Mysterious fire: what can have happened?

We return to a location in Croydon we've visited here before: to a house directly opposite this pair of beauties (of which one remains stubbornly unsold, even at a much reduced price).  For years, this fine but dilapidated edifice that they look out onto has commanded the road, twin turrets and all.  The owners are the Datoo brothers, gentlemen well known to Croydon Council, who had submitted wave upon wave of planning applications, involving complete demolition, generally for large, low-rise blocks of flats.  Most of these had not found favour.  Their latest plan is for a 60-resident nursing home.

Ten days ago at 4 am, a large conflagration broke out, seemingly in two different parts of the house simultaneously (not that I'm a forensic scientist).  The place immediately became what must surely be a crime scene, with a 24-hour police presence (!) being mounted for at least 5 days after the fire, and a regular presence there even today.

What can possibly have happened?  Did a group of pyromaniac squatters move in and take against the place?  We must wait patiently for an inquiry.

In any event, locals are distinctly Not Happy.  "It would appear that there's been foul play here."  All very odd.

ND

Seven-Up / 70-Up and a big coincidence

I can't guess how widely the 7-Up series has a following among the C@W faithful, but in Schloss Drew we've certainly always watched it over the decades.  Capped off this week by 70-Up, which looks to be the very last outing for that format and crew.

Here's a remarkable coincidence.

Having not been at school with any of the 14 subjects, nor come into contact with them in any shape or form in my youth, nor sought them out in any way, nor ever come anywhere near the TV programme and any of its workings or personnel,  in later life I came to know two of the 14 personally (one in the Army and the other ay University).  What are the chances of that?[1]

One of them I subsequently avoided.[2]    With the other, Mrs D & I were in reasonably regular incidental contact until he moved away from London; and still see him once in a while.

Curious.  Small world.

ND

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[1] That said, there seemed to be several coincidences around that set of people, as recounted by the lad who became a taxi driver.

[2] Libel is still a thing.

Returning to the Baltics

Just back from a round trip, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania - determined to get there, perhaps for the last time, before Putin does.  It might have been a closer-run thing than we'd anticipated. 

                                                                * * * * 

When I was based in Moscow in the mid 1990s, I also had a pied-a-terre office in Riga [LVA], so in a dated fashion I am somewhat familiar with that city.   The building was gone - it had been the Latvian Konsomol HQ - and replaced by something very mundane: but its twin on the opposite corner is still standing, so you get the idea. 

Site of Drew's office: back then it looked like its twin on the left

In all three countries, Russian can still be heard spoken (far more in Riga than anywhere else) but support for Ukraine is very great.   In May, Putin took powers to use the army to “protect Russian citizens” abroad and appealed to the UN Court of Justice to demand the Baltic states, particularly Latvia, be held to account for “infringing on the rights of Russians”.    The sabre-rattling is there for all to hear. 

Well, one of his massive strategic errors was to treat so very badly those parts of the 'pro Russian' Donbas he seized in 2014: you have to be an extremely Russophile Russian-speaker to want the same for your own region.   In the lovely university town of Tartu [EST] a museum attendant advised me to keep my (modest) knowledge of Russian to myself. 

But could the Baltics be defended?   It's perfect tank country, flat as a pancake: the highest 'mountain', Suur Munamägi [EST] is only 1,000 ft. The population is sparse, and declining in each country[1].  The first is true of both Sweden and Finland, of course, and nobody mistakes them for a pushover. But defensively their geographical advantages are great.  The Baltics by contrast have a hideously long land border with Russia / Belarus; far less defensive depth; the anomalous bastion-state of Kaliningrad to their south; and something of a fifth column, however small, in each country.  In terms of the usual Russian strategy - a lightning land-grab, promptly fortified and never to be returned, with rachet-increments planned thereafter - only the full force of NATO could offer protection.  And that means more than just a plausible strong Polish counter-thrust from the south and some Ukrainian drone-warfare savvy.  Yes, we saw NATO troops and aircraft everywhere, but not in vast numbers. 

Frankly, 'defence' here means an exceptionally fast and large-scale counter-mobilisation during a buildup period[2], plus a credible nuclear deterrent: sanctions have already been pretty much maxxed out.  If Putin survives another decade in his present frame of mind, and if he doesn't believe our red lines (we've never believed his), there's little hope. 

                                                               * * * * 

As if to reinforce these gloomy thoughts, two weeks ago the F16s and Typhoons were circling Vilnius [LTU] as we arrived and the airport was briefly closed.  At midnight a day later, up on our phones flashed a (Lithuanian) government alert message - 'Find safe place'.  The drone in question was promptly shot down and the all-clear given; but there were squads of soldiers on the street the next morning. 

Certainly takes the edge off a holiday trip.  A great shame, because the weather was good, the insects not oppressive (other than in Riga), we saw some beautiful sights and met some great people.   In principle, we'd also like to go back again - a great deal more to see.  Can we hope that a Burnham - Miliband government will contribute meaningfully to strengthening the West's collective position? 

ND 

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[1] Also declining in Russia, of course - and most everywhere else in Eastern Europe. 

[2] And who else in Europe believed the very specific US / UK intelligence warnings in 2021-22? Blinkered hope reigns eternal.

 

AI escapes

The other day our friend CH noted BTL (and OT, but let's not worry about that): 

... We can now create virtual Von Neumann machines comprising of those AIs, who can scale and network as well as reason around any guardrails, and so are clear to cheat their way to solutions without the sentience to weigh consequences as we would. Not they can't reason consequence, but is done as an exercise in cold logic. This is actually more dangerous than a SkyNet - it's swarms of savants looking to achieve aims without any moral or ethical boundaries, and with no higher scope of understanding. And given IT has been a lot of bodged jobs, minimal security, and all connected via a global network that itself can be hijacked at scale, we've quite the recipe for disaster ...

So let's have at it.

I have seen the AI escape likened to covid, and explicitly contrasted with climate change.  The former was on everyone's radar for a few weeks, while we all wondered what would happen next ...

