What Do You Think Today?

[I'm Murrin]

I admit to being a little baffled by Starmer's latest moves. Where did all this law and order, more police, more surveillance stuff come from, why is it suddenly the focus of his policies? He must have some sort of internal research saying this is what will get people to support him but I don't see why. "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" they say and yet they're proposing more policing, not reduced poverty.
It seems like all the actual policies we're hearing outside of that are just very small improvements that do nothing to address fundamental problems. Hire more people and provide more funding... but don't change anything.

[peter]

Couldn't agree more Murrin. There is no milage in just dumping more police onto the problem if you are not going to simultaneously address the causes of crime and antisocial behaviour which are multifarious and complex.

Similarly with education, the ending of the charitable status of private schools might be a good sound bite in front of the conference audience, but how much of a real policy it represents in respect of dealing with the (reportedly) profound problems of our education system is questionable. Certainly some funding could be raised, but the byproduct of the move would be that many of the smaller, lower profile independent schools would no longer be able to continue and would either have to close or be driven into insolvency.

I'm no expert on the failings or otherwise of the education system as it stands, but it seems to me that some of the chief problems are that teachers and overburdened with ..... no - overburdened point blank, and have no motivation to stay in their chosen careers. Secondly it seems that the system is starved of the resources it needs in order to both get the pupil-teacher ratios to a level where individuals can be picked out and given the one-to-one time that is required if they are falling behind, and to make the learning experience one of engagement rather than being a simple chore. Thirdly - and this problem is not new, simply exacerbated given the increasing rate of change of our modern world - our education system seems to focus on educating kids to the requirements of the world of today rather than the world that they will be required to live and work in tomorrow. Not easy to solve this last dilemma, but this is no reason for it to be ignored.

Oddly, I look back to the system that pertained in my own day - of a mix of grammar, comprehensive and independent schools, of the GCE/CSE mix of examinations (and eleven plus) together with a top-notch apprenticeship program that gave many of my friends careers for life (and careers that ultimately paid them very good money) - and I can't see very much wrong with it. Was it so bad that we needed to pull it to pieces and replace it with - this, which really doesn't seem to be making anybody very happy or serving our kids very well at all?

But back to Stamer - he seems to have had little to say on this aspect of the perennial problems of education of our youth (though in fairness I missed this bit of his speech because I was making my lunch), and aside from a bit of 'bashing the rich' doesn't appear to have much in the way of inspiration as to how to tackle the core issues.

This overall thinness in respect of substance might get him past the post in front of a mainly partisan crowd anxious to support their (already failing) man, but will it cut it in the real down in the dirt world of a general election campaign. I have my doubts.

There was however one point where very briefly Stamer hit the spot - and BBC commentator Nicholas Witchell picked up on this in his comments after the speech - when he used the phrase "Make Brexit Work". This is a solid counterpoint to Johnson's Get Brexit Done, and strikes at the very heart of this administrations failings since our leaving of the EU. If he can build a campaign around this slogan with a set of solid proposals for setting some of the most egregious failings of the current Government to rights then he might just pull it off. It's a small chance, but if any of his top bods can take hold of this and run with it, then it might just be possible to pull back enough disillusioned voters (particularly from the red-wall seats of the North lost to the Conservative Party in the last election) to make his goal of securing power become a reality.

[I'm Murrin]

Even if their positions are better than the Tories' (and they generally are), the whole Starmer leadership is just giving off an overall vibe of "Tory-lite", without much to make them stand out, and I don't see why anyone who switched and voted for the Conservatives in 2019 would switch back for that.
The thing they'll never admit is that Corbyn's positions were popular, and he had a genuine chance of winning in 2017 if the PLP hadn't all been so busy lining up to stab him in the back.

[peter]

As a sort of rough thought experiment, I've tried to take each of the recent problems (Covid aside) and 'game' them as they might have been had Corbyn won in 2019 (on the basis of what I recall his plans were, as best I can). The results are in no way conclusive - anything could have happened to divert them - but interesting nevertheless.

