What Do You Think Today?

[peter]

Ouch!

Talk about a double-whammy into the balls, Rishi Sunak got served a double googlie yesterday all in less than 1 hour.

First, annoying fat fly in the Conservative ointment, Nigel Farage suddenly announces that not only is he going to take back leadership of Reform UK (he'd previously been only honorary president) but also that he was going to stand in the safest seat that he could, namely the hard leave voting constituency of Clacton.

Now he's not going to win the election and become next prime minister - even he himself conceded that - but he did feel that the position of official opposition was up for the taking and he was going to lead Reform victorious into that.

Well frankly, even that's a long shot.....but not completely impossible. Reform have been sitting around 4 points behind the tories in the worst polling results they have been showing - and this, while difficult to overcome, isn't an outside impossibility. But nevertheless, the Tories are the natural prey for Reform to cull votes from and Sunak will know it. And Reform candidates standing in every constituency could really tip the balance well and truly against the Conservatives. There are sufficient seats held with small tory majorities that they cannot afford to be loose even the smallest number to Reform. Labour will also loose a few to Reform under Farage, but far fewer, and let's face it, they have more slack to spare. So when Sunak says that a vote for Reform is essentially a vote for Stamer, he's not lying.

The second pile driver into Sunak's already throbbing nuts came in the form of a YouGov poll that showed the tories being slaughtered at a worse level than even they had thought. What makes this one significant is that it used a sampling method that has been very successful in previous years at reflecting the final outcome. And this one shows the Tories being reduced to around 140ish seats, 190 plus behind Labour. Get that. The Labour majority over the tories would be more than the total number of seats held by the latter. Such a majority would give Stamer almost unlimited power. Remember - a British prime minister with a sound majority in the House can do almost anything that he wants. He has more effective power within his own country than an American president has in his. He's an effective god ,with the lives of seventy odd million people in the palm of his hands. Piggy eyed Stamer will know this and the authoritarian leaning ***t will not be afraid to use it. He said yesterday that he'd be prepared to push the nuclear button if he had to. Trust me - there are almost no limits to the number of nuclear buttons that Stamer will be prepared to push if he gets this kind of majority.

The Tories have said that they are going to deal with this gender nonsense once and for all by enshrining birth sex with a legal status that overrides any chosen gender status. This should end the business of trans men entering women's spaces such as changing rooms and toilets etc. Also the placement of transitioning men in women's prisons etc should be stopped by this. This will, I think, resonate with the public, who are frankly sick to the back teeth with all of this trans business. They at least, will be behind Sunak on this. It won't turn things around for the Conservatives, but it might just win them a few votes back.

Labour have been pushing the safe in our hands re defence angle. It's a bit of an uphill struggle for them - half the shadow cabinet have voted against the nuclear deterrent in the past, but they are all doing U-turns and dancing to the Stamer tune with the frenzied enthusiasm of zealots to the cause. It's amazing what the threat of instant sacking and relegation to political oblivion can do to your thinking on given issues. You suddenly see clearly what you could not before - taking the long position as it were. Lammy, Rayner, Reeves.....they've all suddenly realised that we do need those nuclear submarines, we do need those American nuclear weapons pointing at Russia from secret silos all over the country. And yes, Stamer must be able to turn those keys, press those big red buttons if he wants to. They feel the Stalinesque eyes of their leader boring into the backs of their necks as they tell us so.

But it was Farage's day and no-one was going to deny him it. No, he won't win - but he gave the Conservatives their Johnson won majority in 2019 and now he's going to take it away again.

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Small headline at the bottom of the Telegraph today, of what should by rights be the biggest news story of the day. The British Medical Journal has published an article saying that the covid jabs may have an involvement in the 3 million European excess deaths seen since 2020, and that the government should look into this situation as a matter of urgency. The excess death figures were unprecedented and "raise serious concerns" which should be investigated.

A little late in the day to suddenly be interested in these figures which others have been screaming out about for years now, but better late than never I suppose. I'm doubtful that much notice will be taken of the BMJ article in the corridors of power - oddly there doesn't appear to be much appetite for getting to the bottom of this anomaly. I wonder why that might be.

[peter]

Here's a question that I'd like to put to Nigel Farage.

In the event that you win, achieve your aims of getting into Westminster, forcing yourself into the Conservative Party, and presumably once there, taking the helm thereof......what then?

You've stopped the small boats, detained all of the illegals and reduced net immigration to zero, where do you go from there?

You're in power in a country that has tens of thousands of ongoing immigration claims in process, millions of immigrants or children thereof numbered amongst its citizenry, and countless thousands in detention awaiting presumable deportation - so what of them? Are these the people who you referred to as "not sharing British values" in a recent interview (Trevor Phillips on Sky, last Sunday morning)? Muslim people, if I heard you correctly. What will you have in respect of them? Will they continue to be British, equal in status and rights under the law, despite their not partaking of these 'values' (whatever they may be)? Or will they be reduced to a form of second class citizenry, lower grade in perception, in the eyes of the media, the state, and the 'pure blood' British who presumably you feel, do measure up in terms of their conformation to the values you speak of.

These questions matter. They matter because historically we have been here before. A small, seemingly insignificant political party, using the power of emotional populist speech, and tapping into the resentments of a let down populace, in order to forge an alliance of millions based upon the myth of shared national values only experienced at a viceral level by those who qualify by the blood of their lineage.

And I'm not saying that we're going down that road. But I'm saying that to know your history, to understand where such turns of events can lead, is to be forearmed. Because the worse the damage that the Conservative Party sustain in the forthcoming election, the more likely Mr Farage will get his desires, will pull of his coup and see his particular brand of nationalistic conservatism come to pass. And if the polls are anything to go by, this damage is likely to be severe. And already, waiting in the wings,are the requisite foot-soldiers of a far right support group for the Farage based ideology of nationhood and state supremacy - the Braverman's and Patel's, the Rees Mogg's and the '30 P Lee's'. They're there, ready and waiting for their chance to jump on behind.

And when Stamer fails, as he surely will, what then? Does Project Farage suddenly find that it has legs? Ten years can see a lot of change in a nation already reeling from years of uncertainty and dislocation. And so I ask again. The question that I'd hope our journalists and political commentariat would should be asking, if light is to be cast into the shadowy recesses of the Farage long term project. What then, Mr Farage, what then?

[Avatar]

So the world is moving Av and S.A. is (so it seems from the outside) at the cusp. And with movement will come change, and unless the laws by which such things are governed are entirely upended, that change will be for the better. Time will come when even the Soweto's have had their day.

Well, that is certainly an optimistic view, which while I hope for, may feel a little far away right now. 10 days remain for Parliament to form a government, otherwise another election must be called, and honestly, the most likely choices are not necessarily the one(s) that will be best for the country.

Time, (as usual) will tell of course, and I would be more than happy to be proved wrong. (I see Sunak apparently took a beating in the first live debate...I honestly wonder why they bother...they should just pay their campaign chest over to party members as a dividend and say goodbye. )

--A

[peter]

I absolutely hope for the best for S.A. Av, over the course of the coming days. Granted the difficulties are manifold as your politicians strive for something like a workable compromise, but willingness and a degree of preparedness to put the country before partisan interest can go a long way, even against seemingly overwhelming odds. Let's hope your guys can step up to the plate eh?

The situation here is somewhat more complicated than a straightforward Stamer victory in the televised debate.

Sunak it was, in fact, who emerged slightly on top following the confrontation. He is actually a fairly mean performer in one-to-one debates (and hasn't done too badly in debates at PMQ's across the despatch boxes in the House) and certainly took the fight to Stamer with his repeated accusation of Labour planning a two thousand pound tax grab on every working family in the country. He scored a palpable hit, but Labour has neatly flipped the win against him, by a demonstration that he was actually lying in his claims that his figures were based on independent treasury analysis of Labour's spending plans. The treasury has denied this and pointed out that the figures Sunak was using were massaged to appear more costly than they were, by the addition of costs that they had not included in the unaltered assessment.

