Sizewell C - what'll it cost us? (part 1)

Spoiler alert: nobody knows; and it's not clear anyone cares who has agency in the matter[1].  We've written about aspects of this any number of times - see the tabs below if you're interested.

Recap on Hinkley Point C:  granted a long and very flexible CfD (there's an extraordinarily lax backstop date for start-up, which the government glibly extended when EDF requested, so it can't be reliably built into system planning - which negates the supposedly vital aspect of "reliable baseload power" which is nukes' raison d'être) with a handsome, index-linked strike price.  It doesn't even compel EDF to build the thing at all ! The one aspect that might have been seen as in our favour is that EDF bears 100% of any hypothetical the absolutely inevitable monstrous cost overrun.  But even that is irrelevant because again, when asked, HMG just gives them more money.

SZC:  EDF nonetheless vowed never again to do another nuke on HPC terms (wonder why..?), requiring instead that they be shielded from almost all construction cost risk[2], but again with no meaningful timetable for completion; and that they be funded throughout construction, even if over-running[3].  They also demanded their ongoing costs be met via the electricity price after they (hypothetically) commission the damned thing - it'll be something like a CfD with a rolling cost assessment setting the strike price: though for some reason HMG et al are loathe to use the CfD / strike price nomenclature.  Oh, and EDF have successfully demanded hard cash - billions - upfront from HMG to fund "development work" prior to taking the decision to go ahead, even after having said it'll be the same design as HPC AND they'd been working on it for 10 years already.

This subsidy approach is being delivered via a variant on the Ratable Asset Base (RAB) approach, beloved of US utilities for decades, the Thames Tideway Tunnel, LHR T5 etc etc.  Bottom line, we all get to pay in installments, starting right now.  Remind me again, when will it start up?  Say after me: Nobody Knows and Nobody Cares. 

Why was this agreed?  The ostensible reasons are:  (a) the nuclear lobby has persuaded successive governments we must have more nukes;  and (b) "it's much cheaper this way" - a material portion of the total HPC cost is financing charges.  [Why can't French-government-owned EDF finance more cheaply than the UK government?  Very good question.  Always bear in mind, though, that for the French the Whole Point of HPC and SZC is as part of their grand strategy to get other nations to contribute to their humungous nuclear liabilities - see this post from 18 years ago.]  

Oh, and over & above this notional cost saving via lower financing costs (real enough, if you accept the premise), they also promise cost savings via the cookie-cutter effect, because SZC will be the same design as HPC.  We return later to this delightfully simple notion confected for simpleton politicians.

You can readily research for yourself that when the damn' thing inevitably overruns its "budget" (hah!) the taxpayer + billpayer combo picks up most of the tab.  So what, then, are the incentives on EDF to keep costs down?  Errr ...   Seriously, this is a massive and excellent question we'll return to next time.

Here's the thing: in having thus devised featherbedding that's comfortable enough for feeble, state-owned EDF to be willing to go ahead and build the thing, it's equally attractive for other investors, who are joining the fun and taking equity.  Centrica et al are anticipating low-risk, double-digit returns in return for stumping up their own capital.  [HMG is taking some equity: but why not all of it, HMG with its even-lower cost of capital and endless ability to dump costs on bill payers?  Another good question - to which the answer is presumably: they don't like it appearing on the Treasury's books.] 

Yes, folks, it all smacks of desperation.  And there's nothing you can't (/ won't) do when you're desperate and you can write cheques on other people's accounts.

Coming next:  

• why SZC's "identical design" won't cost less than HPC
• what else does all this teach us?
• what other reasons might there be for the charade?

ND

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[1] Curiously enough, some of the people who care are (a) several of the rather diligent French authorities, and (b) the French unions.  They are ignored by the French government.

[2]  The HPC contract already substantially shields EDF from the risk of costs rising because of changing safety regs etc.  Obviously, the cost increases EDF wants to be protected against are those resulting from their own bad decisions, flawed engineering, poor project management etc - which have been legion at HPC. 

[3]  Most householders know you don't pay your builders up-front without stern performance conditions.  Of all the companies not to trust with this, EDF is up there with the dodgiest cowboys in the construction market, as all experience shows.  Never will the government be able to say "how could we have known..?"

Budget chaos - open thread

First things first: Jim wins the compo for most correct guesses at Budget content - by a decent margin, too.  Well done that man.  A (very temporary) job awaits you in Whitehall as official Reeves-whisperer.

The OBR-induced chaos is all very odd.  FFS, Reeves leaked half the Budget, in detail, yesterday - the 'final final' leaks, which once would have been anathema to Parliament and MPs' privileges on being first to learn these things, once jealously defended, not least by successive Speakers.  Hugh Dalton felt obliged to resign in 1947 for less (though some suggest the skids were under him already, and he was glad of the pretext to go).

Anyhow: obviously in the circs, Reeves / Starmer felt they couldn't do anything other than play to their own back-bench gallery.  Feeble politics though it is, I think we all understand.  How much time does it buy them?  Maybe enough, actually:  it might be nicely judged for that specific audience.