The fishing fleet problem; iirc Corbyn wanted to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement, staying inside the customs union and single market. This being so the fleet would not have lost its main market and would still be out at sea and selling as it always was.

The supply chain crisis; free movement would have been a prerequisite for staying in the CU and SM - so presumably there would be no problems with driver shortages, no queues at petrol stations and no gaps on supermarket shelves (imports and exports of foodstuffs being effectively unchanged). The predicted shortages that may occur as we approach Christmas would, if not absent altogether, be significantly alleviated.

Similarly in the hospitality sector the labour force that the industry relies upon would have remained available to return to the jobs post-covid, and the itinerant labour needed for the harvest to be brought in would be able to come and go as required by the agricultural sector. The sale of Welsh lamb on the continent would have remained unchanged instead of facing the devastating drop it has experienced.

I don't think that the crisis in the energy sector would have been largely effected, because I believe that the price increases and supply issues we have experienced have been Europe-wide.

Maybe this is me looking at it all through rose-coloured spectacles - perhaps it would have all gone to hell in a handcart - but let's face it; it could hardly have been any worse!

[peter]

Do you want to know what the purpose of life is? I'll tell you.

There is no overarching purpose; only the individual ones that each of us find for ourselves.

But here's the thing. Life is difficult and it isn't fair. We might all be considered equal under the eyes of the Law (and even that's debatable), but everywhere else we are profoundly unequal. We are born unequal, in different circumstances, with different life chances and different abilities. And at root, for the bulk of us, life is going to be a struggle - and a hard one.

The Buddhists get this. It's there first golden rule. The base line of life is suffering. The one and only thing we can do - each of us - is to try to do a little good over the course of our lives; try to leave the world a little better than we found it (and definitely, definitely no worse). If everyone does this, then slowly, slowly, generation by generation, we are raised up, the suffering is made less, and life approaches closer to what it has the potential to be.

This is as close to a 'one size fits all' purpose as you can get. It's not going to cut it for most people. Human nature is that the purposes that most of us make are too selfish - to get rich, to reach the top of the greasy pole, to seduce our neighbor's wife - to work along these lines. And so life goes on with the first rule remaining just as it always has been.

This is tough shit and not nice; we just gotta deal with it. But try to do the little drops of good where you can, to leaven the bread of suffering that will form the bulk of life's diet; they still do at really good job of making the experience of living a tolerable one.

[peter]

So it's everybody else's fault. It's the industry for not having prepared for brexit properly, it's the public's for having voted for it in the referendum, it's the EU's for being a right bunch of ***t's - the one place that no blame can be levelled is at the PM (or more broadly, the Government and the wider Tory party).

This is the thrust that is now being made, as the PM and his cronies realize that this problem is deep - much deeper than ever they conceived it would be - it's going to cause widespread problems for people, and it isn't going to go away any time soon.

It started with the Prime Minister on his way to Scarborough (or Salford, or wherever the Tory annual shindig is held these days) saying that, of course he was going to do everything he could to help the situation - but at the end of the day it was up to the individual areas of the retail sector (and other effected sectors such as hospitality) to get their own houses in order in respect of their staffing and supply-chain issues.

Next, new Foreign Secretary Liz Truss weighed in with the comment that it was not the PM's responsibility as to what was, or was not on the shelves of our shops. Now in today's press the broadside continues with the Telegraph running a front page story that Cabinet Ministers believe that industry has become "drunk on cheap EU labour" and blaming the current shortages on failures to prepare for brexit.

