What Do You Think Today?

[Avatar]

Well, to be fair, state ownership of utilities has not worked out particularly well for us here in the long term...although, also to be fair, that's largely because the state went from serving only a small portion of the population (at the expense of the rest) to being a vehicle of personal enrichment for a lot of people who, effectively, ran the SOEs (State Owned Enterprises) into the ground in their quest to make themselves a lot of money without regard for the wider consequences.

(For a second I thought you were saying that was his plan...unfortunately (for you) I realise it's yours...should have guessed since it seemed eminently sensible. )

Also, good luck on the electoral reform stuff...I suspect you won't be voting for a long time, if ever again.

--A

[peter]

I suspect that you are right Av - although the Lib-Dem party are keen proponents of voting reform and there is a possibly interesting development in the unlikely combination of ex Tory MP Rory Stewart (who I have great respect for) and ex Tony Blair press secretary who have joined forces and are toying with the idea of the formation of a new centre ground party. Boy is there room for one (though it begs the question as to why the Lib-Dem's cannot rise up to fill this vacuum as the natural occupiers of this space).

Also the Green Party are pretty on-side for electoral reform.....but I do have issues with some of their other policies (though not the environment ones by and large).

Going back to my list above, the introduction of a flat-line tax system, doing away with the banded system we currently have to be replaced by a single rate payable on all earnings (above the current minimum thresholds). No more tax avoidance, stashing money away on offshore tax-havens and such. You earn it - you pay it. This would be hand in hand with a tightening up of the non-dom status rules and strict enforcement of the rules relating to residency in respect of tax payment.

But enough fantasy stuff, and back to reality.

In an impassioned return to work following a two week holiday, James O'Brien yesterday concentrated on his morning show, on a few clips of brexiteer politicians speaking during the referendum, in which they touched on matters directly pertaining to the chaos at the port of Dover seen (and warned about during said referendum) in the past days.

We had Jacob Rees-Mogg adamant that there "will be no hold-ups at the port of Dover. Any hold-ups will be on the Calais side. Dover will run freely, as will the traffic in the town and surrounding area". (There is suddenly no comment in the papers from the worthy member for the seventeenth century - he seems to have lost his plummy voice of a sudden.)

Then we had Priti Patel telling us how, as Home Secretary, the responsibility fell to her to, "End, once and for all, the free movement of people across our borders!". Well - she said it! And she certainly achieved it this last weekend! Trouble is, people who voted brexit didn't actually understand that it applied to them: that it was their free movement that would be curtailed. What, as O'Brien expostulated, did they expect? That suddenly the closed borders would evaporate when they went through? That there would be no checks on them as they crossed into what was now, a completely different zone?

Then we had Dominic Raab telling us that far from being impacted by our leaving the EU, trade across the border would be enhanced! No mention of the fifteen percent fall in his thinking then.

O'Brien went on to question how it was that these people could not see what seemed clear as day to the rest of us, that exactly the situation we have seen in the last few days at Dover would result. That the erection of a new closed border between the ports of Dover and Calais would slow things down and create endless problems in terms of just-in-time supply chains, the fast export of fresh produce, the volume of holiday traffic crossing the border. He was far more forgiving of these people than I am, putting their having got it so palpably wrong down to innate stupidity. They just didn't understand, he said, what they were talking about. And yet they remain in office, blithely carrying on in the complete ignoring of the facts of their egregious failure to see the blindingly obvious. How could this be, O'Brien asked, that we have fallen so low that people who were so clearly incapable of seeing the obvious, are simply left to remain in place to compound their mistakes, to carry on wreaking havoc in the wake of their misunderstandings.

I think O'Brien has it all wrong.

I think that these people knew exactly that what they were saying was bullshit! It wasn't that they didn't understand - it was that they didn't care! People like Mogg were perfectly prepared to see the country brought to ruin on the back of short term gains (in things like playing the currency fluctuations markets) for themselves. The queues at Dover were a matter of complete indifference to them. They would not be affected by such chaos - they'd never be sat in a car for seven hours with a backseat full of screaming kids. It simply did not impinge upon them. Patel at least was honest that she intended to end free movement - it just was not the free movement that people thought it was!

And now we have our leaders saying that this chaos is all the fault of the French! It's those perfidious French wot are doing it! They aren't manning the booths and working to full capacity in order to meet the increased holiday demand. They are doing it out of spite because we left the EU!

This is seriously the line that our Government is taking (via the comments of Liz Truss and the MP for Dover, Natalie Elphicke. I mean, what the frick have the French got to gain by such a policy? It's rubbish! This is simply what the consequence is of imposing a new layer of checking on an infrastructure that was not designed to deal with non-free movement across a border. Yes there was a brief delay (of about three hours) when due to an accident, some of the French border staff were held up and prevented from reaching their stations - but they soon got into position, yet the backlog and queues remained. Our Government warned that similar delays are likely every weekend across the whole summer period. What - have they got a crystal ball, and can see accidents holding up the French staff every Friday and Saturday? Or is it that their blaming of it all on the French simply wasn't true? That the reality is that this is the very chaos that everyone and his mother who had half a reasoning brain could see coming, but that they are never going to admit to being the case as long as they have holes in their arses.