Thus what was originally put out as a limited Sunak victory, was quickly turned on its head by the Stamer team, and the PM was made to look untrustworthy and duplicitous under pressure.

Meanwhile a very significant piece of news slipped by completely under the radar yesterday, other than a small mention on the front page of the Financial Times. It's one that will truly send shivers of fear through the upper echelons of the Conservative Party governing body, and that is that three of the major Conservative Party donors have pulled their funding of the party on the back of the ongoing disastrous polling figures that the Party is showing. This could truly signal the end for the Conservatives - like unto the USA, the holding of political power in the UK is absolutely tied hand and foot to the ability to draw donations to fund the groundwork in maintenance of it, and nothing threatens the holding of that powere more than the removal of said funding. But if donors don't see any incentive to keep funding a party via potential benefits from doing so, then they will rapidly start pulling that funding, and this is already happening to the Tories. More than anything that is happening before the cameras, this threatens the Party's survival, and they will be desperate - desperate - to improve their polling and reverse this trend towards defunding. Look to some pretty huge attacks on Labour in the next few days as the Conservatives pull out all the big guns in a final desperate throw of the dice to save themselves. (Nb. Latest polls show Reform UK gaining on the Tories, the gap between them being as low as two points in some polls. Farage's claims that Reform will get more votes than the Tories in the forthcoming election are suddenly not looking so farfetched. )

Beyond the sphere of UK politics, another highly significant event occurred that has gone largely unreported, and this was Joe Biden's unequivocal message to Ukrainian President, Vlodomir Zelensky, that there was no chance of Ukraine walking into Nato, even if the country were successful in its fight against Russia in the coming months.

This is a seeming volta face from the American leadership, who have always previously championed the cause of Ukrainian entry into the North Atlantic treaty, but is in reality a reflection of the understanding that no peace can be brought to the region unless this goal is dropped, or at least tempered against the reality of the facts. Ukrainian entry into Nato is seen as an existential threat by Russia and they simply won't wear it. Unless the USA is prepared to see this Ukrainian situation go right to the wire of nuclear weaponry being used, then signals must be sent to dial back the escalation. And this is exactly what this is. Zelensky will be pissed - very pissed - and will not let this go unpunished, but dependent as his future is on American goodwill, it's difficult to see exactly what he can do in response to it. He can I suppose, go to the negotiating table with Russia and give them a winning peace deal that allows them territorial gains, but it's difficult to see him surviving such a capitulation given the demands and costs he has extracted from the Ukrainian people over the last few years. He has staked everything on winning this war and this sudden turn around by Biden will have come as a real shock to him. In truth, it's difficult to see him lasting out the duration of the war against such a changing backdrop. Time will tell.

[peter]

How on earth do the Israeli forces believe that the shelling of a school compound in Gaza, where around 6000 people were sheltering at the time, is going to be justified, even if (as they claim) twenty or thirty Hamas fighters are sheltering amongst the civilians therein.

Yet this is exactly what they did yesterday morning, and in consequence killed upwards of 30 people, 23 of which were women and children.

I mean WTF? What is it that they don't get? Their reputation as a state that follows the accepted levels of civilised behaviour is already in tatters, yet daily they pile on the offence, wreaking death and destruction amongst innocent people in their frenzied pursuit of the small number (proportionately) of active belligerents still operational against them. Surely they must understand that with the eyes of the world now focused well and truly upon them, some degree of restraint would be advisable, if for the purposes of damage limitation alone rather than any other. But they insist upon taking the most abrasive of paths, increasing the collective condemnation of their state in world opinion at every turn. And in so doing, reduce the tolerance with which they will be met with in future times, in proportion to the offence which they now commit.

The world has (for whatever reason) turned a blind eye to the treatment that the Israeli state has meeted out to the Palestinian people under their 'care' over the decades. I think it safe to say that this period of tolerance is over. Netenyahu has, in his intemperate response to the atrocity of October 7th, done more damage to future prospects of Israel, and the reputations of those who have supported her in these crimes, than any other single man in Israeli history. This by necessity includes the United Kingdom, who have facilitated the operations if not via actual supply of armaments and equipment, but more by the allowing of our facilities to be used in order to prosecute that supply, as much as any other.

I see that Kier Stamer has late in the day realised that his stance on Gaza is costing him dear in terms of support within the Muslim community, and has suddenly come out in support of recognition of a Palestinian state before any peace deals between Israel and Hamas are finalised (like that's going to happen). Well to little too late is what I say Kier. Too little too late.

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Typical of perfidious Joe Biden to use the D-Day remembrance ceremony as a propoganda exercise in which to draw completely fallacious parallels between what went down eighty years ago on the beaches of Normandy and in the countryside of Ukraine today.

It was an insult to the memories of the fallen of that previous time, to even mention them in the same sentence as the Ukrainian situation, let alone to make a direct comparison in respect of their sacrifice.

Although perhaps I am hasty. Perhaps I'd do well to remember that in both cases, it is the common people who give up their lives, at the behest of those who lead them, and they do so on all sides irrespective of the rights or wrongs of what is being asked of them.

As always, it is the plans and scheming of the so called leaders that bring about these confrontations. Ask the common man, ask the fallen in these conflicts, their families, the ones who have bourne the loss, and you will get a very different perspective on the sacrifices that their family members have made.

Over and again as the old men were spoken to in the ceremonies of the past few days, the same refrain was heard to come from them. It must never happen again. Yet here we are, and once again our leaders are working at the scab of the damaged relationship between East and West. Biden gives no care to the words of the comrades of those who fell, other than to twist a similarity that does not exist between the circumstances of the two conflicts. He sees these conflicts only through the lens of maintenance of the American hegemony and the satisfaction of his paymasters in the military-industrial complex who fund his operation. He cares nothing for 'freedom' and 'democracy', any more than Putin or Zelensky or Sunak or any of them do. Power and money. That's what drives it, and it always will. And as long as it does, men will always be called to die on beaches and in country lanes, and in fields and trenches, and men like Biden will sully their memories by twisting the meaning of their sacrifices. Because if there's one thing we've learned in the intervening years between the landings of D-Day and the seige of Mariupol, it's that war never changes. And that's a fact.

[peter]

The opportunities to screw up in election campaigns are manifold, but rarely can a serving PM have dropped a bigger clanger than Rishi Sunak when he ill-advisedly left the D-Day remembrance ceremony early, in order to return to the UK to give an electioneering interview.

Could he have committed a bigger faux pas in the eyes of the British public? It seems not.

The media has been focused on nothing else and even his most stalwart supporters have turned ashen at the embarrassment of it.

And to make it worse, every other leader - think Biden, Macron, even bloody Stamer - had the taste to remain at the celebrations for the full day, rather than preremptorily scuttling away at the earliest opportunity, indicating a lack of interest in the proceedings that (in the light of the subject matter - the ultimate sacrifice made by tens of thousands of allied soldiers in WW2) bordered on treasonous. Nothing but nothing could have shown the disconnect between Sunak and the people of this country in harsher light than his actions on Thursday. It will cost him and the Conservative Party dear, come election day. Those who wanted him removed from office prior to the election will feel entirely vindicated, and will be rueing that they did not act to do so while they had the chance.

Speculation has rife as to why he would have commited such a basic mistake. His advisory team seems to have completely lost the thread of the game if they couldn't spot such an obvious pratfall in the road ahead of them. Nothing could have shouted out to the British public that this man is not 'one of us', that his background simply does not allow him to understand the deep significance, the almost visceral force, that the D-Day landings hold in our collective psyche. It might have been an age thing, it might just be that they simply didn't get that for the older Conservative voters, this remembrance ceremony was hard wired into the very fabric of who they see themselves to be. But Sunak and his team fucked up big time and served Stamer an own goal that he immediately took full advantage of.

Amateur hour in the Sunak campaign coordination team-room ,and we all get to see it.

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I turned to the papers in the search for the pertinent story of the day, only to find the Sunak blunder still dominating proceedings.