Now the latter comments is very interesting because I remember watching newscasts prior to the transition period ending where suppliers and haulers where literally begging Government for instructions as to what preparations they would need to make, and reporting that the silence they were being met with in response was deafening. As for industry making use of cheap labour, we didn't see any complaints from the Tory front benches when the market was flooded with cheap EU labour specifically with the purpose of exerting downward pressure on wages at the lower end of the employment pyramid - and now that it suits them they suddenly care that everybody is not earning a mint and living in the lap of luxury. Well, here's the rub guys - it's your buddies, the ones that vote for you that have been enjoying the benefits of this cheap labour and you know it.

In a savage interview that Peter Hitchens gave to the Sun a year ago, he spelled out some truths about the Tories that bear repeating today. This is a party with no policies or morality whatsoever; they exist for the sole purpose of ensuring that the sons of the aristocracy and (I include the establishment elite) secure seats in Parliament and hold the reins of power thereby. They would, he said, happily guillotine the queen in Trafalgar Square if it would secure them the hold on power that they crave. Of brexit he said that done properly, it represented a way of saving the country by sacrificing the Tory Party (whose continuance he feels, is an unbridgeable obstacle over which the country will never climb while it survives , in order to move forward) and instead, by virtue of the referendum, resulted in the country being sacrificed in order to save the Tory Party.

So here we are; it's everybody else's fault, we are to engage in a ramped up effort to develop aggressive cyber-capabilities in order to take such warfare into battle against the industries and utilities of our 'enemies', there will be 'chain-cangs' put to work to clear our waterways and asbos dished out to those who have the temerity to protest (starting with ecological protesters but moving soon, I'd guess, to a cause near you).

Boris is playing away at the Conference where everyone loves him, Priti Patel is firmly in charge of the tools of punishment and Liz Truss is smug as a cat who stole the cream. Rishi is about to pull the rug from under the lives of countless millions with his simultaneous withdrawal of the universal credit top-up and the furlough scheme, and shaking his fist at the electorate tells them, "Sink or swim, there'll be no more borrowing you fuckers!"

To be honest, it's all pretty shit isn't it?

[peter]

Today Prime Minister Johnson takes the podium in Manchester before an audience that might not be entirely on board with the message he is spinning.

Traditionally presenting itself as 'the party of business' the PM's message today will be anything but music to their ears as he, accuses them of too long trading on a low skills, low pay model of operations with uncontrolled immigration at its heart. He is claiming that he is the only leader in years that has the "guts" to confront this issue and that we cannot go back to the pre-covid model of low pay, low productivity that was standard practice until recent times. He displays insouciance about price rises and product shortages, brushing them aside as the economy "stretching its legs" after the period of enforced shutdown during Covid. His comments have already sparked a furious backlash from the business community who call him out for "spinning the crisis" over distribution into a plan for initiating change in the economy. There is real risk that he will loose the support of one of the major planks of Tory supremacy in the political landscape of this country if he takes this line to its conclusion. He has already alienated the farming community, another chief bulwark of Tory support, by his casual attitude towards the culling of thousands of pigs before time because of a shortage of butchers (his response when challenged over this was, "that's what happens to pigs") and now seems determined to do the same for the business community more widely.

How well this is going to go down with the grassroots of his party remains to be seen. It's unlikely that his speech will be interrupted by catcalls and heckling as was Kier Stamer's last week - the Tories don't tend to do that, though for Boris they may make an exception - but I'd expect there to be numbers of stony faces and wooden expressions amongst the audience as he delivers his broadside. Rumblings from the back benches are already being heard as MPs consider the effect of his words on their own re-election chances, and news of an intended rise in the minimum wage is causing concern in respect of the additional upward pressure it would put on inflation.

But it seems that, walking over thin ice as the PM is with this approach, he has little choice. His brexit chickens are now coming home to roost and he either has to hold his hands up and say he got it wrong or spin it all as part of the plan while privately hoping that the free market can fix it all without Government intervention. The only problem with this is that the free market cannot operate with one hand tied behind its back, and starved of the labour and skills it needs there is bound to be a hiatus while it adjusts; how deep and damaging that hiatus will be remains to be seen.