And this is the problem. Not just with the politicians, who, lets face it, have every reason to cover up their blunders or dishonesty (take your pick). But with the people who were duped into voting for brexit themselves, and for whom now, the complete and utter fiasco they have endorsed is plain for them to see like a turd held before their very eyes. Because they will never admit it! In a month of Sundays you will not find them conceding an inch, that they may have got it wrong. They have simply too much invested in having made their choice. They could not admit to having made the wrong one, even if they wanted to. The damage that their decision has wrought on the country is simply too great to allow for this. They have destroyed the future of generations of their families, their countrymen, to come. How can they admit to this - even to themselves. It is too big an ask.

And so we will go on, blaming the French, blaming the remoaners, blaming the immigrants. Blaming everything and everyone but ourselves for the disaster that we have created, of which the chaos at Dover is but the tiny visible tip.

[Avatar]

Sunk costs fallacy unfortunately.

--A

[Forestal]

Well, there are some Brexit voters who admit that they're wrong, myself included. I voted for it, but I voted for it on principle and not in the fashion that we executed the move. I was hopeful for a second referendum after we saw what a fiasco it was going to be under our completely inept leadership at the time, unfortunately we didn't get one and were forced to figuratively eat shit.

Not that the people in government will care one jot. They are on the inside and will come out smelling of roses (at least as far as their bank accounts go), as what effects the common person doesn't effect them in the slightest. The next election will roll around and people will continue to blindly vote for their party of choice which they believe represents them and of course doesn't, so there will be no holding these people to account, they will either get away with it, or not be re-elected and walk into cushy well-paid executive jobs, despite being entirely devoid of skills to manage those roles. Life goes on, the cosmic ballet continues.

[peter]

The decision was not an easy one for sure, for reasons too long and involved to go into now......but the dishonesty among politicians and commentators in respect of owning their responsibilities (and the realities we now face) is a major part in holding us back, stopping us from actually making the thing work - which amazingly I still believe can be done. It will never be as beneficial for the country as staying in the EU and working for internal change from within would have been.....but given the rapid pace of change in Europe and the world more generally, the results of exiting may be nullified - say better subsumed - by bigger, more dominant issues that require a cooperative approach with our neighbors, part of the EU or not.

But returning to our little local difficulties, the leadership race continues apace with Truss seemingly increasing her lead over the hapless Sunak, who cannot seem to get a toehold into the fight.

This isn't surprising - the average age of the Tory membership that he is speaking to is seventy two years old. Anyone with a grandparent will know that at this age people don't change their minds easily, and given the demographic and social class that the membership is drawn from, they will alas carry much of the baggage and prejudice that makes the modern world, represented for them by Sunak, anathema to them. Truss they will see as a Thatcher clone (blue dress and Thatcher-like photo-ops that she has skilfully used to build up the connection over the years) and will respond to at a visceral level thereby.

Sunak has been forced onto the back foot, sending out a signal that his campaign is faltering in a big way this morning, by having to announce what is essentially a U-turn on his no tax-cut policy. He has announced a one-time 'payment' (in essence) towards winter fuel costs with the scrapping of Vat on domestic fuel bills for next year, should he win the leadership role. This is being painted as a reversal of position by the media, and far from reversing the decline in his polling will, I believe, have the opposite effect. The Tory membership beast will see this as weakness on his part and they will regard it as such with contempt, rather than as an adaptation to changing circumstances, the manner in which his team are trying to present it.

The battle has a ways to run yet, but not as long as you'd think from the September 5th end date. The voting forms have been sent out and the huge majority will be returned very quickly, meaning that the results are to a degree cemented in place long before the final date as it were. There is a bit of a twist to this insofar as an online capability to vote, or indeed change an existing vote, has been introduced - but it is by accounts a pretty unfriendly process to get it up and running, and this in itself might (you'd think) favour Sunak (in that it is only younger voters who will likely utilise this 'service'). It is likely that more people who would both change their opinion and have the capability to use the service would be young.... but the possibility is, this morning, that they will be changing their minds in favour of Truss and not the other way around. I'm thinking that those who would have the capability to use the service would by nature tend to have been Sunak voters in the first place, and would only thus use the service to in the main, to change their votes in a Truss direction, were they going to use it at all. Sunak's volta-face this morning could cause a fair bit of traffic on this site - and not in his favour. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that if things do not turn in his favour pretty quickly, I'd have my doubts that it would even reach the final vote-off stage. I don't get the impression that he'd be into being humiliated at the end by a crushing defeat at the hands of Truss - and I don't think that the party 'Gods' would want that either. The optics, let's say, would be all wrong. I think they would discourage him from letting it go that far, and I don't think he'd want it anyway. I confidently predict that if he doesn't win this competition that he will leave politics and take up that option to live in America that he has kept in reserve for just such a situation.

But I get ahead of myself. It isn't over yet and Truss is entirely capable of doing an Andrea Leadsom and blowing her own candidacy out of the water. For reasons I've given, it would take something pretty disastrous for her to loose the support of her voting base now - rational argument on the Sunak campaign team's part isn't going to cut it - but it isn't over till the fat lady sings.

And finally, apparently there was some kind of incident at a live debate last night in which the show had to be pulled due to the presenter collapsing. Don't know exactly what happened here, so I suppose I'd better go check it out.

