Miliband under the cosh already

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

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

Since the election, other bodies have variously told him that 

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

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

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

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

ND 

Britain's total defencelessness from air attack

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

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

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

Pathetic.

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

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

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

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

ND

Weekend humour: Vaughan Gething - comedy gold

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

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

Oh yes, and 

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

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

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

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

ND

Great times for the Great Man Theory of History

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

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

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

ND

_____________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

ND

Trump, political violence & the Green/Left

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

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

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

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

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

ND

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

15 years ago now: could do with updating

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ND

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ND

AI evolves - powerfully - in predictable directions

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

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

1.  Scale - and energy use!

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

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

2.  Correction of early failings

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

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

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

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

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

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

ND

Election Wash-up: OT

No top-line surprises, then (unless you are the SNP, maybe).  Turnout figures in due course - seems it was very low - for purposes of the supplementary Compo question when the full figures are in.

A majority of this kind is always possible under first-past-the-post, particularly with so many heavy-duty spoiler candidates in play - surely, on a scale unprecedented in its depth and extent this time?

Anyhow, all pundits are agreed: Starmer's support is very broad but very shallow.  Hard to disagree.   One of Drew's Laws of Politics is: the bigger the majority, the less meaningful is the result.  Large numbers of dumb voters who simply like feeling they are on the winning side - of which Murdoch is just the ugliest & and most prominent.  Conventional wisdom is that it'll be damned hard for Starmer to enforce discipline.   (Is there anything Starmer will wish to do that actually requires a majority of that size?)  He'll be very happy he stuffed the candidate list with placemen and non-entities, and carefully deselected the identified troublemakers of the left: Mandelsonian power politics in play there.

So here's an open thread, starting with a few random early thoughts of my own.

• as regards the long game, the whole thing now comes down to how Farage conducts himself.  I personalise it thus because he is and probably will remain a one-man band.  If I was him, I would invest in some very comprehensive personal security.
• on the green/left/Gazan side: although altogether less strategically interesting than Farage it'll be interesting nonetheless to see how the assorted malcontents - now holding quite a lot of seats - conduct themselves.  I actually think Starmer will be happy to have them making extreme spectacles of themselves, as an ongoing reminder to his own people of the merits of his quietist project. 
• I sincerely hope that each and every Tory MPs who contributed to foisting Truss onto the leadership ballot paper came unstuck yesterday, and will never be heard of again.  How could anyone sit in the same building as her for more than 10 minutes and not notice she is stark, staring, batshit crazy?   If, as some have said, it was a Johnsonite manoeuvre to facilitate his re-entry, well, for self-centred irresponsibility that's up there with Joe Biden's senile vanity.
• wouldn't it be nice if Starmer would now cut Murdoch cold-stone dead at the latter's every blandishment?  That's the way to parlay a majority like this.
• this isn't anything I thought I'd ever find myself writing: but based on his recent "realist" (I think he means realistic) utterances I actually think David Lammy might make quite a good Foreign Sec.  If I'm right, he's gonna piss off the Left even quicker than Starmer.

With Starmer's very recent incarnation as Mr Growth-at-any-Cost - which we must believe was primarily a formulation against the challenge of "how ya gonna do it without borrowing or tax increases?" - the opening for BlackRock et al is plain: and they'll be up his trouser-legs like a rat up a drainpipe before he gets to sit down.  Cue the biggest PFI binge in history ...

Over to y'all.

ND

UPDATE:  a great phrase in a Graun article:

Labour’s ambiguous mandate, both overwhelming and unconvincing

UK Election: what kind of disillusion is brewing?

Maybe none at all.  Maybe the electorate views all politicians as liars, and has merely formed the view that the Tories just have to go, simple as that.  These things happen: ask Callaghan / Thatcher / Major / Brown / Johnson / Truss.

But here's the thing.  Needing to say very little at all, Starmer lies freely in all directions: a liar in a league of his own. Blair and BJ aren't even in the running, bad as they are.  Does Starmer feel he's in lawyer-in-courtroom territory, where the whole court knows the barrister will say anything to get his client off, and that's just fine & dandy?**   

Energy being my thing, I focus on what Miliband has been saying.  It's almost as bad.  We'll have 100% zero carbon electricity by 2030 AND it will cost us all less.  Seriously.  Oh, and 650,000 new Green Jobs will be created in the process (though to be fair, he doesn't say which country they'll be created in).  The Graun even writes that, as regards the oil & gas sector which is to be phased out, Labour have declared that "not a single job will be lost" in the transition, though fairness again prompts me to say that I can't source that anywhere in Labour's output.  