But across the board the new realities of post brexit Britain are becoming apparent in the form of the messaging coming out of Government. Johnson says it's up to business and industry to get its own house in order, that Government cannot be relied upon to fix every problem (even when it has caused most of them). At the treasury, Rishi Sunak says no more borrowing and printing, no more furlough and universal credit top-up, fall back on food banks and the bank of family to survive in time of need. Health Minister Sajid Javid is saying that it's time people started taking responsibility for their own health and social care; "Family first, then community, then state", he is reported in today's papers as saying.

So the bottom line is that we are moving completely away from the world that we have grown up in toward say the world of India as was, say twenty five years ago, where the safety net of the state will be a fraction of that which it currently is (more like charity in times of desperation, really), where family will be expected to shoulder the bulk of the burden of helping in times of duress.

We are heading into a period where the only responsibility the state will take is for the army to keep us suppressed, the education system to keep us brainwashed, the roads to keep us going to work, and for making sure its own coffers, both public and individual, are kept full. The increasing levels of poverty and destitution that will accompany these changes will be accepted with shrug of the shoulders as just being "the way things are".

Oh well. As Johnson says, that's what happens to pigs!

[I'm Murrin]

My "favourite" thing in the current Tory spin is the idea that they'll be ready to lower taxes just as soon as the books are balanced and government finances in a healthy state. Which is pretty transparent since if the only way they can get those books balanced is through raising additional tax revenue, then they're not going to be ever in a position to lower those taxes without once again going into debt, are they?

[Avatar]

...where the safety net of the state will be a fraction of that which it currently is (more like charity in times of desperation, really), where family will be expected to shoulder the bulk of the burden of helping in times of duress...

...The increasing levels of poverty and destitution that will accompany these changes will be accepted with shrug of the shoulders as just being "the way things are".

Hmmm, sounds familiar...guess you'll see how the other half lives huh?

--A

[peter]

True Av - but there are two ways of seeing this; either from the point of the person doing the shrugging or from the perspective of the person in poverty who is having the shoulders shrugged at in relation to his/her plight.

Absolutely Murrin; the leader's speech has been pretty universally received as being totally void of any economic plan for tackling the problems we are facing (where it has been commented on - the pro Johnson Express and Telegraph just avoided the subject altogether), being full of bluster and jokes, but with no serious policy content at all.

Absurdly now, the PM is actually saying that the current issues regarding fuel shortages and delivery problems are what people voted for when they put their X in the Leave box in the campaign. Like this was what they bought the ticket on. There is no depth to the man's capacity to twist the truth into the shape he wants it to be in; he's like one of those guys who blows up long balloons and then bends them into different forms. Can he actually believe this stuff?

For the part of the business community, they are less than impressed with what he had to say. The head of Iceland (frozen food retailer - not the country) said that business was not a sponge that could be expected to simply suck up all of the price rises and failings of the system to provide labour. Two of the major business/Tory think tanks have been contemptuous in their reception of his speech, one saying that the public would soon tire of the Johnson theatrics when the consequences of his failure to meet the challenges we face begin to bite. So while Johnson may currently be talking the talk - and who would expect any different from "Champaign Charlie Johnson", his inability to walk the walk will very soon manifest itself.

[peter]

PM Johnson and his Brexit bully-boy Lord Frost will be at it again in short order demanding that the NI Protocol be rewritten (less than two years after the treaty was signed) this time excluding any European Court of Justice oversight, and utilising the threat of the unilateral triggering of Article 16 (which allows for swathes of the protocol to be ditched, but effectively kills it stone dead) if they don't get their way.

Their claim is that it is french intransigence that is making the protocol unworkable, with French President Francois Mitterrand largely behind the problems, acting they say, out of a spirit of revenge because of his dislike of Brexit and the British, rather than any real worries about the integrity of the single market as he would claim.

