Xi humiliates Starmer

I return from a trip last week to find two obviously connected headlines that don't seem to have been juxtaposed in the MSM. 

UK's Starmer Confronts Xi on Human Rights at G-20 (here) 

Hong Kong jails 45 pro-democracy activists 'for trying to overthrow city's government' in latest China-imposed crackdown (here)

China is obsessed by symbolism in such matters, and the timing won't be remotely coincidental.  Has anyone dared to tell Starmer that this can only be a calculated, deliberately humiliating slap in the face?  

And why has this obvious aspect not - so far as I can find - been reported on here?  Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about that, but as I say, I haven't found it.

ND 

UK nuclear madness

Always remember what we said here a very long time ago: the whole point of France's nuclear policy is to get other nations to underwrite their astronomical nuclear liabilities.

This is precisely à propos of Mr W's prompting BTL here (he'll kindly correct any details that need correcting) ...

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The Hinkley Point C / Sizewell C story so far:

When EDF (together with Centrica & later still the Chinese) acquired the old British Energy in 2008, they were immediately set on building more of their EPR design of nukes in the UK: HPC was nominated to be the first.  Recall that until after the 2005 GE, Blair was set against a nuke revival which he'd believed to be electoral anathema: but various voices** persuaded him it was a Good Idea.   EnSec at the time was of course ... Ed Miliband.  EDF had the effrontery to announce an HPC start-up date of 2017, and that it wouldn't require a penny-piece of subsidy - the latter line being official government policy up to and including the awful Chris Huhne (remember him?)  

Next milestone event was Fukushima 2011 which, to be fair, was outright force majeure and caused significant mods to be made to the design of the structure in which the EPR reactor would be housed.  OK, so the costs went up as a consequence.  But that was the last externality that EDF can truly be excused of: covid might just also creep in to the reckoning, but not inflation, their other bleat.

During the regime of Ed Davey - to be fair, egged on by that git George Osborne - suddenly EDF was going to get subsidised.  We have written about the awful HPC CfD contract many times here.  It has only one saving grace, on paper at least: project cost overruns are solely for the account of EDF / the Chinese (who've now buggered off) / Centrica.  But given the outrageous one-way changes subsequently made to the CfD in EDF's favour, at EDF's demand, even this is of little comfort.  The project overruns are horrendous; and we know EDF will hold a gun to HMG's head for outright cash subventions at some point.  (Personally I suspect this has already happened, disguised as SZC payments, see below.)

To repeat: once the Fukushima design changes were made, everything subsequently is down to EDF's monstrous incompetence.  EDF hints that UK regulators have kept tinkering unreasonably with new design demands, but remember: the CfD states that unless a new regulation could have reasonably been foreseen by EDF, the latter is indemnified against extra costs arising.  So we can put 'costly regulatory tinkering' out of our minds.

Fast-forward to SZC

EDF, of course, realised even before the ink was on the CfD (which they only signed because they thought Brexit would scupper the project altogether) that they couldn't carry out SZC on the terms explicitly for SZC itself that are actually contained in the HPC contract (i.e. for SZC as a put-option for EDF).  So they carefully played a lobbying game resulting in Boris agreeing to finance SZC on a US-style 'rate base' footing (i.e. underwritten directly by taxpayers) - and then, got HMG to stump up hard cash: a billion here, a couple more there ...  now the cash commitment has hit £11 bn of taxpayer money, rather than the usual 'stick it all on the electricity bill'.  AND - amazingly - although EDF has yet to take FID on SZC, the new reactor is already under construction in France, paid for by us.  FFS !  Talk about "too big to fail" ...

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So now we loop back to the very first line of this post.  Also, we should stew in the details of how badly in trouble HPC is, and how cash-strapped and liability-riddled EDF is in general; how much HMG needs French cooperation on the Boats issue; and the perennial suspicion the whole civil nuclear programme is there to underpin the military nukes ... and you have a recipe for an ongoing haemorrhage of taxpayers' cash that starts to look seriously injurious.  And in the middle of this, Miliband thinks he can get electricity bills down!

An appalling tale - egregious even by the standards of HMG cockups and nuclear age skullduggery.  I have nothing against nukes in principle: but in practice they just never add up.  If we wanted an SZC, let it be remembered that by far our best-performing nuke has been SZB.  We should have 'simply' (hah!) built an updated SZB. 

ND  

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** including one G.Brown, brother of whom worked for, errrr, EDF

General - if you follow the tags, you'll find loads more C@W posts on these topics.

The eternal attraction of cushy deals + the easy life

"Nicolas de Warren, president of the French Union of industrial companies with high consumers of electricity, calls on the government to appoint a mediator between the Union - which wants a deal for for cheap electricity - and stated-owned EDF.  "EDF appears to be in a form of denial of the current situation and the very serious loss of competitiveness suffered by French industry [...]. If we do not reach a conclusion quickly, [there are] risks of plant closures and the relocation of production," he warns. According to him, the main point of divergence between EDF and industrial companies is the methodology for defining the cost of nuclear production."

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I've recounted the following story before.  My commercial career was spent in companies that expected to make their own ways in the world, & never looked for subsidies[1].  One day I found myself dealing with ICI (deceased), that blue-chip paragon of British Industry, where I discovered their attitude was "why do a hard day's work when you can lobby government instead?"  Soon, I encountered more firms like that and, aside from initial revulsion, I realised there was an entire slice of the 'commercial' world with a 'business philosophy' I didn't know existed, and needed to understand.    

This entitled sense of "always look for the easy life, we deserve it" soon hit me again in a slightly different variation.  In the firm I was working for we had cannily acquired a long-ish term contract for purchasing gas at a deeply discounted price, from a seller for whom the gas was more-or-less an unwanted by-product.   It wasn't an outright distress sale - they were a perfectly viable going concern - but if they'd wanted to get top dollar for it, they'd have needed to set up, in a hurry, an entire new, specialised commercial department, which doesn't even sound easy and in practice would have been extremely difficult.  Getting shot of the whole lot in one go, for a price they found acceptable, was just fine by them.  The deep discount was the price they were willing to pay (- or rather, to receive).  To give a rough indication: if market price at the time was 100, we settled for 85.  A bloody good deal for us, and they were a willing seller.

Somehow, word of this deal got out (it always does).  So then I get a delegation of senior managers from big industrial companies based in the area where we'd be taking delivery of the gas (some for our own use, some for onward sale).  Their pitch was as follows (and I'm not making this up):

"Now look[2].  We all know you've bought a big slug of gas at a price of 40.  You've got to share this windfall with us.  We'll offer you 50.  You've a moral obligation to sell it to us."

Where they came up with '40' is anyone's guess.  I politely replied that their numbers were way off-beam: that we'd be delighted to sell them gas; and that they'd pay something based around market price[3], like anyone else.

"But whether it's 40 or 45, it costs you much less!  You must sell it to us at cost-plus.  What's 'market price' got to do with it?"  

Tempting as it was to give them a little lecture about how house prices have nothing to do with the cost of bricks, I decided it was best to draw the meeting to a close with as little emotion as possible.

Nothing changes.  I suppose you can argue that EDF, as a state-owned monopoly, is in a slightly different position.  But the attitude remains the same:  what's mine is mine, & what's yours is up for negotiation.  Now hand it over. 