As if things couldn't be worse for the embattled PM, his own champion in last night's TV debate, the statuesque Penny Mordaunt, came onto the rostrum and immediately ripped him to ribbons for his blunder. In fairness, she's after his job when he inevitably falls after the election (win or loose) but the bigger question remains as to whether it will still be worth having. Sunak's allies are in unison in condemnation of him, and one high up party official has described the situation as catastrophic. It looks as if he really has done for not only his own premiership, but quite possibly the whole party itself (already teetering on verge of political oblivion).

I will do the unthinkable and provide them with the path out of this dark place they have manoeuvred themselves into. It will seem extreme, and they certainly won't be adopting it, but I give it nevertheless, on the basis that they really have nothing to loose at this point.

They must (the powers that be) demand Sunak's immediate resignation. His presence has now become toxic to the point of existential in itself. Secondly they must immediately reinstall the man who brought them their 2019 majority in the first place, namely Boris Johnson. He still by rights of the voting public, has the mandate to lead the Party, and his reinstatement would send a frisson of excitement through the party faithful who never lost faith in him, even in the face of his partygate shenanigans, and who would still vote for him tomorrow if he were on a ballot paper.

Lastly, once done, the Reform threat must be neutralised forthwith by immediately bringing them into the Party and giving Nigel Farage a place in any future cabinet, either in opposition or in premiership itself.

This might seem radical stuff but 1) it would work and 2) it would neuter Farage and the extreme right, who are becoming a seriously threatening possibility in the face of the implosion of the Conservative Party.

Of course this isn't going to happen. Sunak is going to blunder on, further killing the Tories chances, not only of winning this election in progress, but of any future election as well (if they even continue to exist as a party after all of this). After this, Kier Stamer will have his shot and God alone knows where we will be as a country following 12 years with him at the helm. He will be authoritarian to a degree that we as a country have never experienced before. He will ruthlessly crush dissent in the country just as he has within his own party and will almost certainly take this country into war, be it against the Russians or someone as yet unknown. Let's hope that he has more moral right to do so than did Tony Blair when he ill-advisedly threw his lot in with 'Dubbya' when Labour were last in power. Still, the rights and wrongs going into a given war have never bothered our leaderships overmuch, as long as a guarantee of emerging on the winning side existed, and I doubt Kier Stamer will be any different. The thing is that this time that guarantee is looking far from assured. Nato and the USA are far from the powers they were, and the oppositions they face not the walkovers that they have been used to. I'm thinking that neither the Russians or the Chinese are going to roll over and play ball in the way that the Iraqi forces did, and that if we are unwise enough to keep prodding and poking until one or other (or indeed both) are awake and angry, then we might reap a reward that isn't in anyone's playbook, this side of the Atlantic or the other.

Still, this is stuff for another day and probably best left there for the meantime.

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Just a quick note to say I hope they find that BBC doctor fellow Michael Moseley who has gone missing on a Greek island while on holiday. Four days in and hopes must be fading (it looks like he may have inadvertently toppled off the cliffs while out walking on a narrow path near the edge), but let's still continue to do so.

I probably wouldn't be mentioning this except I've always found him to be a bit irritating as a presenter, and suppose I'm feeling a bit guilty about it. Truth is the guy is just trying to make a living the same as the rest of us and because I'm not over keen on his buddy-buddy style of presenting doesn't mean I'm not sorry that he's clearly fallen into difficulties (no pun intended) or that I don't hope for a successful outcome in the search for him.

So let's hope that something unexpected turns up here and our worst fears are not realised. Praying for you Michael.

[peter]

The forthcoming week will 'manifesto week' in which the major political parties in the ongoing election campaign will release their particular visions, and policy pledges, to the nation for judgement.

The trouble is that no-one gives a toss for anything they say because to a man we know it all to be bullshit.

To put it in its simplest possible terms, there is no money to do anything with, without raising taxes - and this both major parties assure us they will not do. On the contrary, both give absolute pledges to do the total opposite, to reduce them irrespective of the consequences to the already decimated public services of the country if they do.

And let's be absolutely clear. There is a huge reservoir of wealth out there, concentrated in the hands of the richest elements of our society - the giant business monopolies, the super-rich, the financial institutions - just waiting to be tapped, but neither the Conservatives nor Labour have any intention going near it, because it is what provides them with the political clout they need in order to maintain their own supremacy in the game of power.

It's the old story of the vicious circle of power and money. Money buys power which is then used to create the circumstances for attainment of more money which feeds back into more power ad infinitum. And this system ensures that any money needed for the maintenance of an infrastructure comes not from that wealth hording storey at the top end of the pyramid, but from the lower levels which are the lesser able to pay. All sorts of smokescreen and disimulations will be employed in order to disguise this central truth of our 'system', but it will remain at the heart of the modus operandi of how our societal administration works, irrespective of who wins in the forthcoming weeks.

The old tricks of discouraging any kind of selfless thinking - thinking along the lines that maybe something should be done for someone other than oneself in this life - and prevention of any kind of collective action (via the use of union limiting legislation) will be utilised, and the regulators of the privatised industries will continue to be operated and controlled by the very industries they are supposed to be regulating......and nothing will change. Money and power will spiral upwards and the people will pay the price. Services will get worse - there is no better way for softening them up for sale to the big financial interests than by constant degrading via underfunding - and the living conditions of the masses continue to get harsher. The momentary hiccup of the post war consensus will continue to be dismantled and the old order reestablished. Nothing that will be in those manifestos will alter this one jot or one tittle and the sooner you recognise this fact the better. Nothing that Rishi Sunak or Kier Stamer say will change any of this. They are mere frontage personalities for an establishment blob that works in concert to ensure no meaningful changes are ever effected. The moment any such change is threatened, the forces gather together to ensure that it is strangled at birth.

Only the collective will of the people can change any of this, but they are kept so distracted that to do so never even occurs to them. To so much as mention politics to anyone under the age of 30 (and the majority of those older as well) is to be faced with a blank stare, a thinly disguised deadening of the eyes as any kind of comprehension or interest is lost. The antics of Taylor Swift (another super-rich nonentity.....a billionaire on the back of second grade music can you believe) are far more interesting to them than what the future might hold for them, what the masters of their universes have in store for them. It's pathetic. The constant drug of their mobile phone pings is more attention grabbing to them than the usurpation of their lives, their futures, that is going on beneath their very noses. And they care not. They are sheep that have no right to exercise the democratic rights that were won for them by the blood of their forefathers. They would understand nothing about what they were voting for, nothing about the systems on offer,the one they live in or what is being done with it, so any X they mark in a box is meaningless anyway.

Go on you spineless invertebrates. Away with you! There is nothing for you here! A new series is starting on Netflix tonight and you wouldn't want to miss the chance of binge-watching that now would you.

(Oh, and ps. I forgot the use of fear. Nothing better than fear to push the populace into the arms of their governments. The Stamer administration will be using shed loads of that over the coming years. )

[Avatar]

Well, they found Michael Moseley, but unfortunately it didn't do him much good, since he wasn't alive when they did so. Can't say the fairly little I've seen of his series etc. particularly bothered me, seemed a pleasant enough chap. But to be fair, going for a hike on a Greek island at 67, in the 40°C sun and without a phone or anything other more useful than a brolly seems a bit short-sighted...

--A

[peter]

Agreed Av. I'm a bit cynical when it comes to the 'trust me, I'm a doctor' approach fostered by the medical profession and taken up broadly by the media (of which Moseley was a manifestation) and society as a whole. I'm of the opinion that the profession flies way too high on borrowed wings for its own good, and of the, "Those who wish for a long life stay away from the physic" school of thinking. But undoubtedly, going off walking in 40 degree temperatures in terrain with zero shade - not clever. Bordering on Darwin Award territory even, one could say.

The promises from the parties as to what they will do if they win the election are coming thick and fast now. The Tories are going to cut stamp duty on first time buyers, put 8000 new police officers on the street, increase tax allowance for pensioners and legislate to make sex a protected characteristic. Labour are going to build gosh knows how many new prisons to house all the people they are going to lock up, provide thousands more places for child care, set up fast track conviction centers the length and bredth of the country to deal with the backlog of rape accusations, you name it - they've got a plan for it.