Chow for now.

(Edit: Apparently the event in question was a live debate on Talk TV in which the presenter fainted off camera, with a loud crash, while Liz Truss was giving an answer to a question that she had been asked. It had the fortunate effect for Truss, as showing her more human side as her hands flew up to her mouth and her spontaneous concern was clearly visible for all to see. She apparently rushed over to the presenter to offer her aid - a reaction that is being portrayed as her 'motherly instincts' kicking in by a media, never slow to seize upon opportunities for spinning such occurrences. Sunak must, this morning, be cursing the fates that seem so bent on giving his opponent all of the breaks. Such is life Rishi - you can't odds it!)
(NB. I'd wanted to talk a bit this morning, on the issue of trust - or lack thereof - in politics today, but other observations have crowded it out. Another day perhaps.)

[peter]

Now, let's see - what have we got here?

Millions forced to make choices along the lines of 'eat or heat?', as energy prices soar to three times their January 2022 levels.

Jaguar and Mercedes experience increased rising demand for their luxury high end models.

Threat of general strike action later this year if the new Government tries to further erode the right of workers to withdraw their labour, as has been threatened.

Kier Stamer sacks one of his Ministers for appearing on a RMT picket line,against his instructions that front bench opposition members should not be seen to be supporting strike action.

Reckitts, the company who make Strepsils, report a recovery and booming sales as people turn to self medication to deal with the increased role that viruses play in our lives.

Lloyds Bank report better than expected quarterly profits on the back of increased interest rates.

Television cameras are to be allowed into Crown Courts for the first time in British history.

People are urged to shower less and stop washing their hair daily in an attempt to avert a drought.....

Increased likelihood of accidental neclear war with China and Russia because of collapse of backdoor communication channels.

Boris Johnson's preparations for a huge wedding anniversary bash on the country estate of Lord Bamford.

To those that have, more shall be given

To those that have not, it shall be taken away even that which they have.

Nero fiddles while Rome burns.


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Trust has become a serious issue of late in our political discourse. And so it should be. There was a time when the holding of high office was considered through the lens of service. That to be called to so serve ones country was an honour, which one stepped forward to accommodate in the form of honest probity, and that when the prevailing feeling was that it was time for you to withdraw, you did so with respect to the system and with the respect of the system reflected back at you. You returned to the back benches from whence you had been raised, to offer continued service in a more reserved capacity, to your constituents and your country more broadly, and when you rose to speak you would be accorded the respect with which your service and previous high office merited.

Not so any more.

Tony Blair was the first Prime Minister to buck this tradition and, once having lost his Prime Ministerial role, immediately stepped down from his role as a constituency MP to pursue a career in business, hovering around the edges of the political system and making a fortune for himself thereby. Cameron followed suit with only Theresa May actually going back into the old tradition of continuing to serve. As for Johnson, well it's not hard to guess where his interest will lie.

From the Blair days forth, the role of Prime Minister has not been seen as an end in itself by those entering the political arena - merely the stepping stone to the post Prime Ministerial career, that will be infinitely more lucrative. As Michael Gove made clear in his interview with Andrew Marr, we could not afford to have Boris Johnson in a future Cabinet of the UK Government (there are many who would agree with you on that Michael!) - his earning power is simply too high if he turns his attention to roles outside of politics.

But this change of understanding of what a political career is, from the role of providing honourable service to your country, your countrymen, to that of a stepping stone toward riches in other fields of endeavour, has fundamentally undermined the nature of our polity. Everything that a politician now does must be seen, fairly or otherwise, though this mirror. Does this individual act with autonomy, with the best interest of the people in his mind when he does so - or has he a hidden agenda, does he act at the behest of a puppet master, not seen at a distance?

This corrosive view of our polity has been introduced by politicians themselves and they only have themselves to blame for it. The Johnson administration has been, by far, the worst example of it, the most egregious and openly disingenuous in its functioning, but the problem is not new and neither is there any sign that it will be put back in its box any time soon. Is it then any wonder that trust in our politicians is at an all-time low. And with this loss of trust, in combination with the onset of adversity and the setting of different elements of our society against each other (by a media that is hand in glove with both the Government and their oligarchical colleagues) the stage is set for strife.

Jeremy Corbyn was prepared to break this model. He had power as Labour leader, but you didn't see him, like Kier Stamer, slipping into any cosy relationship with those with vested interest in ensuring that there was no change, that the power-money revolving doors of the establishment would keep turning, and so he had to go. A man of honour destroyed by a cabal of interest that would not understand the word if it kicked them up the backside. And now we are where we are. We are where we are. And we will all pay the price for it.

(NB. What will a Sunak or Truss Government do in the event of a General Strike? Will they fold, and call a general election? Will they set the dogs (in the form of the army) on the striking workers - beat them back to work on the end of a truncheon? This is dangerous territory we are entering - make no mistake.)

[Avatar]

I don't think that the inclination of politicians to be self-serving is anything new. Perhaps in the past it was less blatant, or better hidden, but that is probably the best we can say for it I think.

The only change they have ever been really interested in is the one that puts them in power, after which the status quo becomes something to be maintained at all costs.