I haven't seen it likened to the financial crash of 2008.  Here at C@W, we signposted that in 2007, so perhaps the run-up period is about right.    But where is Gordon Brown to save the world now ..?

ND

Russian elections this month - exciting!

[Spoiler alert - contains election result]  

The exciting prospect of a Russian election is upon us!  Not the Presidential this time, but the Duma and lots of regional governors.  Who will win?  Can United Russia cling on to power?  Despite an approval rating in the 30's, down from 42%[1] earlier in the year ...

Well, yes.  

Firstly, the authorities have taken the precaution of banning the only previously-tolerated 'opposition' party, which had the temerity to oppose the Special Military Operation almost from the outset.  Up until now this had been allowed to pass, but not any longer.  Secondly, the Fix is In.  

Putin has declared that he's looking for United Russia to get 85%.  (Long-time readers will recall that my sources gave the Presidential result to within the percentage last time around[2]: they are good, these election-fixers!  Eat your heart out, Donald.) 

The only small cloud on the horizon is opposition from an unexpected source - the Orthodox Church.  His Holiness the Patriarch is firmly onside, but a schism has emerged within the ranks of the bishops, among which there is a 'peace party', apparently.  And just a little bit less easy to suppress, when they've reportedly each had a dream/vision that tells them peace should be declared.

But hey - how many divisions has the episcopy?

ND

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[1] the authorities in Russia carry out extensive social-survey polling.

[2] I had reported - in advance - that the result would be 87% for Putin.  In the event, it was declared as 87.3%.  But later, inexplicably, it was re-counted(!) and the official record now says 88.4%.  See, L'il Volodya really cares about his ratings!  And I'm guessing that 85% satisfies amour propre all round - high, but Not As High As His ...

Polly Toynbee is 'optimistic' again. Won't end well ...

 ... it never does.

Over the years I've tracked the barometer, nay, the roller-coaster of Polly Toynbee's agonisingly optimistic takes on her successive political crushes.  Once the SDP was well and truly dead, she had the highest hopes for Blair - until he let her down.  Who can forget her swooning over fellow '70s soft-leftist, anti-nuke Patricia Hewitt when she became Sec of State at the DTI (whose brief then included Energy) and the ever naive Polly wrote: Get that: no new nuclear power stations!  Only to have Blair overrule her - and fire her - shortly thereafter.  Then Brown became even more of a hot fixation, an object of her wish-projection.  We know what happened there.  Then Miliband (in various incarnations).  Then John McDonnell !  (True.  I told you I follow these thing.)  Then Starmer.  And whenever a GE looms at a moment when her hopes for the incumbent leader have already waned, she always dusts off the 'nosepeg' formula for voting Labour anyway.  

And now, from today's Graun ...

We must believe!   Yes, it's heart-wrenchingly pathetic.  (When was that mugshot taken..?)  Anyhow, as a weekend Blast From The Past, back to those heady days of Gordon Brown and how he, in turn, dashed her hopes - one of my doggerel efforts, from from 2007.  Apologies to J.Milton Hayes and Mad Carew, and a good weekend to all.

There’s a one-eyed yellow Scotsman of a dour and sullen hue
There’s a stench of pious bullshit all around
There’s a broken-hearted woman dreams of socialism true
And the yellow Scot forever lets her down

He was known as Red McBroon, and he made the Party swoon
Though his cowardice had long begun to smell
But for all he was a wanker he was feted by the bankers
And Polly Toynbee smiled on him as well

He’d been stringing her along with his socialism strong
She’d swallowed all he put into her head
When she judged Blair’s time was short, she said Broon had her support
Provided he would prove himself True Red

He wrote to ask what promise she would like from Red McBroon
They met for lunch as many times before
And fervently she told him then that nothing else would do
But his vote against Blair’s mad Iraqi war

On the night of the debate, Red McBroon was in a state,
His followers could bring mad Tony down
But he’d never in his life had the balls to wield the knife
For he knew the wielder never wears the crown

When it came to the division, courage gave way to ambition
And his scruples failed as surely as his balls
When she heard them read the vote, fury welled up in her throat
And ‘betrayal!’ was her cry around the halls

Now Hell it hath no fury like a jilted Polly Toynbee
First Blair and now McBroon had sold his soul
As she stomped off in the night, for her op-ed piece to write
She vowed vengeance on the yellow Scots arsehole

There’s a one-eyed yellow Scotsman of a dour and sullen hue
There’s a stench of pious bullshit all around
There’s a broken-hearted woman dreams of socialism true
And the yellow Scot forever lets her down.

ND

Meghan and Harry: we must all tread Very Carefully

Mrs D taps daily into a rich seam of interweb humour, and the absolute avalanche of really funny Harry&Meghan stuff is often side-splitting stuff: the neighbours can probably hear us.  And the Sussexes ain't even back here in the self-imposed full-bore glare of the UK meejah yet.  Oh, how that pair are going to relish being back in Blighty.  It'll be just like the old days for both of them, and we know how much they enjoyed it last time around.  It's mutual: we can just see the accountants of Fleet Street already banking the extra newsprint sales and online hits.

Now, here's the Thing.  We have all been duly reprimanded for laughing out loud at fraudster-fabulists and their amazing behaviours and statements because, notwithstanding their self-chosen high profiles and prolific public output of creative tales, their entire squadrons of outriders, and their use of aggressive lawyers, they are of course Very Vulnerable.  And - see what happens then ...  And it'll all be our fault & we'll all be Sorry.

Upon solemn reflection, I reckon the 5th in line to the throne isn't necessarily as robust of brain and character as we'd all hope for.  And we know that people who've had to navigate the terrible micro-aggressions and material deprivations meted out to victims of, errr, intersectional oppressions[1], are doubly at risk.  

So we must all refrain from adding to that avalanche of funny stuff.  I shall only repost any of it if it's really, really funny, and has been subjected to a rigorous Risk Analysis[2] conducted by the Chief Safety Officer here at C@W corporate HQ.   

ND

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[1] I may have got the technical terminology wrong here.  It's not my project.