On the energy front, the EV levy was inevitable and we may expect it to rise over the years, to replace fuel duty.  (Did any EV user ever imagine otherwise?)  I'm interested in 'pay per mile' - does this mean they are tracking vehicle movements (like Musk and the Chinese do), or is it a self-declared matter on the income tax form?  I would have thought 'pay as metered' would be better - seeing as how smart meters can supposedly detect and discriminate different types of load.  But maybe home charging would represent an easy dodge, even with an SM.

I haven't yet seen the trailed shift of 'green levies' from electricity bills onto general taxation: and I believe they've ditched the idea of scrapping VAT on energy.  Will update when I find out.  Anyhow, it's pretty clear they've completely given up on the £300 bill reductions that were to be achieved via "cheaper renewables".  Not before time: Miliband really does have to ditch that crass rhetoric once and for all, and stop making his DESNZ officials parrot it every time they are asked about bills.

UPDATE:  here's at least part of the energy thing which, I reckon, needs more detail to make total sense of: 

She told the Commons: “The Conservatives’ ECO (energy company obligation) scheme was presented as a plan to tackle fuel poverty. It costs households £1.7 billion a year on their bills and for 97% of families in fuel poverty, the scheme has cost them more than it has saved. It is a failed scheme. “So, I am scrapping that scheme along with taking other legacy costs off bills. And as a result, I can tell you today that, for every family we are keeping our promise to get energy bills down and cut the cost of living with £150 cut from the average household energy bill from April. “Money off bills, and in the pockets of working people. That is my choice ... Not to leave working families to bear the brunt of high prices, like the Tories did. But to get energy costs down now and in the years to come.

So, yeah: no contribution from "cheaper renewables" (- how could there be?)  And on a quick calc (£1.7bn across approx 20m households), that's only £85.  So the remaining £65 must come from some other levy-tweaking.  We need yet another update.

UPDATE 2:  yes, it's a direct transfer of subsidies from bills to general taxation: easy when you know how. 

Energy costs will be reduced by the ending of the Energy Company Obligation, which is currently funded through bills, and through the government funding 75% of the domestic cost of the legacy Renewables Obligation for three years. This is on top of extending the £150 Warm Home Discount to a further 3 million of the poorest households.

So: 150 + 150 = 300 & they'll say they've delivered the £300 reduction promise - for "the poorest households", that is.  BUT, as I keep saying, Mili's manifesto claim was that it would be delivered by cheaper renewables!

UPDATE 3:  the EV tax - eVED - is indeed on a self-certify basis.  It is assumed that the 'honesty' rate will be 98.5%, based on the 1.5% default rate on VED.  Hmm.  That surely has to be optimistic: people pretty much expect to have their number-plate checked by ANPR these days, but who imagimes HMRC will check their milometer?

Have at it all in the comments.

ND 

Sizewell C post ... coming soon

As we await the Budget: our learned visitor Mr Wendland asked for a post on SZC and its subsidy regime.

I've done the reading, sir, and it's a-comin' soon ...

ND

Ukraine: Europe must step up, bigly

If taken at face value, the 28-point plan is clever[1].  In my assessment there's only one clause that, pragmatically speaking, should give Ukraine serious pause - and we're still talking "at face value" here, as well as "pragmatic" - and that's the surrender of the territory in the Donbas they still hold: it's militarily crazy.  But - on paper - there's even an answer for that.

BUT.  No-one but an absolute imbecile would trust Trump with their lives - or, likewise, Putin.  Neither man can be trusted to uphold even a full treaty.  We are well into "It is the last territorial claim which I have to make in Europe" territory.

Trump, presumably, will be telling Zelensky he either signs or forgoes US support.  Well, he's a negotiator (of sorts), he expects a bit of to and fro.  

To me, they key is that even were he a man of his word, Trump couldn't deliver the "US side" of this unilaterally - it requires Europe to fall in line.  No Europe, no G8 nor several other clauses in the 28.  So now is the time for Europe to step in with some serious bargaining: we've seen the clear limitations of Team Trump, who evidently can't see the weaknesses in Putin's hand.  Once, it seemed, the EC was capable of pretty hard-nosed negotiating - but that was before the pathetic showing over tariffs.  Surely, there's someone who knows how to play serious, calculating power-politics in the whole of the continent?  Surely?

Trump needs to pay for his Nobel prize, not only with serious ongoing support for Ukraine, but with a conditional set of levers on him and Russia explicitly granted to Ukraine - and Europe[2].  Russia needs to pay for all that territory it has illegally seized with an oversight regime and a structure of tripwires that will keep Putin within his (new) borders.

For completeness, let it be said that the indemnity mooted for Putin and his war crimes sticks in the craw.  But that, I think, is one for Zelensky to chew on.

Finally, you gotta laugh at the implicit belief, written through this plan, that tying Russia closer with TRADE will act as some kind of guarantor of peace.  Ask Merkel about that one.  And - just who was it it who pointed that out to Germany in the UN ..?  Yep, it was the Orange One.