ND

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[1] Sometimes they had subsidies almost thrust upon them, but that's a bit different. 

[2] They didn't quite add "you devious London ba-astards", but that was the tone.

[3] After several months when they'd calmed down, we did indeed do a deal for them.  It was at market price, minus half the transportation charges they'd been paying to get gas delivered through the grid.  Given that we could deliver direct, locally, this was the logical win-win arbitrage.  A perfectly good deal for them, as they ultimately recognised.  We got there in the end!  - shame we had to go a fraught round of SillyBuggers first.

Revenge of the Spads (3): COP Comms Catastrophe

Scene: a breakout room in a Whitehall conference centre.  Sparquin the Junior Spad is sitting alone, idly thumbing his 'phone.  Enter Ru-Ru, a Superspad, looking bronzed but distracted.

JS:  Rupes!  You're back!  God, we've needed you.  What was it like over there, working for the Dems?

S-S:  A total shitshow.  Started in DC, hot as hell, but then they shipped most of us to Penn.  Fucking incredible, all they cared about was their sodding celebrity endorsements.  Turns out, Swifties aren't old enough to vote - who knew?  Everybody, that's who.

JS: But you're looking fit, man - where've you been?

S-S:  Chap I was at school with owns a small island off Trinny.  All beach cricket and surfing.  I needed some R&R, I can tell you.

JS:  Maybe, but mate, we needed you here these last few weeks.  Total comms fuckup on all fronts.  First, PM goes to the Commonwealth thing at Samoa, gets ambushed on reparations!  Never saw that coming, totally unprepared, had to busk it: only headlines were bad ones.  Disaster.  24-hour flight each way, comes back knackered and furious.  All the hacks at the back of the plane - they used to keep a straight face & simper for the group photo, but now they snigger!  

Then.  THEN there's COP.  Off to Baku, absolute hell-hole, nobody else there that the PM knows but with big shiny Lines-To-Take for him & Mili on new UK emissions commitment bollocks.  Plus a new line on being Leader of the World - I thought of that one, seeing that no other first-tier c**t bothered to show up - which cheers him up a bit.  Mili of course is completely in his element & off with the fairies - far as I know, he's still out there arguing the toss with the petro-states, well he's on his own with that one.

ANYHOW.  Then fucking Welby explodes!  Catastrophe - can't buy a headline anywhere for love nor money.  Does any man, woman or child in the entire country know we increased our bloody emissions offer last week?  They do not.  

S-S:  Tough gig: I was better off on that beach than I realised.  Can't have helped, either, that the Gray woman finally sloped off, briefings from all directions - much juicier story than CO2.  Someone put shit on her shoes on the way to the door alright - was that you?   

JS:  Ah, now you're talking!  Yes, I got to do that one, and very satisfying it was, too.  We targeted end-November, didn't we?  Spot on the money!  Fucking excellent.

S-S:  I'll give you that one.  Sounds like you're just the man to spin the economy for Reeves - you'll enjoy that.  Now: diaries out: when's that Xmas Party ..?

As overheard by ND

Russia - extreme measures to prop up the birth rate

As we well know, declining birth rates across substantial parts of the globe, coupled in many countries with ever-increasing longevity (of a sickly fashion), is a massive strategic issue - economic, social, political, demographic, you name it.  Russia has it as bad as any, and they are now losing their youthful menfolk to war at a striking rate.  As elsewhere, they are increasingly reliant on immigrant labour, but as elsewhere this causes serious tensions.  Wage inflation is rampant as the war economy grows. 

But Putin is, after his fashion, a strategist - and plans are afoot to rectify the situation long-term.  Some of what follows is in the "do we really believe this?" category, but I assure you it all comes from informed Russian sources.  Measures under active consideration include:

• a "childlessness tax"
• reducing the age of consent (the earlier kids get at it, the more offspring they'll have - that's the theory)
• banning abortion
• banning divorce
• contraceptive purchase made significantly more difficult
• revival of all manner of patriotic "have lots of children!" campaigns from former years
• Orthodox priests to tell their flock childlessness is a sin
• tax breaks for large families
• some of Putin's childless mistresses to "mend their ways" rather publicly
• banning alcohol 

Banning alcohol?  In Russia??  Yes, you heard that right.  When I first read this, I assumed it was some Russian satirist at work: just one piss-take too far - but no.  Apparently there will be some experimental "dry regions" established in the near future.

Never, ever, consider getting into a drinking contest with Russians - they have what is termed "special training".  If you've never been there, it can be like Saturday night in the Gorbals, seven days a week.  For Russians, hitting the age of 60 is a really big deal, so many of them keel over of alcohol-related causes before then.  In any office, at all levels of seniority you'll find puffy, red-faced people bimbling around doing not very much: that's the latitude given to dipsos.  As for the streets ... Russian cops carry big black-and-white striped sticks, notionally for traffic control, with which they tenderly shepherd the drunks into side alleys.  

Good luck with that aspect of policy, eh?

ND 

Germany: looking grim - energy policy doomed

We've often said hereabouts that Germany is never to be underestimated for the things it does strongly.  That, of course, includes vigorously digging deep holes for itself: Es irrt der Mensch so lang er strebt  - and there's no striver like a German who's got religion.  Prior to Ukraine Germany was already embroiled in a nonsensical 'energy transition' policy - Energiewende - that we've written about here several times.  Formerly I took a simple & cynical view on this: they can probably afford it; and it's better to watch them do the experimentation on moonbeams from cucumbers etc, than do it ourselves.

Since Putin kicked off in 2022, they've bizarrely doubled down on what was at the time an embryonic policy, namely to become a hydrogen economy.  The (natural) gas sector in Germany had been privately working on this for a while, using its own funds (always a good sign) , wishing to have a lifeboat for its vast sunk-cost infrastructure against the scenario of natgas falling as far out of favour as have nukes, lignite and hard coal in their turn.  Quite fairly, the entire German state doesn't favour UK-style deindustrialisation as an alternative approach to 'green'.  In some kind of arm-waving fantasy, hydrogen seemed to be the answer - first 'blue' H2, swiftly to be followed by 'green' H2, and getting started with imports (another fantasy; but a lot of countries from Australia to Saudi keep saying they'll be big exporters any year now).

Being Germans with a Policy, they've now zoomed past the sensible 'private experiment' stage and have erected a complex system of targets and subsidy structures for hydrogen projects, both upstream and downstream.  (I have tried to get to grips with it in all its byzantine complexity, but it's not easy - and indeed may not represent anything you can understand rationally at all.)  Every German firm that might conceivably participate in the putative H-economy is dabbling in this, all hoping someone else will jump first.  Along the whole length of the putative H2 supply chain, every single major scheme that was more-or-less on the starting blocks at the start of this year has either foundered already or suffered major setbacks.  

A key player in the German economy - until a couple of days ago - was Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner.  I have a very good friend who knows the man, and tells me Lindner was a lone voice of sanity in a cabinet of lunatics.  Lindner's overarching view is that his fellow countryman have too much in the Manic Enthusiasm department, and little instinct on the matter of value for money.  These two things he saw coalescing to baleful effect in the hydrogen policy.

What now?  Ploughing on regardless would be very German, but maybe even they are beginning to see it for the nonsense it is.  Perhaps everyone hangs on until after COP29, and then the ructions really begin.  However much we might mock, we'll all feel the impact if the bicycle topples over. 