[2] You think this is satire?  Read this crap from the execrable Jolyon Maugham, attacking the Grauniad no less, including the following:

"What risk analysis was done by [Gruan editor] Kath Viner following the multiple warnings about Professor Arday’s mental state?"

Economic & unconventional warfare against Russia

Things are getting quite ugly for Putin - who faces "elections" shortly - and Russia generally.  High on his list of irritants is the ever more visible and effective campaign of economic and psychological warfare being waged from the skies by Ukraine, adroitly conceived and impressively executed.  The initial phase of this was targeted against oil and gas infrastructure, which has had the desired two-fold effect: genuine economic harm, and extremely visible with it, in terms of both enormous and persistent plumes of black smoke, not least around major cities, and the pockets and P&Ls of all who need to buy oil products.  (We had a truly risible troll BTL a few weeks ago suggesting the Ukrainians were histrionically putting a tank of kerosene in with the drone warhead to create a more photogenic explosion.  Errr, and better combustion on the target, maybe?)

The even more cleverly conceived campaign is that being waged against the mega-depots of the WildBerries chain**, often likened to Amazon.  If anything, relative to the Russian economy WB is even more economically significant than Amazon, because a vast number of Russia's extensive raft of small businesses uses WB as not only a route to market in marketing terms, but also as their sole storage and distribution means.  The impact is every bit as big and more, as would be systematic disruption to Amazon in the West; and, again, the smoke plumes are black, enormous, and visible to much of the population, either first-person or extensively on social meejah.  Needless to say, with enormous, combustible, static targets like refineries and depots spread across the vastness of the Russian land mass, there's not much realistic prospect of shooting down everything that is coming their way, much as efforts are being made.  

From studiously ignoring it all in the early phases, pre-election Putin has felt obliged to make oblique references to indicate he does really know what's going on as it affects the Russian in the street, and that it's all being brought under control.   Right.

So much, so obvious - to even the casual watcher of the BBC News.  But there's something else going on that you may not be aware of.

A clever little psychological campaign has been running for several months now, using social meejah in Russia to suggest that bank deposits will inevitably be frozen once the "elections" are over.  It's been nicely understated: a word to the wise, a tap of the nose, nudge nudge wink wink.  But it's starting to have the desired effect - the early signs of a run on the banks.  This of course could easily become a self-fulfilling dynamic, and it is reported that powers have been taken to effect a freeze whenever L'il Volodya is willing to give the word.  A very high-profile Russian economist has just been fired for having the temerity to state publicly -  in plain but very measured terms - that an economic crisis for Russia is around the corner on a scale that can be survived, but not without extreme steps being taken by the state.  

It is against this background that Putin's posse has announced "there will be consequences" for the UK, our having supplied Ukraine with drones.  Given that we supplied Storm Shadow missiles, very much more effective (and expensive) several years ago, it cannot be said that we've crossed any particular red lines just recently.  The list of Putin's red lines that we and the West generally have blithely crossed since 2022 is long indeed, so this recent huffing and puffing is clearly to be assessed in today's precise context.  My guess would be that right now, they really don't want any more interference on the banking front and are hoping to deter us from anything that might exacerbate the aforesaid nascent run on the banks.  Russia has long been obsessed with the dark powers they associate with the City.  Watch this space.

Finally, and anticipating what might be the trolls' response to this little update; OK yes, Ukraine is suffering badly, too.  Of course it is!  Ukraine has been suffering badly - very badly - every day since February 2022!  As we well know.  The point is, everyday life in Russia is hurting now, in ways that can't be ignored, even as Putin clamps down on the internet.   The introduction of a bit of symmetry is a big, big difference in the overall situation.

ND

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** As ever with big, prominent enterprises in Russia, there is a lot of politics and organised crime associated with WildBerries, by far the biggest of several such chains.  WB itself is run by very well-connected Armenian interests: its connections in very high places are just as well because it is at daggers drawn with the Chechen mafia.  The other, lesser chains have been left more or less unmolested, which stirs up Russian politics even more.

C@W - 20th anniversary!

Well.  Hard to believe, but this blog has been going for 20 years.  Check the listings in the sidebar - there it all is.  5,431 posts - and 72,878 comments[1].  As noted a while back, nowadays we get more hits than ever, which I ascribe to a long and persistent tail following the massive AI "training" blitz of last year that saw us getting truly astronomical daily numbers for a couple of months.  But we were hardly alone in experiencing that.  (What impact our mighty back-catalogue of accurate reporting, partisan posturing and perfect English prose has had on the collective AI intellect, I cannot imagine.)

So: what to say now?  Take a look back at the 10th anniversary ruminations, which noted a bit of the original history and 2006 context - with more nostalgic stuff from many of our first decade of readership, in the 31 comments below the post.  You'll find many notes on, and contributions from, some of the great bloggers of yesteryear.  Is Guido really the only other current blog still wholly recognisable from 20 years ago?

In the overall context of today's wildly hyper-financialised, hyper-ventilating politico-social media space, the 'conventional' blogosphere is incredibly sedate and, it must be acknowledged, heavily dated.  How many folks nowadays have the attention-span for even a 'medium read', never mind a long read?  Well, you guys do: and there is a world of thoughtful long-reads - it's Substack.  But I've never really felt I had the time to make a proper go of that - an order of magnitude more demanding, I'm guessing, than what's needed to 'curate' a leisurely blog like C@W. 

I suppose in terms of outright www presence, the C@W highlight must be when we were getting so many links and hits via the FT ('Alphaville') and, most impressively, from Robert Peston's blog - which was for a while one of the very biggest UK news blogs, indeed possibly the biggest[2] - that the BBC actually installed some kind of filter and banned any cross-blog linking from Pesto.  Amazing to relate, but true. 

Guido himself tried to persuade CU and me to join his empire as the business rumour-mongering arm of Order-Order.  We turned him down, for this reason.  He gets away with blue murder because he is slagging off politicians: but that's a free hit - they almost never sue.  Try doing that with the corporate community and you'd have Carter Ruck down on you in a nanosecond.  He had to admit, that thought hadn't occurred to him.