So: where is Europe's unblinking hard man?

ND

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[1] 'Clever' in the sense that Witkoff, apparently an accomplished businessman but patently devoid of the slightest sense of geography, history, Realpolitik, naked evil, or his own extreme gullibility, has done a plodding, comprehensive job against a long list of desiderata: there's an answer for (almost) everything in there, provided you make a load of truly heroic and optimistic assumptions about some deeply untrustworthy individuals.  He's clearly in that archetypal category of naïve-but smart Americans who see no malice in anyone and proceed in a purely rationalistic manner to address all difficulties piecemeal and with diligence.  They often achieve big things (vide the grand history of the USA).  But there are some things that are completely beyond them.  

[2] How to define "Europe"?  Well, whatever is the body of entities that is required to deliver all those clauses, that can't be done by the USA unilaterally.  In fact, we could say "the other members of the G7" too, were that not to include China.

Mahmood, fairness, and blunt speaking

Has any politician from any parliamentary party - I include Reform - spoken so plainly and indeed bluntly in Parliament on the topic of illegal immigration and "asylum" as Shabana Mahmood?

The Tories, in particular, must be wondering why they didn't come up with a package of measures along the lines of hers, several years ago.

If Polanski wants to carve out a metro-bedsit-space on this issue for the Greens, well, he'll find it isn't as big in electoral terms as he imagines.  

[Gotta feel a bit sorry for "Your Party": they'd love to be all over this and use it as a recruiting sergeant - but they can't prise their own fingers away from the throats of their comrades long enough to write a press release.] 

Let's see how Labour splits when it comes to a vote.  Plenty of abstentions, but not so many outright 'noes', I'm guessing.  They know what their own constituents are saying: they just hope the matter doesn't get raised in Parliament and polite society.

Both sides claim to be guardians of the British Sense of Fairness.  My very early experience as a junior officer in the Army is that what the middle classes think of as 'fair' can be starkly different to what the workers think.  You can  stub your toe badly on that.

ND

BBC: despite outrages, needs fixing, not scrapping

Cards on the table: I am a big supporter of an idealised concept of what the BBC can be at its best.

But, boy, do they inflict damage on themselves.  The Panorama[1] / Trump thing is a journalistic outrage, as even hardened anti-Trump lefties with concern for the integrity of journalism agree.  The Panorama "anti-semitism in the Labour Party" is another.  Looks like they had (have?) a rogue LGBTIxyz unit of some kind, busily censoring their colleagues.  Their climate / energy offerings are often pure green-blob output.  Etc etc etc. 

And then you get the opposite: the Panorama in 2022 on Drax and its baleful Canadian operations was masterly, with long-running consequences that haven't fully played out yet.

Even thin-skinned Trump should recognise the soft power of the Beeb worldwide, and how many western interests it buttresses.  (Incidentally, what possible damages could he claim to have suffered?)  What would step into its shoes?  Domestically, maybe the better ITV and C4 documentaries.  But abroad?  Just commercial and/or dangerous fake-news dross from very unsavoury sources.  

But I'll end on another condemnatory anecdote, starting with "It was ever thus".  

Many, many years ago when I was heavily involved in local politics, myself and Mrs D were approached by Panorama to be interviewed on the subject of Child Benefit, on our very own sofa at home, as a representative middle-class married couple with school-aged children.  As the evening wore on and they kept asking us the same questions over and over, it became apparent they were hoping we'd express thus-and-such opinions.  But we didn't.  They were relentless, eventually telling us fairly precisely the words they wished to put into our mouths.  Well, we weren't having it; so the extensive footage they'd shot was entirely abortive.

But not the entire evening.  During a break, they asked us if we could put them in touch with other couples in the area, with different profiles to our own.  We mentioned two things: (1) a couple we were willing to sound out for them, who exactly fitted one of the profiles they wanted; and (2) quite separately and en passant, that there was a vantage point up the road from ourselves where some of the most expensive houses in London looked out across a valley, directly towards a huge and fairly rough council estate on the hill opposite.

So what happened?  When the programme aired, whilst Mr & Mrs D did not make an appearance, the other couple did.  And against the backdrop of a camera shot panning from a big house across to the council estate, the introductory voice-over asserted that this was the view from the couple's own front room.  Except that they didn't live anywhere near that vantage point ...  a complete BBC confection.  Shameless, and deeply unprofessional stuff: but I'm sure someone who'd misinterpreted John Birt's "mission to explain"[2] just loved it.     

They shoot themselves in the foot, so many times.  And it seems they just can't help it.  My supportive view of an idealised BBC is, ahem, very idealised indeed.

ND

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[1] It's worth noting that 'Panorama' is as much a banner than a BBC department.  Individual programmes they broadcast under that label are generally made by an ad hoc team of independent reporters / researchers assembled for a single programme.

[2] A renowned journo of my acquaintance who'd worked at the Beeb in this era told me how it worked.  Birt's 'MtE' approach was: (a) first, researchers would do a load of rigorous research & analysis on some tricky topic; (b) they'd reach their conclusions on how the issues were to be understood and explained; (c) they'd go out into the world and find interviewees etc to "illustrate" what they'd concluded, creating an explanatory narrative.