In the Tory case, it is almost inevitable that the immediate question they face is, 'You've been in power for fourteen fucking years! Why haven't you done this thing already?" In both cases the question is - where the fuck is the money coming from? Neither party intend to increase tax a jot, but both can suddenly find the money for all of these bullshit pledges. It's enough to make you want to weep. Do they really think we are that fucking stupid?

And of course the answer is yes, they really do!

And on this basis I'm going to put forward a few things that I think could really help that don't involve locking people up or giving tax breaks to the already perfectly rich enough elements of the society.

Firstly, restructure the NHS to make immediate and full use of the rapidly advancing capabilities of AI. Use this to carry out primary examination and diagnosis (where physical examination is not needed) and to issue appropriate prescriptions to pharmacists without the need for human intervention. Allow pharmacists themselves far greater freedom to use this technology to aid in diagnosis and open up the pharmacists lists to allow greater freedom of prescription issuing.

Bring work in the care sector up to the same level as nursing care, by the introduction of a two year taught general care diploma, mandatory for all new workers entering the sector. Taught in further education colleges, the attainment of the certificate would be the minimum requirement for taking a job, and salaries earned in the sector would be raised in order to reflect this now greatly increased respect which the qualification would demand.

Make it an obligatory requirement that newly qualified graduates in both medicine and dentistry serve a minimum of five years working for the NHS before either decamping to a third country or leaving the public health sector to earn higher remuneration in the private. This is in recognition of the large financial input that the public makes into the education of a doctor or dentist, and a means of repayment of some of that moral debt. To this end, in the case of dentistry, every town in the country should have (on a per capita basis) NHS dental centers established, providing free basic dental care and more advanced procedures available at cost. A newly qualified dentist should spend a minimum of five years staffing such centers, with appropriate remuneration for so doing of course, before being free to quit the same and enter into private practice.

It will be noted that the above plans are concerned with health and social care, and that this costs money. As such a serious system of progressive taxation must be devised such that the accumulation of excessive wealth is mitigated and such quantities over and above that which can be considered morally acceptable be returned to the public coffers for redistribution via public services and payment of state pensions commensurate with the input that people have made over the course of their working lives. The setting of a cap on wealth - say at the one hundred million pounds mark - above which wealth will be taxed at ninety nine percent, and without loopholes such as offshore avoidance being available, to evade it. On the latter, the inclusion of offshore held wealth into the taxable income of every individual, in the normal fashion of earned income. The levelling up of tax requirements on unearned income to the same level as that of earned income, such that money is brought back into service in funding public services, rather than languishing in offshore accounts or elsewhere, where it serves no useful function to the nation. The simplification of the taxation system to make assessment much easier and fairer in the demands it makes on all sectors of society.

The renationalisation of the public utilities previously, particularly those upon which essential services are based - think water, energy and transport - with payments made being calculated with the necessary and obligatory improvements that may or may not have been made being factored in in the form of 'delapidations' where necessary.

The establishment of a national housing bond to finance the building of starter homes in large quantity and the opening up of local council mortgaging facilities, in which councils will lend for the purchase of state buit housing to first time buyers or other non property owning individuals at lower income levels.

I grow tired. The list of what could easily be done to hugely improve the lot of the people of this country going forward is almost endless. And I'm not talking socialist utopia here. I'm just talking reasonable social democratic involvement of the state to temper and adjust where necessary, to ensure a minimum quality of life and expectation for all. Let the private sector do its thing. Business is what business does best and let it do it without let or hindrance. But not at the expense of people's lives and livelihoods. People need security of abode, income and occupation. No more and no less (health, education and defence being included in the same). Give a people this and the rest falls into place. The state we have built upon the insecurity of the masses is doing nobody any good - the evidence of this is all around you. Just use your eyes.

[peter]

Things only seem to get worse for embattled Conservative Party leader Rishi Sunak as the election campaign progresses.

Having spent a couple of days hiding from journalists since his original D-Day apology, he emerged yesterday to immediate questioning on the subject of his premature decamping from the said commemorations, and this time actually stooped to begging for forgiveness in the most abject terms, for his blunder. He hoped, he told us, that the people could "find it in their hearts" to forgive him for what he had done.

The general response seems to be "Not a chance!"

Nigel Farage - never one to shy away from a contentious comment - said that the PM simply didn't get our values. Presumably he was referring to the PM's Indian heritage, and predictably the comment drew some criticism. But not much. Because the crude truth is that even though the word values was misused, there was something in it.

Look - let me put it this way. I'm born in Cornwall and have lived here for the majority of my life. I qualify as Cornish in certain specific definitions of the word, but I'm not going to pretend that my Cornishness us of the same order as the inhabitants of the land amongst whom I live, some of whom bear names of true Cornish origin (Tre and Ben are common prefixes ) and whose antecedents have lived on the soil for time immemorial. I'm a late comer whose parents moved to Cornwall and whose Cornishness is superficial in comparison to those with historic roots to the county. I simply do not share the deep seated traits of the celtic people whose connection to the place is 'bred in' in a way that simply moving into the county cannot give.

I'm sorry if it offends, but the same is true of Sunak in terms of his Britishness. It doesn't make him a lesser member of our society, or confer him with less status or rights thereby. But it just is. In a thousand years the situation will have changed, but it takes a long long time for these characteristics to level out and for homogeneity of people to be achieved. I heard on one occasion a historian saying that the average Norman individual, if brought forward for a walk down modern day Oxford Street, would be able to point out the origins of virtually every white Britisher he saw, in terms of Angle, Saxon, Roman, Celt etc, with no problem whatsoever.

There is for example, no way that a short single generation contact with the British psyche, mythos, spirit (call it what you will, could ever instill within you the deep place that an event like the D-Day landings could occupy in the 'cultural soul' of the nation. I know about the trauma of the transition from Colonial India to self government of the (what) late 1940's - but I cannot pretend that it occupies a place within me as significant as the emotion I feel when reading, hearing about the D-Day landings. I grew up with them as part of my upbringing, as part of the legendarium of what makes me who I am. Sunak, God love him, could never get that. How could he? And he cannot be blamed for this. He will have been raised in an environment and by parents, for whom the traumas of Indian independence will have occupied far greater significance to their historical understanding of who they are - and rightly so. It is disingenuous to pretend otherwise for simply some PC based reason that sees that we must all spring into existence without any kind of historical heritage attached to us at all. That the preoccupations of our parents and the spirit and mythos that we absorb while growing up has no effect in shaping who we are, the relative significance we feel at a visceral level, of the things that shape our forebears, and in consequence, us.

So no. Rishi Sunak will not have understood what he was doing when he left the ceremonies early. He will just have seen that he'd been to the relevant parts where his input was required, done his duty by showing up, and once having done so that his obligations were satisfied and that he could get back to politicking for the election. And in truth, his cohort of young advisors won't have got it either. But in leaving he offended the sensibilities of multifarious groups across our society - the veterans, the military, the older generation who feel that visceral connection still - so no, he won't be able to overcome this difficulty. The suggestion has even been that he should resign now and let someone else take up the challenge. His cabinet colleague Mel Stride denied that this would happen when questioned by Trevor Phillips yesterday - but he didn't brush the question aside as ridiculous. He rather answered it as if it were a possibility, thereby doing Sunak no favours at all.

But this is what election campaigns are about. Small things can have big consequences. The D-Day affair will be writ large into this one down through the years as history unfolds.

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I'm not going to say that there was foul play involved in the death of Dr Michael Moseley but there are curious aspects to the business that must have occurred to others than me.

Why for one, did this guy go off on a jaunt on his own, leaving his family, friends and mobile phone on the beach where they had apparently been doing whatever it is that people do on beaches? Why did he apparently say that he was going home, then on having passed a cctv camera in the village he passed through en route to said home, turn around and head in the opposite direction towards this isolated bar or whatever, some distance away from his stated destination?