Around here, the big change latterly is of course that the great CityUnslicker himself has moved on to other things, and Bill Quango MP is now just an occasional, if always exceedingly welcome, visitor.  Your truly found himself the last man standing a while back, and the flickering flame has never quite gone out - thanks to the many readers that, over those two decades, have adorned the BTL acres with great commentary and wit.

I find it hard to guess what will happen over the next several years.  There will continue to be plenty of events' dear boy, events; and I don't see myself becoming any the less opinionated.  But nothing lasts forever.

Anyhow - I think we're all set for the foreseeable future.  If you're up for it, I am too.  Till the annual predictions round-up, at any rate!  Cheers to you all - 

ND

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[1] The google stats say there have been over 15m site visits but that's an underestimation, since that particular record doesn't go back the whole way, for some reason.  The comments data need to be taken with a pinch of salt, too, because old posts can attract advertising bots posting BTL (often 'commenting' in Chinese or Arabic), and the task of cleaning it all up is beyond what's even vaguely sensible to contemplate. 

[2] Michael Crick's was the other.  

Aardman at the Young V&A - must see

Grommit's garden.  Galleon in background

Mrs Drew & I have just visited a truly superb exhibition at Young V&A* in Bethnal Green. 

It's brilliantly well done and is chock full of original Aardman stuff (Morph, Wallace & Gromit, Creature Comforts, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep etc) - meaning, of course, that it's in full collaboration with the famous animation studio itself.  A marketing ploy?  Who cares.

It works along so many dimensions.  Where do the ideas come from for the models and characters?  We learn a lot about the creative, artistic processes involved, every inch and frame the equal of Disney.  How do they make the models?  Yep, we learn that, too.  You wanna see the models themselves?  All there, from the tiny rivets on the space ship (they use lentils) to the immense galleon from The Pirates!  How do they make it all move?  Plenty of that, too.

How is a were-rabbit articulated?   Now we know ...  

And it's a lot of fun!  Loads of kids - as one might expect - really enjoying themselves.  Kids of all ages.

Getting a bit more po-faced about it all, in the context of Hockney I recently rehearsed my views on what constitutes Art is threefold:  complete mastery of the craft au fond; boundless, compulsive creative output; and a strong eye / ear for abstraction.  It's all here at Aardman.  Nick Park is a true artist.  Go and see his stuff.  

On till November and tickets go quickly during the hols.   

ND

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* This V&A outpost dates from 1872 and has had several incarnations: it once housed the V&A's Rodin collection; in 1974 it became the V&A Museum of Childhood.   Once the heart of Kray territory and very readily accessible from central London, Bethnal Green after the Krays became a magnet for South Asian immigration, notably from Bangladesh; and more recently, it's been gentrifying - just one tube stop from the heart of the City, with lots of fine brick buildings from the Georgian era onwards, ripe for conversion to smart, up-market housing.  The wonder is, it took so long to become trendy.

The museum itself went through a typically annoying woke phase some years ago; but in this case, as in many others, peak woke is mercifully behind us. 

Another reality-check: Rayner approves data centre!

 ... against fierce local opposition - and in the teeth of, yes, housing as potentially being an alternative use for the site.  It's the controversial Brick Lane Data Centre which, in a delightfully pointed insult, offers 4 (four) units of social housing.

What makes it exquisitely amusing is that none other than Housing Secretary Angela 'Stamp-Duty' Rayner has been the one to put her name to the government order overriding lower-tier authorities that would have withheld approval.  One can just imagine the agonies she will have gone through; but, hey, that's the price you pay for the privilege of slipping back into the Cabinet room, eh?  Them's your orders, girl, and leave your scruples at the door.  Still, at least she was able to push a junior minister out in front to make the actual announcement (in her name).   Happily, Parliament is not sitting. 

What I find doubly amusing is the way puzzled progressives can't understand how a data centre can be needed simply to speed up City financial transactions by milliseconds (which is one of the justifications for a DC in the East End).  Surely, they, cry, this is some kind of capitalist joke?  - nobody needs to make even quicker financial transactions ... do they ..?   Well, I have a first-hand story about this for another occasion: bottom line, it's all a lot more real than the ignorant could ever imagine.

On the subject of Them's your orders, girl ... with the fatuous 'consultations' on the Jackdaw and Rosebank fields being about to close, we are all greatly looking forward to Miatta Fahnbulleh being forced to walk the same plank and approve one or perhaps both of them in the next few weeks (doubtless on one quiet Friday evening during the Recess, with another junior minister out in front).  It'll be fun to watch her squirm.

ND

Arday: hard not to laugh

There's a light mood in Schloss Drew this weekend.  The Jason Arday affair is possibly even funnier than Keir Starmer 'resigning' when his legacy is as golden as he and his loyal backbenchers loudly proclaimed.  

As the story rumbled inexorably towards the front pages, progressives reflexively dropped everything and rushed headlong towards the sound of gunfire.  On arriving at the battlefield they immediately hurled themselves into digging mighty entrenchments - nay, positive tank-traps - as a prelude to what they fondly imagined would be a swift and decisive counter-attack.  Unfortunately, the deeper and more frenziedly they dug, the more they became buried in the shit from their own shovels.  Far from any prospect of burying a handful of inconvenient little fabrications, they must now confront the uncontainable, volcanic eruption that is their man's stupendous output of truly creative confabulation.  We are plainly dealing with a decade's worth of deceit from (to switch idioms) an ocean-going liar.  I look forward to receiving a letter from Carter-Fuck on the subject.

Some years ago I sat on the jury of a lengthy Old Bailey murder trial.  One of the sadder aspects was that alongside the two murderers in the dock was the mother of one of the perps, who had fabricated an elaborate but laughably transparent alibi for her son that was contradicted by his own defence case.  Inevitably, she was banged up for attempting to pervert the course of justice.  In mitigation, her Counsel could only offer the excuse that nobody had ever believed her in the first place.  In the ranks of the more reflective and self-critical progressives there's a growing suspicion that we are in similar territory with Arday: did any grown adult** who'd been exposed to more than a couple of lines of his fantastically fabricated life story ever believe a word he said?