--A

[peter]

No - I disagree Av. Certainly they have always been self-interesed; you'd have to have an inordinate amount of self-belief to want to stand for Parliament in the first place and nothing in recent history his changed much here.

But what is now far more evident is the almost blase casualness of the egregious self-interest. As I observe, the element of public service was previously always intermingled with that of personal ambition. Now the latter has taken full sway over the former, to the point where the most egregious acts of 'looking after number one' are barely bothered to be concealed. At the top, it is a given that Prime Ministers will, rather than return to the back benches to continue serving their constituents and country as respected members of the House, go instead directly through the revolving door into the lobbying parlour of the huge multinationals. That here they will exercise influence using the political leverage of their personal history in the interest of the faceless barons who will pay them huge amounts of money for doing so.

Lower down the scale, at the level of the Owen Patterson's of the House (he was the MP who Johnson tried to change the rules of Parliament to get off the hook when it transpired he had been paid hundreds of thousands to ask questions and lobby in favour for a particular 'employer' outside of the House) this casual acceptance of the job of MP serving your constituents as being almost secondary to that of serving your own interests is rife. In this case it really is a situation of the fish rotting from the head down. When it becomes accepted that a PM will only really be doing the job in order to prepare for his or her post Prime Ministerial career, then the trousering of a few hundred thousand here and there along the route to the big bucks must seem like small fry.

This acceptance of an oligarchical relationship with big business, of naked self-interest publicly trumping public service and the casual acceptance of these things by an indifferent public, distracted by toys and low grade brain-candy - this is new, or at least far more pronounced than it has previously been.


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Last night's leadership debate between Sunak and Truss seemingly furthered Truss's consolidation of her position as lead candidate. The audience were, by accounts more receptive to her position of tax cuts and small state to that of Sunak's Gordon Brown style prudence based approach.

Made up of 1500 actual tory members who will have a vote in the ballot, this is significant. The applause it was noted, seemed to be going in Truss's favour more often than not, and she ruthlessly coopted the obvious support for Johnson in the crowd to her side of the argument, much to the audience's approval.

Her case has had yet a further shot in the arm this morning with the endorsement of the highly respected defense secretary Ben Wallace, of her candidacy. She seems to be gathering a momentum that is rapidly becoming unstoppable, and both her and her team are increasingly displaying the confidence of a leadership in waiting. It's not a done deal yet - but the Sunak camp must be very dispirited that their man cannot find any inroads into the mass of her support, any chinks into which they can get their fingers by which to start pulling her position apart. With the voting slips going out early next week, time is running short for them and they must know it.

One observation that I will make is this. Truss, while certainly having a solid Oxbridge education latterly, is not a product of the kind of entitled background that produces the Sunak's, Cameron's and Johnson's of this world. For her, bestriding the world like a colossus is not, nor has ever been a given. Perhaps this, if she were to succeed in her tilt at the premiership, would allow her, once there, to see things in a more 'enlightened' fashion. A schooling and upbringing in normal middle class England cannot but have rubbed of on her to some degree and I doubt that she ever harboured desires to be 'Queen of the World' (or was encouraged to do so) as a child. Her parents were left-wing (she describes them as being to the left of the Labour Party) and surely something of their thinking must have penetrated her understandings, even if they found no traction there? Perhaps she will break the mould and actually find her own metier on becoming leader, rather than simply following the tory cronyism herd. She might yet turn out to be a wolf in sheep's clothing might Liz Truss. I would watch her premiership with far more interest than that of Sunak's should she win. With Sunak we know exactly what we would get. With Truss, her background could bring far more influence to bear on her leadership than we might currently suspect.

[peter]

Sunak is in real trouble now with the latest announcement of Tom Tugendhat, the only centrist Tory leadership candidates who was knocked out a week or two ago, that he is throwing his support behind Truss.

All of the UK papers feature Truss rather than her opponent, her cabinet post winning is being speculated upon as well as her likely direction of thrust policy wise, and to all intents and purposes you would think that she has already won. Sunak is simply being squeezed out of the competition.

He has a chance to regain some ground this weekend - a crucial one before the ballot papers get sent out early next week - by a round of appearances in the South, where his support base is greatest........but it will take him all of his time to overturn the Truss momentum and bolster his own chances..


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In the last couple of days, for the first time in the UK, high court judges have been filmed by TV cameras as they give their summing up verdicts.

I'm very much against this movement because I believe that the knowledge that they will be (or might be) doing so will colour the decisions they make earlier in the cases, and the manner and content of their delivery.

Take as a case in point, the introduction of the cameras to the Houses of Parliament. This has fundamentally altered the nature of debate - indeed dealt it a killing blow - in the chamber. MPs now no longer talk to each other, attempt to influence their counterparts on the other side of the House by reasoned argument. Rather they instead play to the wider audience, talking to the larger public instead of their colleagues. The victim of this change in the development of compromise positions reached by reasoned debate, which is sacrificed on the alter of theatrics.

Neither the courts nor parliament is an appropriate place for the cameras. They are not places of entertainment, they are deadly serious venues where the decisions made effect the lives of people in crucial ways, indeed in the case of Parliament, the future course of our nation.

---------------------0--------------------


Listen..........