Why did it take 5 days to discover his body some 15 meters away from said bar/cafe and what made an intelligent man go walking in unsheltered terrain in 40 degree heat with nothing even approximating to proper preparation or equipment (if such exists)?

And again, absolutely no suggestion of involvement, but his wife's reported comment on the news of the discovery of his body is peculiar - or seems so to me. She said that she took comfort from the fact that he almost made it to safety. Took comfort from it? Surely this would make it even more tragic, like a man crawling through the dessert to an oasis, only to expire feet from the water that could have saved him. Sure, Dr Moseley (she was also a doctor) had been through a horrendous few days and was undoubtedly not functioning at her best - but it's an odd response, take it whatever way you will.

Again, I'm not suggesting that all of this points to anything other than the fact that this was a simple tragic accident (or incident, probably better) - but these are definitely questions I'd be thinking about if I were a coroner overseeing an inquest into the tragedy.

It's probably ghoulish of me to be even thinking along these lines, but Moseley was a public figure and his death can reasonably seen as falling within the realm of public interest. On this basis I don't feel bad about purring down on paper what many others must be thinking in private.

Unless of course it's just me, which would be to my shame.

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There's no harm in questions Peter, only in answers. I mean, it's a bit odd, but no odder than anything else really. I too found his wife's response a bit weird though. I thought he was going for a hike though, and took a wrong turn. (Also that the route he ended up taking led over terrain where the temps were possibly closer to 50 degrees.)

As for Sunak, well, you're not wrong about the generational weight of something like WWII probably not having settled on him.

And the Cornish...well...we all know they're bloody odd.

--A

[peter]

You probably remember the story I've told (from an A L Rowse anthology on Cornwall) in which an Englishman travelling west on a railroad in frontier America was surrounded by groups of immigrant workers from every part of the globe imaginable. Russians, Poles, Germans, Chinese. But the strangest group of all to him (the writer said), sat isolated and uncommunicative amongst the passengers, were a group of Cornish miners and their families, who seemed more alien than all of the others put together. That's my people!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch.......

It's well and truly manifesto time in the election campaign.

Monday saw the Lib-Dems publish their offering, mainly centered around health and social care. Free personal care for eligible people, guaranteed doctors appointments, increased public spending etc, etc. They at least are honest enough to admit taxation will need to increase in order to fund these proposals and should be given credit for this.

Actually, scanning their list of policies, there's some pretty sensible stuff. Scrap Rwanda. Re-enter the Single Market. Scrap the two-child benefits cap. Ban conversion therapy. Net-zero by 2045 and really importantly, introduction of PR. If I made a vote of conscience (ie, a simple vote for what you actually agree with), this would fit the bill for me.

The Tories manifesto, released yesterday, can be summed up in two words. Tax cuts. Not in essence, a million miles away from the Truss program (and that didn't end too well did it?) it's all just bribery stuff. Get rid of stamp duty on houses under 450K. End taxation of personal pensions. Get rid of NI payments for self employed individuals (how then will they qualify for their state pension for which the rest of us have to show 35 years of contributions?). Include earners earning above 100K in child benefits payments.

Other stuff includes guaranteed flights to Rwanda. Increased police on the streets and prison places for convicted offenders. End low quality degrees and increase defence spending. Cuts to welfare and civil service budgets. (You get the trends here. Favour the most fortunate in society and clobber the least successful. Standard Tory fodder.)

The Greens put out their manifesto today and Labour tomorrow. The Greens will be what you expect it to be: commitments and policies directed towards net zero, with a splash of more left wing stuff thrown in, but it is the Labour one that is of real interest.

Can't say for sure, but I'm banking that it will be thin. Kier Stamer already has his commanding lead: he can win this on simple negative sentiment towards the incumbent government. He doesn't need to tie himself down with promises of what he will and will not do. And this is worrying. We should take a lesson from history here, in that Blair, subsequent to his stonking win back in the nineties, immediately upon assuming office carried out some really significant changes that fundamentally effected our country but were not even mentioned in his manifesto. Devolution of power to the Welsh and Scottish assemblies for one. Introduction of control of the civil service by Number 10 appointed individuals, neither voted for nor accountable to anyone other than the PM for another. Really significant stuff that would have very much affected the election result had people been aware that it was in the Labour plans. Plans that were far more radical and extensive than the Blair team ever let on while campaigning. There is every reason to believe that Stamer has exactly the same extensive intentions for this country, but will say not a thing about them until after he is elected. And this to my mind, is not honest politics.

Stamer and his team have been noted for their vagueness in answering any questions about what their intentions are, and likely for good reason. Because they know that if people knew what they were, they wouldn't vote for them. Stamer is a radical man at heart. A Trotskyist by leaning (and nothing necessarily wrong with that), but with an authoritarian bent. His background in the Public Prosecution office has lent him a strong belief in the power of the state to call the shots, and if his treatment of his party in forging his power-base is anything to go by, he won't be afraid to use that power when he gets it. He has been ruthless in purging dissent in his party, with it being his way or the high-way from the start. There is every reason to believe that he will adopt very much the same approach with the country, especially if he gets the large majority that is predicted. In this case it is likely that the country we live in in fourteen years time (because he won't do a Johnson and let the reins slip in one term of office) will be a very different beast to the one we live in now.

There is serious cause to be afraid of what Stamer has in mind for this country. He's playing a very close hand on what his intentions are, and has demonstrated his untrustworthiness in a thousand ways already, long prior to where we are now. (I give you the example that just yesterday, he labeled the Conservative Party manifesto a "Corbyn manifesto" as a term of ridicule, implying that it was a confection of unfunded promises. He failed to say however that he stood side by side with Corbyn championing his manifestos to the British people.) The man has reneged on every single promise he made in order to secure power in the first place. He has purged those who supported him in his winning power and driven them ruthlessly from the party. He's vilified the very people who he stood next to and who gave him his platform and switched and turned his alliances to suit his needs at will and without shame. He is Boris Johnson with brains; a cold, calculating and dangerous man of whose intentions for this country we know nothing. His manifesto will tell us nothing of his plans.

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You probably remember the story I've told (from an A L Rowse anthology on Cornwall) in which an Englishman travelling west on a railroad in frontier America was surrounded by groups of immigrant workers from every part of the globe imaginable. Russians, Poles, Germans, Chinese. But the strangest group of all to him (the writer said), sat isolated and uncommunicative amongst the passengers, were a group of Cornish miners and their families, who seemed more alien than all of the others put together. That's my people!

I finally managed to find a clip of the quote I'm referencing whenever I say this...turns out I've been misquoting it all along, but never mind.

I took the URL at the relevant time code, but by all means watch the whole clip, (it's only 3 minutes): https://youtu.be/NF4ZFWXdGcg?t=55

As for Stamer, from an outside perspective, he seems very much a blank slate...could not tell you much of anything about his personality / traits / etc. and from what you say, it seems they're trying to keep the ambiguity.

Still, I ask you, could it be worse than the Tories?

--A

[peter]

The excellent Rowan Atkinson doing his thing as no other can do it! 3 minutes well spent Av. If the rest of my day is as productive as that, I'll be doing okay!

Speaking of which, I spent an hour and a half last night watching Sunak and Stamer put through their paces in the Sky News election special, 'The Battle for Number 10' (or something similar). Productive? Probably not. In fairness both leaders held up pretty well under a grilling from presenter Beth Rigby, and again under questioning from a selected audience in front of which the event was staged.

Stamer was put to more aggressive questioning than Sunak, I suppose because his policies are more opaque but he fielded criticism that his promises couldn't be met without hidden tax rises pretty well. It was probably the best performance I've seen him give to date and he'll be pleased with the way it went.

Sunak did okay: a bit tetchy under questioning from Rigby, but clear in answering, and unruffled by the audience questions.

Neither man came out on top and the event will have done little to shift the dial much one way or the other.

I want to spend a moment on the polls. They constantly show Labour with this huge advantage, some twenty plus points, and the Conservatives being tailed doggedly by Reform who are gaining incrementally on them by the day. Going by these, the predicted wipeout of the Tories and the Labour 'super-majority' (Conservative Defence Secretary Grant Schapps' term, not mine) are a done deal.