It's hard to guess how, in 2030, they'll explain why this has all come to grief, as indubitably it will: they won't get within spitting distance of any of zero-carbon electricity, cheaper electricity, or the 650k new green jobs.  The usual trick is: "we didn't know how bad things were until we saw the books" - but that doesn't wash with electricity generation because the entire sector is comprised of very big units that can't be hidden: every analyst modelling the UK power sector has a complete list of them all.  (Likewise, the roll-out of the small stuff like heat pumps, solar panels, electric vehicles etc is pretty exactly monitored - not least because policy-makers are so keen to.)  And "bills going up, not down" is pretty easy to track, too.  

"Didn't realise the extent of inflation in raw materials"?  That's pretty well known.  "Didn't know there was a skills shortage"?  Ditto.  "Didn't realise CCUS / hydrogen / new nukes wouild be so badly delayed / wouldn't work as advertised"?  Not that either: we've recently had a judge rule that it's "irrational" to assume anything else.  

Nope: I can't quite see how they are going to hide.  The question is: will it be held against them?

ND

_______________________

** I was once on the jury for a high-profile murder trial, and the case made on behalf of one of the perps - whom we'd watched carrying out the murder on CCTV from several angles - was essentially that a Man from Mars came down, swapped clothes with the perp a couple of minutes beforehand, did the deed, and then swapped back & flew off again.  All this under the coded formulation: "The suggestion is ...".  The judge didn't seem to feel the need to reprimand this line of argumentation.

The very odd case of Julian Assange

I am guessing that most readers of this blog tend towards a sympathy, perhaps a very strong attachment, towards freedom of expression and of the journalistic professions.  But what do we say about Assange?  Perpetrator of a fairly extreme case of leaks of an embarrassing nature (to put it mildly); and as a former soldier I'm sensitive to security issues.  But his subsequent hounding, and treatment in general, has been extraordinary: beyond all reason.  (For Hillary Clinton to ask if he couldn't be bumped off is pretty extreme, even given what an unpleasant person she evidently is.)  Likewise, his personal commitment to principles is pretty remarkable - he'd have made good martyr material in former ages.

All that said:  by Heaven, he's patently a really annoying person - just in terms of personality, I mean.  One can't help but think he has pissed off almost everyone he's ever met.  Obviously, people with a deeply stubborn streak - eigensinnig, to use the excellent German word - are often like that: and maybe we depend upon them for the expression of the unsayable, when anyone less stubborn (brave?) would have been shaken out of their position a lot sooner than he.

But really, ultimately: do they do their causes any good?  Solzhenitsyn has always seemed to me to be in that category.  Thanks to the interweb and the prevalence of webcasts etc, we can form these views much more readily now, where previously (as with my view on Mr S) we'd have been guessing.  To take a rather more mundane example, Kathleen Stock is a person I greatly admire - at the intellectual level: but watch her in a discussion on the www.  Frankly, I'll stick with her writings, thanks, and never wish to meet her.    

This line of thought is squarely ad hominem, by very definition.  But I do believe it's a strong factor in these cases.  Rightly or wrongly.

ND

Tolstoy on clickbait and Princess Kate

Many years ago, when I was just a guest blog-curator on C@W, during CU's hols I ran a short series: Schopenhauer on blogging.  Yep, nothing changes: and I now find Tolstoy had some views on social media and clickbait too.

... it has now come to pass that as soon as any event, owing to casual circumstances, receives an especially prominent significance, the organs of the press immediately announce this significance.  As soon as the press has brought forward the significance of the event, the public devotes more and more attention to it.  The attention of the public prompts the press to examine the event with greater attention and in greater detail.  The interest of the public further increases, and the organs of the press, competing with one another, satisfy the public demand.  The public is still more interested; the press attributes yet more significance to the event.  [OK, we get the point - Ed]  So that the importance of the event, continually growing like a lump of snow, receives an appreciation utterly inappropriate to its real significance, and this appreciation, often exaggerated to insanity, .... etc etc (1906)

He always was a wordy bugger. 