Despite a gesture of goodwill respecting the importation of meat and sausages into Northern Ireland from the UK made by the EU in recent days, Frost and Johnson are not satisfied. This relaxation is simply "tinkering round the edges" they say, and does nothing to address the central problem of the lack of free movement of goods between the two regions of the country that will pertain when the extension to the transition period that operates in the area comes to an end. They, Johnson and Frost have always claimed that it is not in the spirit of the deal that its terms should be enforced with rigour - a position that the EU view with bemusement.

In a recent interview on UK television, ex Chief negotiator (EU) Michelle Barnier said how can you expect to rewrite a treaty years in the drawing up, less than two years into its operation? To attempt to do so was to undermine the trust that is absolutely essential in the diplomatic negotiations between countries. Key to the Northern Ireland Protocol, he said, was the maintenance of peace in the province; everything else is secondary to that. He said that there was no circumstance in which the protocol would be ditched and the treaty reopened for new negotiation of a fresh approach to the Irish boarder issue. There is no reason to believe that he is was wrong in this belief.

But Johnson's and Frost's problems could run deeper; there will be grave disquiet in Parliament about taking this cavalier approach to the treaties that other countries sign with us in good faith, particularly in the Lords where Labour and Lib-dem peers hold the numerical advantage, and the pair's intention to push forward with the confrontational approach with the EU will not meet with universal approval. Cue then, a confrontation with Parliament and quite possibly in the Courts as Johnson and Frost attempt to get their way on this thorny issue.

And it has to be said that their position is pretty weak at best. To say that you signed a tightly worded and binding treaty in the belief that sections of it would never be implemented would be considered naive in the extreme by any Court in or outwith the land, but we already know the contempt with which Johnson holds Parliament and Courts, so that will probably not worry him too much. He is fairly safe in the Commons in getting his way in respect of following his own course through this - his numerical advantage here pretty much guarantees this - but the extent to which the Lords could thwart him remains to be seen. Also, the public may be less than happy to see our long held reputation for trustworthiness and reliability in terms of our international agreements trounced in this way. There could be a public backlash to this that Johnson might have underestimated.

Expect choppy waters ahead!

[peter]

When I was young it was standard practice for kids to wear 'hand-me-downs' - clothes that had previously been worn by older siblings who had grown out of them. Prams and the like were similarly recycled to the next generation, or sold to second-hand shops where they would then be bought by other expectant mothers for use when the time came. Washing machines were repaired when they malfunctioned, as were Hoover's, radios, clocks and virtually everything that was mechanical in the domestic setting. Everything was used until it was simply worn beyond the point of future use, before being discarded and replaced with new.

Homes were heated only to the point where clothing (additional layers) would cease to be practical indoors - and then only the one room that was in most use, usually the sitting room. Additional heating in the form of 'bar-fires' may have been used in other rooms on occasion: these portable little fires could be carried from room to room easily and would throw out sufficient heat (1kw per bar iirc) to heat a room fairly quickly. As time went on fan-heaters and convector heaters became more popular because they tended to be safer. Also, paraffin heaters were commonplace, smelly old things though they were. I used to go and get paraffin from a local shop for my mother when I was seven or eight years old.

Then, slowly over the course of my life consumerism came into being. Stereo's replaced the old mono record players, then stack systems, reel-to-reels and we all had to have them. New clothes, new fashions, an ever changing world of new improved stuff that demanded to be bought, the old being cast aside when there was still years and years of good usage left in it. We now live in a world where everything is replaced virtually annually, new phones, new clothes, even new cars. Houses are heated top to bottom day and night - there is never any getting up in a cold bedroom and shivering while you get washed and dressed. Everything is on tap and disposable to the nth degree.

Of course it couldn't carry on.