How this worked in practice was:  a bunch of people - generally lefties - who had no genuine expertise on the topic, would sit at their desks discussing and arguing for weeks, with a few facts and opinions thrown in.  They'd reach their conclusions essentially a priori from their baleful assumptions and leftist worldview, and write their narrative.  They'd then set out to find and interview (and of course put words into the mouths of) people that were selected as archetypes, often outright caricatures, of the various viewpoints featuring in their narrative, in order to bring it alive for a TV audience.  Then air the programme.

Little or nothing of this process represented genuine, open-minded journalistic research, and at worst was the kind of pre-ordained confection we still see in such outrages as the Trump speech-splicing episode. 

Mamdani, charisma and the Left

The whole Mamdani phenomenon is quite exceptionally interesting, n'est-ce pas?  The Left, Greens and progressives generally, everywhere, are hoping upon hope they can ride on his coat-tails to woke victory.  Can it be Polanski?  And yet ...

Generally, the real politicos of the Left hate the idea of needing to depend on personality-centred leadership.  Magnetic charisma is even worse.  These objections are doctrinal for them, and, you suspect, visceral, too.  The Revolution comes, not when an individual galvanises gullible voters, but When Economic Conditions are Right, and the working masses rise up as one (along with the less-than-charming, less-than-working bedsit brigade).  Of course, the sainthood conferred upon Lenin rather goes against this; and "whoa, Jeremy Corbyn" / Magic Grandad; but ...  

The fact is, even ordinary-grade charm is dangerous, never mind outright charisma.  The Blairs and the Johnsons (and even the Mandelsons) of this world glide through life asserting their exemption from ordinary constraints, and getting what they want.  When we get to Clinton, we are talking weapons-grade, Elvis-level powers, particularly over women.  (I've no intention of getting into Godwin territory.)

When working for a US multinational, I once attended a management conference in the States.  On one occasion we were addressed by a speaker who had a novel but pedestrian consultancy-type idea to sell - a lens for categorising & analysing problems according to some classic 2 x 2 matrix of his devising.  His ideas were worthwhile, but - objectively speaking - no more than just something to digest, hoist on board, and deploy where useful for a bit of an additional insight.

The thing was, he was as charismatic as all Hell (and the Devil is really quite charismatic).  In the coffee-room afterwards, the discussion - amongst supposedly professional people, mostly senior engineers, went (or rather, gushed) like this.

- Wow!  Wasn't that great?!  I heard him say X, and Y.  I really agree with that.

- Yeah - best we've heard all week!  I heard him say A and B - that really resonates with me.

And so on.

Now with my cynical but quite useful Oxford training in philosophy and logic, I was mentally at one remove from all this the moment the guy flashed his enigmatic smile at us.   And, if you'll forgive the arrogance of my reckoning I can offer an 'objective assessment', I can assure you he said none of X, Y, A nor B: some of the supposed pronouncements attributed to him were mutually contradictory!  What he did do, was absolutely enthrall his audience, who then individually projected onto him everything each of them wanted to hear when their emotions were roused.  Amazing stuff, this snake-oil: believed to cure all known conditions.  Harmless, on this occasion ... but we all know where this sometimes goes.

Let's watch Messrs Mamdani's and Polanski's careers with interest.  

ND

More weekend wisdom: understanding Russia

A favourite endeavour of mine.  And this video is really worth watching.  Periodically, we have visitors around here who side with the pro-Russia narrative to a really striking degree.  Well, watch and learn, from someone - Serhii Plokhy - who is genuinely expert.  (Yeah yeah, he lived in Ukraine as a boy.  So what?  Check out what he says, & then read it up for yourself.)  And finish it off with the block quotation at the end of this post.

We might all note, in particular, Plokhy's comments on how Russia can, at the same time, be performing really badly in Ukraine (see this blog passim since 2023) but also be a genuine threat to Europe.  So often we get - from Aaron Bastani in this vid, and from some of our trolls BTL commentators here - "well, they can't be both".  Well, maybe they can: see what he has to say.  And the corollary is both chilling, and food for serious thought for our lamentably substandard political leaders.

Note also how the good Bastani keeps learning things he should maybe have already known, and is consequently amazed by - in this vid, and in others of his excellent interviews.  You might wonder why I regularly cite and link to Bastani's Novara Media, a bunch of supposedly irredeemable progressive lefties, as they would see themselves.  Well, the highly articulate** leadership triumvirate of this bunch are, on their better days, definitely open to argument; and their slow, inchingly slow march to the right since 2017 has been amusing and instructive to watch.  They might even, somewhat reluctantly, admit it.  Bastani in particular is quite clearly a social conservative, and more so with each passing year (marriage, a family, home ownership, and moving out of London can have that effect ...)