Which then leads the sadder-and-hopefully-wiser wokists to wonder - what kind of perverse, inverse racism they have themselves been guilty of?  Patronising, or what?

It all adds to the gaiety of the nation.  Enjoy your weekend!

ND

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** That said, it is Cambridge academics we are talking about

Peak Farage? There's a good case to be made

Back in April I mused that we'd perhaps already seen Peak Reform.  Things haven't gone at all well for them since the May local elections: successive by-election flops; Restore eating their lunch; the Farage Finance scandalette; and the Clacton Binface fiasco.  Etc.  Is anyone listening now to their noisy Ceuta bandwagon as it crashes down the cobbled streets of their target constituencies?

Anyhow, here's a piece supporting - and personalising - the Peak Reform conjecture:  it reckons we might have seen Peak Farage lui-même.  The GE could be a while yet, and if Farage's moment has come and gone, who else have they got?  Which is pretty much the main issue: how do you field 600 credible candidates when you can't muster 6, and when your party leader can't deal with anyone with half a personality?

Meanwhile, the great charlatan at the head of the Green Party is increasingly looking as silly and irrelevant as we know him to be; and YourParty gets ever more a caricature of itself - see some of the closing paragraphs cited below[1].   And Badenoch's persistence, stamina and recent sure-footedness (plus or minus a 'reformed' neo-N) seem to be quietly paying off, albeit from a catastrophically low baseline.  I have long held that both Labour and Conservative parties have all the hallmarks of genuinely enduring institutions - at least to an extent that needs to be overlaid on pretty outlandish claims that they are both toast.   A large popcorn order is called for, before prices go through the drought-driven roof. 

What do we think?

ND

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[1] See this sad little passage from the Chair's minutes of the most recent YourParty  'central executive committee' meeting.  

... This isn’t what I want to be writing to you about, but it is unfortunately the case that some members of the CEC took the view that I should be removed as Chair. I don’t agree with them ... What disappoints me is that before these [administrative points] could be considered - before we could get on to the agenda - much of the meeting was lost to points of order seeking to remove me.  By the time we finally got going, after a vote to remove me had been defeated, several members had left ...

Stop laughing at the back!   She's a kind, nicely-spoken middle-class white lady, only doing her best to advance the Revolution:  

Burnham's 'devolved tax & spend' - what does it mean?

Being cynical, what it probably means is - more vague feelgood stuff.  But assuming the 'details' we've been given are the bare bones of what's being proposed, it looks like:

• Local authorities will get to keep more of, and spend, 'taxes raised locally'
• LAs will be able to borrow more
• But somehow this won't just make a handful of high tax-base areas disproportionately better off, nor leave low tax-base areas stranded

Have I got that wrong?

If not, then ... how is that any different?  Or at least, different enough to merit gushing stuff like "the biggest shift of power out of Whitehall and Westminster" (Burnham) or "phenomenal, it really is a sea change, it's monumental" (Mayor of West Midlands)?   Right now, central government comes up with some kind of "needs-based" assessment and distributes grants etc accordingly from those 'taxes raised locally', acting as a kind of equaliser.  Won't we end up at the same place, albeit after perhaps a couple of years of chaos and unexpected consequences?   

Does it mean that, whereas today if Barchester wants the A99 to bypass the town centre, it has to lobby Westminster for tax-payers' money to build one, tomorrow they'll just have to pay for it themselves because nobody else is going to anymore - so maybe they'll just decide they don't want one after all? 

Burnham swiftly ruled out Houchen's smart, cheeky riposte of saying that with his new share of the income tax pie he'll give everyone on Teesside an income tax rebate! 

As for borrowing more ... FFS, how many more Birmingham / Northampton / Croydon / Thurrock bankruptcies does Burnham want?  In 2011 the cretinous Osborne took off the very prudent constraints on what speculative 'commercial' dealings LA's were previously allowed to get into, and that hasn't ended well at all.  And we haven't even mentioned the increasingly dire incompetence and corruption of whole swathes of local government, both elected members and employees.  I mentioned Houchen somewhat favourably above, but in most other respects, his Teesside fiefdom is a poster-child for outrageous local cronyism, rentierism and all-round hanky-panky - see every issue of Private Eye.

Please tell me if I've got the wrong end of the stick!

ND 

Rosebank and Jackdaw: green-red panic setting in

They're tugging at the heartstrings, scraping the barrel, lighting the gaslights and pulling out all the stops  -  Stop Burnham Approving New Oil & Gas!  As a planted piece of the purest propaganda of desperation (and the Guardian is a willing receptacle) it would be hard to beat this one. 

Burnham risks first revolt as PM over apparent support for North Sea drilling - Labour MPs fear No 10 team lack up-to-date energy insight and don’t fully recognise voters’ climate concerns   

Burnham, of course, has done nothing more than offer a bit of glaringly obvious commonsense. As the article quotes him saying: “The question isn’t whether Britain will still be using oil and gas, the question is where does it come from.”  Well, yes.  What's more, the article helpfully goes on to display two graphs that prove his point: we'll be net importers of both oil and gas for the foreseeable future.  QED.  

So what 'arguments' do the green-reds throw into the mix?  They are many, varied, disingenuous, shrill, and reeking with desperation: every damn' thing they can think of.  Including Gaza!  I kid you not - see below.  As part of the usual service I distill them for you here in order of appearance, starting with the one in the headline:

