pumps, and that one day we shall perhaps need to think about the subject.  For the privileged few, this might be a ground-source HP, but for most (including new-builds, which rarely have enough land, if any, these days) it will be an air-source HP.

I'm starting to read my way into this, and am running into massive promotional propaganda on the one hand, and serious skepticism on the other.  Unsurprisingly, I find myself somewhat averse to the cheer-leading.

Does any reader have knowledgeable contributions to make?  (On HPs, that is: I know you all have definitive views on Ukraine, Covid etc.)

ND

____________  

** Somehow, whenever I hear "Green Blob" it's always a vision of Gummer that comes to mind.  I just can't take that man seriously - I know it's unfair ...