[Their problem is, they have so much empty space in their heads where some genuine knowledge of the real world should be, that they - particularly AB again - are inclined to swallow almost anything they are told by people who seem to know.  Their suckering by Gary Stevenson, "once the no.1 [self-styled] trader in the world" (my arse) is highly amusing: and AB has also been well taken in by, e.g., Brett Christophers and that old hippy-rogue Dale Vince: he laps up their stuff in a culpably uncritical way, because it's all so new to him & he has no relevant frame of reference or ability to reality-check it.  All that said, they present some really thought-provoking stuff and, as I said, some of it clearly rubs off on them.]

Ho hum.  Just watch the video when you have 90 mins to spare.  And for good measure, let's add the following, from the remarkable commentator Kamil Galeev, which fits very neatly: 

The Soviet American war was supposed to be fought to somewhere to the west of Rhine. What you got instead is a Soviet Civil War happening to the east of Dnieper.  If you said that the battles of the great European war will not be fought in Dunkirk and La Rochelle, but somewhere in Kupyansk ... you would have been once put into a psych ward, or, at least, not taken as a serious person. The behemoth military machine had been built, once, for a thunderbolt strike towards the English Channel. Whatever remained from it, is now decimating itself in the useless battles over the useless coal towns of the Donetsk Oblast

You would understand the course of this war much better, if you consider that on February 23, 2022, Putin considered Ukrainians as Russians. Perfectly integratable, assimilatable and draftable.   Take control over Ukraine, and increase your Russian population by over 1/3.   Now the next generation of Russian leaders will not see Ukrainians as Russians anymore. The integration of Ukrainians into Russia proper will not be seen as either possible, or even desirable. It will be seen as a hostile foreign country, and a hostile foreign population.   So, this may be the most important final result of this war. The unity of Soviet world, only partially affected by 1991, is now firmly and irreversibly shattered. Too much blood spilled, too much mutual hatred & suspicion arisen. Return to how it used to be is no longer possible

That said, recall Plokhy's salutary point above:  all this can be true, and yet Russia can also still be a threat to Europe.  Make that 'is'.

ND

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** Again, on their better days

Budget compo: and, yes, Miliband - again!

With the Budget looking to be one helluva political set piece drama, it's time for C@W to predict the content.  She's gonna do something big, but what?  Over to you all.  Compo question: which levers will Reeves pull?  

(I have always reckoned that simply adding more bands at the upper end of the Council Tax meets all the political and technical tests: it's fast, 'progressive', virtually impossible to dodge.  If that isn't one of her measures, she's even madder than previously thought.)

AND of course it all leads to heightened leadership speculation.  AND as you all know, I have long championed the notion that Miliband's prospects are a great deal better than most people say - in that Doomsday aspect, if not for keeping his job under Starmer.  Right on cue, here's Guido: 

The Times picks up on rumours that Ed Miliband is a viable replacement for Starmer come the PM’s defenestration. As Guido reported back in September the Energy Secretary went on major manoeuvres after the PM tried and failed to remove him from post at the Phase 2 reshuffle. He is blamed by senior figures in Labour for a series of inflammatory briefings whose aim is to undermine Starmer. No surprise then that with Keir’s possible end on the horizon someone has decided to start whispering Miliband’s name in hacks’ ears…

I agree.

ND

Weekend wisdom: interview with Martin Wolf

Here's something that's worth an hour of anyone's time: an intelligent(ish) interview with the super-intelligent Martin Wolf, FT, doyen of economics commentators and billed here as the World's Top Financial Journalist (a title he disowns, BTW, claiming only tangential knowledge of finance). 

Mostly, it's a case of listen, learn, reflect: Wolf is impressively thoughtful, not least on the matter of what's genuinely uncertain in our present stressed circumstances.  But there were a couple of things he expresses serious interest in, which I'd push back on:

• Citizen's assemblies.  Yeah, but who gets to run them?  You know perfectly well that a cleverly framed set-up will get any answer that's wanted by the establishment that commissions them**.  I mean, seriously, this is bonkers.
• Workers' representatives on Boards: he thinks Germany has done well with this.  Hmm.  I have some experience, via a lengthy consultancy gig I undertook in Germany, with an archetypal large German co.  The workers' board member was given a nice office, and frequent, carefully curated 'briefings' on all manner of topics.  He was a nice enough cove, completely out of his depth.  Those carefully selected mangers giving him the briefings said he barely understood any but the most basic topics, and was a pushover.  Maybe that was exceptionally helpful to the co in question!  But I doubt it's what Wolf means.

He also seems to be warming to proportional representation.  Well, too big an issue to dilate upon here, save to note that, barring some political event not even dreamed of right now, the next GE will be conducted in genuinely uncharted electoral waters.

Enjoy.

ND

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** Fair enough, I once reviewed in detail the output of a CA on use of biomass, which was (I consider) fairly well set-up with balanced opening presentations, and which clearly surprised the organisers as to how strongly the majority was against tree-burning (which as not the answer they wanted).  HOWEVER, the official take on it mis-used the actual voting data.  Having failed to rig it, they still tried to bias the one-liner takeways.  And you know they'd have rigged it even more determinedly for a sequel.  You'll all keep voting until you give the right answer.