That sound you (don't) hear is the silence of the media in reporting the conclusions of the Forde report on bullying, racism and sexism within the Labour Party over the crucial time that Jeremy Corbyn led the party, prior to his downfall.

While recognition of the fundamental problems is given, the real take out of the report is the degree to which the right wing of the party governing body actively conspired to undermine the leadership and divert in covert manner, resources away from MPs supportive of Corbyn and toward those who were not. The report also goes into how anti-Semitism was weaponised against the leadership, in order to ultimately bring Corbyn down.

This of course has caused not so much as a ripple in our press on televised media. The same bodies who could not devote enough time or space to any story of Corbyn's alleged anti-Semitism, suddenly find that they have no interest in the report that concludes the bulk of it was fabrication.

Well, for any of you who have read anything at all of what I have written over the past weeks and months, there will be no surprise here. We are in a dire state in the UK at present. Our media and polity have lost all credibility, our democracy had tipped over into oligarchy without so much as the bulk of people even being aware of it, and we walk into the forthcoming storm with no solid base upon which to brace ourselves in order to effect recovery.

If Rishi Sunak has got one thing correct in his blighted and benighted campaign to be Tory Party leader it is this - that our country is poised on the brink of emergency. What he fails to say is that it is his party who have led the country to this pass - and they now have no credible plan with which to rescue it. Liz Truss at least acknowledges this failure (saying that a return to the old 'business as usual' model will not cut it) but I have serious doubts about her ability to effect meaningful change or indeed even to chart us though the choppy waters ahead. She, like May, Cameron and Johnson, will be carried to the throne with fanfare, only to be defenestrated by either the electorate or her own colleagues in short order once it becomes apparent that she can do shit to help us.

[peter]

Today's monologue is going to be a short one, not least because I have just written, and subsequently deleted a post that on reading, I decided that was better left un-posted, on a subject that is both difficult and personal to me. This happens far more than many, who might read my scribbles on occasion, might imagine. It is very easy to allow yourself to run freely away with yourself on sites like this, and to post things that might, on reflection seem unwise and that you might later regret. Enough said, but suffice to say that my unposted post was not in any way controversial or politically incorrect, but strayed into areas of my life best let lie among the dusty corridors of my memory.

So briefly I will turn to another subject and say that we are, as a nation and individually, entering a period of uncertainty. There is no way of telling how our current situation, post brexit, post Covid, post the war in Ukraine, post the economic crisis, will play out and you do not need to be a dyed in the wool pessimist to foresee hard times ahead.

How depressing is it then, to see the two people who are primed to be our next Prime Minister, vying to beat eachother in a race to the bottom in terms of the reversal of our hard won rights as workers, in terms of our commitment to the green agenda, in terms of the levelling up of equality in our society.

Both Sunak and Truss seem to have forgotten that they will be required to govern in the interests of all of the people of this country, not just the small segment upon whose votes they are dependent if they are to secure the top job in the government of our nation. If either candidate is to go on to win a true mandate for their leadership - the mandate that can only be secured by the winning of a general election in which all of the enfranchised people of this nation may participate - then they are going to have to change their tune very quickly indeed once they have won the leadership race. And it is a change that is most definitely not going to be appreciated by those who they are currently speaking to. It will involve changes of approach that will fly in the face of what they are promising today - and neither the Parliamentary Party nor the membership will like it one bit. As winter bites and the full effects of the various strands of our national dilemma become apparent, they are going to have to turn to looking to the interest of the wider public, and given the promises they have made, this is not going to be easy.

Whoever wins is in for a bumpy ride - of this at least, there is no uncertainty at all.

[peter]

Liz Truss further strengthened her lead over the weekend with late endorsements coming in, first from the Northern Ireland Minister Brandon Lewis and latterly from ex candidate Nadhim Zahawi.

Presumably these last stragglers jumping onto the bandwagon are doing so in hope of securing positions in a future Truss cabinet, but if so they have left it very late to declare - almost like trying to put a bet on when the race is all but won. I don't suppose Truss will be overly impressed with such 'testing the wind' strategies (it's pretty see-through stuff) but will nevertheless still be pleased to receive their endorsement as it maintains the momentum of her campaign. It did occur to me that it might be deliberately being done for this purpose (ie with the collusion of the said declarers) - maybe, maybe not.

Sunak is this morning making a last ditch attempt to regain some of the lost ground by promising to reduce tax by 4p in the pound........by 2029. Good luck with that one Rishi - half of the Tory membership who have the vote will be dead by then and I'm afraid, given your record on putting up tax, it's unlikely to cut much sway with them. But still, better late than never I suppose.

Truss possibly rather cleverly, avoided the tough Andrew Neil interview (as did Johnson before her) while Sunak agreed to it and was duly roasted for making the likelihood of recession much greater with his austerity-lite policies (high tax to pay off the Covid debt sooner rather than later, stripping back the state with no or minimal wage rises, high interest rates, which although he, Sunak, does not control, would inevitably come from his policies via the BofE).