Here's the rub, the dilemma that the government faces right now; energy prices have risen in the post-pandemic world by one thousand percent. The public are being protected from this by a price-cap that limits how much the energy providers can charge for the gas and electricity they sell. This is driving some, the smaller energy companies to the wall, but the cap is due to end next April. Meanwhile industry, which does not enjoy the same cap, is squeaking to the limit of its pips as it accommodates the new massively inflated energy prices. These are being felt all over the world and they ain't coming down any time soon. This means that the products that roll off their conveyer belts, fall off their production lines, are going to be massively more expensive to buy in the very near future. I am old enough to remember the effect on the world economy (in terms of bringing about a massive hike in inflation) that the OPEC decision in the seventies to substantially raise the oil prices of the day, and this will I believe, put even that economic jolt into the shade.

So here we have a situation where in short order goods are going to become much more expensive and people's disposable income after accomodating the increased costs of heating and general living, are going to be a fraction of what they currently are (because in the end, everything comes down to the price of energy). Huge numbers of companies will go to the wall as people can no longer buy the products they produce at the prices they must charge for them and the consumer boom will stop short in its tracks. We are heading - and quickly - toward a situation where the things we buy will be needed to be used for the length of their useful lives, repaired and repaired before being thrown away. Clothes will be handed down, sibling to sibling and houses heated only to the point where additional clothing becomes impractical and yes, only the rooms we are most using. In short, we are heading back to a comparable world to the one that I lived in in my childhood (and that much of the third world has never left), the world of 'make-and-do', of frugality and repair.

So my generation has come, over the course of its life, from the post-war world of scarcity to the world of plenty - and the current generation is going back from the world of 'must have' and'I want it now', to the world of scrimp and scrape, of saving up and making do, of being satisfied by what you have rather than always wanting more. I wonder how well they will adapt it to it? Not as easily I suspect, as my generation made the transition in the opposite direction.

[peter]

In a modern day version of Nero fiddling while Rome burns, grainy long-distance photos on the front of today's Daily Star and Mirror show a deeply absorbed PM applying paint to his canvas on the patio of his luxury holiday villa in Marbella, while the country descends ever further by the day into chaos.

It's an interesting destination in itself that Johnson has chosen. Marbella, known formerly as 'the Costa del Crime' due to it's being the favoured bolt hole of UK criminals on the run (something to do with its lack of extradition treaty arrangements with the UK I believe), seems a suitably apt destination for a PM whose murky (and mucky) past are never far behind him. Who's dealings since taking office have involved overseeing the biggest hand out of cash to his party's mates since the word corruption was invented and will go down in history as the single most twisty untrustworthy Prime Minister the country has ever had.

Meanwhile at home, container ships are being turned away from our major ports due to a "perfect storm" of labour shortages, pandemic damage, container prices and storage space, the Northern Ireland Protocol is unraveling in front of our very eyes and two of Johnson's top team are engaging in a public argument over who gets to enjoy the luxuries of the 'grace and favour' bestowal that is the 3000 acre estate of Chevening. (In the case of the last, at least Johnson has made the decision - no doubt to Truss and Raab's irritation - that they must share it. They should be able to manage it: it's got 115 rooms and 15 bedrooms.)

And just to put the icing on the cake, the IMF in its latest report has said that the UK recovery is lagging behind every other country in the advanced world. But the Express understands why this is - it's the bloody EU's fault: Your poison is wrecking brexit rules the headline screams alongside a picture of piggy-eyed Sir David Frost, the Brexit Minister charged with sorting out the protocol debacle. Never has an administration been so ready to blame anything and everything else for its own failures in the history of our nation; the EU, the pandemic, world circumstances, and even as a last resort the people who actually voted for them in the first place. Churlish though it may seem, I can't help but - in the last case - agree with them a bit.

(Aside; I wonder if we'll ever get to see any of the PM's canvasses? He's clearly trying to emulate his great hero Winston Churchill who was a pretty accomplished dauber back in the day and who's works have been given public airing on a number of occasions since his death. Call me cynical, but I have my doubts whether Johnson's works would stand comparison. Being drawn to the paintbrush and easel by the muse of art as opposed to the muse of imitation is likely to yield somewhat different results, but alas n this case, I doubt we will get to offer our opinions on the PM's budding talent! Shame that he should so hide his light under a bushel! )

[Avatar]

"Grace and Favour" huh? How these archaic traditions linger.