White elephant houses [still] for sale

The amusing and long-running tale continues of the luxury 7-bedroom Croydon houses being offered with no garages and profoundly awkward vehicular access - at, errr, £1.65m apiece.

Well, they still haven't sold - despite the steeply-inclined driveway being nicely paved now, and one or two other cosmetic finishing touches being added (saplings, gates, handrails on the steep concrete steps, see these recent pics).

Steep prices, steep driveways  -  & no garages 

But they are now also being promoted by yet another estate agent - which specialises in marketing properties intended for buy-to-let.  

Can multiple occupancy and asylum-seekers be far behind?  They wouldn't have seven cars to go with the seven bedrooms ... (at least, not until they've "joined the labour market") and would be glad of the five bus routes that pass the front door, some of them 24/7, on the busy A232 'Red Route'.

ND

The French farce of 'one in, one out'

As our friend Mr Hēméra kindly pointed out BTL yesterday, my vision of a single small-boater being recycled endlessly between France & Dover & back to gain credits for the Frogs under 'one in, one out', may have come true almost immediately.  The Beeb led with the story yesterday, although the Graun kept it off their front www page altogether: we can imagine which approach goes down better with ministers ...  And the Beeb also announced that Mr Frog is no longer reckoning to puncture or otherwise intercept the boats in shallow water ... citing 'Elf-n-Safety!  (Have you ever seen a wheelchair user trying to access the Metro?  They have absolutely no concept of E-n-S there.)

All very entertaining.  And the supplementary questions are so easy to generate, it's almost embarrassing to do so.  But here goes, for starters.  

1. OK, chapter and verse, please, on how exactly the 'one in ...' points system works in such cases ...
2. ... and was it meant to be, errr, a deterrent?
3. Does this enterprising chap get another round of free legal aid in order to plead his case all over again?  With added sobbing and explanations of how France is unsafe for human habitation?
4. Where did he get the money for a second voyage?   (maybe the Louvre heist ..?)
5. How come the meejah all have interviews with him??  
6. Have the handful of (volunteer) Rwanda deportees also come back?

Just askin' ...

ND

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PS: thinking again about 4 & 5 above: along with two packets of 'Duchy Original' oat biscuits, did his "HMG farewell goodie-bag" from last time include €1,000 and an i-phone?

All up for Miliband?

Last week before a Select Committee, a bunch of genuine energy industry experts effectively demolished Miliband's plans - at least in his risible 2030 timing for de-carb and price cuts, if not in totality.  Their numbers and reasoning cannot be gainsaid.  Even the Grauniad has noticed.

And yet he & DESNZ still keep mouthing the same nonsense. "It's all the fault of gas. £300 bill reductions by 2030 are a commitment. 95% decarb elec by 2030. Both will come through investment in renewables, and that's the only way." 

Emperor. No clothes. It's too serious, just to point & laugh.  

I know he thinks Net Zero is his life's mission on earth & redemption for losing the 2015 GE; he's resilient, determined, politically adept and relentlessly optimistic: but how long can he last in office?  Before he's simply pushed by Starmer, or baited beyond endurance by Reeves, or his intellectual pride causes him to throw in the towel?

UPDATE, THURSDAY  -  not saying "you read it here first"; but this morning's Graun reckons it is indeed all up for Miliband's policies & targets.  Can he last until Xmas?  The Budget?

ND

Polly Toynbee: stopped clock, sometimes right

Something else I returned to was a Graun article by La Toynbee, which broadly makes a lot of sense. 

For baffling reasons, soon after the general election a government with a sky-high in-tray of problems embarked on a gigantic local council reorganisation no one knew about. It didn’t feature in the manifesto, nor in the local government secretary Steve Reed’s conference speech last week – but England has plans to axe unknown numbers of local councillors – some estimates put it at nearly 90%. The white paper outlining these plans actually boasts that there will be “fewer local politicians”, pandering disgracefully to the general scorn for politics ... For all the talk of localism and connecting to neighbourhoods, these are the unheralded foot soldiers of democracy. It is councillors who run political parties and much that binds their communities. Few people ever join political parties, yet the whole tottering democratic system relies entirely on those who do. Running the council and becoming a councillor is part of party members’ purpose and motivation. Abolishing so many will diminish democratic engagement over time

For once, she's right - it happens a couple of times per decade.  This is awful.  The "baffling reason", we must suppose, is Starmer's centralising tendency, coupled with his complete lack of political hinterland or general grass-roots experience.  