Es irrt der Mensch so lang er strebt.  Yes, Goethe had it right: and as he also suggested, they just can't stop striving ...

ND

The (apparent) perennial draw of US politics

Well, not for me anyway.  Obviously the outcome is extremely important: and one could see why de Tocqueville found it a matter for serious study ... in the 19th Century, when it was all rather novel.   And the US-historical novels of Gore Vidal are great stuff.  But the minutiae?  Today?

And yet many folks (OK, many folks within the chattering classes) are absolutely obsessed, and we are about to be bombarded with it.  Why?

Open thread:  what's up with that?  And US situation generally.

ND

Budget: what a damp squib GB Energy is

Fireworks night coming, and £125 million is all the Budget can muster for GB Energy in '25-26.  What a pathetic little squib.  £100m for a handful of lame investments and £25m for setting up an office in Aberdeen.  

I'm warming to the Tory energy woman Claire Coutinho (MP), who is showing signs of becoming a good Opposition tactician.  A year ago she was the newly minted energy secretary at DESNZ, which represented meteoric promotion for a very new MP.  But she had no time to make a mark, really, because by then it was a lame duck administration.  Since the election, she's laid down two clever markers that I've noticed:  the first was coming out against Drax - which is Good Politics.  (She never liked it, unlike the moronic Shapps, her predecessor at DESNZ).  Drax is going down, and will take Miliband's 2030 decarb target with it, hoho.  And aside from those who benefit from the employment it provides - fair enough - nobody likes it.

Next, she put down a clever amendment to the GB Energy Bill, seeking to commit GBE to fulfilling the Lab manifesto promise of lowering everyone's electricity bills - £300 p.a. reductions for residential customers was the final manifesto offer (having been a pre-manifesto promise of a completely, transparently ludicrous £1,400 p.a. reduction before the immediate run-up to the GE).  Even that £300 ain't gonna happen.  So not only has Miliband carefully stopped talking about it, he whipped Labour MPs to vote against CC's motion.  Trivial stuff, but adding another twig to the birch with which to flog Labour.

Open thread - your views on the Budget

ND

Russian LNG exports scuppered. Eyes on China?

Russia has just suspended LNG exports from its Arctic LNG 2 gas terminal - indeed, it's suspended liquefaction.  Not a helpful state of affairs for Putin, when Russia obviously depends a great deal on sales of commodities (and, errr, of surface-to-air missiles - remind us, Ayatollah, how they are working out?**).  

This is being reported as a result of sanctions, as follows:  although it's possible to transload LNG at sea (from Russian vessels to non-sanctioned LNG carriers of other nations, e.g. UAE), LNG is many times more difficult to play games with than oil - which, frankly, you can transport in an old Coke bottle.  Their sanctions-busting games on LNG have run their course, and they are giving up.

Maybe.  But there's a counter-argument you'll hear.  It's actually a lot easier to offload at a regasification port, and then have the cargo re-loaded onto another vessel.  All that needs to happen, the argument runs, is for China (say) to offer this service for its usual modest fee.  This being the case, the shut-in must be for technical reasons, most likely to do with the shortage of LNG vessels capable of taking on icy waters.

I'd throw another complication in for good measure.  Russia is known to depend utterly on western technology for all manner of industrial purposes, some of which can't simply be rustled up by the Chinese (or Indians).  Oil- & gas-field tech is one such area.  For a relatively modern facility (i.e. not of solid old Soviet design) like and LNG liquefaction plant, I'd be wondering if they've run out of spares for something potentially quite basic.  

We see this phenomenon at work further downstream: see this recent post for a note on how Russia's oil infrastructure is suffering for want of a basic piece of kit like the non-return valve.

So even if the LNG shipping aspect isn't an insuperable problem, sanctions might still be biting in other ways.  How can they not - eventually?  That said: how long can Ukraine wait?  

ND

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** and, err, how they feel about having correspondingly less SAM cover in Crimea?

Haunting new entry to the canon: Shostakovich Piano 2

For the first time, Shostakovich has entered the Classic FM 'Hall of Fame' top ten with the Piano Concerto no.2, in at number 9 in their chart.  I'm not surprised: the slow movement is truly exceptional.  It's all you'll ever hear played on a populist outlet like Classic FM because the other two movements are (IMHO) eminently forgettable.

When it comes to piano slow movements, starting with Mozart 21 composers have traditionally pulled out all the stops (if that expression isn't inapposite).  The collected body of such pieces makes for the most sublime (and accessible, what's wrong with that?) music on the planet.  Taking piano concertos as a whole - i.e. all three (or, rarely, four) movements - for my money the eternally popular Grieg and Rachmaninov 2 are superior; maybe even the Schumann (which doesn't seem to appeal so much to 'serious' musical types 'because the piano part is so simple').  Obviously, Beethoven 5 has many supporters, along with the Mozart and Tchaik 1.  Old Pa Drew went to his grave (literally) to Brahms 2: in WW2 he'd spent one of his two precious evenings of home leave during a short break  at a concert featuring the same, and his parents didn't even mind, they knew how strong was the draw.  This list goes on, and should really include Rhapsody in Blue, even if not technically a concerto.

As it happens, Shostakovich 2 was the last entrant into my personal full music canon (though I'm still open to more).  I'm not sure how it got overlooked chez Drew for 50 years - perhaps because Pa Drew didn't know it at all until I stumbled across it.  These things have their turn.

The youtube above is of Shostakovich playing it himself.  Slow movement starts at around 6:30 in.  Always good to hear the composer playing his own work** and it's a bit of a revelation: he's pretty brisk and businesslike, almost unsentimental.  Most interpretations wring more pathos out of it - which ain't difficult, and to my mind makes it the more haunting.  It's definitely in my top 5 for haunting. 

Everyone has views on music - so, have at it!

ND  

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** One of my most treasured possessions, inherited of course from Pa Drew, is a 78 of Gershwin playing Rhapsody in Blue: the brain quickly filters out the crackles as the soul becomes entranced 

China, Korea, Russia, Ukraine: strategic mistakes all round

Start with Ukraine.  Zelenski's 'Victory Pan' of earlier this month is so off-beam, it simply serves to illustrate the impossibility of 'victory' by the standard of his stated war aims.  I won't waste space pointing out why.  Desperation stuff, ahead of the US election.

I fact, it's so off-beam, and he has often proved to be quite a subtle guy, I could even imagine that his real audience is internal - some truly unrealistic hard-liners.  Look guys, this is what it would take, right?  Now look carefully - do you seriously imagine any of this is going to happen??

Either that, or he's losing it (Heaven knows, he's been under monstrous pressure for a very long time) & it's a big mis-step.  Even the seasoned chess players in the Kremlin must initially have laughed out loud (- until they start thinking like I did above).

But then ...

... the North Korean thing**.  Could you imagine anything more calculated to swing the dial back the other way? - in several places around the world where it really matters.  And not just in political terms: Russia seriously doesn't want S.Korea becoming a material backer of Ukraine.  Or Japan.  More desperation stuff.