It's clear enough: since the dawn of the printing press, reactionary forces have lamented whenever the layperson gets a new opportunity to self-publish their nasty little thoughts that depart from whatever wisdom the priesthood of the age seeks to guard.  I have a suspicion a well-read classical scholar could find something from Cicero or Aristotle along the same lines.   Reading?  We can't have the peasants doing that.  Bible in the vernacular?  No no no!

That's technology for you.  And the human spirit, etc.

ND

The Saudis and the 'Petrodollar Deal'

Several days ago, there were stories that a supposed US-Saudi deal had elapsed (at its 50th anniversary) with potentially earth-shattering consequences.  We said we'd take a look.

The 'deal' (as reported) was that the US would guarantee Saudi's security militarily in various ways, in return for the Kingdom only selling its oil in dollars, and reinvesting (most of?) those dollars in US government bonds.  This had the effect of propping up the dollar all these years, as nations globally were forced to buy dollars.  End the deal, end the dollar, was the implication.

Hmm.  Well, firstly I know nothing about macro-economics, so I'm always open to being corrected on some of these things.  (My state of macro ignorance has never held me back, since happily I've always found that micro competence is the way to make money.)

That said, here are a few thoughts.

• several well-informed commentators stated there never was such a deal !
• whether or not the doomsayers knew this (I thought everyone did, but maybe not), the US is about to sign a significant new defence pact with Saudi.**     We probably won't be given the full text ... but I can't imagine the US isn't getting more or less whatever it wants from this
• given that the whole world (not least, China) holds US Treasuries, who wants to crash the dollar anyway?
• the FX markets are just about the most liquid on the planet.  What difference does 'pricing in dollars' make?  (There's my macro ignorance showing - but seriously now, just tell us.  It isn't as if oil is priced in dollars at a fixed price, is it?)
• after many years as a net oil importer (indeed, net energy), since the shale revolution the US has been a net exporter.  That makes the world a rather different place to what it was 50, 30, 20 years ago, in ways that I'm sure the US Treasury is on top of
  

From time to time we hear guff about how China wants the whole world to switch to renminbi, or alternatively some devious crypto-currency of their devising.  Nothing much seems to happen.  Similarly Russia says that, Uncle Sam being a busted flush, it will now export its oil and gas in rubles, thank you very much.  The rest of the world waves them a cheery two fingers.  

The simple fact is that liquidity is liquidity.  Loads of countries announce from time to time that they are going to supplant this or that feature of the established (western-led) global order, but it rarely does them any good.  For many years the Russians have sought to develop a global market in "Urals Blend" crude oil in order to break the tyranny of Brent (i.e. UK / North Sea) pricing, but Brent it remains on the world market.  After Brexit, the EU toyed with the idea of relegating English to "just the language spoken by Malta": and the French fancied their hour had come!  Tough titty, frogs: English it remains, long after the English themselves have departed.  Liquidity is liquidity.

I have a very strong suspicion nothing much has changed between the US and Saudi this year.  At any event, the US dollar remains my hedge against a UK meltdown.  It served me very well during the financial crisis 2007-10.

Any views from those with a proper PPE degree?  

ND

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** Incidentally, within the USA itself there is a significant school of criticism of this deal, not least in military circles: "we don't need their oil, so why do we need them any more?"  Not too difficult to come up with answers to that question, though.

Election blues, election reds: new compo question

I have just read the election manifestos published so far[1], and mighty depressing reading they make.  Realistically, only the Labour document has the slightest bearing on anything: and given its complete divorce from reality, even that only exists to make fun of Starmer in later years when he fails to deliver on any but the most trivial items from it.  In large part it adopts the old Blairite formula of sentences without verbs, or purely descriptive sentences[2], so that no promise whatever is contained within.

Readers will not be surprised to learn I focus most closely on the Energy sections.  Labour's is remarkable for proclaiming 650,000 new "Green Prosperity" jobs across the country by 2030.  Oh, and these will be "good" jobs - presumably of a technical nature?   Y'know, building all that truly epic amount of new stuff on their shopping list, that will deliver a zero carbon electricity system by 2030?  Right, so where is the skill base that would enable 650,000 new technical staff to spring to attention when required?  Not home-grown, that's for sure.  More work visas all round!  Or, in the alternative (as lawyers say), if 650,000 skilled personnel are required, yet another among the dozens of reasons why it ain't gonna happen.