ND 

Putin 'apologises': an interesting development

Returned from a couple of weeks away to find interesting news on several international fronts.  One little-noticed development that particularly caught my eye is that Putin has publicly "apologised" to Aliyev for the shooting down of an Azerbaijani airliner last year, and acknowledged formally for the first time that Russian air defences were what caused the disaster.  When it happened 10 months ago, Putin commiserated over the event - well, he kinda had to, it happened over Russian airspace, FFS - but said only that Ukrainian drones had been in the area.  Ever since, Aliyev has been demanding full acknowledgement, apology, punishment of the guilty, and compensation; and only now does he get just the first two of these, along with a statement that the details are still being looked into.   The inverted commas around "apologised" are required because of course it was done in the most ungracious, weasel-like manner.  (Needless to say, the Russian 'patriotic' media space reckons Aliyev is seriously out of order for having the temerity even to mention the matter, and should be subjected to a Special Military Operation of his own as soon as, errr, resources allow.)  

Why apologise now?  We need to take into account something else that happened recently - when Putin went to Beijing for the VJ-Day 80th anniversary celebrations.  Xi engineered things so that as Putin was going into a reception, who should he meet at the door but Aliyev, and was forced to shake his hand as though Aliyev was receiving him into the occasion.  Being bounced like this went down exceedingly badly in Moscow: it was widely viewed as a humiliation for L'il Volodya.  

Which it was.  On massive international occasions where diplomatic choreography is everything - particularly where China is involved and symbolism is paramount - nothing like that happens by coincidence.  Putin was set up then; and afterwards presumably taken aside and told to get on with the public apology.  Much as Moscow likes to big up Putin sitting next to Xi, one couldn't but notice who was sitting on the other side ...  Yep, it was Jong-Un the Wrong'un.  That's Xi saying to the world: meet my two surly stooges - the guys who are wholly beholden to me.

Putin has never been forgiven by China for invading Georgia during the 2008 Beijing Olympics - a truly monstrous breach of protocol.  It would have been against the rules even during ancient times: the Games marked a truce across the whole of Greece.  But for proud, prickly China, it was an outrage.  In the Jan 2008 C@W annual predictions compo, I forecast the invasion but with one erroneous detail: I said it would be after the Olympics.  I mean, what kind of idiot would do it during ..?

ND

Starmer vs ... Whom?

"Decency vs Division" is this week's rallying call for Starmer, with a range of associated wok-ish sub-slogans.  It's suggested by some that he, Reeves and Phillipson are running snide little side-campaigns against Andy Burnham and Lucy Powell: but who is the primary enemy in Starmer's sights?

The obvious, face-value answer is N. Farage: but I don't think so.  IMHO, this whole Party Conference turn is aimed squarely at targets on the Left, in the two menacing shapes of Zack Polansky and the Corbyn / Sultana rabble.  Starmer's first aim now must be to persuade what remains of the left-ish, green-ish sector of the Labour movement that he's sufficiently, demonstratively anti-Farage for them to reckon staying with Labour is the safest option, rather than futile fragmentation into the ranks of the splitters.  A bit like the French are always doing to fend off Marine Le Pen.

Will any of his target audience be persuaded?  It's not clear to me that many will, once the Conference euphoria is over.  He'll be permitting new offshore drilling applications soon; those new runways displease a lot of folk; and it'll be quite hard to row back on his anti-small-boaters rhetoric.  Etc Etc.  OK, Reeves may shortly find a bit of (our) dosh for the two-child benefit cap thing, plus fuel discounts for a couple million more welfare recipients: but he still won't be delivering Gaza from its fate, or doing anything that would seriously piss off Trump.

We'll see.

Incidentally, what's the betting that initially, someone on the speechwriting team actually suggested "Diversity vs Division"?  Before being slapped down, and probably shown the door ...

ND 

The veterans problem in Ukraine

Following on from the earlier post on Russia's fairly comprehensive plans for its future tsunami of troubled veterans, we now turn to Ukraine.  The situation looks potentially to be much, much worse.

On the one hand, whatever the 'outcome', Russia will still be there and Ukraine will not be able to stand down its army.

On the other, its overall manpower problem has been dire from Day 1.  If Zelensky has dropped any balls at all, the biggest has been his failure to crack on with a proper conscription plan: so Ukraine has been fighting the war with men (and women) predominantly of age 30+, some a lot older still, when everyone knows that (infantry) warfare is a business for 18+.  Those 30+'s have fought magnificently - much, much better than the Russian rabble** they have faced - but there is a limit.  Meanwhile, back on the home front, a large percentage of the remaining male population has been (a) bribing the local commissar to keep themselves out of the recruiting office, and/or (b) skipping abroad.  There is only so much that can be delegated to a fleet of drones, across a battlefield as large as Ukraine's.

The demographic problem resulting from this is acute, and can only get worse; and I haven't seen much sign of it being addressed.  Well, there's a helluva lot else going on.

The precise details of how this plays out will depend upon exactly how the current conflict is "frozen".  There are of course many scenarios - too many to legislate for every possibility.  There are just two strands I think will feature in any case.

1.  For many years forward the EU (and prob the UK) will be sending huge amounts of cash to Ukraine for civil reconstruction and societal rebuilding (a dismal proportion of which will be swiftly embezzled, as has been the case throughout) - it's the only thing the EU really knows how to do;

2.  There will be very many violent men roaming the world, offering their services as mercenaries or enforcers for organised crime, either as thugs or as expert hackers and drone operators.  As regards the thugs, go back to the first post: that's what happened after Russia / Afghanistan; it's what galvanises Putin; and that was small beer by comparison.