• Burnham's team is ignorant / stupid / out of touch / whatever ...
• ... though not Andy himself, of course - so he's in danger of looking like a gullible dupe
• He'll face a revolt.  His first revolt!
• FFS, Andy, we're on fire here and it'll be your fault!
• Climate Experts (no less) are against his proposed pragmatism
• The UN Secretary General is against it [features twice in the article]
• Labour MPs are fearful they'll lose votes to the Greens - a new 'surge' of defections looms
• The ice caps are melting, the world is on fire, etc etc
• It will only make a 'tiny' difference to energy prices.  [Tiny?  I'd say "undetectably small" or more probably zero - and it's wholly irrelevant anyway, see below]
• It would "send the wrong signal internationally".  [In fact, the only argument that's even vaguely coherent {1} - and even then, it's wrong]
• Lewis said approving the field would show Burnham was “not looking at the evidence” ...
• ... and that Labour risked adding “the stain of the climate crisis” to the party’s record, alongside Gaza.  [Are we getting into a new variant of Godwin's Law here ..?]
• Britain was the first country to industrialise and we have a duty to lead the world on net zero
• The case made by oil and gas companies is self-interested  [- and presumably also that of the Unions that are also pro drilling - which is not mentioned, of course]
• Allowing production will be to exploit a (wicked) "loophole"
• It's (arguably) against Labour's GE Manifesto [Glad they added 'arguably' because on a close reading, it ain't - the Manifesto was carefully ambiguous] 
• If it comes to a vote he would need Tory and SNP votes 
• If it doesn't come to a vote [which it won't], it'll be a (wicked) "administrative measure", how evil is that?!
• Concerns "extend across the Labour party, transcending factions and 'tribes'. The Guardian has contacted or been told of concerned MPs including ministers and junior members of government, longstanding senior backbench MPs and committee figures and new MPs from the 2024 general election intake" 
• Several influential economists told the Guardian that increased drilling would not help the UK economy ... [followed by some utterly ignorant 'economic' bullshit + doubling down on some of the above.  Have these 'economists' not heard of the benefits of employment?  Tax revenues? Balance of payments?  When have they ever opposed local production of any other commodity or product?]
• It runs counter to the 'clean energy superpower' mission
• It will lead to "extra use [of oil & gas] and more greenhouse gases". [Now which is it, eh?  Too small to have any macro impact on the market - correct, see above - or big enough to cause an increase in demand?  FFS]
• "Keep the peace" by allowing Jackdaw but scrapping Rosebank.  [It's fair to say the argument for Jackdaw / gas is much the easier to understand, not least because the gas will definitely be used in the UK, and will back out equivalent quantities of the far more polluting US-sourced LNG]
• It Will Cause Political Damage - and poor little Andy, badly advised as he obviously is, Just Can't See It !

Wow.  If you think I'm kidding - when did a Guardian article last contain 24 arguments? - check it out for yourself.  As I said: reeks of absolute desperation.

We must hope young Andy is proof against such stuff.  From the C@W standpoint, he's on probation here.  Anyone care to predict how he'll come down?

ND

_____________________

{1} I did say that, in amongst the plain risible and the politico-hysterical, I did say there was one semi-coherent argument in there, albeit false.  It's the old business of asserting that we must nobly lead by example, even if that comes at a cost to ourselves.  Well, as least that's a tacit admission we're talking about virtue-signaling, and that there is no other rational case that stacks up on its own merits.  But of course it falls down when we recognise that none of the USA / China / Russia / India / Saudi Arabia / Brazil etc etc gives a flying f**k what we say or do - they are guided entirely by their own assessment of their own interests.

'Wealth Tax' hoves into view. Discuss.

The green-left has long hankered after a 'wealth tax', using Gary Lineker as their human face / shield.  Gary Stevenson - a rum cove if ever there was one - happily works himself up into a semi-coherent rant-frenzy on the topic at the drop of a hat, as every TV producer knows: he's a form of walking click-bait.  And now all these people are (like so many lobbyists) projecting their fantasies on Young Andy.

But for all the charlatanism and carnival nonsense, there's something in it.  There's nothing clever about passively allowing the entirety of the new economic magnate class to blag and bully its way into global personal tax immunity - not to mention immunity for their hi-tech rent-seeking enterprises.  We all know these people have the best lawyers, own most of the meejah of all kinds + a large number of venal politicians, and are ruthless with it.

Before opening the floor to y'all, I have a couple of random inputs to offer.

1.  HMRC:  a badly underpowered, broadly unaccountable, ramshackle organisation that fosters an opaque world of thriving tax evasion on the one hand (sheer inability to get to grips with the complexities of 2026, and the depth of fraud it can only sit back & ignore), and injustice on the other, meted out to an unlucky sub-set of taxpayers it randomly does get its teeth into. 

It is my strong contention that the sheer complexities inherent in a tax on total assets, would defeat HMRC right from the get-go.  In the process, however, the opacity, fraud and injustice would multiply several-fold, with the high likelihood of serious political and even economic fallout.

2.  Real estate:  the one taxable asset class that doesn't suffer from crippling complexity is of course Land.  Our good friend, the very much lamented Mark Wadsworth, spilled much virtual ink promoting Land Value Tax, the high-level theoretical attractions of which are really obvious.

This thing is as long as a piece of string because we have a low-level form of land tax already - the Council Tax[1].  It has long been my contention that George 'Boy Genius' Osborne (who is as much to blame as Gordon Brown for the present state of our economy) missed a massive trick when, in his first "all in it together" budget, he failed to create a dozen new Council Tax bands.  At a stroke[2] he would have raised a bunch of £££ and injected a bit of justice at the start of his destructive "austerity" regime.  And all for near-zero effort: it would have leveraged a pretty efficient existing tax structure at minimal cost and next-to-no unintended consequences or evasion.  In 2010 he could do whatever he decided; but from the word 'go' and over the following 5 years it turned out that he was indeed as useless a chancellor as we've ever had.  

Big topic, to which I reckon we'll be returning quite soon.  Over to y'all.

ND  

_____________________

[1] Recall that Heseltine invented and implemented it in just a few months.  Him and his instantly available army of estate agents.

[2] see [1] above.  Implementing new bands would take even less time.

No honeymoon for Burnham: very revealing

Yesterday furnished us with a very significant clue.

In a post several weeks ago I described the then by-election candidate's demeanour thus: 

Burnham makes a pretty unconvincing saviour of the nation. He comes across as an odd combination of entitled, nervous and petulant.

Obviously, I'm still fishing around for a good understanding of the man, who's been out of the national gaze for a long time.  He is without doubt an unusual party leader and PM.  For example, I believe I'm correct in saying he's the first post-war leader of either of the two trad Major Parties not to have come directly from the ranks of the existing Cabinet / Shadow Cabinet (need to check Alec Douglas Home).  Of those who went to an English university at all, he's the only one from Cambridge.  