Why did China allow this to happen?  Is Xi really happy to have N.Korea as an outright proxy in such a tangible & risky way?  Or does he even have control on what Kim Wrong'Un does any more?  Have keen will China be to see Putin transfer missile technology to its rogue neighbour?  Even Lukashenko  is publicly breaking ranks on this one.

And how does this go down in Tehran?  The dimensions and angles are endless.

Trump will be in his element if he wins next month.  He just loves swirling, ambiguous situations, where his scope for crazy, unpredictable interventions is maximised.

ND

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** Every soldier there's ever been knows the feeling of being in a long line to get issued with ill-fitting kit in various shades of green.  It'll be "present you bare left arm for the needle" next.  Happy memories!

Farcical election for Oxford Chancellor

Does it matter?  Possibly not.  But the election for the next Chancellor at Oxford is seriously bringing the game into disrepute.

Back in the mists of time, when Harold Macmillan popped his socks, yours truly - who had passed through but not bothered to take his degrees - rushed to take both[1] at the first opportunity, in order to be eligible to vote to prevent the awful prospect of Harold Wilson becoming Chancellor.  Roy Jenkins got the gig.

Now that Fatty Peng[2] has run his course, we are faced with a candidate list of 38!  And what a list - including a bunch of chancers and self-publicists the likes of which have rarely been assembled at the same time and place.  But where is the much-heralded candidature of Imran Kahn, I hear you say?  Ans:  the full list of applicants was more than 60 - there has been a committee exercise in order to filter the race down to manageable proportions!  FFS, who else applied?  Prince Andrew?  Gary Glitter?  A late entry from Mohamed Al-Fayed? 

But yes, there's Peter Mandelson, politicking away as ever, his well-oiled self-publicity machine going through the gears.  He had (I am reliably told) been expecting to become Ambassador to Washington as a thank-you for all his help to Starmer.  Hélas! - it is not to be.  So he wants Oxford as a consolation prize.

I leave you all to scan the list of candidates' statements, with this challenge: select your favourite short piece(s) of arrant BS from this ghastly collection, and let us have them BTL.  By heaven, we're spoiled for choice.

ND

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[1] Literally, back-to-back.  Out one door; change of gown; straight in again for the next one.  If anyone's interested in such stories.

[2] He did the job OK.  But he could never be stopped from promoting his wretched books whenever he made a set-piece speech.  I mean - on trestle tables, piled high, and an underling armed with a credit-card reader.  Really tacky!

Drax: long-overdue turning-point

The Drax farce has dragged on for a very long time (several threads here), but there are signs that it might be reaching a crisis point.  Not before time.

Last week, the FT put out a rather tame story that internal Drax emails exist proving Drax knew it was at fault in essentially the ways alleged (some would say 'proved') by the Beeb's Panorama back in 2022.  You can bet that's only the tip of the scandalous iceberg, that has only remained hidden, more or less, because successive governments have become hooked on the (purely notional) boost Drax gives to the "renewables" and "net zero" numbers.  Their addiction is an expensive one, measured in billions of subsidies.  It causes them to parrot the Drax lies in official pronouncements.

Following Panorama, Ofgem was set on to check where Drax was getting its fuel.  They did a crap job, ending with a derisory £25m fine for Drax not having proper records.  The NAO have also found that HMG itself can do no better in justifying the Drax claims of sustainability (on which their entitlement to all those billions rests).  Until now, this seemed to be water off the two ducks' backs.

The FT was Wednesday.  On Friday the Times joined the bandwagon, hosting a belated confession by Claire Coutinho (the last Tory energy secretary) that time should have been called on the whole farce ages ago.  Is a bandwagon about to hit the road?  I know for a fact there are several very strategic short positions in Drax: and you don't have to go very far in energy sector gatherings to meet lobbyists who've clearly been hired to badmouth the company (alongside all those with the exact opposite brief!)  OK, some of the 'anti' is from US environmental NGOs, appalled at the impact Drax's ravenous appetite for their forests is having; but some of it is from altogether more hard-nosed quarters.  Incidentally, we don't do investment advice here.

The timing of all this is critical because Drax has two big asks on Li'l Miliband's desk right now.  (1) It wants approval (and a heap of public money) for the ridiculous 'BECCS' scheme; and because it isn't ready to go ahead with this for a while yet, it wants (2) a heap more public money to keep it in luxury until BECCS money comes rolling in.  I won't bore you with how this all works in their warped minds, and how utterly ludicrous it all is on every rational score: suffice to say there are civil servants who support it, and also politicians.  

Miliband?  Actually, I detect no enthusiasm on his part - most people with half a brain-cell see through the Drax nonsense - but he has his own "notional net zero" agenda (see those earlier Drax threads), and Labour as a whole has its "growth / investment at any cost" agenda, too.

So let's see.  More popcorn, please, for this particular sideshow.  If we now see a serious anti-Drax bandwagon forming, it'll make his decision(s) quite awks.  As the young people say.

ND

Hinkley project: completely out of control

I think we all know the basic history of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power project here: initially talked of by EDF as being absolutely necessary for the UK power system by no later than 2017, they are now so far behind schedule they've even sought (and been granted, by the Tories) a waiver on the back-stop start-up date of 2035.  Taking the piss, or what?

They always plead changes in regulations** / covid / inflation / phase of the moon or whatever, but it's hard to obscure the facts of their basic incompetence, as manifest in, well, every one of their wretched EPR projects.  I could elaborate.  Now, it seems, they're passing round the hat for another £4bn.  Under the terms of the CfD, they pick up the tab for project over-runs - the only good thing about that contract.  Personally, I suspect the extra £5bn just granted them "for Sizewell C" - even before it reaches FID, FFS! - is also really a cash-bung to keep going with Hinkley.  Sizewell, you see, isn't going to be developed on the CfD model, it'll be 'rate-based' (to use the American term), i.e. nothing effectively reining back the costs: Taxpayer Will Pay.

I know nukes have their advocates, but surely that's only theoretical, wishing for hypothetical nukes that don't exist?  Or, someone will tell me we could have a S.Korean one that actually works.  Or indeed three, for the same price.

You just know it's also bound up with French 'cooperation' over the boat people.  Ah, diplomacy.  Thank Heaven the FCO is so good at what it does, eh?

ND

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**The CfD for Hinkley electricity indemnifies EDF against "unforeseeable" changes in regulation. 

The Old Gray Mare: weekend round-song

All together now: 

Oh, the old Gray mare, she ain't what she used to be,

Ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be,

The old Gray mare, she ain't what she used to be,

Many long years ago.

Many long years ago, many long years ago,

The old Gray mare, she ain't what she used to be,

Many long years ago.

Oh, the old mare's making Kier's life a misery,

Kier's life a misery, Kier's life a misery

The old mare's making Kier's life a misery,

Many long years to go ...

Continues for many happy weeks.

ND

What's that, officer?  Yes I can!  It's satire - it's art - it's vulgar abuse!  Where are you taking me..?

CCS: George Monbiot is (broadly) right, for once

Well, right in the essentials (here) if not on some details, and of course his overall red-green framing.

Our George is a funny fellow, often the butt of humour even on his 'own side'.  Never met the bloke but I take him to be an honest person; thinking, writing & acting in good faith by his own lights.  Open to changing his mind in the face of such facts as come to his notice (notwithstanding some major blindspots).  Not to be sneezed at in a world full of grifters, charlatans and idle bastards. 