Per the earlier post again: at least Putin is thinking about it.  He has that luxury.  It will take a worldscale genius to solve Ukraine's manpower issues: and if no such person emerges, the legacy will be long and baleful.  Brave, brave Ukraine deserves something better.

ND

_________________

*  I first met Russian soldiers in the flesh in 1985 at a conference in Potsdam.  They were an unutterable rabble, the officers and men of the proud Soviet Army.  The officers wandered around in public with their tunics raffishly unbuttoned and their hats at rakish angles, a parody of caddish behaviour.  The men were pathetically thin and unsoldierly in their ill-fitting, coarse uniforms and bizarre outsize flat caps.  And this was 3rd Shock Army, the tip of the spear!  Forty years on, nothing much seems to have changed: it was troops like this that were humiliated in just a few weeks in Feb-March 2022, and driven off the field in full rout during Ukraine's Kharkiv counter-offensive in the September of that year.

Russia plans for the return of 'troubled' veterans

Among many dire woes of various kinds, the combatants in the war in Ukraine each have a massive problem brewing: what to do with their armies when fighting ceases.  Any nation does, and always has had.  The details are different in each case: I'll look at Russia in this post.  

The objective diagnosis is this: hugely disgruntled Russian soldiery returning from their 10-year adventure in Afghanistan 1979-1989, brought with them many personal problems, and were not well looked after.  They in turn caused no end of social problems themselves, many of the most violent, brutal and criminal  kind.  Putin knows all about this from his KGB days, in even more detail than every Russian citizen knows anyway.  There will be even more returnees from the 'Special Military Operation' (SMO); and thus far, there has been no large-scale demobilisation (perhaps for this very reason).  Even so, those few who have returned, on leave or wounded or just deserters, have been causing all the expected problems.  This is not least because when they are serving in the SMO their pay is substantially better than anything they'll return to - often their reason for signing up in the first place.  The towns from which they hail (mostly quite a long way from Moscow ...) are trembling at the thought of this happening on a large scale.

Zhukov: definitely not wanted by Stalin in 1946
photo: MoD Russian Federation  Mil.ru

Coupled with this is a particular Russian problem: its post-Tsarist leadership has always feared the military.  Communist parties always do, the world over: doctrinally, they recognise no higher power than the Party - but they have obviously also spotted that large numbers of men trained in violence are themselves potentially a rival source of power to be reckoned with.  Lenin's first actions on taking power were (a) to strike a peace with Germany, quickly followed by (b) disarming the army. Shortly after WW2, Stalin (who had of course eviscerated the Russian army officer corps in the 1930s) dispatched Marshal Zhukov, undisputed victor of the Eastern Front, to effective banishment (ironically, to the Odessa Military District), such was the Marshal's popularity and stature.

Irrespective of the details of whatever outcome in Ukraine, Putin - shaken to his core by Prigozhin just two years ago - knows he has to deal with this comprehensively.  Phase One, as noted above, is probably just to avoid demobilising at all for as long as possible.  Phase Two is the "Time of Heroes" programme being rolled out, that will reserve a range of sinecures in civic society (in government, deputy mayoral posts etc etc) for veterans of the SMO.  Now, word is coming out that veterans will be packed off en masse to build new infrastructure and enterprises in ... Siberia!  (And Murmansk, which is just as cold.)  The pay won't be great but it will be a job ...  As one Russian cynic has it:

"Veterans have already fulfilled the most important task of the state - to fight our enemies. Who, if not them, should perform new tasks, be ahead of everyone in this matter? Veterans, current and future, let's be honest, in civilian life, many of you will not be able to earn as much as in the army. Resettlement in Siberia will be an excellent (and for some, the only) way for you to find yourself in a peaceful life," 

 ... oh, and it won't be anywhere near Moscow.

Still, at least Putin is thinking about it strategically.  Unlike so many other aspects of the SMO.  Well, au fond, his training was KGB.

ND

Here's why Left will get 0% of 16-year old boys' votes

In two words: Soft Porn.

Well, certainly the Right has its knockers ... 

Fruity humour.  The Right can use it, the Left can't.  Starmer is completely mad if he goes for it.

ND

Corbyn / Sultana: Splitters!

The Corbyn / Sultana new party thing is truly contributing to the gaiety of the nation.  The only disappointing aspect must be that it surely can't continue for very long, much as we'd all love it to.

The Beeb reports that an initiative of the Sultana has been thwarted by a cabal of Corbyn plus "Ayoub Khan, Adnan Hussain, Iqbal Mohamed and Shockat Adam", causing her to rail thus: 

I have been subjected to what can only be described as a sexist boys' club: I have been treated appallingly and excluded completely. They have refused to allow any other women with voting rights on the Working Group

Now forgive me for making generalisations here; but aren't those gentlemen of cultural heritages where the views of women aren't always, errr, held in the highest esteem?  Irony or what?

Oh dear.

ND