Truss on the other hand, has very cleverly come up with the ruse of justification for her economic boost/parking the Covid debt strategy, by claiming that it (the debt) should be treated in the same manner as the WW2 debt. It is, she says, an extraordinary event debt - once in a generation if you like - and thus, like say a mortgage, does not require immediate payment. Better to pay it off as a long term strategy and boost the economy with tax cuts in the short term. It's a winning strategy (whether it makes sense or not) because it justifies her promise of immediate tax cuts and makes it look like part of an economic strategy rather than just an electoral bribe for votes. Secondly, it plays to the memories of the Conservative Party membership who are old enough to remember the successful nature of the long-term payment of the war debt (actually only paid off in finality, only very recently) and will be aware that it was, treated in this way, never a thing that caused us as a nation, any worry or difficulty as we were doing so.

With nothing but the most gargantuan of blunders or revelations able to unseat her at this stage (the ballot papers will be returning early this week) she looks now a shoo-in for the job and suddenly (and strangely if I must say) has morphed into something different in the minds eye, when seen on the screen or heard on the radio. Gone is the 'pork markets' Liz - the figure of fun. Suddenly she looks like a leader. Sunak, in contrast, looks like a drowning man.

It's never over till its over, but only the most devoted and blinkered Sunak supporter can think that he really still has a credible chance. Still - stranger things have happened, so let's wait and see.

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To continue my prophet of doom musings (which I'm the first to admit, are getting pretty boring), I happened to watch a documentary yesterday on the French Revolution and was struck by the almost uncanny similarities between the circumstances that prevailed prior to that tumultuous period and the situation that we in the UK face at this very critical juncture in our history.

Back in pre revolutionary France, you had, just as we do, a monarchy and ruling elite who were a million miles removed from the people, who were seen as living high on the hog while the people shouldered the hardships that the ruling party policies had resulted in. The people were plunged into shortages of all and every kind and unable to afford any of the things upon which even a moderate existence depended upon - a situation which is growing upon our population by the day, with shortages and hardships looming, of which the mass of the populace have no experience or ability to deal with.

Sudden shortages of food (of bread in particular - a staple of 18th century diet) plunged the people into a state of hunger (we watch as foodtuffs we have for decades taken for granted suddenly dissapear from our shelves) and the disastrous economic policies resulted in soaring costs and high taxes as the beleaguered ruling elite attempted to raise yet more money (while still carrying on with its own luxurious lifestyle) - need I say more here?

And finally, the public watched as huge quantities of money were given to the ongoing American cause, in their struggle for independence against the hated British - enough it was said, to house and feed upwards of seven million desperate French people, who instead were left to starve. Our population similarly watches billions being handed over to Ukraine, while we face the bleakest of winters for generations, with people choosing between heating and eating. (I know that the degree of the privation is different - but equally as much, is the *experience* of the populations who are exposed to this sudden level of want. It is the loss of what people are used to that results in the anger, not the absolute level of privation that they are suffering.)

In France, the revolution brought about the most cataclysmic change that history had to date seen. It issued in the modern world as we know it. An entire society was uprooted, turned on its head, a new polity established based upon the enlightenment thinking of never taking for granted what you are told, but rather thinking things through from first principles yourself. The monarchy which had held sway for a thousand years - well, seven or so hundred - was torn down and consigned to the dustbin of history, power was transferred to the people in a way that would have been unthinkable ten years previously. Certainly this was a time of terrible suffering, of horrendous upheaval, of suffering on a scale unimaginable.......but from it was born the modern world in which we enjoy the freedoms and democracies upon which our comfortable lives have hitherto rested.

Except that in some ways in the UK things have been delayed. We have never undergone the upheavals of our French and American friends. We retain some of the old ways, made possible perhaps by the peculiar nature of our Constitution, our half in-half out democracy, our (dare I say it) exceptionalism. But the current travails which we face are, it seems to me, ones that we have seen play out in the past. The results of that tumultuous upheaval which gave birth to the modern world, we see around us today. We would, I think, be complacent if we believe that a population placed under the same set of strains as we have seen applied to others in the past, would, because of some special quality that applies to us alone, behave much differently than that other of the past.

[peter]

Pictures of Penny Mordaunt hugging Liz Truss as the third place candidate in the leadership contest yesterday declared her support for the now clear favourite Truss.

But for all her seemingly unassailable position, the foreign secretary has, I think, strayed into some dangerous territory with a couple or three of the messages she has put out in the last twenty four hours.

They are i) her intimation that she will allow more temporary work visas for fruit pickers to aid in the labour shortage hitting the agricultural sector post brexit. This has immediately been seized on by the Sunak team as evidence of Truss's remainer views coming through - and this might indeed be true. While the membership will probably see the logic in her position, they may still be suspicious of it and this could do her damage. She is going to be forced to justify this in debates and hustings henceforth.

Secondly, she has said that, as part of her war on civil service waste, she will axe large numbers of diversity officers (no problems there - the membership will soak this anti-woke position up with gusto) but more controversially, she will cut wages in poorer areas of the country where the cost of living is deemed to be less than in the South East. Again, this won't of itself bother the voting membership, but she's going (maybe) to be pilloried in the media for it and this negative coverage could impact on her given time. Also she will be rounded on by Sunak's team and accused of reneging on her levelling up commitments.