He seems to have a degree of decisiveness, of cut-and-thrust, maybe even a bit ruthless (more so than Sadiq Khan, clearly, who also plotted the same strategy for becoming PM but fell at the critical hurdle, somewhat to my surprise.[1])   He is obviously also ambitious, and always has been.  And an extremely personable guy, who commands affection (we'll find out about his command of loyalty as time goes on).  But although these things are good and even necessary, it's not necessarily sufficient: there's also that streak of domesticity, in the sense of not-really-made-for-the-global-league.  Like one of those really good, popular sportsmen (I'm thinking rugby, soccer, cricket) who makes a huge contribution for his club team, is absolutely idolised by the supporters of that club, but never makes it as an international - and you sort-of know why.   The step-up to test match sport is a big one, and not everybody can make it.

I could go on (as you know), and certainly will over the coming months.

Anyhow, to yesterday's big clue.  We all saw it in realtime.  His Big First-Day Announcement, the removal of VAT on electricity, is duly wheeled out.  What a brilliant quick-win, a declaration of intent!   To be 'funded' by scrapping[2] digital ID - even better!!  And then, only 12 hours out of retirement, along comes Darren Jones who torpedoes it in the space of a single tweet.  In Burnham's Brave New World of No More Hostile Briefing!  Hahahah.

But here's the thing.  Starmer got away with sheer murder as regards adverse media coverage, for many months before the last GE, and many weeks thereafter.  But HMS Burnham, being torpedoed having barely left harbour, instantly became the main headline across all meejah!  

The difference?   The meejah instinctively feared Starmer: he has the air of a potentially very vindictive person (with a track record to boot).  With the position he commanded from about 2023 onwards, nobody was about to piss on his shoes - not until they knew they'd got him cold (on the freebies thing).  But we see very clearly - On Day One! - that even with Burnham's massive Parliamentary majority, and popularity, and the gallons of early-days goodwill sloshing around, the meejah - including the Beeb - have no fear of retribution at all.

Is this just a function of Labour's weak position in the polls?  I don't think so.  No, it's a judgement on Young Andy's personality.  That he likes to be liked is a commonplace observation.  But the meejah mob sees something else: it reckons he's soft.  We're in the territory young officers are always warned against when getting a bit too matey with their soldiers.  If you become One Of The Boys, very soon you'll be Just One Of The Boys.  Respect gone.  Doom.

Andy (mate!), it's a crisis: remember these words.

And now ... Listen great things... We must straight make head / Therefore let our alliance be combined / Our best friends made, our means stretched. / And let us presently go sit in council / How covert matters may be best disclosed /And open perils surest answered. ... For we are at the stake / And bayed about with many enemies / And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear / Millions of mischiefs.    

ND

____________

[1]  So he may indeed be as ill as he looks

Miliband - guessing-game over!

So Mili neither gets the Treasury, nor keeps his manic mission at energy.  Safely dispatched to places over the horizon.  (What must David M be thinking?)  Please don't put him in charge of another COP.

I feel his first mission should be to China, to investigate Uighur slave labour in the open-pit neodymium mines and solar PV factories; to deliver a lecture on dumping tactics with special reference to 'green' manufactured products; and to initiate a detailed study of the carbon content of said 'green' goods.

I stand ready to join the Labour Party and enter the House of Commons to take up the reins at DESNZ.  With the new government being such accomplished masters of the snap by-election this shouldn't be a problem.  A peerage will do, if needs be.  But I fancy Rosebank and Jackdaw will already have been approved, while they await my arrival for some more complex decisions that require attention.

ND    

______________

UPDATE:  Gotta love this from Guido - 

Is there a funnier post for Miliband than one that requires extensive use of the government jet?

The great Miliband guessing game

Well, then: is it to be:

• Thanks, Ed, but you're not needed now
• Ed, I need you to to stay where you are, it's great job you're doing in keeping the greens onside
• Ed, you're my Chancellor - you're the only one who can solve Rubik's Cube
• Ed?  No no, it's David I wanted on the line

And so we all wait.  Meanwhile, however, a couple of big energy decisions must surely be made real soon:

1. Rosebank (oil) and Jackdaw (gas)
2. DESNZ capital budget being sacrificed for Defence spending: where does the axe fall?

1.  The joke is that the Jackdaw platform has already been built and is out there in the North Sea, fully installed and ready to go; first gas in October if the starting gun is fired this month.  Surely, surely that wouldn't have happened without a clear nod from the Treasury?  Nobody develops an offshore platform on spec.  It really does look as though the formal go-ahead decision is just a formality.  Also, the case for home-produced gas is the easier to make, for Mili or whoever has to front for it.  (Mili always gets Shanks to front for the decisions he's unhappy about.)

Rosebank is a bit different: it'll be produced via a floating structure / subsea completion.  Again, the structure is complete and making its way over from Norway, but the briefing is, that's being done at the producers' own risk.  And if it's a 'no', it could be used elsewhere.  Also the argument for loacl oil production, though still perfectly sound, has just a couple of extra (low) hurdles to jump: and Mili has staked his colours to the 'No Rosebank' mast - so, a bit of humiliation involved.

What would be even funnier, is if he gets offered the Treasury provided that he green-lights both Jackdaw and Rosebank on his way to the DESNZ door.  Does Burnham have a sense of humour?  He certainly likes industry and jobs.   

2.  OK, so the A46 Newark Bypass extension has been sacrificed for Defence spending.  Big deal: it was only ever a nice-to-have.  Yep, the big capital budgets to be raided will be those of Mili at DESNZ.  Now most DESNZ capital schemes are loaded onto electricity bill-payers' bills, the big exceptions being:

    (a)  HMG's equity contributions to Sizewell C, given that EDF refuses to take equity risk (which we've written about many times)

    (b)  The farce that is Carbon Capture and Storage - by far the biggest (thus far) at £21bn (sic) of HMT's best pounds, NOT recharged to bill-payers.  Very unusual.  And very stupid. 