The other phenomenon, which almost deserves some kind of psychological analysis, is that all the manifestos cheerfully state that more renewable energy will bring down energy bills forever.  Why do politicians feel able to write this utterly nonsensical stuff down in black and white?  Why do notionally intelligent people seem to believe it?  

But enough: there's no point.  Moving to more light-hearted matters:  will anyone bother to vote?  Many traditionally ultra-loyal Tories are heartily pissed off by Sunak's D-Day faux pas.  Many people assume Labour will win so comfortably, they won't need anyone actually to get off their arses and go to the poll.  Da yoof is pretty pissed off all round, and they know voting Green gets you nowhere.  So ...

2024 predictions compo: Midsummer supplementary question - what will be the voter turnout at the GE?

ND

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[1]  Nothing yet from SNP or Reform.  But we know what they think.

[2]  E.g. from the 'Make Britain a Clean Energy Superpower' chapter:

Without action, flooding and coastal erosion will pose greater risks to lives, livelihoods and people’s wellbeing

OK - so then, errr ..?   But we wait in vain, because no concrete actions are promised.

'We are in 1938': excellent weekend read

 

'Defence', you understand

... if you don't mind your weekend peace being rudely shattered.

From the Graun, of all places.

ND

The curious tale of Iain Dale

Dale tale.   Pic: LBC

Declaration of interest: broadcaster, publisher, author, one-time legendary blogger and would-be MP Iain Dale once had dealings with this blog.   

Background:  for those who are not familiar with this chap, Dale first came to widespread attention as one of the trio of major-league early-adopter rightwing bloggers, along with Guido and Tim Montgomery.  With blogging first a real phenomenon in the mid years of the Blair/Brown regime, they (and their very many BTL commenters) had plenty of stuff to get their teeth into.  Blogs like C@W, and several more that are or were broadly on the right, grew up in their shadow.  Lefty blogs were nowhere.

All of these three titans, unsurprisingly perhaps, were approachable up to a point - but pretty sniffy (to the point of being prickly) about outright competition.  Big, big egos all round.  CU and I were on lunching terms with Guido but C@W ultimately disagreed with him about how things might move forward collaboratively (which we all thought was fair enough).  Montgomery is IMHO essentially a loner.  But to a degree, Dale initially included us within his plans for building a big tent of like-minded players.  He linked to us quite a bit[1], and when he branched into radio - for which, with his extensive current-affairs knowledge + huge network of carefully-cultivated contacts he seemed pretty well suited - he twice invited me on, as a guest voice, to the occasional shows he ran before he got a full-time slot .  But on the second occasion, he fed me a question to which I didn't give the answer he evidently expected and wanted.  He immediately threw the switch on my microphone, and signaled to a flunky to escort me gently from the studio[2].  

Dale's obsession - not even remotely hidden beneath his vain attempt at insouciance - was to be a Tory MP.  It was pretty obvious that his strategy was to become so well known via blogging and radio that he'd breeze through the selection committee in some safe seat.  Well, he certainly achieved the high profile: and he used his platform relentlessly for heavy-duty wheedling and lobbying in his own cause, even if he tried to do it all with a light touch.  Fair enough: that was his strategy[3].  But somehow, in seat after seat, it didn't quite work out: you are probably getting the picture.   The one time he found a berth (2005), it wasn't the longed-for safe seat and he was beaten by a LibDem.  Eventually, in utter despair, he accepted a full-time slot as a politics jock at LBC, a role to which, as noted above, he seemed really well suited.  He also moved very successfully into publishing and writing generally.

Fast-forward to 2024:  anyhow, it turns out that, all these many years later, the obsession with being a Tory MP has never gone away.  He and his husband live in Tunbridge Wells and the seat came up for grabs.  He was shortlisted, and was thus within a whisker of his life's ambition!  All that media and publishing success, and maybe a safe seat too!  Happy ending or what?!  Characteristically, he publicly announced his revived political intentions and flamboyantly resigned from LBC.

And then ... it quickly came to grief.  A couple of years ago, he'd said of Tunbridge Wells in a podcast that he "couldn't stand the place"!   End of story - he's out on his ear.

Dale's is a very odd tale indeed.   Quite the micro-tragedy.  Some people just can't engage brain before opening mouth - however politically aware they are, and however much is at stake for them[4].  What an entertaining MP he would have made ...