Lastly, she has said that she will do away with the ban on buy one, get one free offers on junk food which, she says, is part of the nanny state which she intends to put a curb on, believing rather that people should make their own choices n such areas and that the market should be free to respond to these. Again, of little concern to the membership who will by and large not be affected by offers on junk food, but they probably will respond to the freedom of decision bit. But the media - particularly the television, which tends to be far more nannying in its approach - will throw its hands up in horror at this seeming endorsement of the right to be fat.

As I say, these are all areas that she might have been better to have avoided by virtue of the ammunition that they give to both the Sunak camp and the elements of the media that do not want to see her win. She might pay a considerable cost for her straying into these areas. Johnson, at this stage in his campaign, was effectively saying nothing. (Mind you - he didn't have to really. He was going to win on the brexit ticket alone and could simply cruise to victory on this.)

But this morning, the press is still all over Truss and pretty much ignoring Sunak. For his part, he's getting pretty desperate. Truss has styled herself as the candidate of optimism versus his position of negativity, and it is working. His position as the 'safe pair of hands' has been turned against him and morphed into the position of pessimism. His campaign team have (I think mistakenly) furthered this doomster message by releasing a YouTube video with former Tory leader William Hague delivering a sombre account of how hard things are going to get, and saying that Sunak is the only man for the job of sorting things out. The video is framed almost as a plea to the party membership and has a real ring of desperation about it. Bizarre.


-----------------0-------------------


But that's it for the politics, so now if I could just go off on a quick rant about........

Cyclists!

Yesterday, while driving home from a visit to the local national trust gardens, we passed a cyclist coming in the opposite direction on the narrow bendy road who was making slow progress up the very slight incline he faced on the busy arterial connection between two towns. To make matters worse, he had a stupid little flag contraption sticking out a couple of feet into the road in order to keep traffic that took the risk of passing him (and given the road it would have been a risk) from passing him too closely.

As I drove on (well - my wife drove on actually; I have reached the point where I rarely drive if I can get someone else to do it for me) I saw that the queue of traffic behind him went on, and on...... and on, until at the back end the cars were stationary (or near abouts) such was his failure to make due progress.

I wonder, did it ever cross the guy's mind about the huge delays he was causing behind him? The unnecessary carbon being pumped into the atmosphere as a result of his self-centered hogging of the busy road? In my world there would be a pair of stocks in the center of town with a place reserved just for stupid little pimples like him to rest in and reflect on their own insignificance. The idiot!

(If that seems a little harsh, c'mon - cyclists! Who doesn't now and again hate them? )

[peter]

Boris Johnson is running absolutely true to form.

In the face of the victory of the English Lionesses over Germany in the European cup, you'd think that he'd want to be seen at the reception to celebrate the occasion and pass on his congratulations. But none of it. Too hung over or whatever following his freebie wedding anniversary bash at the estate of some Tory benefactor or other, no sign of him to be seen.

Similarly, there is some other celebration - a dinner or drive-about or something - but he isn't going to be there either.

Now that he has lost his position as leader of the pack, he isn't even bothering to hide the fact that doing the actual job of being Prime Minister was never of any interest to him. You would think, for example, that given that he only has a month or less to prepare the ground for his successor to take up the role, he'd have some organising to do, some loose ends to tie up.

Not a bit of it.

Instead, he is rather going off on holiday, clearly anxious to get one more bunfight in at the taxpayers expense before the gravy train slows to a standstill. Well, you would, wouldn't you? I mean, free cars and security - use of the Prime Ministerial transport. Expenses all covered and champagne on the house. Who would bother to waste time on the petty affairs of state when the time for a last free beano is running out?

Johnson's attitude in these last weeks sums up exactly what has been his priority since day one - and a priority that is becoming increasingly the raison d'etra of nearly all who enter politics. Until we shake this malaise off, until we get back to the understanding of what public service means, we are never going to get anywhere as a country - and that's a fact.

[peter]

Truss has, as I predicted, suffered a serious backlash from the ridiculous announcement of a policy to effectively cut civil service pay. She was forced to do a humiliating U-turn not half an hour after her supporters had been out talking the policy up, saying that the policy was being dropped. This level of incompetence at this last stage of the game could cost her dear and word has it that she has been told in no uncertain terms not to make anymore policy statements off the cuff.

I do have my doubts that it will cost her the leadership race however: it's more a stumble than a complete fall. Reason - the Tory Party membership will not in the main care much about the civil service pay scale, rather being in favour of seeing 'the blob' (as it is known) being cut back altogether and reduced in its ability to thin down and enervate Government policy. (Government can be seen as a thin veneer of intention that sits atop a dense layer of civil service machinery. By the time policy percolates through this mass to the point of action, it can be changed beyond recognition from the intentions of its original proposers.)

Of more concern to the membership will be the indication of Truss's lack of judgement that it gives. I think that they will allow her this one mistake - but she'd better not make any more. A You Gov poll released this morning puts her at sixty points in favour for winning the race to Sunak's twenty nine - a substantial lead that won't dissipate overnight because of one mistake (Boris Johnson if you remember, had a screaming row with his girlfriend to which the police were called at this stage, and it didn't scupper him), but she cannot afford to be complacent. Another internal poll has her only five points ahead and these polls can be tricky beasts at best.