The CCS thing is pretty remarkable - the sheer scale of government commitment.  As he points out, the £22bn is just Treasury cash for 'investment': there'll be more costs on top.  He highlights the extra for anything related specifically to hydrogen: I'd add the costly CfDs related to ongoing 'commercial' CCS ops as currently structured, that will find their way onto our electricity bills - all of this is additional.

We've yet to see the full horror of the hydrogen plans and the budget & bills for that; and of course there is a big decision pending on Drax.  All in all, worst case is a 4Q 2024 which marks the transition from the (relatively) Low-Hanging Fruit[1] phase of 'decarbonisation / NZ', to the Seriously Expensive phase.  Starting to make the Hinkley Point C nuke look almost moderate by contrast.  Green opposition to this heavily 'industrialist' policy will be growing and growing.  Subsidy-farming industrialists love it to the same extent.[2]

I hope HMG is leaving itself several off-ramps in all this scheming.  Wishful thinking, I know: teams of expensive lawyers on the industry side will be making sure they can't wriggle off any of the contractual hooks that'll be involved.  

ND 

_____________

[1] I seem to recall a bloke at university called Low-hanging Fruit.  I won't explain

[2] I've always worked in honest-to-God make-your-own-way non-subsidised companies: had no idea about subsidy-farming etc.  Then I had some business with the revered ICI, doyen of blue-chip British industry, whose attitude was "why do an honest day's work, when you can lobby government instead?".  Made me feel ill   

McSweeney the Knife is back in town!

We haven't had any doggerel for a bit** ...  

[with apologies to Louis Armstrong]

Oh the spads, babe, have such teeth, dear 

and they leak stuff to Fleet Street hacks 

Just a jack-knife has McSweeney 

and he sticks it in people’s backs 

Susie Grey now, makes big money 

Chief of Staff at Number Ten 

Money don’t impress McSweeney 

He just wants his desk again 

Angry spads say big bad Susie 

Is depriving them of cash 

Then the Beeb finds Susie’s pay-slip! 

Has our boy done something rash? 

On the air-waves, in Sunday papers 

Leaks a-plenty, causing strife 

Someone's briefing, to all and sundry 

Could that someone be Mack the Knife? 

Old Kier Starmer, he hates the aggro, (doncha know? doncha know?) 

He just wants a quiet life 

Gives the signal for the hit-job 

Call goes out for Mack the Knife ...

At Westminster, in cocktail lounges 

Spads are drinking fit to drown 

And the toast is  -   Bye-bye Susie! 

Now McSweeney is back in town!

ND

________________

**Excepting a good BTL effort from dearieme the other day

Revenge of the SPADS (2) - the morning after Sue Gray!

We told you so!

*  *  *  *  *

Scene:  a poncey coffee bar in a hotel off Northumberland Avenue.  Slumped in a chair, semi-comatose and with a silly grin on his face, is a disheveled SPAD.  An older SPAD enters, orders an evidently much-needed coffee, turns, and spots her colleague.

SSS:  Hey - how late did you stay?

JS (groaning):  3.  But it was worth it!  Sweet, or what?

SSS:  Oh, to be young again!  It was a good evening though.

JS:  It's a pity we had to move on from the Downing Street Spaddery - there was easily enough booze in there to last the night.  But then the Victoria Sponge came home unexpectedly and was mooching around a bit, wondering where the noise was coming from.  Awks! 

SSS:  Gotta hand it to you, Sparquin, you did say you were going to see off the Grey Lady.  Kudos!  But this was way ahead of schedule.

JS:  Well, the skids were under her, well and truly, the meejah were lapping it up.  And The Mac himself was joining in towards the end, he was royally pissed off with the way she was queening it in Washington.  Incidentally, so was Lammers.  Her last friend at court.  And he wouldn't let her have an Embassy when they were wondering what to do with her.  So: off she goes to her super new "nations and regions" job, eh?  Look out Andy Burnham!  And lucky Angela, haha, they''ll really enjoy working together closely - two big birds with one stone!  Sorry, no offence Molly.  By the way, who did you get to write that press release?  Genius - barely a trace of sarcasm.  Who was capable of that on a Friday night?

SSS:  RuRu wrote it, and we got Sophers to brief it - she can do that stuff with a straight face.  So you liked "I look forward to continuing to support the prime minister in my new role", then?

JS:  Tops!  Everyone knows what anemic crap like that means.  We were still taking turns reading it out loud at 2am.   Hahahaha-aargh!  Jeez, I'm ill.

SSS:  Well, sort yourself out and put on a straight face of your own.  Grey will be on the warpath, looking for leakers - you know she will.  She's still around, she still has her sources - and her methods!  And her revenge is like the Lord's - seventy times seven.  So watch out!

JS:  OK Mols, point taken - but give a bloke his moment of triumph.

                                                            *  *  *  *  *

As overheard by ND

"Basically free energy" - weekend fun

To round off our erudite session on flywheels: BTL on the previous post, one of our anons offered us this little Irish video for our edification.

It contains that oft-heard and seductive phrase "basically free energy", upon which we are told Ireland will build Europe's biggest hydrogen economy.  (Hang on a minute, hasn't German already discovered basically free energy?)

Well, the voice-over has a pleasant manner.  And we do get to learn about a grid-scale flywheel in action, if nothing else.  A moderately entertaining quarter-hour of your time.

ND

Flywheels for the Grid? Calling all engineers ...

The challenges posed to any electricity grid by ever more intermittent sources of power in the fleet are well known.  The UK grid (and others) is not bereft of means to deal with this - at a cost, and specifically a cost from which the said intermittent sources are shielded.  Indeed, advocates of renewable energy have largely been allowed to get away with putting their fingers in their ears and chanting LahLahLah on the subject for years.

There are two basic challenges, and grid has consistently expanded its toolkit to meet them, with plenty more ideas yet to be implemented.  The 'immediate' issue is the occasional instantaneous fluctuation that threatens to upset the frequency of grid output: the longer-duration issue is the near-complete non-availability of wind and solar power on other occasions, including just those times when they are most needed.  The ever-reducing amount of fossil-fuelled power available to the grid impairs its ability to respond to both challenges - but it still gets by[1].  The difficulties shouldn't be overstated, even as the costs shouldn't be understated.

Anyhow, it seems there's a new game in town.  One of the many ideas that have been floated over the years is the use of the good old-fashioned flywheel, and it seems the grid is going to give it a go.  (It only addresses the 'immediate' issue, by the way: of technologies currently available, only gas-fired power can systematically address the dunkelflaute, now that we have no more coal-fired plant.)

My question is: do we have any physicists or power engineers out there who can comment?  Some of these bright ideas turn out to be fads / daft / complete duds / ludicrously costly / several of the above[2], and personally I don't have a view[3]. 

Over to t'readership.

ND

___________

[1] To an extent once considered theoretically infeasible.  Ah, the perils of academic a priori reasoning ...

[2] Using hydrogen for the longer-duration issue comes to mind

[3]  I will, however, suggest that the putative savings the grid claims it will make using these flywheels - "£14.9bn between 2025 and 2035" - fail the basic do-we-believe-this? test by a long way.  FFS!

Port Talbot; Ratcliffe; Grangemouth - the plan unfolds

Q:  Does Labour - the party of, errr, labour - have an industrial policy?  Or an employment policy?