Anyway, yes, will be interested to see how these labour shortages play out...seems it was inconceivable to government that foreign workers wouldn't leap at the chance of being temporarily allowed to work in the UK again before being kicked out (again) just so the Brits could organise their Xmas hols properly...

(Ah, schadenfreude, thy name is Brexit. )

--A

[peter]

Alongside chimpanzee art, there are indeed small pleasures to be taken along the way Av. Another brief report I read said that the response to the Government offer of 3000 temporary visas to EU lorry drivers to help fill the shortfall of homegrown ones had been somewhat underwhelming. The number of applicants at the time of posting was 27.




And just briefly, it's going to be a tricky one for Johnson and Frost to paint the EU as the bad guys after their generous offers in respect of reducing checks on goods crossing the UK-NI boarder yesterday, and I notice that the Telegraph in particular had little to say about the proposals.

The EU have offered to drop eighty percent of all checks on foodstuffs and fifty percent on manufactured goods in return for rights to check goods in NI shops and an increased labeling of goods for use in the province only. They carefully avoided the sticky subject of ECJ involvement in the oversight of the region, a sovereignty issue that Frost and Johnson have previously regarded as a red line. Frost, for his part, has said he will not enter into the negotiations with any red lines in place but Johnson is apparently less willing to compromise. For him, the sovereignty issue is of paramount importance and he won't willingly give his enemies the chance to say he folded, even at the expense of damaging the country. Much will depend on how he responds to the EU offer, though at present the view of how things will go is somewhat pessimistic. He is still threatening to set article 16 in motion which could either tear up the entire post brexit withdrawal agreement or demand further bouts of sitting and rewriting by both parties. So much for getting brexit done!

[peter]

From this morning's Financial Times:

Business Leaders Demand Plan to back PM's Words

Top executives from the FT's City Network Forum have said ministers lack a credible plan to tackle mounting problems. They fear an unintended consequence of Boris Johnson's bid to create a high wage, high productivity economy could be to fuel inflation. Paul Drechsler, chair of London First, said that he was concerned that there was "a total absence of even a sketch of a plan to achieve such a sunlit upland" as the Prime Minister promised. (FT City Network. P2)

This is the passage, quoted in full, that appears in the small white section (on an otherwise famously pink paper) on the left side of the paper's front page. I think it says it all - and when it appears on the front of an organ as respected as the Financial Times its significance should not be underestimated.

[Avatar]

Yes, amazing how his "bid to create a high wage" economy only became a thing once labour shortages started to be felt...

--A

[peter]

Johnson all over Av. He has an excuse for everything except when he doesn't, and then he just fills in with bluster and bullshit.

[peter]

Let's make no bones about it; the senseless murder of Sir David Amess by a (what looks like) fundamentalist religious nut-job is a tragedy of huge consequence to his family, his friends and to those who worked with and loved him.

To those of us who didn't know the man, who's first knowledge of him is via the terrible end that he met at the hands of this madman, we would have hearts of stone if we could not empathize with the terrible suffering that his nearest and dearest will be going through today.

But (and I'm sorry, yes there is a but) there is more to this than the howl of outrage of the media, the knee-jerk response of the state (the reviews of MPs security and the like which will talk the talk, but will not walk the walk). Because terrible thing that it is, this still remains what life is. It doesn't lessen Sir David's life and the terrible tragedy of his end, to say that the horror of such events must be acknowledged, lamented and bewailed, and absorbed - because this is what life is. Shopkeepers will die in botched robberies, kids will die in knife attacks in parks and MPs will die serving their communities - but shopkeepers must keep running shops, kids must still play in parks and MPs must remain accessable to the people they represent, both in person as well as via email or telephone.