Another thing that could be influential here is that voting has been delayed due to security concerns over the e-voting system that had been intended to be used (not sure if it has been dropped altogether yet, but it might be). The paper ballots, intended to be sent out early this week have been held back until the latter part, and thus it is all the more important for Truss that she doesn't drop any more clangers. The Sunak team will be making the best shot they can at capitalising on the mistakes she has already made and this additional few days in which they can attempt to win floating voters (there won't be many of them) will be crucial. Again, I don't think that this will materially effect the end result, but it's not impossible. The papers are being kinder today to Truss than I'd have expected (Financial Times excepted) - evidence that she has the backing of Murdoch, Rothermere and the Barkley brothers - but this could change if she doesn't quickly get a grip. The Daily Mail has come out and given her its front page endorsement in an attempt to get her back on track, so she'll be hoping that she's over the worst of it. Sunak will struggle to gain the advantage that Truss's mistakes should give him if he is unable to get the press on-side, and the evidence is at the moment that this ain't gonna happen.

Such is the state of play this morning, so we'll see what the day brings.

[Fist and Faith]

I just noticed this thread is 196 pages. Overwhelmingly just you, peter.

[Forestal]

I just noticed this thread is 196 pages. Overwhelmingly just you, peter.

I view this thread as a sort of mini-newspaper. I read it most days, but don't always feel the need to write a letter to the editor.

[peter]

Call it therapy if you like Fist - suffice to say that it gives me something to think about each day!



(Thank you Forestal, for your kind words by the way. I take support for what I do if just one person takes the trouble to drop in and read my post on any day.)

Liz Truss, having had her funny five minutes, it is now the turn of Rishi Sunak to make us start over our cornflakes with an odd and seemingly difficult to understand 'policy' announcement.

He has said that if he becomes leader, he will broaden the law regarding extremism and unpatriotic tendancies to include those who speak disparagingly of the UK. Such individuals would, as with those currently deemed at risk of becoming radicalised, say by Islamic extremist content on the internet, be sent for 're-education' in centers such as those used in the Prevent program. This would include the 'offense' of being over critical of the UK in a manner that could be interpreted as indicative of 'hating' the country.

Phew! Pretty loose stuff when it comes to definitions and one that would be very open to interpretation when it comes to the difference between being pessimistic about our future and being critical of the country. Sunak has made clear that he wouldn't expect criticism of the government or of government policy to fall within the definition of that which would justify such re-education, but it is not rocket science to realise that very often regimes will use the state and their own administration of it synonymously. Any half decent brief could muddy the waters such that virtually any political criticism could be presented as a criticism of the nation state, and secure a conviction thereby (especially if the judge were already on-side with the thinking in his private views).

But Sunak knows of course, that this is all rubbish. He is simply in a desperate race to the bottom with Truss in order to try and secure those membership votes that he knows sit predominantly at the far right of the Party. The real risk of this kind of rubbish is that it won't necessarily dissapear after the contest is won, no matter which candidate wins it. If the policy idea seems to have legs with the party right wing, once iterated it could be wheeled out again at need, when the chips are down at some point in the future. Or maybe he is actually serious. Maybe we are (as one internet commentator I heard talking about it earlier said) further down the road towards fascism than we actually realize.

But one amazing thing about this is how little media attention it has generated. You'd think that they would be holding their hands to their mouths in horror, screaming about freedom of speech and what have you - but none of it. Compared to the kerfuffle over Truss's U-turn there has been nothing. Do we really care so little as a nation about a thing like this? Are we really that indifferent to the direction of travel indicated by statements like this. It's a frightening thought - or if it isn't it should be.

[Savor Dam]

In fairness, this thread had a far broader base of posters when it began over nine years ago and was What Do You Think Today.

[Fist and Faith]

I had not checked when this thread started. I have only been aware of it for several months. Stunned that you were able to post that much in several months.

Me just missing it is a lot less surprising.

[peter]

Fair comment SD.

I changed the name (as I have a few times, and will probably do so again when the mood takes me) after people had pretty much dropped away anyway, and for reasons of entertainment more than anything else.

I've continued to post in the manner I do, in the hope that I can distill some of the major happenings in UK news into quick pithy pieces for you guys across the pond to digest. A sort of 'across the board' glance at the UK politics and media.

I know that this isn't the function of the Watch, but I love this place and have posted here (the Watch generally I mean) for years. I don't know why numbers fell away, across the board, but I have done my best to keep it going. Some people say that these forums just have a natural shelf-life; I don't know, maybe they're right. I'm the first to admit that I've always been more of a one for making initial posts than keeping them going with repeat posting, but I am a bit of a grasshopper in my thinking - always have been - jumping from this to that. But I love it when people do of a sudden, turn up here; as I say above, it makes it worth while for me.

An additional reason for doing what I do is that I really believe that some bad stuff is going down in my country. We are sleepwalking into disaster (in my view) and doing this just helps me keep a track of what is happening, where I think it is all leading. I'm not a Facebook or Twitter user (can you see me getting much done in 29 letters ) and don't think that I could flourish in either of those places. Here, I hope that I can provide a small service to others, and scratch my itch to write at the same time. And if our much loved Watch must change and adapt to survive, then so be it - it must change and adapt.

Hope this provides a bit of an explanation. Hope it is enough. It's all I've got.