A:  Yes!  It's the "Just Transition" from bad old dirty, analogue fossil-fuel jobs to "good" clean new digital green jobs.  650,000 of them! 

Well, there go the dirty jobs alright: who needed steel, electricity or petrol anyhow?  So the retraining schemes will be getting into gear.  Remind us, how many people does one of those big new data centres employ?

Still, I suppose someone will be needed for building all those new houses we are told about. 

ND

"Best prepared new govt ever" - what? UPDATED

So the story goes, that the Liz Truss meltdown at the back end of 2022 convinced the world and his dog that Labour was nailed on to be the next government.  At this point, the money and consultancy-resources started pouring in, the media suspended their critical faculties, foreign governments started paying attention to David Lammy, Sue Grey was hired to ensure the would-be ministers were knocked into shape, etc etc[1].  

In short, this was to be the best prepared, most seriously focussed incoming government in living memory.  No more Johnsons, no more Trusses - the grown-ups are in town, taking names and kicking butt!

Well.  In announcement after announcement it transpires they've been winging it all along, and continue to do so.  Just a tiny sample of nonsenses.  Energy: we're obviously covering this one in detail as it unravels, but suffice to note here that in the past few days there's been loose talk from the new energy policy establishment suggesting that when he walked into his new office Miliband had no serious plan whatever to achieve his fatuous 100%-decarb-by-2030 goal, not even a figleaf or some blotchy notes on a napkin: he's now commissioned work to establish whether it's feasible at all[2].

Housing:  any fool could have told Rayner that the Grenfell Inquiry would inevitably result in urgent works to remove and replace cladding up and down the land, absorbing a material chunk of the building industry's available pool of labour.  OK, Yvette Cooper will be told to issue a million more work visas, but it still means Labour's housing targets are as empty as their energy plans.

Tax:  we read today that plans to tighten up on non-doms might raise either nothing at all, or maybe even less than nothing, because walking away is such an easy option for the people in question  -gangway for Mrs Sunak there!  (Is this the most pronounced Laffer Curve known to man?)  But, oh dear, Reeves needed £1bn from non-doms for, err, something worthy!    

You can no doubt chip in with your favourite examples of industrial-scale non-preparedness in terms of detailed policy.  And as for the ethos of casual money-grubbing self-enrichment ...

And then there's Sue Grey herself.  Exactly where is her genius for political management and administrative competence?  Can anyone point to a single manifestation?  The best anyone seems to have on offer - and these are Starmer-directed Cabinet stooges talking off the record in vain attempts to stem the tide of sewage coursing down Whitehall - is that she's really quite a good listener, and if they butter her up nicely they might get some airtime with Starmer just once in a while.

Someone will always say:  Thatcher looked pretty stupid in her early months.  I disagree.  She certainly suffered from Cabinet dissent - not something that Starmer seems likely to replicate - because she'd picked such a 'balanced' team, including some of the most independent-minded, initiative-replete heavyweights that UK politics has produced.  Well, dissent can certainly be a drag.  But she was a master of detail, knew her mind, and had the drive to bring everything with her.  (She also had some genuine capital-P Political strategists on the team: Morgan McSweeney is just a superior student politician of the Jack Straw / George Osborne variety.)  

Very late in the day, Starmer was fed the line that awkward decisions can be dodged if you simply Go For Growth, and that's about all he's got.  A slogan.  Oh, and it's his self-proclaimed responsibility to stop the embarrassing leaks.  Too late, mate, the media have un-suspended their critical faculties and scent blood - lots of it.

Where does improvement in this government's performance come from?  It's not obvious, is it?  

ND

UPDATE:  a BTL Anon has just reminded me of something.  Before the election someone, probably Guido, wrote that Labour high command had been tipped off that a Serious Personal Scandal (within their camp) was circulating in the meejah, and would probably be disclosed during the election campaign; and that they had hatched a strategy for dealing with it.  Then everything fell silent.

If we want to go Conspiracy on this, it's not difficult.  The thing about nuclear weapons is: nobody ever really reckons The Moment has arrived to deploy them - there will always be an even rainier day when you'll need it even more.  The Tories had obviously given up the ghost already - why waste a thermo-nuclear device when there's no hope anyway?  Plus, what has Labour got on, errr, any of us?  Better hold back this time.  That would explain the silence ... but some of those Angry Spads would know ...

Or, there isn't a scintilla of truth in it!

______________

[1] One can point to several other amusing symptoms, my favourite being the odious Dale Vince who switched from being a financier of the revolting green yoof, to becoming a highly partisan Labour activist, to the point of very ostentatiously attacking the Green Party in seats where they looked like (and indeed were) a serious threat to Labour.    

[2] I can save him the bother, and my fees are modest compared to those of PWC.  The answer is 'Nope'.

Revenge of the SPADS: docs leaked to C@W

We've come by a transcript of the half-year performance review of a 30-something Labour Party SPAD.

*   *   *   *   *

Supervisor (Senior SPAD):  So, Sparquin - what do you feel are the highlights and the disappointments of your work over the past 6 months?

Junior SPAD:  Well, Molly - the Election, obvs!  I reckon I came up with some pretty good 'Lines To Take' when the awkward questions started coming in from the Beeb fact-checkers during the run-up.  Nothing as awkward as the last three weeks, natch!  But at least a couple of my 'Lines' made it onto the One O'Clock News.  One even got into the papers the next day.  Oh, and I managed to get that idiot - sorry, Secretary of State! - Pete to tone down his promises for how many units he was going to get built by 2028.  Pretty f-ing mental, he'd just made that number up, you know?  But I'm fairly sure we're off the hook now: his Department is really pleased.

SSS:   Yes, good catch, we all noticed, and Sir Humphrey loves what you did, the civil servants hate concrete targets - though you might want to tone down the crowing over it, you know?  Pete doesn't forget shit like that and he's a nasty bastard as well as a dumb twat.  Just a suggestion.  Anything else?

JS:  Well, in response to the diktat that we're all to come up with 'collaborative, self-directed, value-adding, no-cost workstream initiatives', me and three other J-SPADS have formed a little team - we call ourselves 'Spad-u-like', nice, huh? - and we've *self-directed* ourselves on a couple of little projects to improve departmental effectiveness around here, plus morale, too!  Oh, and before you ask, yes, we're totally diverse!   Though to be fair, we did all go to the same college ...

SSS:  Great!  And disappointments?

JS:  You need to ask??  FFS - it's getting a £5k reduction in salary!   And being on tenterhooks for three weeks before even that was confirmed.  I'm 34, fuckit - I've given the best part of six years to this Party!  And now we're not even allowed to take freebies off that hedgie wanker who used to bankroll our office when we were in Opposition.  Do you know what rents are like in Homerton?

SSS:  Tell me about it - and I'm in Shoreditch!

JS, under breath:  (You wish!  Half a mile north, more like it).  Out loud:  Oh well, Polly Toynbee says we can expect lots of money to be found down the back of the sofa before Xmas!  Hahah, silly cow.

SSS:  Anyhow, it's for the Cause, right.  Just hang in there, it'll all work out.  Now, how about looking forward - what personal goals are you setting for the next 6 months?