I think we can guess which will be the sacrificial lamb, notwithstanding Mili's considerable attachment to it.  

More popcorn, please, as I raise a hopeful glass to Burnham's sense of fun.

UPDATE:  Right on cue, this from the DTel: 

Miliband willing to approve North Sea oil to land job as chancellor - Energy Secretary wants to prove he is a ‘pragmatist’ rather than a ‘zealot’ on environmental policy to help his case for being chancellor

ND

The 'evolution' of the Russian oil and gas industry

Wind the clock back to 2022 and Russia has the biggest oil and gas infrastructure in the world: the country is sometimes referred to sarcastically as a nuclear-armed gas station.  It's fully functional, although not very sophisticated - the amount of wasteful flaring that goes on is legendary (of gas at oil production facilities, and of oil at gas producing locations); and there are few conventional sophistications such as accurate metering and non-return valves.  Nonetheless, it's the primary pillar of the Russian economy.

What a target!

Well, Ukraine started setting about it seriously in 2024.  To start with, their offensive means being rather slight at that stage, they went for plant in the neighbouring oblasts.  Right from the word go, these pinpricks revealed huge, structural vulnerabilities.

Vulnerable ...

Russia immediately realised just how serious it might be, and set about devising counter-measures.  They encouraged oil enterprises to invest in small arms (requiring a change in the law) for local defence[1], and experimented with wire cages and steel gantries to create physical barriers - an utterly futile effort because, even if a drone hits a cable ten metres away from its target, it stands a very good chance of rupturing it anyway.  We know all this because helpful Russian locals are keen on home videos and social media - and of course good old Google Earth provides astonishingly detailed coverage of most of western Russia, filmed closer to sensitive facilities than is allowed in Western countries! 

Then, there's that lack of non-return valves, meaning that a single blazing tank can burn for ten days - there's no way of cutting it off from the pipeline network which then gaily feeds the flames.   Oh, and effecting repairs ain't so easy: any component even vaguely sophisticated comes only from western manufacturers and is under embargo - meaning costly and time-consuming black market procurement. 

Other palliative measures have been tried.  Initially, officials would simply lie about the damage done.   There are strict Russian injunctions against publishing photos of these goings-on - hah!  To this day, every strike is broadcast to the www in realtime.  Then, there are missions by the Orthodox Church, variously to bless oil facilities, to pray for their safety, and to send clerics to attend upon the fire-fighting efforts[2].  Evidently this approach has its limits.[3]

Well.  As Ukraine develops ever longer-range strike capabilities, the list of potential targets gets bigger and bigger.  And of course their location is known rather exactly, and they can't be moved!  Nor, in practical terms, can they be defended.  They are being picked off, one by one - the three most noteworthy being perhaps successive raids on the main Moscow City refinery and one close to St Petersberg, plus Omsk.  The first two of these prime targets bring the war rather close to home for everyone in those cities with a pair of eyes (and a nose); the third sets distance records (getting on for 3,000 km).  And of course, there are serious fuel shortages - in Russia! - to the point where exports have been banned and very large-scale imports are being sought; but the harvest is still under threat, industry is feeling the pinch, and ordinary Russians, particularly in the south and west, are really stuck.

Notwithstanding the Deputy PM's classically euphemistic description of this, ("interruptions in the supply of fuel caused by changes in logistics") even Putin - who likes to keep his hands clean from disasters of all kinds - has been forced to pronounce.  Here are his dicta of yesterday: 

He called the difficulties with fuel "temporary" and associated, among other things, with "the enemy's attempts to disrupt the vacation season".  (Oh yes, the Russian vacation season is uppermost in Kyiv's strategic thinking.)  

"The safety margin of the Russian energy system is one of the highest in the world." (Measured by reserves in the ground, presumably.) 

"The enemy is trying to create a nervous situation in Russian society."  (Trying?) 

He called for a speedy decision to subsidize fuel purchases  (Not clear where the money will come from for that, but let's see.) 

He instructed the speedy deployment of "the capabilities of small and medium-sized businesses in the production of petroleum products". 

This last one is very interesting.  Sure enough, for a country in dire straits, it's a feasible approach to squeeze a few more drops from what's available.  We know from how ISIS conducted its affairs in the areas of Iraq and Syria it once controlled, that home-made micro-refineries are a Thing.  And of course Russians are pretty well versed in home-based distillation!  All this said, at the end of the day a big economy, and certainly one with a huge defence-industrial base on a war footing and trying to ramp up as fast as possible, needs massive quantities of high-grade fuel that only large-scale, uninterrupted, fully industrial production processes can provide - as 1944-45 Germany discovered.

However laughable micro-refineries are as a 'solution' to Russia's problem, one can't rule out a proliferation of medium-sized plant - given time.  But development of this on any scale would be a matter of years, not months, and require skills and components that "medium-size businesses" won't find readily to hand - even if their staff all manage home-made vodka stills on the side.  And it would never be able to produce high-grade product.  And there would be other vulnerable choke-points to be found in such a newly-diversified system.  And individual new targets would be even less plausibly covered by air defences.  Etc etc.  In sum: this is truly desperate stuff.

ND

[1]  As one Russian milblogger put it, "successfully" shooting down a drone with small arms directly over the target is likely to be "a posthumous achievement".  Gotta love Russian sarcasm.

[2]  In one famous incident, a posse of Orthodox clerics attending a tank blaze after three days of futile fire-fighting to assist with their very best prayers, were killed when the tank exploded.  The same fire burned on for another week.

[3]  But clerical efforts continue.  The Church has been ordered to organise a pilgrimage, starting out at the Omsk facility, Russia's largest (now closed following this week's bombardment), and proceeding to join the dots of refineries all along a route ending in Crimea.  Reportedly, the Church has refused to carry out the last bit because Crimea is too dangerous for clerics just now.  But the Church has renewed its demands for the raising of tithes, priority for priests in gasoline allocations, and the banning of abortion and neo-paganism.  See?  Russia is a different world.