ND

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[1] Ah, those were the days.  C@W used to be perma-linked by FT Alphaville, and frequently linked on Peston's BBC blog which, in those early days, was rivalled only by Michael Crick's as an MSM personality blog.   Then the Beeb blacklisted us (seriously!), and the FT dropped us too, as these MSM platforms - at first, just experimental - started to get jealous of their amateur rivals & unwilling to direct traffic elsewhere.

[2] No amount of protest on my part will convince many folks that I don't harbour a grudge against Dale accordingly.  Well, I don't: life is too short and Dale is too much a figure of fun.  The only grudge I bear is against Gordon Brown, and that's enough.

[3] On the other wing, Paul Mason is trying the same thing: he keeps reinventing himself in different parts of the country.  It's comedy gold.

[4] And not just opening the mouth.  There's a very funny film of him fighting a bloke at the seafront a few years ago.  Did I say 'figure of fun'?

General Popov (2): Corruption in Russia

Popular Popov

So: in a classic tale of Old Russia, the popular General Popov is being charged with extensive embezzlement - a misappropriated consignment of steel.   A good few years ago I spent a lot of time in Russia and had cause to observe, nay study (it was important) a great many Russian traits at first hand.  Anyone who thinks all humanity essentially behaves the same, and that attribution of national characteristics is rank stereotyping bordering on wickedness, is a fool.  

One of those traits was corruption at the day-to-day level.  You might even say I participated - although it was all perfectly legal from the PoV of US law, because I stuck to "expediting payments" [1] - for which one would get a receipt, since it was known that it needed to be claimed on expenses.  I came to the conclusion that Russian corruption was different in nature to, say, the Subcontinent variant.  In the latter, certain jobs are recognised to be opportunities for informal but systematic tax-farming, and are sought after, indeed competed for, accordingly.  "How much can you typically make on the side?" is a question a friend or family member will make of an acquaintance when discussing their work.  It is proactive, totally transactional, indeed quite businesslike and cheerful.

Russians are not quite like that.  First of all, we need to take a step back.  Russians are very convinced of their exceptional cultural superiority (and as regards basic education, literature and music, they are not wrong).  In that sense they are very nationalistic, but their primary loyalty is essentially to the local network / support system, their команда, of which they are an embedded member.  Everyone else is, more or less, fair game.  (You see how freely I generalise?)

The second aspect of their inner conviction - this one is a bit more difficult - is that their superiority means they shouldn't have to raise a finger to get their due; it should just sort-of naturally accrue to them.  At the national level this explains why, instead of being outward-looking and purposeful as other "exceptionalist" nations tend to be, Russia is reactive and basically just resentful.  (Why doesn't the world simply recognise their innate superiority, and award them their place in the sun / seat at top table?)

Here we get to the outright corruption.  When any jobsworth encounters, on his own patch, an outsider on a mission - a functionary from Moscow, a biznizman from abroad - he thinks: this chap has been sent to get something done.  He'll perhaps be in big trouble back in Moscow if it doesn't get it done (negative); he'll maybe get a big bonus if he pulls off his deal (positive).  But me?  I get nothing.  And that's not fair.  Resentment, never far from the surface, blossoms again: there's nothing cheerful or proactive in this thought-process.  So: he's going to have to cut me in: if there are any bonuses (positive or negative) associated with this, there needs to be something in it for me, too.  It's only fair.

As I discovered in a very different context - the Army - notions of fairness constitute the highest law amongst the soldiery.  They'll put up with almost anything, as long as by their lights it's been fairly dished out.  Schoolchildren are the same: the Life Lesson of "life's not fair" goes down very hard.  And so it is, by different lights, in Russia.  I'm the equal of you, indeed culturally I'm superior.  The apparent differences between us are mere happenstance.  It's not fair that there should be bonus coming your way and not mine.  So pay some of it across.

The amazing thing is, Russians would readily accuse themselves of all of this!  And they know how it looks to outsiders!  They are not remotely godless (though some are atheists) or amoral (by their own lights); and their loyalty within the команда knows no bounds.  They just wish life would be better.  Spontaneously.  And in the meantime, fairness dictates you cut them in.  And cheating the outsider is, well, that's what you do: the Man from Moscow or, in former times, the tribute-collecter from the Mongol horde.