But, but, but......

There are problems. Firstly as I alluded to in a post above, people are less likely to answer to questioning in the manner they were in years gone by when the sampling methods were introduced. Back when the original Gallup polls were introduced, people would answer the knock on door, the telephone calls that they received at random by the pollsters. Not so now. Most people are simply too busy, not at home or not answering their phones to unsolicited calls. This skews the results and makes them less accurate a slice of the public opinion as a whole.

But there's a yet bigger problem. What the Labour lead figures show are just that. The lead of Labour by the people who are decided. They say nothing about those who are still undecided - and a huge proportion of people - much larger than normal - are still in this group. The pollsters have no idea what to do with this group, so they just ignore them. But these are the group who will actually decide on the final form of the House following the election. And when the chips are down and the final tally counted, it could absolutely be that the predicted Labour landslide turns out to be as ephemeral as smell of coffee when walking past a Starbucks on the high street.

For this reason Stamer is absolutely right when he says that he cannot take anything for granted in this election.

And there has been an odd shift of tack by the Conservative Party team. I mentioned above, Grant Schapps use of the term 'super-majority' in respect of the Labour win. He was warning that a vote for Reform or the Liberal Democrats could result in this, and in so doing seemed almost to be accepting that his party, the Conservatives, had all but lost already.

What was this? Was he going off script (as it were) or was this a planned shift - a fear tactic being used to galvanise that undecided vote into voting Conservative?

A clue that it was the latter came in the form of a Facebook advert that took exactly the same tack. Vote Reform or Liberal Democrat, and you were all but giving Stamer a blank cheque to do as he pleased with the country. So this seems to be a deliberate tactic, a decision that has been made to shift into the use of fear of a Labour win as a marketing message, rather than just concentrating on the benefits of a Conservative vote in terms of their policies. It smacks a bit of desperation, but given that huge group of undecideds I was talking about, it could work the oracle.

Just a few words on other stuff.

The Greens released their manifesto yesterday and it was pretty much as I predicted above. Housing program, leftist type policies with an environmental bent. But one thing I take my hat off to. They actually came out with the policy of introduction of a wealth tax to raise the billions necessary to put the country to rights. I find this honesty refreshing. It's absolutely common sense to me that the ills of this country, the dilapidation and wreckage caused by years of underfunding, Brexit, the pandemic policies of furlough and lockdown (which effectively brought the entire economy to a juddering halt) - none of this can begin to be adressed without an honest admission (and acceptance thereof) that it is going to cost money. Lots of it. And like it or not, we are all - each and every one of us, rich and poor according to our means - going to have to stump up in order to do it. If we want our country back on its feet, if we want our public services functioning again, our health service brought back up to speed, our education system revitalised and brought ready to educate our youth again, our only hope for the future, then we have got to be prepared to pay for it. All of us. If I want to be able to walk into a dentist, or a doctor's surgery, if I want to see housing proposals achieved, goals met, free and quality education for all, see our roads and infrastructure repaired and modernised, our pensions brought up to levels comparable with other European countries - in other words see our country return to a forward looking modern first world state where availability of opportunity is there for all and not just restricted to those fortunate enough to be able to buy it - then I have to be prepared to pay. We all do. And that will entail bringing back some of that huge store of wealth stashed away in the vaults of a tiny fragment of our society. Wealth that is currently doing our country no good - hell, doing its holders no good either - just sitting there doing nothing, like the empty property blocks held by financial corporations, like the gazillions held in offshore accounts, when it is so desperately needed to get the country back on its feet. To inject repair and renovation and growth back in at the base level of our country, our society. To pour that useless wealth back into the pockets of people employed in the repair and refunding, the builders, doctors, nurses, firemen, civil servants, the myriads of people who are needed to work on the myriads of projects that need to be undertaken if we are to ever recover.

So more power to the Greens. They get it, and at least have the courage to say what must be said. We must pull together as a nation and stump up collectively for what must be done. Or we must sink individually in a downward spiral of neglect and poverty as those few fortunate ones at the apex of our society watch us succumb, while they continue to accumulate the fruits of the rest of our labours.

[peter]

Okay, now that the main parties have released their manifestos, let's have a quick resume of what they contain.

Liberal Democrat

1. Free personal care for selected groups (eg disabled or individuals with significant needs).
2. More GPs and faster cancer referrals.
3. 27 Billion extra spending per year on public services.
4. Scrapping Rwanda scheme.
5. Reach net zero by 2045
6. Scrap 2 child benefits cap and reform careres allowance payments.
7. Triple the early years child premium for kids from disadvantaged families
8. Speed up Courts process and reduce backlog of cases
9. Recognise non-binary gender identities and ban conversion therapy.
10. Give 16yo's the vote and introduce proportional representation.
11. Rejoice the single market (and presumably the customs union by default).

Conservative

1. Bring back help to buy and scrap stamp duty on houses under 450K.
2. Tax breaks for self employed and get rid of NI payments for the same.
3. Tougher sentences and build new prisons.
4. Start regular flights to Rwanda
5. Increase defence spending.
6. End low quality degrees.
7. Achieve net zero without new green charges
8. Cut welfare bill and reduce civil service numbers
9. Three strikes warning system for persistent antisocial neighbours.
10. Tie new dentists to NHS
11. Cap on social care payments set at 86,000 pounds per individual.
12. Set legal limits to migration

Labour

1. Wealth creation for working people (?)
2. Raise an extra 8 billion from taxation, but not from income tax, NI payments or vat.
3. (Except) Charge vat on private school fees (ie remove the existing exemption).
4. Build 300,000 homes per year
5. Ban petrol and diesel sales by 2030.
6. Introduce a new border force to combat small boats problem (and go after smuggling gangs).
7. Spend 24 billion pounds on new green initiatives.
8. Full commitment to Nato and nuclear deterrent.
9. 40,000 more NHS appointments and operations.
10. Introduce a 'home first' care policy.
11. Special courts to reduce rape case backlog.
12. Go after ticket touts.

Green

1. Large increase in NHS budget.
2. Wealth tax on assets over 10 million pounds.
3. Increase tax rate on higer rate incomes (above 50,00 ish pounds).
4. Scrap university tuition fees.
5. Achieve net zero by 2040.
6. Reduce or scrap vat on cultural activities
7. Inquiry into UK press/media standards.
8. Remain in Nato but scrap trident.
9. Free social care.
10. Frequent flier levies and bans on short haul flights.
11. Introduce rent caps and end no-fault evictions.
12. Renationalise railways, water and big 5 energy companies.

Reform UK

I'd do a Reform UK manifesto summary, but they don't seem to have one as such.

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That about sums it up.

Pretty much as I'd have expected. Tories are into helping out the rich and clobbering the poor. Labour are saying very little about their bigger intentions. The Lib-Dem manifesto has some pretty good stuff in there and the Greens is by far the most radical and essentially the Corbyn manifesto of 2017 on which he did really well if you remember. It remains to be seen if they can pull it off without the man himself in place however. Don't know why, but Corbyn had real 'pulling power' with the voters.

[peter]

A quick post adding something to the one I made a while back about polling and the reliability or otherwise thereof.

As I said then, the almost ubiquitous predictions of the complete annihilation of the Tories should be taken with a pinch of salt because polling was a) not as random as it should be to give an accurate picture and b) the huge Labour lead did not take into account the very significant number of undecideds who will actually determine the end result on the day.

But there's one other factor that could indicate that the reported demise of the Tories could be premature, and that is the almost unprecedented number of people who think Kier Stamer will be a bad prime minister. Nearly 50 percent of people just don't think he'll be any good (or perhaps just don't like him - the figure is probably a mix of both).

This has to effect the end result on the day.

But assuming that he does win with a workable majority, it still remains the case that the forthcoming Labour government, even after their manifesto release, remains a largely unknown quantity. Peter Hitchens, who is a pretty astute journalist, is screeching from the rafters for us not to vote him in. He swears blind that Stamer is a dyed in the wool radical dressed in sheep's clothing. He says that a Stamer government will put a Corbyn led one in the shade in terms of its radical programme. If true it means that Stamer has concealed his intentions to the public to an almost criminal degree, and that we are in for a shock of epic proportions, or at least possibly.