The outrage of the media is correct, the words of the politicians, both in the condemnation of the act and the calling for a review of MP security are absolutely necessary, but we should be under no illusions that life must go on, changes must be made where they can without impacting the hugely important necessity of face to face meetings between the public and their representatives - and empathy must be felt for all of those who fall, acknowledged or otherwise, in the pursuit of delivery of the service which is their lot.

[peter]

Am I the only one who is getting a bit tired with all of the virtue signalling and downright hypocrisy surrounding the 'eco-fashion' as displayed by the rich and famous - almost without exception gas-guzzlers and carbon footprint producers to a degree that would make our eyes water were it to be totted up.

Last week we had the nauseous Chris Martin, front man of the tedious rock band Cold Play on the news telling us that the band would be going on the world's first 'green rock tour' in which the entire power for the gigs would be supplied by renewable energy and by the hyperexcited crowds jumping up and down on under-sprung flooring designed by (of all people) BMW. Let's be clear Chris - this isn't about being eco-friendly, about saving the planet, about "doing things differently". It's about the money. Not satisfied with the pile you've already got, you want some more. If you care that much about the planet then stay the fuck at home; don't encourage millions of people across the globe to get into cars, busses and trains and treck millions upon millions of miles to see you prancing around like a prick on the stage. Yet despite all of this, the band will be using private planes to zip across the globe in as they progress around the world on their money trawling exercise. It seems that the green tour is only green as far as it doesn't effect the super-rich lifestyle to which the boys have become accustomed.

Then we have the queen. She's tired with people who are all talk and no action when it comes to the environment. But this doesn't apparently run to herself who occupies and keeps on tick-over even when she's not there, houses and estates whose rooms run into the hundreds, who thinks nothing of shifting her retinue of staff back and forth across the country from grand estate to grand estate at her whim, just because she can. My message - put up or shut up dear.

And continuing with the royal theme we have William and Kate and the aptly named 'Earth Shot' prize (that's right, the earth is shot - in no small part due to the carbon that your set has been pumping out into the atmosphere at a thousand times the rate of the rest of us). Last night they were all out there: the glitterati who wouldn't have missed this chance to show how much they care about saving the planet even if they had to fly in from Australia in order to do it (some probably did, such would their desire be to be seen at the social event of the year). And leading the way we had the pair themselves, he resplendent in an appropriately green velvet jacket and slacks (looking about 35 going on 1960) and her wearing a 'recycled' dress (ie she'd worn it once before) costing thousands made by Alexander McQueen and looking for all the world like something out of a Marvel superhero film (think one of those Amazon babes, when they're in their peace and love mode, before they don the brassy armour in which they traditionally kick ass). Yes it was all a huge success, the celebs got to preen in front of the cameras and show us how much they all care before whizzing of in their gas guzzlers and private jets to carry on just as they did before, and the royals got to pretend that like, "We're doing our bit - now you do yours" (ie turn off the heating you can't afford and freeze in your hovels this winter).

And lastly we come to avuncular Sir David Attenborough ("Oh no!", I hear you cry. Surely he's not going to attack lovely Sir David Attenborough as well!) Well yes I am! The***t! He's spent his entire life jetting around the world as a BBC natural history presenter, clocking up millions of miles as he breathlessly gives his take on gorillas and goldfish - and now he's telling the rest of us to stay put in our houses. Don't go out to see the stuff I've seen. Don't visit every beautiful location that the earth has to offer because I've been out and done it for you! Well Sir David, let me think about that..... Ah yes - fuck off. You've had your shot. You've done more than just about anyone to kindle the desire in people to see these places so do us a favour; retire to some huge house ten times too big for you in the country somewhere and put a recycled sock in it. For my part I'm going to ignore everything you say and do my bit (as far as people like me can get in terms of profligate extravagance) to fuck up the planet. I'm going to turn an extra light on in the hall!