Which brings us back to General Popov.  We've already said the truth about the embezzlement of the steel may never be known.  But every Russian thinks: yeah, but maybe ...  Because any top-down initiative comes from somebody high-up, far away, who badly wants it done - and it comes with resources, too, some of which can be creatively liberated and shared.

Now obviously there are also worldscale kleptocrats in Russia, and gangsters, and highly organised middlemen who know how to fence that steel.  These aren't the types I'm talking about.  It's the soldiers who understand how maybe some steel went missing; but anyhow, Gen Popov is a good bloke.  And you know what? - some diesel and tyres went missing in my barracks last week, too ...  As long as the rest of the команда gets a cut.

Finally on the good General:  one of the milbloggers wrote: 

Ah well, it seems there was no commissar to be there for him, like Furmanov was for Chapaev - to take him by the sleeve and stand in his way.  "Ivan Ivanovitch, don't do it!  It's wrong and it's not going to do any good.  Here's your glass, here's mine.  We'll knock them back in one, we'll sleep, and tomorrow we'll be back in battle."

This is the classic Russian way of making a potentially contentious point: you recount an incident from an impeccable source (a well-known poem, novel[2], or in this case, the film Chapaev, said to be Putin's favourite) that makes your point for you.  Even a really good bloke, an authentic hero, might sometimes be tempted off the straight and narrow.  With a bit of luck, there's someone in the team to head him off.  But hey, we're all human.

ND

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[1] "This is the traffic police.  Your new car has arrived at the Moscow city boundary.  Its paperwork seems to be in order.  Would you like to take delivery of it now, or in 6-7 weeks?  Now?  Ok, $50."

[2] Remember that fine Russian education.

The geo-politics of 2024: a seriously good read

Here's a seriously good offering by a heavyweight US historian of the geopolitics of the modern age.  We all have our amateur views on this stuff: but Zelikow is a professional, giving thought-provoking inputs from a range of telling 20th century precedents and parallels that I certainly wasn't familiar with and I'm guessing few others would be, either.  There are also some very basic history lessons the whole world should be taking  ... 

The Axis powers all ... hoped America would decide to stay in its hemisphere and mind its own business. They were not sure just when or whether they should do anything that would bring the United States into the war. Though each side started from a posture of basic hostility, they had to make new choices. The United States decided to arm Germany’s enemies. And it decided not to abandon beleaguered China ... Roosevelt did try hard to find an accommodation with Japan. His efforts in the first half of 1941 were entirely fruitless ... At all times Japan was prepared to negotiate about Indochina. It was even prepared to forego the great plans for the southward advance into resource-rich British and Dutch colonies. But Japan was not prepared to yield its domination of China ... Tokyo redoubled its efforts, diplomatically and militarily. The new government decided that it would either conclude a deal by the end of November - even a temporary one - or it would go to war. In this crunch time, the United States still would not write China off. This U.S. commitment to China was not well-understood at the time or by historians now. For Roosevelt, the commitment mainly arose from his complex calculations about the war in Europe - the need to keep the Soviet Union from collapse and therefore the need to keep Japanese troops tied down in China.   It is worth recalling today, as Russia and China confront the United States, that the proximate reason for America’s entry into World War II was its determination to save those two countries from extinction.  (my emphasis)

He feeds all the historical considerations into his analysis of today's situation for America (and Russia, China, Taiwan, Japan, Iran ...).   His lengthy conclusions start thus: 

I believe the anti-American partnership has probably decided to double down. They are probably preparing in earnest for a period of major confrontation. My view on this rests on my analysis of the history presented above as well as some key assessments of Moscow, Tehran, Beijing, and - to a lesser extent - Pyongyang. Xi and Putin regard themselves as world-historical men of destiny. They believe they are capable of decisive, strategic action. Xi ranks himself with Mao and Stalin. Putin evokes the memory of Peter the Great. In China, Russia, and Iran the information and decision environments are cloistered. In China, Russia, and Iran the propaganda ministries have already been preparing their populations for a time of war, great sacrifice, and existential struggle ...  I believe that some Iranians have now stored up so much resentment and hatred that they may be desperate to do almost anything to get at Israel. The North Korean intentions seem driven, but as opaque as usual. My working hypothesis is that they are preparing for a period of conflict and that they are wondering about possible opportunities to play an important role. In each capital there are arguments for retrenchment on one side and, on the other, for more militancy. The more militant factions have likely been arguing and speculating about ways to turn over the table. Beijing’s outlook is both the most important and the most difficult to assess, since its government has visibly sought a policy of “peaceful coexistence” with the United States. I think it is most likely that Beijing has assessed that the die has been cast for a period of escalating confrontation**.