Stamer, says Hitchens, has not actually hidden his radical nature. Well certainly he recently said that he (still) considers himself to be a socialist, and certainly again, as a younger man he followed a very extreme form of the same known as Pabloism. Indeed he edited a radical magazine as a student which followed this particular doctrine.

Michael Pablo was a Trotskyist who still believed in the capability of Communism to bring about the actualization of the anti-capitalist revolution, despite evidence to the contrary as the horrors of the Stalin era became more apparent. He (and this is where things get interesting) proposed a programme of 'deep entryism', whereby radicals would infiltrate the (then) communist parties of the day, and subvert them from within once established therein. If this is truly what Stamer believes, then his modus operandi to date would certainly seem to be fitting the bill. He has changed, chameleon like, to fit the bill of the prevailing power structures of the left, until now he sits at the very pinnacle of power with people still asking what exactly it is that he represents. His manifesto is general in the extreme, giving no indication as to what the real direction of a Stamer government will be, and he relies absolutely on the dissatisfaction with the incumbent government to do the heavy lifting of getting him into power. The rest is this vague shape-shifting mass of loose might be's and possibly's. It seems to me that an aspiring leader has an obligation to be straight with the people he would serve as leader, and I remain far from convinced that Stamer is being so.

Put it this way. With Corbyn, with the Greens, they might have very radical policies with fundamental changes to our society in mind for us - but they are at least telling us so. They paint the picture for us to like or otherwise as we see it. Stamer doesn't do this. His canvas is essentially blank, for him to fill in after he has convinced us to buy it. It may be that I'll like the picture I'll end up with, but this isn't the point. I just don't like this way of doing politics. I'm untrusting of the majority of people who are drawn into politics, and Stamer's continual reiteration of his 'deeply ingrained desire to serve' alongside his lawyer's obsequiously humble, almost pleading manner (with that air of being just slightly overdone).... well frankly, I find it disingenuous. No-one is that unselfish in their motivation in life - or at least they haven't been since Jesus walked the earth, and certainly never in the British House of Commons.

But absent some complete failure on the part of just about everyone with an opinion to give, and every poll that has been conducted, it looks as if we're going to find out what we've bought in Kier Stamer. I hope for the best (I certainly think we'll get far more socialism than the establishment has bargained for) but it may come at the expense of freedoms of all kinds, and that is not something I'm keen to see, a price I'm willing to pay.

But again, as always, time will tell.

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I absolutely hope for the best for S.A. Av, over the course of the coming days. Granted the difficulties are manifold as your politicians strive for something like a workable compromise, but willingness and a degree of preparedness to put the country before partisan interest can go a long way, even against seemingly overwhelming odds. Let's hope your guys can step up to the plate eh?

Well, with a bit of luck, I may be eating my words indeed. Cool heads have appeared to prevail, as the two largest parties, (the ANC and the DA) have just announced a signed agreement to form a government of national unity. Since the next 2 largest (and far more radical) parties have refused to be part of any government which includes the DA, this appears to be effectively sidelining them as "opposition."

It's possible that the upstart anti-constitutionalist MK party siphoned off enough of the radicals in the ANC to leave the moderate "pro-business" faction in control of that party, and the so-called "doomsday coalition" of radicals will be averted.

Within the next few hours, Ramaphosa will be re-elected as the President for his 2nd term, (by Parliament, that's how we do it) with the unanimous support of the DA members. (How other appointments etc. will be managed, let alone provincial governments) remains to be seen, but this should be a heartening development.

Full credit to the ANC...many years ago a political analyst wrote that the true test of the party would come when they lost their political majority (which they have held for 30 years until now), and it seems that they have exceeded expectations in stepping up to the challenge.

--A

[peter]

So glad that progress is being made Av. Way long overdue for Africa to shake off the toxic legacy of its past - both colonial and postcolonial - and start getting its act together. So much potential as yet untapped and any movement towards sensible compromise in S.A. will be a significant start.

If you had to place the ruling coalition on a sliding scale of UK equivalence (in terms of ideological bent), where would it sit - toward the left, right or indeed in the centre? Or is such an equivalence just not possible to draw? (I notice you refer to 'radical' players and assume this means radical in the ways I would understand the terms?)

Coalitions can be really helpful in a number of ways, but (to inject a note of caution) the cooperation has to go far beyond the glory days of the initial handshakes. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating as the composite government must function to introduce workable legislation.

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Nigel Farage has his wet dream of overtaking the Conservative Party in the polls (granted, only one of about 1000, but it's enough to have him grinning like a Cheshire cat). The particular poll in question is, in fairness, a YouGov poll - the seemingly go-to one for this election (but it is of course run by Nadhim Zahawi, so one can reasonably expect it to lie through its teeth as a default: wouldn't be suprised if it wasn't even rigged that way to give tory waverers a bit of a shunt in the right direction).

But undeniably things are looking better for both Stamer and Farage, than they are for poor (well not poor, but you know what I mean) Rishi Sunak. He can't seem to do anything right. Labour's manifesto has a grinning Stamer featured in 30 photographs but Sunak hardly makes an appearance in the Tory one. Conservative candidate Andrea Jenkyns has pictures of her alongside Nigel Farage on her election flyers (twice!) and not a sign of Sunak to be glimpsed. I mean? The man's the leader of an opposing frikkin party fer God's sake! Tell me that isn't a calculated insult to him (though in fairness Jenkyns was one of the first to publicly announce that she'd submitted a letter of no confidence in Sunak a good year plus ago).

In the Telegraph Suella Braverman is blaming the failure of the government to do "what Conservative governments do" and get a grip on taxation and immigration, for the pickle that they are in. I'd counter that reducing the country to a veritable skip fire hasn't helped. The carnage of fourteen years of Conservative rule is visible in every dilapidated town center, every pothole in every road, every trolley in every hospital corridor and every queue at every food bank. I think it goes deeper than tax and immigration. (But that's Suella for you. )

In other news, David Cameron has said that there is no place for Farage in the Conservative Party (comparing him with Enoch Powell who, he said, drove the important subject of immigration into the long grass for 30 years). Boris Johnson has warned that the Tories are heading for a "bloodbath" and Kier Stamer refused to rule out increases in capital gains tax.

But at the moment it does seem like Labour's election to loose, although having said that, we're only half way through and believe me, they are quite capable of doing so having had so much experience in doing so in the past.

And lastly, behind the scenes in the Tory Party, manoeuvres are starting to decide on who will replace Sunak once he is gone (yes - that's the Sunak who said only last week that he wasn't going anywhere and had no plans to move to California where his kids places in schools are already sorted for the new academic year). The runners and riders are apparently marshaling their support teams and putting out feelers for who might be prepared to back them. Well - this is the Conservative Party after all. You can't expect a minor thing like an election campaign to get in the way of personal ambition and the chance to inch up the greasy pole a bit can you? Be reasonable already!

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If you had to place the ruling coalition on a sliding scale of UK equivalence (in terms of ideological bent), where would it sit - toward the left, right or indeed in the centre? Or is such an equivalence just not possible to draw? (I notice you refer to 'radical' players and assume this means radical in the ways I would understand the terms?)

Goodness. Well, you asked for it.

First, as a barely relevant aside, this is technically not a coalition government. It is widely accepted that a coalition would be a step too far for constituents. The opposition of course disagrees, and insists that it is a coalition, mainly to try and get support from the anti-coalition faction within the ANC. (It's a "Government of National Unity", as was the first democratic government under Nelson Mandela, at the time in order to ease the transition to an administration that had no formal administrative experience when it came into power, this time, so people don't think that either major player is propping up the one that they have been opposing for 30 years.)

Instead the relevant parties have signed a document of principle which covers things that they will vote together (probably) on in order to achieve the goals set out therein. (Basically.)