JS:   Finishing the Spad-u-like project to scupper the Gray woman, obvs.  We've made a great start over the past two weeks, made some good networking contacts, called in a few favours at the Beeb, all the good stuff.  Even forged some vibrant links with a couple of career civil servants that she's, errr, interacted with in the past.  Well, she's history, you just watch.  We're targeting end-November.  Finish laughing, clean underwear all round, then a big piss-up before Xmas at the Boom Battle Bar.  Hey, wanna nominate some faces for the axe-throwing targets ..? ...

As leaked to ND

The complex economics & trade-offs of 'net zero'

At the polar-opposite ends of the 'net zero' policy debate are two fatuous positions we may caricature thus:

A.  renewable energy is so cheap and creates so many excellent new jobs, the whole thing will easily pay for itself in economic terms alone (never mind "saving the planet"): it's just a matter of some easily-afforded up-front investment and a bit of planning;

Z.  the very attempt to bring about a 'net zero' economy will destroy the entire existing economy.

Along the spectrum between these two extremes are so many subtle trade-offs that have presumably been resolved to their own satisfaction [1] by those who've made their way to one of the extremes.   Except, we don't see their working displayed very often.

Here are a few:

• Renewables are in fact more expensive than the energy mix they are designed to replace.  True: but we often decide to pay more for a cleaner outcome (cf the Clean Air Act, the water industry, etc etc).
• The roll-out of what we might call a 'net-zero-intended' programme would create a lot of new jobs.  True: but the industries that will be made obsolete along the way will collapse (often "by mistake"[2]) before any kind of equilibrium, let alone positive balance is established.
• There are virtually no short term benefits of most[3] individual 'net-zero-intended' projects upon completion: and even the supposed long-term benefits are questionable.  True, but in certain circumstances the Keynsian insight about digging holes has a lot of force.
• Nuclear energy ticks a lot of 'net zero' boxes.  True, but nobody has truly resolved the short-term / long-term calculus on nukes.
• Something approximating 'net zero', as currently envisaged, would make us less energy-dependent on imports in the long term.  True, but in detail this is an exceptionally complex issue both to characterise fully, and still more to 'optimise'.

And so on.  

All this deserves better policy-making than we get.  And more transparent, too.  I am heartily sick of being lied to - by both 'sides'.

ND

___________________

[1] Obviously that credits them with at least rudimentary intellectual processes that in practice may not have troubled them too much.

[2]  Watch, for example, the UK oil & gas industry, as illustrated here (always assuming the collapse of the mining sector isn't enough evidence already).  The Unions know this, of course.

[3] Most, but definitely not all.

Man City: day of reckoning draws near

The Premier League's case against Man City is now being heard.  Should a free-marketeer care about what private football clubs do with their money?  Is this just something to appease sports fans who'd prefer a more level playing-field (and a bit of justice & fairness)?  The same team winning every year is pretty bloody dull.  And if it goes against Man City and they get relegated, how will their quite ridiculously overpaid squad respond?

Personally my game is RU and I have very little interest in the details of this hoo-ha.  But I will summarise the RU precedent for those who don't know it: Saracens, who'd also been winning quite a lot and had comprehensively busted the salary cap -  systematically and quite creatively - to assemble a very hard-to-beat squad with a great many top notch players**; more than anyone else could remotely afford.  They were duly fined and relegated (via an insuperable points deduction).

To me, aside from evening things up a bit and dealing out some justice, the interesting phenomenon was that almost all their prominent players stuck with the team through a dull, and actually somewhat debilitating year in the lower division: they just didn't get sufficiently competitive matches to keep them fully sharp.  But they came back up after a single season via promotion in due course, and they all sharpened up quickly enough thereafter.

The loyalty was impressive.  Whatever money they'd splashed around illicitly, they'd nevertheless obviously built a team ethos that wasn't merely mercenary.

Views on the questions above?

ND

____________

** Plus Owen Farrell

Starmer's striking unpopularity, and a lesson

This past week has seen publication of Starmer's popularity ratings that, by comparison with the (downward) trajectories of the ratings of previous new PMs, show he has become staggeringly unpopular in an unprecedently short time.  We've noted before that Machiavelli advocated the new Prince carry out his unpleasant measures very early in his new regime; and also that the Prince should prefer being feared to being loved.

OK: but he didn't say it's a great thing to be deeply unpopular per se, never mind being thought of in terms of the specific negative attributes with which Starmer is increasingly associated - ask any pensioner of your acquaintance.  Is Starmer playing with fire here (assuming he's broadly in control of his actions)?  Mainstream commentary tends to reckon he's gone beyond setting expectations & establishing the smack of firm government, and is maybe even undermining the economy by the negativity of his early decision-making and his strident, stern messaging.

Here's a personal anecdote which isn't on a precise parallel, but it has a lesson of sorts that might have some bearing.  At the age of 19, I took command of my first troop of soldiers in the army - a scary business: there were 45 of them and my sheltered, essentially middle class upbringing[1] hadn't exposed me to the rigours of tough working-class mores where disagreements are settled with fist and boot, and the sense of 'fairness' (what soldiers consider fairness, anyhow) is never to be trifled with.  

On my very first day, I ran into a couple of 'Spanish practices' among the men that seemed to me intolerable, and I told the individuals involved - just a couple or three in each case - to desist immediately, and not to do it again.  Later in the week I inspected their lines (the accommodation of those of the men who lived in barracks - by far the greater number); and as well as marvelling at how in very communal circumstances (8 to a room) they fiercely guarded their personal privacy and possessions, I couldn't help but notice the 'Morale Chart' on the wall in the corridor: a rather neatly-drawn graph with daily entries.  With some surprise I noted that on the very day of my arrival, a huge up-tick had been registered! - and yet the only two things I'd done on that first day were the two bollockings I'd administered.

I short while later, I asked one of the more mature corporals what I was to make of this.  Oh, he said, it was great!  Straight off the bat, you locked up a couple of the blokes who were out of order! [I hadn't in fact issued any punishment, still less locked anyone up.]  Things had got much too slack around here!

There could be so many lessons to draw from this silly little incident[2], but the one that seems relevant here is that a couple of early "smacks of firm government" can - in some instances - actually improve morale as opposed to sapping it.  I'm not suggesting the parallels are exact: but I am saying that given how his own smacks have gone down, along with his general demeanour in government, Starmer shouldn't be remotely complacent about his own impact on the mood of the nation.

More popcorn, please, as we watch how this plays out.

ND       

________________

[1] My father left school at 14 to become an apprentice, and was conscripted as a private soldier.  But he commissioned from the ranks and despite some of his war-stories from the working classes, he'd firmly left all that behind; and my own upbringing could only be described as middle class.  Dealing with the soldiery was a big shock for me.

[2]  Another, rather more philosophical, is what I take to be the great theme of Hilary Mantel's superb Wolf Hall trilogy: that the received version of history is often not particularly accurate, even if (hopefully, sometimes) it captures some of the essence of what actually happened.  This categorically includes even very recent and very trivial 'history', e.g. 'what happened yesterday', as the case of Cromwell sleeping with the (woman) hotel-keeper when on his mission to parlay with Catherine of Aragon: the story of this minor event has already become currency - in a distorted version - back at his own house, even before he arrives home a day or so later.

Government looking for a fight. Several fights.