Strongly recommended.  Incidentally, given the foregoing, the idea that appeasing Putin over Ukraine makes things better, or would have if we'd done it prior to 2022, seems to me a very odd one.

ND 

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**He has a very interesting view on China's most likely strategy for Taiwan

The curious, oh-so-Russian tale of General Popov (1)

Popular Popov:  a soldiers' soldier

Way down the rankings on the War in Ukraine pages is the newly-revived story of Russian General Popov, who is now being charged with 'fraud of a particularly extensive nature'.  It's alleged he sold thousands of tonnes of steel, intended for Russian fortifications against the ill-fated 2023 Ukrainian counter-offensive, to a shady metals dealer for over $1m in cash that's been found at his house.  His fall from grace happened late last summer, but at the time it seemed to do with his public complaints that troop rotations weren't being made sufficiently frequently.  No charges were brought back then, nor corruption even mentioned; he'd slid from public attention and been sent to Syria. 

Given that today's backdrop is the recent high-profile 'sideways promotion' of Defence Minister Shoigu, his replacement with an economist known for efficiency, and several other senior officials also being done for corruption of various kinds, it's easy to imagine the new charges against Popov are just part of a traditional changing-of-the guard purge that is so popular with communist and former-communist regimes: happens all the time.  Odd that he was a critic of Shoigu (so why should he go down now, as Shoigu himself falls from favour?) but hey, clearing the decks is clearing the decks.  He probably pissed off others as well.

The reaction from the Russian 'milblogger' fraternity has been very interesting: I.I.Popov is extremely popular, a "soldiers' soldier", credited (by the soldiery, at least) of being the main factor behind the crucial, successful defence of Tokmak on the Zaporizhia front last year.  Here are some typical contributions: 

• Nothing has yet been proven, and we suspect that Ivan Ivanovich could have suffered for his statements.  It is unseemly to keep one of the heroes of our time behind bars
• Front line soldiers were greatly demoralized by news of the removal of the "simple" and "relatable" honest General Popov. Yes, perhaps he had his flaws. But in the context of [other] commanders who sacrificed dozens of personnel for the sake of their next "Star of the Hero" medal, Popov clearly stood out for the better
• The experienced commander, who was doted upon by his subordinates ...  
• I know for sure that without his hands-on leadership in organizing the defensive lines [in 2023], we would hardly have been ready to meet the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the peak of their power
• General Ivan Popov is not a thief. He is a soldier. However... we forgive thieves too. Or they don't get imprisoned at all. A soldier cannot always count on this
• If the investigation proves his guilt, then he must suffer the punishment he deserves, but all the good he has done for the Russian army must be taken into account. He must not be allowed to be made a scapegoat. 

Etc etc.  here are several strands here.  (a) Maybe he's being fitted up (for his temerity to complain about lack of troop rotations);  (b) Maybe he did make off with some steel, but hey, everyone in his position does stuff like that - so what?  (c) Maybe he's too popular for his own good.

(a) is of course entirely possible: we may never know.  Regimes like Russia's do that kind of thing all the time.  In countries with no rule of law, everyone stands in permanent peril of being condemned on trumped-up charges, and those in power never mind reminding people of it from time to time.  I'll return to (b) - a characteristically Russian sentiment - in a second post.

(c) is also interesting: and it's not just in light of the extraordinary Prigozhin mutiny of last year.  Communist and former-communist regimes not only fear the rule of law, they fear the military as a credible alternative source of power.  As soon as WW2 ended, Stalin effectively banished the legendary - and very popular - Zhukov, the clear victor of the eastern front.  Everyone knew why.  The first thing Lenin did after the 1917 revolution was to demobilize the army (even while technically still at war with Germany!), for fear of having armed men loose on the streets.  Here's another telling recent milblog entry on the Popov case: 

A general who makes mistakes, and a popular general who makes mistakes, are two completely different matters from the point of view of 'the system'. Whether he is really guilty of what he is accused of is not so important ...

Poor old Popov.  Keep away from windows and private planes, eh? 

ND