As the majority shareholder in the government, the ANC will of course retain the most clout, but it emerges that portfolios etc. will be divided based on proportional seats, so the other parties will gain (for the first time) some actual power as well.

To consider the alignment of the ANC, it must be understood that they are actually a coalition of sorts themselves. The Tripartite Alliance combines the ANC with the SA Communist Party, and with the Congress of South African Trade Unions. Those two parties do not contest elections, nor stand for office, but some of the ANC members of parliament etc. are drawn from their party structures, and obviously some portion of the ANC's votes come from supporters of those parties.

So, the ANC is fundamentally leftist, with historic ties to other communist countries and movements which supported them during exile and the struggle, in the (evidently erroneous) belief that their victory would mean another communist state.

They drifted more toward the centre fairly quickly, with several pro-business administrations as the joys of capitalism became evident to the people on top, but the ousting of Thabo Mbeki by Jacob Zuma set the stage for a decade of kleptocracy, hidden behind a populist slide back toward the left while simultaneously eviscerating the states ability to serve that populace.

His subsequent ouster by the current incumbent did, I think, manage to at least impede that slide, but a paucity of solid action, and the deep entrenchment of that kleptocracy, has made improvement largely negligible in many (although to be fair not all) instances.

Within the ANC however, factions vary from the populist xenophobic hardcore Marxist-Leninist left, (most of who split off a few years ago to form what is currently the 4th largest party), and the populist right-wing xenophobic anti-constitutionalists. (Most of them split off in December to form the upstart party which is now the 3rd largest.)

All moderate / centrists realise that both populist parties basically just want to keep on looting the state. The radical left want to do it by eliminating ownership, expropriating land, nationalising banks etc. While the radical "right" just want to go back to looting the way they were, but without the inconvenience of constitutional checks and balances and stuff like that.

However, both these factions still exist within the ANC itself, and when Ramaphosa took control of the party in 2018, it was by the narrowest of margins, and involved some fairly unsavoury compromises. The fear now of course was that one or both of these "radical" factions would push the ANC into coalition with one or both of the radical splinter parties.

However, not only has the GNU formed successfully at national level, it also appears to be doing so at provincial level, including in the stronghold of the kleptocrats (KZN), where despite achieving 45% of the provincial vote, they have been shut out of the provincial legislature (and crucially administration) by the same party co-operation that is occurring nationally.

So...it seems that not only is the centre holding for now, but that the centrists hold it. Also for now.

--A

[peter]

Quick starting observation on how far we have fallen.

Kier Stamer said in his Beth Rigby interview the other night that he'd visited one of the large London hospitals (Great Ormond St. I think), and that while there he'd been told that the largest proportion of children's admissions were as a result of dental emergencies that needed immediate treatment.

Sixty years ago, when my wife was at school, her state school was visited twice yearly by a dentist who examined the teeth of every child in the school. Any child who required treatment, fillings or whatever, was immediately booked into the local NHS dental center in the center of town, and the necessary work carried out free of charge. (I was at a private school where it was assumed - and this says much in itself - that parents could be relied upon to make sure their children had the necessary checkups in timely fashion.)

This, I have confirmed, was standard practice in state schools of the day.

In my 20's, I needed two crowns fitted (at different points) and had, free of charge, two gold ones which remain in situ to this day. I'm not far off 70.

This was half a century ago and today dental emergencies account for the largest proportion of children's admissions to our hospitals.

Need I say more, other than to observe that the same degradation of services exists pretty much everywhere you look in our modern society. For this reason alone, I say that we can do better.

Let's have a look at the papers.

-----0-----

I'm not one for getting maudlin, but who could not feel their spirits being raised by the sight of the beautiful Princess Kate making her first public appearance since the revelation of her cancer diagnosis and treatment some six months ago. While she has acknowledged that she has a ways to go before getting the all clear, she looked radiant in her stylish almost 50's outfit and was clearly thrilled to be there alongside the Prince of Wales. "Our fair lady" - a reference to Audrey Hepburn from the closely titled film - the Telegraph called her, and for once I agree with them. Who could not be smitten?

-----0-----

The Sunday Times gives a masterclass in two-edged journalism on it's front page in an article entitled PM; Faith and duty guideme through my election trials.

Presented as a sort of intimate portrait of the Prime Minister - one meant to elicit sympathy for the man behind the Office - it instead serves to subtlety emphasise the difference between Sunak and the bulk of the population, by placing significant emphasis on his Hindu faith (and concepts such as dharma, which Sunak is described in his own words as being reliant upon) as the support upon which he relies to help him cope with the pressure. He even, we are told, has a Hindu shrine inside Number10. It's cleverly done and I suggest absolutely deliberate.

It seems to me that the movers and shakers - the ones we know not who they are (other than that Murdock is balls deep in with them) - have decided that Sunak has had his day. They (at the Sunday Times) are supposed to be supporting Sunak - he's the Conservative candidate for the job after all - but this subtle undermining of him tells a different story.

Hands will be thrown in the air at the idea that Sunak's Hindu faith could be held against him. After all, do not potential leaders often claim their Christianity as supporting them in times of high pressure. But that's the point - it's their Christianity. Not some "far flung religion from the other side of the world" (as the Times will know that many of their readership will see it).

This is done with such subtlety that even I who am suggesting it can barely see it. There is absolutely no hint in the writing that it is anything other, serves no other purpose, than to present the Prime Minister as a person just like us. But just not quite like us.

This again (and I hate to say it) shows Sunak's nievity as a politician. He should have seen this trap coming a mile away and stayed absolutely clear of it.

-----0-----

The tentative peace summit held in Switzerland in the last day or two doesn't look too promising as a starting point from which to springboard an ending to the conflict which has devastated Ukraine and cost so many lives, both Russian and Ukrainian.

It started with Putin (who didn't actually attend the summit, nor were Russia represented) stating his requirements for peace a couple of days in advance. These were essentially that Ukraine withdraw from the four regions claimed by Russia and were pooh-poohed by pretty much everyone in the room when the summit began.

But the truth is that the Russians are bargaining from the position of the victor. They will call the shots as to terms of agreement for a cessation of hostilities, and they will not be palatable. They will demand that they retain the territory that they have gained (as they have done) and that the remaining rump of territory left to Ukraine is and remains free of military resources that could ever be used to threaten 'Russian territory' ever again. Also, it goes without saying, it will demand that Ukraine will not be invited to join Nato - ever.

These are (or will be) humiliating terms for the Ukraine and Nato to contemplate, and it goes without saying (again) that they will be seen as unacceptable. But it's not so simple. Russia are on the front foot. They are winning the war. They have the advantage both in men and armaments. Ukraine cannot win while ever this disparity remains and it simply doesn't have the manpower to hold the ground. Either the West must commit to an escalation where its troops enter the fray or its game over. And they won't do this. Already Russian ships bristling with firepower are sitting down off the coast of Cuba and similarly nasty weaponry is directed at Moscow from Nato positions outside the Ukraine, should they be called upon to defend an upscaled war. It's the 1960's all over again, but this time the USA has a president, not at the peak of his acuity, but who cannot find his way to the restroom without a guiding arm at his shoulder.

I'm afraid Russia is holding all the cards in this situation and we know it. Either we eat shit and capitulate to their demands, or we commit to the long haul of money and (ultimately) troops and risk taking the world into armageddon. Any war between the USA and Russia is going thermonuclear, like it or not.

This is exactly the situation we did not want to be in, and exactly why it was so fucking stupid to follow the irrational foreign policy that has led us to this impasse in the first place. Nato and the West have bitten off far more than they can chew in this and now it's time to pay the piper. We are greatly diminished in stature in the world, we are sitting on a knife-edge that could tip into great power war or worse at any moment, and we are lost in even the small field of battle that we are currently involved in prosecuting.

Suddenly our foreign policy, up to and including our misguided involvement in upsetting Ukrainian politics, doesn't seem so clever does it? We should have been negotiating peace from day one of this conflict, not stacking up dead bodies and counting costs we were not prepared to pay, and I defy anyone to tell me any different.