Today we've seen two things that strongly suggest to me that Starmer & his strategists aren't just hanging tough on controversial issues, they are positively looking for a fight.  Indeed, several.

Exhibit A: the NHS. Starmer, in today's 'NHS' speech [1] -

... So hear me when I say this. No more money without reform. I am not prepared to see even more of your money spent ... That isn’t just solved by more money - it’s solved by reform.

This was reinforced pugnaciously by Wes Streeting on all channels, and of course we are absolutely meant to cop the headline aggression. 

Exhibit B: Net Zero.  Chris Stark (of whom you may never have heard, he's Ed Miliband's "mission control" for Net Zero) at an event today - 

"The government is very clear that it will cost too much" [2] to put new Grid cables underground. On meeting the Net Zero goal he was “not pissing about” [3]

More ostentatious headline aggression.  This is all of a piece with blunt pre-election announcements that Starmer & Miliband intend to steamroller planning processes that might delay their fatuous schemes for 100% decarbonisation of electricity by 2030 (and new housing, too).  In this they are taking on a vast constituency of nimbies - ably represented in many cases by their Green and Labour MPs! - who are dead set against the countryside being covered by windfarms, solar farms and swathes of new Grid pylons.  (And new houses, too.)

Now Machiavelli, as we know, strongly advocated the new Prince carrying out his unpleasant measures very early in his new regime.  This isn't just getting 'em in, it's positively relishing them; and it starts to make the Child Benefit Cap and the Winter Fuel Allowance look, not so much as avoidable early miss-steps, as part of the bar-room brawler's "Oi'll foight any t'ree of yus".  Or thirty million, it seems.

BTW, Old Nick also advised that it was better to be feared than loved ...  Hey, we can do the second part of that for you, Kier.

ND

_______________

[1] In response to Lord Darzi - an NHS surgeon - publishing a report saying that the NHS needs, errr, a load of money.  Did someone say this is an "independent" report?   

[2] He's not wrong about the cost, of course.

[3] In that case, sunshine, why not aggressively tell us what we all know to be true, that our electricity bills will be going up?

Starmer & winter fuel: break open more popcorn

Somewhat to my surprise, there's to be a pre-Party Conference set-piece in Parliament - tomorrow - on the winter fuel allowance thing.  The Deputy Speaker who allowed it obviously has a sense of humour - the Speaker's office evidently didn't enjoy being bamboozled and bullied last year over the Gaza vote, eh? 

And with Kier 'Bang'em Up' Starmer digging in at the weekend, and a hapless[1] junior minister being disowned by No.10 this morning, it's looking set to be another virility test.  

Of course, there are loads of simple ways Starmer/Reeves could sugar the pill a bit, but everything seems set fair for an outright 3-line whip / loyalty test on the blunt and brutal means-testing they've announced[2].  The most they've done so far is very pointedly to re-confirm the triple lock on pensions: but as everyone has chorused - so what?  OK, he's read his Machiavelli about getting your nastiness in early: but is Starmer really sure he's pursuing clever politics here?  There are also loads of ways of cracking the whip in an ostentatious and salutary manner: summary deselection of Mr 'Renters Champion' Athwal would be a start.  But a massive falling-out over an emotive social policy so very easily weaponised by everyone else, just ahead of Party Conference, for just £1.4 bn? 

It's not quite the same, but one is reminded of the wonderful line in Bolt's A Man For All Seasons:  

"It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world ... but for Wales?"

Break open the popcorn - again.

ND    

_____________

[1] ... and I do know what 'hapless' means, unlike 95% of Guardian writers (And 'elide', ditto ditto.)

[2] Can't find it just now, but some bright researcher has found a clip of Reeves advocating means-testing for the WFA about 6 years ago.  So much for "we didn't want to do this" - she's always wanted to do it! 

Weekend Fun

So this weekend the wife has booked us in to a 'boutique hotel', and I'm sure we'll have a wonderful time.  The establishment offers a range of different rooms, of which this is one.

Wonder what attracted Mrs D's attention to this place ?

ND

Guardian Goings-on(2): Better news - and at Beeb too!

Having recently had a go at the Graun for its evident decision[1] to proselytise actively on behalf of a partisan position on contestable energy issues, this is by way of a follow-up suggesting that things might be looking up, both at the newspaper and also at the Beeb.

The paper first.  At the weekend, their rather good columnist[2] Sonia Sodha had this to say: 

Free speech is neither a “nice to have” nor a rightwing project: it is a fundamental tenet of democracy and when it is under threat, it is disempowered minorities who suffer most. Labour needs to stop seeing important free speech protections introduced by Tory ministers as expendable fuel for attacking their predecessors.

And on a quite different topic, Nils Bratley opined as follows: 

... before Drax is promised a penny extra from billpayers, Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, should commission a properly independent review of the business model of burning wood pellets to generate electricity. It should cover both the environmental impact ... and the stupendous subsidies.

I strongly applaud both sentiments.  And both are clearly opinion pieces, which is the honourable way to go for a proper newspaper.

Now for the Beeb.  I am delighted to note that they have genuinely got their teeth into two stories that essentially reflect a proper critique / criticism of Starmer's Labour Party.  The first is the Winter Fuel payments issue, which Reeves and Starmer have strongly signalled they intend to tough out - it's in that category we highlighted of Reasons Aplenty for Ruthless Whipping.  But, patently, they can't be taking any pleasure in the way it's rumbling on.  The awful Alastair Campbell used to say that if an awkward story runs for more than 3 days, you've got a problem.  Well, this one is several weeks and counting, and the Beeb has taken it to its heart in ways that make the problem worse for the government.  As well they might - it's an early unforced error and an acute political test for Labour: but personally I had felt there'd be a longer period where the uncritical pre-election fawning over Starmer would be continuing in that quarter.  Seemingly not[3].  This isn't any more than their charter requires of them, but given past performance it's moderately encouraging.  Credit where it's due.

The send is their gleeful playing-up of the outrageous story of "Parliament's biggest landlord", the reprehensible Jas Athwal MP.  One has to pick through issues like this with caution, but in the background there's the sordid prevalence of a certain type of landlord mercilessly exploiting tenants of the same ethnicity as themselves - "own-country landlord" is generally how the victims ruefully express their plight.  Maybe Mr Athwal's portfolio is not of this profile - but the Beeb evidently knows.  Their ability to report on renters' profiles has however been hampered by the fact that the people they got interviews from were subsequently intimidated into silence, as the Beeb reported, and withdrew permission for their statements to be used.  Reasonable people will doubtless draw their own conclusions.  The Beeb clearly has it in for Athwal - a man parachuted into his seat in Labour's nasty little pre-election deselection campaign - and, often with smiles on their faces when reporting his twisting and turning, seems determined to run him to ground.  Once again, credit where it's due, & plaudits to them for their journalism.  

ND

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[1]  By way of explicit ratification, here's their resident green wingnut George Monbiot: 

"For every pound or dollar spent on ['climate crisis'] persuasion by an environmental charity or newspaper ..."

[2]  Inter alia, she's broadly sound on the baleful 'trans' issue, too.  How much sh*t must she get from the fundies at the Graun?

[3]  Of course, anti Starmer animus can easily come from several angles: many lefties hate him cordially, as much as does anyone with the slightest regards for probity & intellectual integrity